Tomorrow Night

Brenna rapped Ciaran lightly upside the skull with the pommel of the blade.

“Hello! Are you still in there?”

Ciaran jerked his gaze away from the fire. “Sorry. Yes, of course.” He reached for the blade.

Brenna paused, studied him. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.”

“You look as though you’ve never seen a fire before.” She seemed amused.

“I have,” Ciaran said. “It’s just --” He faked a yawn.

“Right.” Brenna shook her head. “I keep forgetting that normal people need sleep. Look, take this sword home with you, get some rest, and we’ll try again tomorrow night, yes?”

“All right.”

Just Thinking

Ciaran scanned his immediate surroundings, but it was fairly obvious that Brenna lived more sparsely than the village beggar. He stared at the pile of kindling helplessly. In the background, Brenna was muttering to herself, searching.

Just light, Ciaran thought. He reached out and poked the kindling.

Sparks flew, and heat blazed up his arm. He cried out and wrenched his hand back, terrified.

“That was well done,” Brenna said, coming to stand beside him. She held out a sword. “Here. It’s lighter than mine.”

Ciaran stared at the merrily-crackling fire. He’d lit it just by thinking about it.

Without Those

Ciaran blinked. He hadn’t expected that. Everyone in the village knew about Eoghan’s stupid rule, and so he’d never been allowed anywhere near anyone else’s hearth. Brenna gestured toward a ring of stones where she’d gathered some driftwood and kindling and knelt to unwrap a bundle beside a pathetic pile of rags that must have served as her bed.

“All right.” Ciaran knelt beside the ring of stones and stared at the kindling. She had no flint or tinder. How did one set a fire without those? He wasn’t going to admit he didn’t know how to start a fire.

Will You?

Brenna eyed Ciaran, assessing. Then she drew her sword, offered it to him. “Go ahead. Give it a good swing.”

Ciaran grinned and accepted it from her - and grunted at its weight. He looked down at it, then at Brenna.

“I’m stronger than I look,” she said. She smirked when he handed the sword back.

“Fine, maybe I was hasty,” Ciaran said. “Will you still teach me?”

“Aye,” Brenna said. “I’ve a practice sword in my bower. Come along.”

She led him into one of the caves, flung off her cloak and set it aside. “Light a fire, will you?”

Of Thinking and Knowing

“You could teach me.” Ciaran followed Brenna as she started along the shoreline. After a moment, he realized where she was headed - the caves along the Giants’ Road.

She looked up at him, and was there laughter in her golden eyes?

“Perhaps.”

Ciaran fell into step beside her. “I’d make a great warrior,” he said. “I’m taller and stronger than you - I could wield that sword easily.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.” Ciaran had worked hard every day of his life; he was just as strong, if not stronger than those fishermen and farmers who flirted in the markets.

Valhalla and Hel

“What are you looking at?” Ciaran asked.

“Just watching the sea...and waiting. For the thunder to strike.”


Ciaran shrugged. “Didn’t you look at the dawn? There will be no storm tonight,” he said. “Besides, lightning strikes, not thunder.”

“That you know of,” Brenna said, and there was something ominous in her tone. “You should go to bed, and I...should train.”

“I thought I ought to run away,” Ciaran said.

Brenna glanced at him as she sheathed her sword. “You should. You’ll not stand a chance when Odin’s Warriors come calling to send your people to Valhalla and Hel.”

Their Colors

“You’re not my mother,” Ciaran said. Disappointment and cold shock washed over him. He wrapped his arms around himself and hunched his shoulders, staring bleakly at Brenna.

“What made you think I was?”

“I could hear her,” he said. “She was calling my name.”

“I thought your mother was dead,” Brenna said.

Ciaran lifted his chin. “I could hear her.”

“You sure you’re not afflicted of the moon?”

“I heard her,” Ciaran insisted. He eyed Brenna’s sword warily. “Why are you down here again? I thought druids lived in the forest.”

“I’m not a druid - I just wear their colors.”

Sneaking Up on a Woman

Ciaran eased the window open, but the grassy field beyond the hut was empty. He climbed out, barefoot and cold, and circled around the hut. No one was at the bog either.

But then he saw a figure down on the seashore, a woman in a cloak, hand outstretched toward the waves.

Ciaran, the woman said again.

He hurried toward the cliff, scrambled down the treacherous boulders, sprinted across the sand.

“Mum!” he cried.

The woman spun around, and a sword flashed in the moonlight.

Then Brenna said, “Are you mad, sneaking up on a woman like that?”

Ciaran stilled.

Call His Name

Ciaran was awakened in the night by a woman calling his name. He swam out of a dreamy haze where he was standing on the beach talking to Brenna’s reflection in a tide pool, and his first thought was that she had sneaked into the hut and his father would wake up and go mad with anger, but when he opened his eyes, he and his father were alone.

Ciaran, the woman called, and something in Ciaran knew. He rose up off his pallet.

“Mother?”

Come outside, my son, she said, and Ciaran felt something tug him toward the window.

Careful, Promise

Brenna stared into the flames and imagined she could see the Northern Hordes descending on the rocky shores where the giants once crossed the sea. She wondered if the man leading the charge would wear Dagaz’s face and smile and have his green, green eyes. She knew hundreds of years had passed since she and Angelus - who went by Malak these days - had set foot in the icy kingdom to bring Old Master’s will to fruition, that Dagaz was long buried and forgotten.

She just knew that she’d never forget his face.

“I promise to be very careful,” she said.

Hands and Smiles

“What you saw shall come to pass, then?” Odran asked.

Brenna said, “The sons of the North are coming with their long ships and their thunder god to bring golden and red hair and blood and destruction to the shores of your green land.”

“And the son of Brighid?”

“Will be ready to fight, or he will die,” Brenna said.

Niamh arched an eyebrow. “You be careful with that lad,” she said. “I’ve seen him. He has quick hands and a quicker smile.”

Deagan laughed. “No one has quicker hands than our Brenna - have you seen her with a sword?”

Death and Thunder

“You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you?” Ciaran demanded, miffed, but then he remembered who he was talking to.

Brenna was still laughing. “It’s why I turned away.”

Ciaran had questions he wanted to ask, about where she was from - because she obviously wasn’t really from Eire. How had she come? Over the sea? By magic?

“You should sleep,” she said. “And maybe, tomorrow, think about going somewhere far away.” The laughter slid off her face, and in the moonlight, her golden eyes were almost brown.

“Far away? Why?” Ciaran asked.

“Death and thunder are on the way.”

Stillness and Motion

Brenna glared, and the man’s voice sobered. Ciaran could only watch, puzzled and afraid, and Brenna’s expression became grimmer. Eventually she nodded, lifted the bowl, and emptied the water onto the sand. Ciaran stared as the man’s image spilled and distorted and then sank into shore.

“What’s going on?” Ciaran asked.

Brenna lifted the bowl in her arms and turned away from the sea, and it was then that Ciaran realized that, during her entire conversation with the man, the sea had been utterly, unnaturally still. Moments later, a wave crashed down on both of them.

Ciaran yelped. Brenna laughed.

Laughter on the Water

“No, he’s not,” Brenna said.

Ciaran swallowed hard. He’d heard the druids sacrificed people to appease gods and make apples grow on trees, but this type of magic was - Brenna was a powerful sorceress. Should he bow or...?

“He’s just very far away, and this is the only way I can speak to him,” Brenna said. “Shouldn’t you be fast asleep, dreaming of a hard day’s work for tomorrow?”

“So...he’s a real person?” Ciaran peered into the bowl.


The man waved, and Ciaran lurched back.

Brenna sighed and said something in that foreign language that made the man laugh.

Dead Man Talking

Ciaran wondered if he should turn, leave her be, but then he realized she was speaking. To the bowl. It was a language he’d never heard, a touch guttural, rolling in other places. Unable to help himself, Ciaran drew nearer, and he saw there was a face on the surface of the water, a man, handsome, as dark-skinned as Brenna and even more dark-eyed. The man said something, grinned, and Brenna turned, looked at Ciaran.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“I saw you,” Ciaran said. “I thought you were going to drown. Is that man...dead?”

On the Seashore

Ciaran dropped both bowls and went careening down the grass. He leapt off the edge of the short cliff and hit the sand, rolled, staggered to his feet.

“Look out!” he yelled.

And then he slowed.

The figure was Brenna, and she had a massive bowl set out before her. Her head was tipped back and her arms raised high, and she was chanting something above the sound of the waves.

Ciaran could only stare as the wave crashed down on her. When it retreated, she was still standing there, drenched, arms outstretched, and the bowl was filled with water.

Wondering

Ciaran hunched his shoulders defensively. “I dunno. I was just...wondering.”

“Well, stop it,” Eoghan said gruffly. He plunked his bowl down on the hearthstone near Ciaran’s knee. “Do the washing up before you turn in.”

“Aye,” Ciaran said. He watched his father settle onto his pallet of bracken, then finished his share of stew. He wandered down to the well to draw water for washing up. While he was dawdling with the rope, he looked up, and he saw someone down on the seashore. A giant blue swell was about to crash down, drag the person out to sea.

Curiosity, Sudden

That night, at supper, Ciaran stared down at the crude wooden bowls he’d carved for himself and his father years ago.

“Da,” he said, “tell me about Mam?”

Eoghan grunted. “What d’you want to know? I’ve told you everything I know.”

Ciaran knew that his mother was a foreigner from distant shores and she’d had the same red hair he did, and that she’d been a weaver par excellence, but that was all he knew.

“What was she like? Was she funny? Did she smile like me?” Ciaran asked.

Eoghan stared at his son, brows furrowed. “Why the sudden curiosity?”

You Said

Ciaran’s brow furrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means,” Brenna said, “I cannot help you.” And she scooped up her harp and sword and started to walk away.

Ciaran stared, dumbfounded. Then he started after her. “Oy, you said --”

An old, blind man with a cane came tap-tapping toward the blanket, and he seated himself in Brenna’s place. He smiled in Ciaran’s general direction. “Can I help you with anything, lad? Interested in buying a fine bowl?”

Ciaran took a deep breath. “No, thank you,” he said. He spun on his heel and started on the road home.

Not For You

“Is what true?” Brenna’s hands stilled.

Ciaran met her gaze tentatively. “That you can see people who are...dead.”

“It’s true if you’ve the power,” Brenna said. “Who is it that you want to see?”

Ciaran glanced over his shoulder; the other lads were busy flirting with the girls who’d come to buy wool. He turned back to Brenna; she had to be foreign, with that skin and those eyes. “My mother,” he said. “She died when I was just a baby.”

Something unreadable crossed Brenna’s face. “I’m sorry - I cannot help you.”

“Then it’s not true.”

“Not for you.”

Not Exactly

Ciaran made the rest of his trades, keeping a weather eye on Brenna all the while. He managed to avoid getting into an argument with Aidan while bartering for some rabbit meat. When Aidan became distracted by Aednat, Ciaran ducked away, wandered slowly but deliberately over to where Brenna was singing a song in some unknown language.

“Hello,” he said.

She smiled up at him. “Hello, Ciaran.”

“You remember my name,” he said.

“Yes. Do you remember mine?”

“It’s Brenna.”

“Indeed,” she said. “Are you looking to trade?”

“Not exactly,” Ciaran said. “It’s just...is it true? About those bowls?”

Just A Girl

“Seeing?” Aoife echoed. “Seeing what?”

“Your fortune or fall, your lover or your child - whatever you desire, if you’re willing to pay the price,” Brenna said. She strummed a glissando of notes, and Ciaran went still, listening intently to the conversation. “You can see the living and the dead, and the yet to be born.”

“You’re a witch,” Aoife said flatly.

“Hardly,” Brenna said. “I’m just a girl, waiting for a boy or a war or something to make my life matter.”

“How much for a bowl?”

“What have you got?”

“I’m a decent spinner,” Aoife said.

“One spool, then.”

Holding or Seeing

Ciaran waited until Fionn the fisherman was distracted before he made a trade with Fionn’s grandmother, Fingula, who took pity on Ciaran, “the poor, motherless mite”. He glanced over his shoulder to where Brenna was minding her wares and wondered what she was doing at market. Didn’t druids spend their days dancing in the trees or something?

She had a sword by her side, as fine a weapon as any chieftain carried, but she seemed languid, amused by all she saw.

Aoife stopped to talk to her.

“What are you peddling, lass?”

“Bowls, for holding or seeing as you need.”

A Girl Amused

Brenna sat on the ground next to a blanket laid with fine pottery and some woven cloth folded in neat stacks. She had her hood tossed back, and her hair - blacker than any Ciaran had seen - gleamed in the sun. The blue swirls on her arms looked surreal, and she seemed less interested in making sales than in playing a small lap-harp, picking out idle melodies the likes of which Ciaran had never before heard.


Several children from the village ventured close, but their mothers pulled them away, making the sign against evil in Brenna’s direction. She just smiled.

Until

Ciaran wasn’t sure whether he liked the days when his father sent him down to market by himself to trade peat for supplies. Some days, when the weather was fine, Ciaran would huddle miserably beneath his cloak and curse his pale skin, his odd freckles and unnaturally red hair. Most Gaels were dark-haired, and even though Fingula and the old wives said he was lucky, the rest of the lads in the village - strong, hulking farmboys, hunters and fishermen - liked to mock him.

Today Ciaran was determined to make the trades and go straight home.

Until he saw her.

Son of Brighid

“So you’ve met him,” Deagan said.


Brenna nodded, finished skinning the rabbit with a swift tug. “Hair almost the color of wine, eyes the color of the sea - as you said.”

“I’m surprised Eoghan let you near him,” Niamh said, handed Brenna a spit for the rabbit.

“Eoghan didn’t,” Brenna said.

Malachy laughed. “That’s our brave lass. What did you think of him?”

“He’s just a boy,” Brenna said. “Nothing to be afraid of.”

“The son of Brighid is a mighty force. We should all fear him,” Odran said, his blind gaze fixed on nothingness. “He isn’t human. Not really.”

Brenna

Before Ciaran could take a bite of the apple, the bird took to the sky with a harsh cry.

“Farewell, lad,” Brenna said, and she vaulted over the stone wall after it.

“My name’s Ciaran,” he protested, but she vanished over the crest of the hill almost too quickly to be humanly possible.

“Lad, bring your father some wine, would you?” Eoghan called from the other side of the hut.

Ciaran jumped. “Yes, Da!” He took a bite of the apple, then ducked into the hut for the jug of wine kept cooling under the table.

Her name was Brenna.

Apple Seeds

“My name is Brenna,” she said, and she smiled at him, held out her cupped hands. “Would you like some of my apple?”

Apple. She was just holding an apple. The red was the skin of an apple. Fruit. Edible. Poison seeds, yes, but --

“Thank you,” Ciaran said. He set the bricks of peat down by her feet and reached out. He jumped when her fingers, sticky-damp with juice, tangled with his, and then she pressed half of the apple into his hand. She’d cut it in half, and he saw that the seeds formed a five-pointed star.

Blood Magic

One gold coin would keep a family in peat for a month. Ciaran nodded and accepted the coin, then ducked around to the shed. He darted a nervous glance at his father, but Eoghan was still working and whistling to himself, assuming his son was still hard at work too.

Ciaran drew several bricks of peat out of the shed and wrapped them in old sacking for good measure before skittering back around the hut.

“Miss,” he began, and drew up short.

She was leaning against the wall, cradling a handful of bright, damning red.

It was druid blood magic.

Suffice

“Your kind,” Ciaran echoed. “What is your kind?”

“Some call the men druids, or holy men,” the woman said.

Ciaran had heard of the druids, the mad men who prayed to trees and worshipped goddesses and conducted rituals by blood. He drew back.

The woman smiled. “I suppose you’ve heard the stories, then?”

“I...cannot take so much money,” Ciaran finally said. He wasn’t afraid of old wives’ tales. Even if the other village lads weren’t there to see him, he would be brave.

The woman paused and looked down at the coins, then up at him. “Will one suffice?”

By Fire

Ciaran nodded and started back toward the shed where he and his father stored their cut peat, but something in the woman’s eyes made him falter, pause. She’d come buying peat the day before - that was what she wanted, right? But then he listened to her words in his mind once more, and a bright blush stole over his features.

“Er...how much peat do you want?”

The woman held out a hand; again with the mass of gold coins.

“It is peat you want, isn’t it?”

The woman laughed softly. “Yes. Warmth by fire is preferable for my kind.”