We had a place, a secret place, halfway down the hill behind big boulders and looking out to the south west. Below us the steep, rocky promontory of the Honeycomb jutted into the sea. Inside it was a complex network of caves and chambers and concealed ways, a suitable home for a man such as my father. Behind us the slope stretched up and up to the flattened top of the hill, where the stone circle stood, and then down again to the cart track. Beyond that was the land of Kerry, and further still were places whose names I did not know. But Darragh knew, and Darragh told me as he stacked driftwood neatly for a fire, and hunted for flint and tinder while I got out a little jar of dried herbs for tea. He told me of lakes and forests, of wild crags and gentle misty valleys. He described how the Norsemen, whose raids on our coast were so feared, had settled here and there and married Irish women, and bred children who were neither one thing nor the other. With a gleam of excitement in his brown eyes, he spoke of the great horse fair up north. He got so caught up in this, his thin hands gesturing, his voice bright with enthusiasm, that he forgot he was supposed to be lighting the little fire. So I did it myself, pointing at the sticks with my first finger, summoning the flame. The driftwood burst instantly alight, and our small pan of water began to heat. Darragh fell silent.
‘Go on,’ I said. ‘Did the old man buy the pony or not?’
But Darragh was frowning at me, his dark brows drawn together in disapproval. ‘You shouldn’t do that,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Light the fire like that. Using sorcerer’s tricks. Not when you don’t need to. What’s wrong with flint and tinder? I would have done it.’
‘Why bother? My way’s quicker.’ I was casting a handful of the dry leaves into the pot to brew. The smell of the herbs arose freshly in the cool air of the hillside.
‘You shouldn’t do it. Not when there’s no need.’ He was unable to explain any further, but his flood of words had dried up abruptly, and we brewed our tea and sat there drinking it together in silence as the sea birds wheeled and screamed overhead.
The summers were full of such days. When he wasn’t needed to work with the horses or help around the camp, Darragh would come to find me, and we explored the rocky hillsides, the clifftop paths, the hidden bays and secret caves together. He taught me to fish with a single line and a steady hand. I taught him how to read what day it was from the way the shadows moved up on the hilltop. When it rained, as it had a way of doing even in summer, we’d sit together in the shelter of a little cave, down at the bottom of the land bridge that joined the Honeycomb to the shore, a place that was almost underground but not quite, for the daylight filtered through from above and washed the tiny patch of fine sand to a delicate shade of grey-blue. In this place I always felt safe. In this place sky and earth and sea met and touched and parted again, and the sound of the wavelets lapping the subterranean beach was like a sigh, at once greeting and farewell. Darragh never told me if he liked my secret cave or not. He’d simply come down with me, and sit by me, and when the rain was over, he’d slip away with never a word.
There was a wild grass that grew on the hillside there, a strong, supple plant with a silky sheen to its pale green stems. We called it rat-tails, though it probably had some other name. Peg and her daughters were expert basketweavers, and made use of this grass for their finer and prettier efforts, the sort that might be sold to a lady for gathering flowers maybe, rather than used for carrying vegetables or a heavy load of firewood. Darragh, too, could weave, his long fingers fast and nimble. One summer we were up by the standing stones, late in the afternoon, sitting with our backs to the Sentinel and looking out over the bay and the far promontory, and beyond to the western sea. Clouds were gathering, and the air had a touch of chill to it. Today I could not read the shadows, but I knew it was drawing close to summer’s end, and another parting. I was sad, and cross with myself for being sad, and I was trying not to think about another winter of hard work and cold, lonely days. I stared at the stony ground and thought about the year, and how it turned around like a serpent biting its own tail; how it rolled on like a relentless wheel. The good times would come again, and after them the bad times.
Darragh had a fistful of rat-tails, and he was twisting them deftly and whistling under his breath. Darragh was never sad. He’d no time for it; for him, life was an adventure, with always a new door to open. Besides, he could go away if he wanted to. He didn’t have lessons to learn and skills to perfect, as I did.
I glared at the pebbles on the ground. Round and round, that was my existence, endlessly repeating, a cycle from which there was no escape. Round and round. Fixed and unchangeable. I watched the pebbles as they shuddered and rolled; as they moved obediently on the ground before me.
‘Fainne?’ Darragh was frowning at me, and at the shifting stones on the earth in front of me.
‘What?’ My concentration was broken. The stones stopped moving. Now they lay in a perfect circle.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Hold out your hand.’
I did as he bid me, puzzled, and he slipped a little ring of woven rat-tails on my finger; so cunningly made that it seemed without any joint or fastening.
‘What’s this for?’ I asked him, turning the silky, springy circle of grass around and around. He was looking away over the bay again, watching the small curraghs come in from fishing.
‘So you don’t forget me,’ he said, offhand.
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said. ‘Why would I forget you?’
‘You might,’ said Darragh, turning back towards me. He gestured towards the neat circle of tiny stones. ‘You might get caught up in other things.’
I was hurt. ‘I wouldn’t. I never would.’
Darragh gave a sigh and shrugged his shoulders. ‘You’re only little. You don’t know. Winter’s a long time, Fainne. And – and you need keeping an eye on.’
‘I do not!’ I retorted instantly, jumping up from where I sat. Who did he think he was, talking as if he was my big brother? ‘I can look after myself quite well, thank you. And now I’m going home.’
‘I’ll walk with you.’
‘You don’t have to.’
‘I’ll walk with you. Better still, I’ll race you. Just as far as the junipers down there. Come on.’
I stood stolid, scowling at him.
‘I’ll give you a head start,’ coaxed Darragh. ‘I’ll count to ten.’
I made no move.
‘Twenty, then. Go on, off you go.’ He smiled, a broad, irresistible smile.
I ran, if you could call my awkward, limping gait a run. With my skirt caught up in one hand I made reasonable speed, though the steep pebbly surface required some caution. I was only halfway to the junipers when I heard his soft, quick footsteps right behind me. No race could have been less equal, and both of us knew it. He could have covered the ground in a quarter of the time it took me. But somehow, the way it worked out, the two of us reached the bushes at exactly the same moment.
‘All right, sorcerer’s daughter,’ said Darragh, grinning. ‘Now we walk and catch our breath. It’ll be a better day tomorrow.’
How old was I then? Six, maybe, and he a year or two older? I had the little ring on my finger the day the travelling folk packed up and moved out again; the day I had to wave goodbye and start waiting. It was all right for him. He had places to go and things to do, and he was eager to get on his pony and be off. Still, he made time to say farewell, up on the hillside above the camp, for he knew I would not come near where the folk gathered to load their carts and make ready for the journey. I was numb with shyness, quite unable to bear the stares of the boys and girls