‘Well, then,’ said Darragh.
‘Well, then,’ I echoed, trying for the same tone of nonchalance and failing miserably.
‘Goodbye, Curly,’ he said, reaching out to tug gently at a lock of my long hair, which was the same deep russet as my father’s. ‘I’ll see you next summer. Keep out of trouble, now, until I come back.’ Every time he went away he said this; always just the same. As for me, I had no words at all.
The days grew shorter and the dark time of the year began. With Darragh gone there was no real reason to linger out of doors, and so I applied myself to my work and tried not to notice how cold it was inside the Honeycomb, colder, almost, than the chill of an autumn wind up on the hilltop. It was an aching feeling that lodged deep in your bones and lingered there like a burden. I never complained. Father had shown me how to deal with it and he expected me to do so. It was not that a sorcerer did not feel the heat of the fire or the bite of the north wind. A sorcerer was, after all, a man and not some Otherworld creature. What you had to do was teach your body to cope with it, so that discomfort did not make you slow or inefficient. It had to do with breathing, mostly. More I cannot say. My father was once a druid. He said he had put all that behind him when he left the brotherhood. But a man does not so easily discard all those years of training and discipline. I understood that much of what I learned was secret, to be shared only with others of our kind. One did not lay it bare before the ignorant, or those whose minds were closed. Even now there are some matters of which I cannot and will not tell.
There were many chambers in the Honeycomb. We lit lamps year round, and in my father’s great workroom many candles burned, for there he stored his scrolls and books, grotesque and wondrous objects in jars, and little sacks of pungent-smelling powders. There was a dried basilisk, and a cup made from a twisted, curling horn, its base set with red stones. There was a tiny skull like a leprechaun’s, with empty eyes. There was a thick grimoire whose leather cover was darkened with age and long handling. In this room my father spent days and nights in solitude, perfecting his craft, learning, always learning.
I knew how to read in more than one tongue and to write in more than one script. I could recite many, many tales and even more incantations. But I learned soon enough that the greatest magic is not set down in any book, nor mapped on any scroll for man to decipher. The most powerful spells are not created by tricks of the hand, or by mixing potions and philtres, or by chanting ancient words. I learned why it was that when my father was working hardest, all he seemed to be doing was standing very still in the centre of an empty space, with his mulberry eyes fixed on nothing. For the deepest magic is that of the mind, and you will not find its lore recorded on parchment or vellum, or scratched on bark or stone. Not anywhere. Father owed his first learning to the wise ones: the druids of the forest. He had developed it through dedication and study. But our talent for the craft of sorcery was in our blood. Father was the son of a great enchantress, and from her he had acquired certain skills which he used sparingly, since they were both potent and perilous. One must take care, he said, not to venture too far and touch on dark matters best left sleeping. I could not remember my grandmother very well. I thought I recalled an elegant creature in a blue gown, who had peered into my eyes and given me a headache. I thought perhaps she had asked questions which I had answered angrily, not liking her intrusion into our ordered domain. But that had been long ago, when I was a little child. Father spoke of her seldom, save to say that our blood was tainted by the line she came from, a line of sorcerers who did not understand that some boundaries should never be crossed. And yet, said Father, she was powerful, subtle and clever, and she was my grandmother; part of her was in both of us, and we should not forget that. It ensured we would never live our lives as ordinary folk, with friends and family and honest work. It gave us exceptional talents, and it set our steps towards a destiny of darkness.
I was eight years old. It was Meán Geimhridh, and the north wind beat the stunted trees prostrate. It threw the waves crashing against the cliff face, forcing icy spray deep inside the tunnelled passages of the Honeycomb. The pebbly shore was strewn with tangles of weed and fractured shells. The fishermen hauled their curraghs up out of harm’s way, and folk went hungry.
‘Concentrate, Fainne,’ said my father, as my frozen fingers fumbled and slipped. ‘Use your mind, not your hands.’
I set my jaw, screwed up my eyes and started again. A trick, that was all this was. It should be easy. Stretch out your arms, look at the shining ball of glass where it stood on the shelf by the far wall, with the candles’ glow reflected in its deceptive surface. Bridge the gap with your mind; think the distance, think the leap. Keep still. Let the ball do the work. Will the ball into your hands. Will the ball to you. Come. Come here. Come to me, fragile and delicate, round and lovely, come to my hands. It was cold, my fingers ached, it was so cold. I could hear the waves smashing outside. I could hear the glass ball smashing on the stone floor. My arms fell to my sides.
‘Very well,’ said Father calmly. ‘Fetch a broom, sweep it up. Then tell me why you failed.’ There was no judgement in his voice. As always, he wished me to judge myself. That way I would learn more quickly.
‘I – I let myself think about something else,’ I said, stooping to gather up the knife-edged shards. ‘I let the link be broken. I’m sorry, Father. I can do this. I will do it next time.’
‘I know,’ he said, turning back to his own work. ‘Practise this twice fifty times with something unbreakable. Then come back and show me.’
‘Yes, Father.’ It was too cold to sleep anyway. I might as well spend the night doing something useful.
I was ten years old. I stood very still, right in the centre of my father’s workroom, with my eyes focused on nothing. Above my head the fragile ball hovered, held in its place by invisible forces. I breathed. Slow, very slow. With each outward breath, a tiny adjustment. Up, down, left, right. Spin, I told the ball, and it whirled, glowing in the candlelight. Stop. Now circle around my head. My eyes did not follow the steady movement. I need not see it to know its obedience to my will. Stop. Now drop. The infinitesimal pause; then the dive, a sweep before me of glittering brightness, descent to destruction. Stop. The diver halted a handspan above the stone floor. The ball hung in air, waiting. I blinked, and bent to scoop it up in my hand.
Father nodded gravely. ‘Your control is improving. These tricks are relatively easy, of course; but to perform them well requires discipline. I’m pleased with your progress, Fainne.’
‘Thank you.’ Such praise was rare indeed. It was more usual for him simply to acknowledge that I had mastered something, and go straight on to the next task.
‘Don’t become complacent, now.’
‘No, Father.’
‘It’s time to venture into a more challenging branch of the art. For this, you’ll need to find new reserves within yourself. It can be exhausting. Take a few days to rest. We’ll begin at Imbolc. What apter time could there be, indeed?’ His tone was bitter.
‘Yes, Father.’ I did not ask him what he meant. I knew it was at Brighid’s feast that he first met my mother; not that he ever spoke of her, not deliberately. That tale was well hidden within him, and he was a masterful keeper of secrets. The little I knew I had gleaned here and there, a morsel at a time over the years. There was a remark of Peg’s, overheard whilst I waited for Darragh under the trees behind the encampment, unseen by his mother.
‘She was very beautiful,’ Peg had said to her friend Molly. The two of them were sitting in the morning sunlight, fingers flying as they fashioned their intricate baskets. ‘Tall, slender, with that bright copper hair down her back. Like a faery woman. But she was always – she was always a little touched, you know what I mean? He’d watch over her like a wolf guarding its young, but he couldn’t stop what happened. You could see it in her eyes, right from the first.’
‘Mm,’ Molly had replied. ‘Girl takes after her father, then. Strange little thing.’
‘She can’t help what she is,’ said Peg.