Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin (23 page)

Méav smiled. “If the lack of a knife keeps me here, ’twill be a sign I’m not yet meant to leave.” She pressed the knife into Caymin’s hands. “I feel certain we’ll meet again.”

Ronan joined them. He laid a hand on Caymin’s shoulder. “If I don’t see you after the morrow… well, thank the white worm for us all. If he hadn’t warned you, who knows where we’d be now.”

He gave her a pat, and then he and Méav joined Fergus to go pack their few belongings and prepare for the trial they were to face.

Caymin sat back down at the fire, holding the knife. She’d never seen anything so beautiful. The blade was honed to a fine edge, its leather sheath embossed with spirals and knotwork. In her limited dealings with humans, she had never taken leave of anyone. The pain of leaving Broc and Cuán had been almost more than she could bear.

Cíana joined her. She reached over and examined the knife. “A fine gift.” She handed it back.

Caymin nodded, unable to speak through the lump in her throat.

CHAPTER 14

Samhain Trials

I
t’s time.”

Enat turned to Caymin who was reaching for her old cloak, Méav’s knife strapped to her belt. She held out a cloak of her own.

“Wear this one.”

“Why?” Caymin laid her cloak on her bed and held up the one Enat offered.

“Yours is special to you,” Enat said. She picked up her staff as Caymin fastened the cloak around her shoulders. “We’ll keep yours here. If this one is damaged, it won’t matter.”

Full dark had fallen as they made their way to the same hill where they had burned a fire at Lughnasadh. Their breath puffed in front of them as they walked through the frosty night.

“A full moon,” Enat said.

Caymin looked up at the orb, luminous in the night sky, gilding the edges of the clouds drifting by her. “There was a full moon the night you came to find me.”

Enat chuckled. “There was. I could feel you, but I didn’t think you’d ever speak with me.”

“I was frightened of you,” Caymin said. “You were the first two-leg I met who could speak without speaking.”

“You’ve been here for eight moons, nearly a year. Are you sorry?”

Caymin limped along for a bit, thinking. “Not sorry. Sometimes, I think about what I would be doing if you had not come to me. I know I would still be with my clan, but…”

Her voice trailed off.

“You know Broc and Cuán would have wanted what’s best for you. ’Tis natural to feel torn – to miss them and to be happy you’re here – all at once.”

Caymin was silent for a long while. “It is not just Broc.”

“Your mother and father?”

Caymin stopped abruptly. “The others say that tonight, it is possible to speak with the dead.”

Enat stopped as well and turned to look back at her. “This is a night when many things are possible. The veil that separates worlds parts on this night, and for some, it allows passage from one world to the other. But, as with magic, it comes with a cost.”

“What cost?”

“When the ones we love leave this world, they do not truly leave us, for we carry them with us.” Enat tilted her head up to look at the moon. “You weren’t old enough to know and remember your parents, so you feel an emptiness when you think of them. But you must know, when people try to bridge the worlds, they risk losing themselves in what can never be.”

“Did that happen to you?”

Enat became very still. “What do you mean?”

“With Sorcha? Did you try to join with her again?”

Enat stared at her. “How do you know of Sorcha?”

“I heard the others speak of her,” Caymin said. She laid a hand on Enat’s arm. “Did you love her very much?”

Enat blinked rapidly. “Very much indeed. And yes, I did see her one Samhain, many winters ago. She was as lovely as I remembered, but we could not touch, as we were in different realms. The sadness of seeing her thus was almost more than I could bear. It nearly destroyed me. Beware if you part the veil, Caymin, for it does not always bring happiness.”

Caymin thought on this as they climbed the hill to where the others were gathered, standing around an unlit fire. If the elders were feeling Timmin’s absence, they did not acknowledge it, except that Enat stepped into the role of First Mage. She produced a pouch of ashes from the Lughnasadh fire, speaking words of power as she held the pouch to the moon. She sprinkled the ashes onto the stacked wood of the bonfire. With a gesture, she invited the others near and they all held out their hands, igniting the bonfire as one.

It flared high into the sky, illuminating their faces. Neela uncorked a glass bottle full of some liquid. She raised it to her lips and passed it to Cíana who drank and passed it in turn. Each of them took a drink and handed it on. When Caymin raised the bottle to her own lips, she nearly choked on the liquid that scalded her throat, burning all the way down her gullet. She passed the bottle to Gai who passed it back to Neela, completing the circle. Neela then began to chant, something that had no real melody, but the singsong rhythm of her words worked their way into Caymin’s mind. She found herself swaying in time with the chant. All joined hands and began to sway in unison as Neela’s voice continued to work its way into her head.

She turned and stepped away from the fire, and was only mildly surprised to look back and see herself still swaying with the others around the fire. She walked through the clearing toward the forest and found Péist waiting for her. Without questioning, she followed him as he wriggled into the trees. She had no sense of time or distance as they moved through the forest, the moon throwing shadows through the trees. Sporadic pinpricks of light appeared along their path, and she knew wood sprites guided them.

Péist led her to a place she had never seen, a place where the trees were overgrown with vines growing thickly up the trunks, spreading out along the branches to join tree to tree so that they formed a tunnel. He stopped and turned to her. She reached out to part the vines and walked through the curtain of green.

When she emerged from the dark, leafy passage, she found herself standing in her village, outside her family’s cottage. She waited a moment and her father stepped through the door.

“Caymin.”

She looked up into eyes as blue as the sky on a bright summer day. “You are here.”

He nodded. “I hoped one day you would come.”

His eyes took in her scars, and a great sadness came over his face. “I could not protect you and your mother.”

“But you tried,” she said. “I saw. I watched you fight them. There were too many.”

She looked around but, other than the two of them, the village was empty. “Is my mother here?”

He shook his head. “She is not.”

“Do you know where she is?”

He turned and picked up his harp. “Do you remember playing it with me?”

“I do not remember, but I have seen.”

He plucked the strings and sang the song Caymin recalled from her spiritwalk. His voice rang out, clear and strong. He finished, his head bowed.

“You must leave now,” he said. “You do not belong here, but in the land of the living.” He lifted his face to her. “But know that I love you more than my own life.”

He stood and walked back into the cottage.

“Wait!”

Caymin stepped through the door of the cottage and found herself outside the wall of vines where Péist waited for her. She sank to her knees, crying. Péist wriggled closer, pressed to her side. Though he spoke no words, she felt his understanding of what she had seen.

When she was ready, he accompanied her back to the hill where she still danced with the others around the bonfire. She stepped into the clearing and looked back to find he had gone, but she smiled as she realized she could feel them both, her father and Péist, as she rejoined the circle.

Caymin awakened early after a restless night. Her head felt woozy when she sat up on her mat. She didn’t fully remember coming back to the cottage.

She stoked the fire, adding blocks of peat and putting the kettle on to heat. She made a bit more noise than she needed to until Enat sat up, rubbing her own head.

Caymin opened her mouth to ask questions, but Enat silenced her with a look. She made tea instead, handing a cup to Enat and waiting until she had had time to drink before speaking.

“I do not understand how could I have been in two places at once.”

Enat took another sip of tea, her eyes closed, before saying, “I told you last night, that is the magic of Samhain. Your body was with us around the fire – you never left. ’Twas your spirit that went into the forest.”

“But it felt so real. I heard my father sing to me, and I felt Péist next to me.”

Enat opened her eyes wearily. “Just because it was your spirit that spoke with your father doesn’t mean it wasn’t real.”

“There were wood sprites, too.”

Enat appeared more alert at this news. “You’re sure?”

“I think so. There were points of light that stayed just ahead of us.”

Enat nodded pensively. “You were blessed. They do not appear often.”

Caymin stared into her own cup, saw her reflection staring back up at her. “Will they guide Méav and Ronan and Fergus in their trials?”

“They may. No one can ever predict what a wood sprite will do. Sometimes they help, sometimes they hinder. It depends on their mood, and they can be capricious.”

Enat reached out and ran her hand over Caymin’s head. “Your hair is getting long. Do you want me to cut it?”

Caymin nodded. “Use this.” She handed over Méav’s knife.

Enat smiled as she used the sharp blade to trim Caymin’s hair. “’Tis a fine knife she gave you. A noble gift.”

Caymin reached for the sheath, turning it over in her hands. “But why did she? I do not understand.”

“We give gifts as a sign of affection or respect. Did you not ever give things to Broc or Cuán?”

“Fresh bedding or food, sometimes something special from the village.” Caymin looked up. “But it is not the same.”

“No. Badgers have simple needs. Humans are more complicated.”

Caymin frowned. “Too complicated sometimes.”

“Complicated or not, you have to learn to live with them.”

Caymin stretched her feet out to the fire, enjoying the warmth on this cold morning. “I was thinking I might want boots this winter. Like yours.”

Enat nodded. “A fine idea. We’ve enough deerskin to make you a pair. I’ll teach you how. We may get them done today, since you have no lessons.”

She tossed the cut hair into the fire and got up. “For waking me so early, I’ll let you make me some porridge.”

Caymin grinned and set about heating the water again.

The sun was not yet fully up as Caymin sat at the long table in the meetinghouse, hunched over a book flanked by two lamps to provide light.

She’d been too restless to wait for Enat, who was still grumbling and stumbling about even after her tea and porridge.

Cíana came in and looked over her shoulder. “Dragons?” She sat beside Caymin at the table. “Why are you looking at a book about dragons?”

Caymin looked up from the page filled with a drawing of a fearsome creature, flying over a village, burning it with its fiery breath. “Gai was talking about them, and I had never heard of them before. I was curious. What do you know of them?”