Grandmother laughed. This time it was not the tinkling bell-like laugh, but a harsh chuckle of triumphant amusement. “Oh, Fainne. You’re so young. Wait until you begin to feel the power within yourself, wait until men commit murder for you, and betray their strongest loyalties, and turn against what is dearest to their spirits. There’s no pleasure like that. Wait until you recognize what you have within you. For you may be Ciarán’s daughter, and carry the influence of his druid ways and his excess of conscience, but you are my granddaughter. Never forget that. You will always bear a little part of me somewhere deep within you. There’s no denying it.”
“You cannot make me do bad things. You cannot force me to act against my father’s will. I must at least ask him.”
“You’ll find I can do just that, girl. Exactly that. From this moment on, you will perform whatever tasks I set you. You will pursue my quest to the bitter end, and achieve the triumph that was denied me. You think, perhaps, that if you disobey me, you will be made to suffer. A slight headache here; a bout of purging there. Warts maybe, or a nasty little boil in an awkward spot. I’m not so simple, Fainne. Act against my orders, and it is not you who will be punished. It is your father.”
My heart thumped in horror. “You can’t!” I whispered. “You wouldn’t! Your own son? I don’t believe you.” But that was not true; I had seen the look in her eyes.
She grinned, revealing her little pointed teeth, a predator’s teeth. “My own son, yes, and what a disappointment he turned out to be. As for my will, you’ve already had a demonstration of that. Your father’s malady is not some ague he picked up, or the result of nerves and exhaustion. It’s entirely of my doing. I have been planning for some years, and watching the two of you. He senses it, maybe; but I caught him unawares, and now he cannot shake me off. So he sends you away to what he deems a place of safety. Straight off to Conor, his archenemy. Ironic, isn’t it?”
“You’re lying!” I retorted, torn between horror and fury. “Father’s too quick with counter-spells, he’d never let it happen. There’s no sorcerer in the world stronger than he is.” My voice spoke defiance while my heart shrank with dread; she had us trapped, the two of us, trapped by the love we bore each other. It was she who was strongest; she had been all along.
“Weren’t you listening?” she asked me. “Ciarán could have been what you say. He could have been the most powerful of all. But he threw it away. He let hope destroy him. He may still practice the craft, but he hasn’t the will now. He was easy prey for me. You’ll need to be extremely careful. I’ll give you some instructions before you leave. The slightest deviation from my orders, and your father goes a little further downhill. You’ve seen how he is. It wouldn’t take many mistakes on your part to make him very sick indeed; almost beyond saving. On the other hand, do well, and he may just get better. See what power I’m giving you.”
“You won’t know.” My voice was shaking. “I’ll be at Sevenwaters, and you said yourself you cannot read minds. I could disobey and you would be none the wiser.”
Her brows rose disdainfully. “You surprise me, Fainne. Have you not mastered the use of scrying bowls, the art of mirrors? I will know.”
I wrapped my arms around myself, for there was a chill in me that would remain, now, on the brightest of summer days. My father sick, suffering, dying; how could I bear it? This was cruel indeed, cruel and clever. “I—I suppose I have no choice,” I muttered.
Grandmother nodded. “Very wise. It won’t be long before you’re enjoying it, believe me. There’s an inordinate amount of pleasure that can be had in watching a great work of destruction unfold. You’ll have a measure of control. After all, you do need to be adaptable. I’ll give you some ideas. The rest you can work out for yourself. It’s amazing what power a woman can enjoy, if she learns how to make herself irresistible. I’ll show you how to identify which man in a crowd of fifty is the one to target; the one with power and influence. I did that once, and I nearly had everything I wanted. I came so close. Then that girl ruined everything. I’ll be as glad as Ciarán will be to see her family fail, finally and utterly. To see them disintegrate and destroy themselves.”
She fumbled in a concealed pocket.
“Now. You’ll need every bit of help you can get. This will be useful. It’s very old. A little amulet. Bit of nonsense, really. It’ll protect you from the wrong sorts of influence.” She slipped a cord over my neck. The token threaded on it seemed a harmless trinket; a little triangle of finely wrought bronze whose patterns were so small I could hardly discern the shapes. Yet the moment it settled there against my heart, I seemed to see everything more clearly; my anxiety faded, and I began to understand that perhaps I could do what my grandmother wanted after all. The craft was strong in me, I knew that. Maybe all I needed to do was follow her orders and all would be well. I closed my fingers around the amulet; it had a sweet warmth that seemed to flow into me, comforting, reassuring.
“Now, Fainne,” Grandmother said almost kindly, “you must keep this little token hidden under your dress. Wear it always. Never take it off, understand? It will protect you from those who seek to thwart this plan. Ciarán would say the powers of the mind are enough. Comes of the druid discipline. But what do they know? I have lived among these folk, and I can tell you, you’ll need every bit of assistance you can get.”
What she said sounded entirely practical. “Yes, Grandmother,” I said, fingering the bronze amulet.
“It will strengthen your resolve,” Grandmother said. “Keep you from running away as soon as things get too hard.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Now tell me. Is there anyone you’ve taken a dislike to, in your sheltered little corner here? Got any grudges?”
I had to think about this quite hard. My circle was somewhat limited, especially of late. But one image did come into my mind: that girl with her sun-browned skin and white-toothed smile, wrapping her shawl around Darragh’s shoulders.
“There’s a girl,” I said cautiously, thinking I had a fair idea of what was coming. “A fishergirl, down at the cove. I’ve no great fondness for her.”
“Very well.” Grandmother was looking straight into my eyes, very intently. “You know how to turn a frog into a bird, and a beetle into a crab. What would you do with this girl?”
“I—”
“Scruples, Fainne?” Her tone sharpened.
“No, Grandmother.” I had no doubt she had told me the truth, and I must do as she asked. If I failed, my father would pay. Still, a transformation need not be forever. It need not be for long at all. I could obey her, and still do this my own way.
“Good. Just as well the weather’s better, isn’t it? You can walk down this afternoon and stretch your legs. Take that dour excuse for a raven on an outing, it still seems to be hanging about. You can do it then. You’ll need to catch her alone.”
“Yes, Grandmother.”
“Focus, now. Remember all you’re doing is making a slight adjustment. Quite harmless, in the scheme of things.”
I timed it so the boats were still out and the women indoors. If I were seen at all, two and two would most certainly be put together. I lacked the skill to command invisibility, for, as my grandmother had told me, we had been stripped of the higher powers. Still, I was able to slip from rocky outcrop to wind-whipped bushes to stone wall without drawing attention to myself, crooked foot or no, and it appeared that Fiacha knew quite well what I was doing, for he behaved exactly like any other raven that just happened to be in the settlement that day. Most of the time he sat in a tree watching me.
The girl was outside her cottage, washing clothes in a tub. Her glossy brown hair was dragged back off her face, and she seemed more ordinary than I had remembered. Two very small children played on the grass nearby. I watched for a little, unseen where I stood in the shade of an outhouse. But I did not watch for long; I did not allow too much time for thought. The girl looked up and said something to the children, and one of them shrieked wit
h laughter, and the girl grinned, showing her white teeth. I moved my hand, and made the spell in my head, and an instant later a fine fat codfish was flapping and gasping on the earthen pathway, and the brown-skinned girl was gone. The two infants appeared not to notice, absorbed in their small game. I watched as the fish twisted and jerked, desperate for life. I would leave it just long enough to show I was strong; just long enough to prove to my grandmother that I could do this. Then I would point my finger and speak the charm of undoing. Now, maybe. I began to focus my mind again, and summon the words. But before I could whisper them, a woman came bustling out of the cottage, a sharp knife in her hand and a frown on her lined features. She was a big woman, and she stopped on the path right before me, blocking my view of the thrashing fish. And while I could not see the creature I had changed, I could not work the counter-spell.
Move, I willed her. Move now, quick.
“Brid!” she called. “Where are you, girl?”
Move away. Oh, please.
“Where’s your sister gone?” The woman seemed to be addressing the two infants, not expecting a reply. “And what’s this doing here?” Before my horrified gaze she bent and scooped up something from the path. If only she would turn a little, all I needed was a glimpse of silvery tail or staring eye or gasping mouth, and I could change the girl back. I would do it, even if it meant all knew the truth. If I did not do it, I would be a murderer.
“Who’s been here?” the woman asked the children. “Tinker lads playing tricks? I’ll have something to say to your sister when she gets back, make no doubt of that. Leaving the two of you alone with a tub of wash water, that’s asking for trouble. Still, this’ll go down well with a bit of cabbage and a dumpling or two.” She made a quick movement with her hand, the one that held the knife, and then, only then, she half-turned, and I saw the fish hanging limp in her grip, indeed transformed into no more than a welcome treat for a hungry family’s table. I was powerless. It was too late. The greatest sorcerer in the world cannot bestow the gift of life. A freezing terror ran through me. It was not just that I had done the unforgivable. It was something far worse. Had I not just proved my grandmother right? I bore the blood of a cursed line, a line of sorcerers and outcasts. It seemed I could not fight that; it would manifest itself as it chose. Were not my steps set inevitably toward darkness? I turned and fled in silence, and the woman never saw me.
Later we heard news from the settlement of the girl’s disappearance. A search was mounted; they looked for her everywhere. But nobody mentioned the dead fish, and the children were too little to tell a tale. The incident became old news. They never found the girl. The best they could hope for her was that she’d run off with some sweetheart, and made a life elsewhere. Odd, though; she’d been such a good lass.
After that, it became more difficult to get to sleep. Riona stayed in the chest. I could imagine her small eyes looking at me, looking in the darkness, telling me truths about myself with never a word spoken. I did not want to hear what she might have to say. I did not want to think about anything in particular. I knew a lot of mind games, tricks Father had shown me for focusing the concentration, strategies for shutting out what was not wanted. But now, none of them seemed to work. Instead, my mind repeated three things, over and over. My grandmother’s voice saying, Scruples, Fainne? Darragh, watching as I made the fire with my pointing finger. Darragh frowning. You’re a danger to yourself. And a little image of a red-haired girl, weeping and weeping, frenzied with grief, eyes squeezed shut, hands clutching her head, nose streaming, voice hoarse and ragged with sobbing. She, of them all, I wanted out of my mind. I could not bear to witness so wild a display of anguish. It made me want to scream. It made me want to cry, I could feel the tears building up in me. But our kind do not weep. Stop it! Stop it! I hissed, willing her away. Then she raised her blotched and tragic face to me, and the girl was myself.
After an endless winter and a chill spring, summer came and the traveling folk returned to the cove. I passed my fifteenth birthday. This year, when I might have roamed abroad free of Father’s restrictions, I did not climb the hill to see the long shadows mark out the day of Darragh’s arrival. But I heard the sweet, sad voice of the pipes piercing the soft stillness of dusk, and I knew he was here. Part of me still longed to escape, to make my way up to the secret place and sit by my friend, looking out over the sea, talking, or not talking as the mood took us. But it was easy, this time, to find reasons not to go. Most of them were reasons I did not want to think about, but they were there, hidden away somewhere inside me. There was that girl, and what I had done. It didn’t seem to matter that my grandmother had made me do it; it didn’t seem to make a difference that I had intended only to scare her, that I had been prevented from changing her back in time. It was still I who had done it, and that made me a murderer. I knew what I had done was an abuse of the craft. And yet, all that I had, all that I was, I owed to my father. To save him, I must be prepared to do the unthinkable. I had shown myself strong enough. But I did not want anyone to ask me about it. Particularly Darragh. And there was another, even more compelling reason: something my grandmother had said one day.
“There’s a further step,” she’d told me. “You did well. You did considerably better than I expected, in terms of the end result. But it’s easy to tamper when you hate; easy enough, when you don’t care. You may need to do more than that. Tell me, Fainne, is there anyone who is a special friend? Anyone you are particularly fond of?”
I thought very quickly, and blessed my grandmother’s failure to master the skill of mind-reading.
“Nobody,” I said calmly. “Except Father, of course.”
Grandmother grimaced. “Are you sure? No friends? No sweetheart? No, I suppose not. Pity. You do need to practice that.”
“Why? Why should I? What do you mean?”
She sighed. “Tell me, what things are most important to you?”
I framed my answer with care. “The task I have been set. That’s all that is important.”
“Mm. Seems easy, doesn’t it? You go to Sevenwaters, you insinuate your way into the household, you work your magic, and the task is complete. But what if you become friends with them? What if you like them? It may not be so easy then. That’s when the real test of strength begins. These folk are closely tied with the Túatha Dé, Fainne. You will not hurt one without wounding the other.”
“Like them?” My amazement was quite genuine. “Become friends with the family that destroyed my mother, and took away my father’s dreams? How could I?”
“You’d be surprised.” Grandmother’s tone was dryly amused. “They’re not monsters, for all they did. And you’ve encountered few folk here, shut away with Ciarán at the end of the world. He did you no favors by bringing you to Kerry, child. You’ll need to be very canny. You’ll need to remember who you are, and why you’re there, every moment of every day. You cannot afford to relax your guard, not for an instant. There are dangerous folk at Sevenwaters.”
“How will I know who—?”
“Some will be safe. Some are harmless. Some have the power to stop you, if you give yourself away. That’s what happened to me. See that it doesn’t happen to you, because this is our last chance. You’ll need to beware of that fellow with the swan’s wing.”
“What?” Surely I had not heard her properly.
“He’s the danger. He’s the one who can cross over and come back when it suits him. Watch out for him.”
I was eager to know what she meant. But try as I might, she would tell me no more that afternoon. Indeed, she seemed suddenly in a very ill temper, and started to punish me with sharp wasp-like stings for each small error in the casting of a spell of substitution. It became necessary to concentrate extremely hard; too hard to ask awkward questions.
I learned about pain that summer. My grandmother’s earlier tricks were nothing to the punishments she inflicted on me when she thought me defiant or stubborn, when she caught me dreaming instead of applying myself
to the task in hand. She could induce a headache that was like the grip of an earth-dragon’s jaws, an agony that turned the bowels to water and drained whatever will I might once have summoned to aid me. She could pierce the belly with a thousand long needles, and cause every corner of the skin to itch and burn and fester, so that one screamed for mercy. Almost screamed. She knew I was young, and she would stop just before the torture became unbearable. What she thought of my strength of will she never said. I endured what she did, since there was no choice. My father could not have known she would treat me thus, or he would never have left me to her mercies. I learned, and was afraid.
She showed me, one night, a vision that struck a far deeper terror in me.
“Just in case,” she said, “you think to change your mind once you are gone from here. Just to erase that last little glint of defiance from your eyes, Fainne. You think I lied to you, perhaps; that this is all some kind of elaborate fantasy. Look in the coals there, where the flame glows deepest red. Slow your breathing, and shut out all else as you have been taught to do. Look hard and tell me what you see.”
But there was no need to put it into words. She must have read in my face the horror I felt as I stared into the fire and saw the tiny image of my father, his strong features contorted, his body twisted with pain, his chest racked with a coughing that seemed fit to split him asunder. Blood dribbled from his gasping mouth, his hands clutched blindly at the air, his dark eyes stared like a madman’s. My whole body went cold. I heard myself whispering, “Oh no, oh no.” I might have begged her then, if I had had the strength to find words for it.
“Oh, yes,” Grandmother said, as the vision faded and I slumped back to crouch on the rug before the hearth. “It matters nothing to me if this is my son or a stranger, Fainne. All that matters is the task in hand.”
“M-my father,” I stammered. “Is he—?”
“What you see is not now, it is the future. A possible future. If you want a different picture, it is up to you to ensure you obey my orders and perform what is required of you. Defy me, and he’ll die, slowly. You’ll do as I tell you, and you’ll keep your mouth shut about it. I hope you believe me, child. You’d be a very silly girl if you didn’t. Do you believe me, Fainne?”