After one of my sister’s not-so-subtle threats, I stood a distance away from the glowing portal I held open for her. There was a cry from the other side but I was too busy puzzling over my uncle’s testimony about my ultimate demise to pay it any mind. I’d spent the last few days absorbed in copying down everything in the book from its start and came upon that horrifying passage. It only magnified my urgency to find a solution. But my wrists ached from writing my uncle’s wandering rambles about ancient wars that had nothing to do with the Key’s creation.
When next I peeked toward the portal, a crown of red hair emerged. Riona climbed from my scrying pool with a human slung over her shoulder like a hermit’s bag.
“You actually brought someone back with you.” I couldn’t tell much else about Riona’s prize from that angle, save that their black-clad silhouette seemed feminine and that the color of their hair matched the delphiniums around the courtyard. “Far older than you hinted at.”
“That’s none of your concern.” Riona headed for her small domain, the thick forest lining of my family’s estate. “Go play with your flowers. I have no more need of you.”
The Key’s power withdrew and a new weight settled over my limbs. Another reminder of the disturbing news I discovered as I started working through the mysterious book. Come Samhain, when Father was coronated and Bodb stepped down, the Key would kill me. Even more reason to explore the tome’s secrets. Perhaps if I investigated where this curse began, the Key’s creation, it would stir me out of my mired thoughts. And thankfully I knew someone who had been there besides Father, Aengus, and Bodb. I set out to pay my mother an overdue visit.
Across the central courtyard, the adjacent wing of Bri Leith waited. Glowing stones decorated the domed ceiling inside that part of the estate, shedding soft light over the interior. A narrow corridor off to the side led to Mother’s quarters—hard to notice for those who didn’t know how to find it. A thick wooden door lay at the end of the arched passageway, bound with strong hinges. I slipped in, and it shut behind me with a hollow thud that echoed throughout the small chamber.
My only aunt, Brigid, was a skilled healer who took on Mother’s care once her mental condition started worsening. She had insisted my mother’s sanctuary be reminiscent of human architecture, making it the only rectangular floor plan on the grounds. But the bare furnishings—a simple canopy bed, a couple of chairs, and a wash pitcher and basin—reminded me more of a monk’s cell than a noble lady’s bedroom. The only luxury they afforded her was a high window for light and the loom she used to make her tapestries.
“She’s been asking for you.” That day Aunt Brigid sat in her usual spot, fiddling with a small bronze statue. The metal glowed red hot as she shaped it like clay. Her magic’s fiery alignment showed in the waves of her red hair. Her flames made her a metalsmith of some renown, and her craft had made her build brawny over the centuries. Despite that intimidating exterior, the harsh trials she’d endured over her long life, and her duties as a member of Tir Na Nog’s ruling council, she still made time to care for others around her. “Did you need time alone after the meeting yesterday? Bodb just told me his news, and that you didn’t take it well.”
“I admit I’m still unsure how to feel,” I replied, the mysterious book or what I had read inside its pages coming to mind rather than Father’s upcoming coronation. “I distracted myself with a…new project.”
“Oh? What kind?”
I debated whether I should tell my aunt about the curse on the Key. Better to err on the side of caution and keep it a secret, for now. My aunt was very loyal to her brothers, and she might mention something to my uncles or Father with the good intentions of solving the problem in her blunt manner. But Uncle Bodb had been so stubborn at the meeting. I doubted even Aunt Brigid could make him change his mind about my death and the Key’s destruction being best for the Aos Si as a whole. “A surprise.”
“Is that my little swan that I hear?” Mother said as she weaved her new tapestry’s weft fibers through its tight waft threads, each dainty movement precise and steady. People used to call her the most beautiful woman in the world, among humanity and the Aos Si. She looked even younger than my nineteen-year-old appearance thanks to Tir Na Nog’s magic preserving her body in the prime of her youth. Her red-gold hair shone in the halo cast by the sunlight streaming in. When she concentrated on her work, her teeth sank into her full bottom lip. That serene quietude made her almost resemble the full-figured Aos Si princess she’d once been, before a twist of magic had transformed her into the human woman sitting before me.
“Who else?” I closed the distance between us in a couple long strides and bent to kiss her cheek. “Is this something new you’re working on?”
“Yes, it appeared to me in a dream.” Mother held up her clump of colored threads. She pointed toward the robin-egg blue and white strands. “Those will be for the sky.” Then the black. “That will be for the bird soaring overhead. I’m not yet sure what sort of bird, but I think a crow or raven.”
“A carrion bird? Did your dream have the Morrigan in it?”
“Hmm, perhaps she did drop by. Wouldn’t that be nice?” A wistful note entered my mother’s voice at the notion of being visited by a legendary harbinger of death. Then she moved on to the golds, yellows, and reds. “I saw a pretty maiden. I’ll use these for her hair. Won’t it be lovely?”
“Of course, they match your own hair.” I curled a lock of it between my fingers. “Are you sure you didn’t see yourself in the dream?”
“She looked like me, but she was a different person.” Mother stroked the spectrum of threads with the same fondness as when she held me as a child. “Yes, she was younger than me, your older sister by my mortal husband. You never met him, but he was far older than me and High King of all Eire. Your father had the idea to name my new girl after me once I came to live with him. My little Etain…” She trailed off and the ever present fog in her eyes faded. Tears gathered along her lashes and her hand trembled.
“Mamai?” I touched her shoulder. “Do you want to tell me about the other colors?”
“She would follow me around everywhere. Such a pretty girl. She twisted wildflowers into crowns and put them on your uncle Aengus’ hounds.” Mother’s tone lowered to an angry hiss as she let the threads fall to the floor. “Midir said she was going to marry a great king someday, then he took her away once my other husband came looking for me. Midir married her to a king, as promised, by convincing her own father that she was actually me. He tricked her, he tricked me. I left everything I knew because I loved him, and he tricked me!”
“Your calming spell is wearing off,” I said to my aunt as I waved her over.
“Etain, calm down. What are you talking about?” Brigid set down her half-finished sculpture of a rearing horse and glided to my mother’s other side. She stroked Mother’s hair and her hands glowed. “Midir is your husband, your dearest love. Why would he trick you?”
“No! He tricked me.” Mother shook her head and smacked Brigid’s hand away. “He told me I used to be his Aos Si wife, put false memories into my mind to make me believe it. I foolishly ran off with him, and he took my baby away!”
“How can that be?” Brigid’s voice grew melodic, soothing. It thrummed with an undertone of power. “Your baby has grown into a fine young man and visits you every day. He stands before you now. You remember Daire, your little swan?”
“Don’t let her, please.” Mother snatched my arm and tugged me close. A glimmer of her natural, unsedated clarity remained but the fog of Aunt Brigid’s spell threatened to engulf her again. “I don’t want to forget. Don’t leave me in here!”
“It’s fine.” I held her small hand in my own. “Aunt Brigid, can’t it wait? She reacted better this time.”
“It may not be a good idea.” A conflicted frown marred Brigid’s otherwise flawless features. “What if she encounters Midir and tries to attack him again?”
“She won’t be anywhere near Father.” I waved away my aunt’s concern. “We’ll go for a walk. I can show Mother the garden. I changed it quite a bit since the last time she saw.”
“Please, a little quality time with my son won’t hurt.” Mother’s tight grip relaxed as she batted her lashes up at her caretaker. “You wouldn’t want to forget about the son you lost, would you?”
“Careful, Etain.” Brigid bent down, a hair away from Mother. “I still remember back before you became a human, enchanting everyone who didn’t go along with your whims. I’m not drunk enough to fall for it. You keep a watch on your hands and see that they don’t fall on any pointy objects while around my brother, aye?”
“I don’t think I’ve tried using anything pointy on Midir yet.”
“And I haven’t given my approval for you to leave this room, have I?”
“If it’s only Daire and I, there is no danger to Midir.” Mother smiled, soft and sweet. “Even if I do find any weapons, I won’t use any on my boy.”
“Don’t be using them on yourself, either.” Brigid went back to her chair and retrieved the half-finished bronze sculpture. With her back turned, she made a series of cracks, creaks, and taps as she fiddled with it. At the end, she handed me a small hand mirror adorned with twisting ivy leaves. “Be back before sunset. If anything happens, scry me through this.”
I shoved the mirror into my belt pouch and led Mother out the door. She breathed deep of the main hall’s crisp air and let it out in a happy sigh. “Do you remember those races we had when you were tiny?”
“I seldom won until I became much taller.”
“Let’s see if I still have it in me.” She darted ahead of me down the hall, laughing as she went.
My mother’s sprinting defeated my easy jog, and she arrived at the garden winded, bent over her knees. I steadied her as we found a stone bench nearby. We spent her recovery in mutual contemplation and enjoyed the breeze as it kept the sun’s heat at bay.
“What was the surprise that kept you away all these days?” she asked.
“That depends. Can you keep a secret?”
“From who?”
“Everyone. Especially Father.”
Mother twisted an invisible key over her mouth.
“I found a book Uncle Aengus wrote about the Key,” I whispered. “I’m trying to find a way to split its power from the High King.”
“Oh my, but that is a surprise.” Mother’s delicate eyebrows pinched together. It created a delightful furrow between them, impossible for my Aos Si relatives whose skin could not wrinkle that way. “Why choose now to undermine your father and uncles?”
“The timing seemed right.” The fact of my impending death went unsaid. Why should I unsettle her nerves? “You could help me. What exactly happened when they made the Key?”
“Well I didn’t witness the event. Brigid had me closed away at Tara. I was suffering labor pains. Midir rushed in with a bloody sword raving about a band of humans slaughtering everyone in their path. He and Brigid got into a small debate about how that wasn’t possible. But apparently one of the druids from the new religion opened a door to Tir Na Nog and was chanting iron-laced spells over the attackers.”
“I believe the new religion called their druids priests.”
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“What have I told you about interrupting your elders?” She flicked the tip of my nose as one would correct a misbehaving hound.
“Yes, Mamai.”
“Now, back to chanting priests. Right as your head started showing between my legs, Midir went on about a spell Aengus had conjured to take care of the issue. One of its ingredients was a host, a newborn babe.” Her hands squeezed into tight fists. “You can imagine that I wasn’t thrilled with him wanting to use yet another one of my children for his schemes. Next I knew, he flew away, with you huddled in his arms. Before that, we were recovering. I’d almost forgiven him for what happened to your sister.”
Mother’s shoulders trembled with renewed tension. Yet the sun still had a small journey left before it sank below the distant hills. Pressing her further was risky, dangerous even, but she’d never hurt me before. I had to know more. “And then?”
“After the battle, he handed you back to me and closed himself in his study. He didn’t come out for the longest time, even for meals. I let him be. You kept me far too busy to worry. Oh you were a fussy babe, always grabbing for my attention.”
“It hasn’t changed that much, aside from the fussing.”
“No, you still fuss. Only the reasons changed.”
Embarrassed heat flooded my cheeks and I preoccupied myself with one of the braids holding my hair away from my face.
“There’s my Apple Cheeks.”
“I miss this. Spending time together, being a family.” The way she flinched warned me to stop. Foolhardy hope drove my mouth more than sense. “You don’t have to stay in that room all the time. Can’t you put your feud with Father to rest?”
“He stole my children, little swan, and put these two lives inside my head.” She took hold of my shoulders, nails biting. “Sometimes I’m the other Etain, the one who was an Aos Si princess that Midir married. I remember her connection to the earth, her power to be whoever and whatever she wanted. I try and try, but I can’t use it. Then I’m me, the human she was supposedly reborn into. I had parents who were so proud. I was the wife of the High King of Eire. My mortal husband treated me well. A sea of people respected me. Now they’re all dead, and I’m not.”
“Mother, calm down, please.” I held onto her wrists, but not firm enough as her fingers crept up my neck.
“I want it to stop, Daire.” Mother’s eyes turned manic and her voice cracked. “I need it to stop.”
“Mamai, you’re hurting me.” One of her long fingernails broke my skin. I summoned my power to subdue her like Brigid. It wouldn’t come. Any moment she should realize who I was and snap out of it. “Let go, please.”
“What do I do? How do I make it stop?”
With both my hands keeping Mother at bay, I couldn’t get to the mirror to call Brigid. I needed to tear her off of me, but any force could hurt her and she wouldn’t trust me. She was my mother just a moment ago. Why wasn’t she anymore? If I waited she would stop, I knew it. But in the meantime, my throat burned and my breaths came as rasps.
“Maybe this is all a nightmare.” Mother’s grip closed around my throat, cutting off the rest of my air. “You’re holding me here. Maybe if I get rid of you, I can go back. That other Etain’s memories will go away. This all will go away.”
A pair of strong arms swung around my waist and vaulted back. The motion threw me onto the path and I coughed against the new air fighting its way into my lungs. Mother didn’t fall with me though, as my rescuer tore her hands off my neck. My hind quarters smarted with the blow from the packed pebbles, a small price so I could breathe again. The merciful figure took my place on the bench beside Mother, but he had Father’s golden mane. He grabbed both Mother’s wrists. She flailed against him, clawing for his eyes, then the sword he kept on his belt.
“Come, wild thing.” Father spoke to her like a troubled child. He released one of her arms and lifted her chin, forcing her gaze to meet his. “Come back to me. I won’t hurt you, I promise. Just look at me and everything will be well again.”
Mother shoved his hand away, but the spell in his soothing words made her shoulders sag. Tears started down her rosy cheeks as she pushed at him, weak as it was. “I hate this. I hate you.”
“I know.” Father’s slitted pupils widened and took on an ethereal light. “Just as I love you.”
The fog came over my mother once more as she patted her wet face with a quizzical frown. Recognition of who sat in front of her dawned and her tears turned to an adoring smile. “Midir! You came to visit me today?”
“Yes I did, my heart, but our son had already led you away to the gardens.” Father gave her an answering show of teeth, more pained than happy. “Did all that walking make you tired? Would you like me to take you back to your room for some rest?”
“Yes.” Mother yawned, no doubt directed to do so. “That would be best.”
“Up you go, then.” Father swept her into his arms as if she were still the princess she used to be.
Mother nestled the hollow of his neck and clung to his tunic. Her eyelids drooped and her breathing leveled to even puffs. She seemed at home, almost childlike in her artificial serenity, a precious doll preserved forever.
“Were you watching us?” I reigned in the urge to ask if he had overheard my plans and disguised my sweating palms by wiping the dust from my shirt.
“Yes, a good thing too. Else you would be a corpse.” Father proceeded down the opposite direction of the path and didn’t pause to make sure I followed.
“She was herself longer this time.” I trotted into step beside him as expected. “Perhaps next time she will last the night.”
“There will be no next time, Daire. She isn’t to leave her room again. And you won’t visit it.”
“She was better!” I side-stepped into his path. “I saw it. She was herself. You can’t keep her locked up in here. She hates it.”
“She attacked you.” Father halted in his tracks and he clutched Mother closer to his breast. “The one thing she had never done in over a thousand years, the one thing she swore never to do, and she did it today.”
“Because I asked her why she could not settle things with you so that her and I could be a family again.” I jabbed my finger at him. “It was because of you and everything you’d done.”
“She thought if she got rid of you, she could escape this ‘nightmare.’’’ Father’s grip tightened on Mother and she stirred in his arms. “Do you call that an improvement, you naive boy?”
“If you locked me away and charmed me into submission every time I had an independent thought, I’d want an escape as well!” I forced myself into his space, despite that it made me have to crane my chin up to see above his collar. “Have you ever suspected that’s why she gets worse?”
“I enjoy keeping her in that cage even less than you, but what other choice do I have when she gets like this?” Father said. “She has to stay where she’s safe, especially from herself. I refuse to let her slip into death’s dark abyss, and if the price is that she hates me for eternity, so be it.”
“Then why not help her? Cure her?” I swept my hand over my ever-blooming gardens, the broad hills and full forests extending beyond Tir Na Nog’s unsullied horizon. “We have so much power at our disposal and we can’t make her better? She was reborn this way after your first wife turned her into a butterfly and a mortal woman swallowed her whole. It’s ludicrous to think we can’t mend the two halves of her mind.”
“Do you think me a dullard? I tried. Brigid tried. Aengus refuses to touch her. Her malady is not so simple.”
“And how long has it been since you approached the idea again? Tried looking at it from a new angle?”
“If you think I haven’t exhausted all my means, then speak to Aengus yourself. In the meantime, don’t come near Etain again. You’re too valuable to risk, even for her.” Father shoved me aside and strode across the courtyard to Bri Leith’s fortress.
I stumbled a step and rubbed my arm where he bumped me. Unfortunately, his idea had merit. Samhain was still a few moons away. I could afford a brief detour to my favorite uncle.
* * *
I summoned Aengus’ image in my aunt’s small bronze mirror. He appeared naked, with his elbow propped on the arm of his chair. The book in his lap shielded what lay between his legs. Shelves of other tomes lined the wall behind him alongside a work table with carved figurines scattered across it.
“Uncle,” I said into the mirror, “I need your counsel on a matter.”
Aengus looked up from the text and his lavender irises brightened. “Of course! Come in. Bru Na Boinne is always open to you.”
“Please glamour yourself some clothing.” I brushed the mirror’s oval frame and pushed my power into it. The edges gleamed with gold aura. “This is a serious matter.”
“Why must serious matters need clothes with you? I raised you to enjoy yourself.” Aengus set the book aside among the wood shavings on the table. “Do you need a power boost?”
“Let me try first.” I sucked what little magic I could from the surrounding environment—it was much harder than in the gardens where I reigned. The rest I needed came from the anger boiling in my belly. How could my family still insist on treating my mother and I like mere children? I had reached my maturity and Mother was long past her own. Father may have sealed me in Bri Leith since my infancy, but I refused to let him cage her in that cell of a bedroom.
“You’re thinking again.” Aengus glamoured himself a pair of loose purple trousers held up by a gold cord. “Simplify your purpose. The magic is neutral, it doesn’t care about the why. To channel it you have to think simple, basic requests. If you don’t, it’s liable to rebel and do something different, like refuse to work at all.”
“It is far from neutral in this place. The entire house reeks of Father. It resists me.”
“You’re pulling from your anger, right? Use Midir’s domain to enhance that. What did he do now?”
“It has to do with Mother.”
“Ah. Make the gate and we’ll talk more.”
I concentrated on breathing as my father’s magic surrounded my body, a cruel weight pushing down as if it wanted me on my knees. A heat flared deep in my gut and spread out against the outside force. I focused a single image toward the mirror: my hands parting the frame so I could step through, like I was an animal in a human cartoon. It amused and appeased the magic enough that the glowing bronze stretched itself to fit my height. The scents of wood dust, parchment, and herbs wafted around me as I squeezed inside. As soon as I emerged through my uncle’s looking glass, the connecting point, the hand mirror slipped through after me, returning to its original size.
“That has to be your best one yet.” Aengus waved and the stool reserved for me slid into place beside him. “My brother must have done something horrendous to provoke that performance.”
“He said Mother isn’t allowed outside her room and I can’t visit her anymore.” I sagged onto my usual perch.
“I know Midir can be stubborn, but he always has reasons behind what he does,” Aengus said, pursing his lips. “What exactly happened?”
“I took Mother for a walk and she was doing fine, the most like herself she’s been in years. Then she reverted. Next I know, Father bursts out and declares she’s too dangerous.”
“Is she well? Did she hurt herself?”
“Both her and I are fine.”
“Then what gave him the impression that she’s dangerous?”
“Her hands may have been around my neck.” I rubbed the base of my throat on reflex. “I was handling the situation.”
“Of all the times she’s been unstable, she’s never laid a finger on you.” My mentor frowned, his merry dimples vanishing. “I’m afraid I have to agree with Midir. She’s deteriorated too much.”
“But that doesn’t mean we can’t reverse the damage, does it? I know we can do more. Surely you’re capable.”
“That all depends on how we try.” Aengus folded his fingers atop his lap. “I was down this same road with Midir when her mind first started unwinding. Her will is strong and her condition is strange.”
“Well, I’m not my father.” I grabbed at whatever frenzied ideas came to mind. “Why not erase the memories that are causing the problem to begin with? Do away with her former life, let her think of herself as a lucky human who Father fell in love with and took away to Tir Na Nog. Or we can meld the memories together. Make them whole rather than seem like two separate entities.”
“There are many problems with those ‘solutions,’ Daire.” Aengus counted them off on his fingers as he went. “If we wipe away any part of her memories, it will unalterably change her. As for any melding, they’re already whole. She only believes they are two separate pieces because her human mind cannot contain that much. She appears so young, yet she has lived longer than ten lifetimes and remembers every moment. The human mind has certain limitations since it was meant for a mortal existence.”
“Then how did so many humans survive here for so long without deteriorating like she has?”
“None of them had her extra memories, or her unique background,” Aengus explained. “Your mother’s situation is exceptional. The Otherworld’s magic might have kept her stable if Tir Na Nog were still connected to the mortal realm, but there’s no telling how much its power has fluxed since the walls were sealed. It’s miraculous she lasted as long as she did before something like this happened.”
“What if we turned her back into an Aos Si? She was reborn before. If that essence is still inside of her, isn’t there a way we could make her body take back its true shape?”
“Daire, after so many years, I’m still puzzling over how she survived.” Aengus’ gaze softened, his serious mien turning to pity as he patted my knee. “She made her way into a human woman’s womb, after being digested, and was reborn as a human babe of the same likeness and name. Do you know how much serendipity that requires, how many interventions of fate it takes for such a thing to happen? I can’t fathom trying to recreate a similar transformation. To even think of reversing what kept her alive and brought her back to us feels like an insult to the powers that accomplished it. With so many unknowns, trying that has the possibility of unmaking her altogether. Midir refuses to risk it, and frankly, so do I.”
“So that’s it? We give up and leave her to languish in that prison? Just a shadow without any coherent thought or action of her own?”
“As much as it pains me to admit, yes. That’s what we must do.”
I slumped forward, burying my face in my hands. Tears slipped out and phlegm hindered my breathing, but I stifled the small whimpers threatening to escape. The woman had raised me, soothed my aches and wiped my tears. She walked with me in my gardens and admired my handiwork without reproach. When my father dismissed my attempts to bond with him, she rocked me. Every one of my stories of humanity’s funny behaviors made her laugh and she marveled with me at their advances. Despite losing her connection to the Earth and her ancient power, she still defended me against Riona’s barbs.
“I’m sorry, Daire.” My uncle scooted closer and gripped me tight.
As I shoved my face into the hollow of his waiting neck, a stray thought made my stomach churn with the slightest sliver of hope. It was a question unasked, something I dare not speak aloud.
What if I escaped to the human world and took Mother with me?
Their world had made scientific leaps that helped those with illnesses similar to Mother’s condition. If they could not cure her, they could make it easier. She could live out the rest of her days to a ripe old age, like she wanted, and I would be by her side through it all.
The only problem: most humans who had spent too long in Tir Na Nog turned to dust when sent back to the mortal world after the Key’s creation. Though, a few had survived to become village outcasts or mad hermits. Could my mother be one of those exceptions? If she had survived against all odds before, would she do it again?
It was a hope and that made my decision. First I would liberate myself, then I would save her.