December 21, 2014. 7:30am

Caerwent, UK

Ériu

“It’s time to wake up, Bren.”

“What time is it?” I asked Tathan through the door.

“10 minutes since the last time I came to your door.” The impatient voice didn’t seem to be moving from its spot outside of my room.

We were staying in the Coach and Stables Inn, somewhere in Wales. I had too much to drink the night before and a morning hike no longer seemed like a great idea.

“If you don’t get up and get ready now, we will miss the sunrise.” I could hear disappointment in Tathan’s voice. That was unusual for my “manservant.” Okay, he wasn’t really my manservant. That’s just what I called him… to his face. And he loved it.

Tathan was my caretaker; appointed and funded by my late parents to watch over me into adulthood. And adulthood began at age 30, right? Truthfully, I was the ripe old age of 22, but Tathan told me (regularly) that I was 22 going on 12. He meant it in the nicest possible way. I think.

“Okay! Okay. I’ll get dressed. How long do I have?” I groggily searched through the pile of clothes I’d left strewn on the floor.

“I told you all of this last night. Do you not remember any of it?” I could practically hear Tathan’s eyes rolling.

“I know,” I said, while dancing one leg into my hiking pants. “But I was more focused on my lukewarm Guinness and less focused on getting up at the ass crack of dawn.”

“It’s about 20 minutes up from the car park to the standing stones. Another 20 minutes to the Iron Age hill forts, and another five to the western edge of the hill.”

I yanked my socks up. “I’m almost ready. I just have to brush the fuzz out of my mouth.”

“I’ll meet you outside. It’s a 5-minute ride to the car park. We have about 45 minutes until the sun rises over the Severn.”

“The what?” I asked, honestly confused. “Why are we doing this again?”

“It’s… hard to explain.” Even through the door, I could hear him struggling with his next words. “You’ll have to see it to believe it.”

I heard the floor creak as the large man walked away. The fact that my overweight caretaker wanted to go on a hike was surprising. I think my desire to go back to bed was only overridden by the desire to see him sweating through his winter coat. I finished brushing my teeth, grabbed a coat, and headed out the door.

Only one road ran through the middle of Caerwent, the town we were in. We were headed from the edge of the remains of a Roman wall to the residential area, and on the edge of that, to a parking lot. It’s called a car park in Wales, I guess.

“What is the Severn?” I asked, still thinking about Tathan’s last statement about wanting to reach our destination by sunrise.

Tathan glanced at me. “The River? You really don’t know about the River Severn?”

“Hey! I’ve never been here before. I’ve been in the UK for about 30 hours at this point. Cut me some slack.”

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He shook his head. “You have been here before. You just don’t remember.”

“You’re right,” I said, trying to catch up to Tathan as we walked up the dark path. The trees hung over us and bared their empty branches. I could see my breath in the pre-dawn light. “You know I don’t remember that stuff.” The truth was, I didn’t remember anything before my 18th birthday.

Tathan kept his back to me. “We haven’t talked much about your memory loss, have we?”

“Well, I’ve tried. But you always tell me that ‘someday, I will remember everything’.” He didn’t seem to notice my attempt at mocking his deep voice.

Tathan stopped on the path. “That’s true.” The trees had begun to thin out this far up on the hill. In the distance, I could see some stones sticking up out of the ground next to the trail. “And that day is today.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” I asked, finally catching up to him.

Tathan turned toward me. I could see frost glistening on his beard in what little light there was. “On Midwinter morn…” he began, but I cut him off with a laugh.

“‘Midwinter morn?’ Thou are speaking in yawn ways that doth hurt my ears. Come on. Tell me the truth. Why are we here?”

He exhaled, his massive frame expelling a great cloud of mist into the air. He gazed around, before focusing back down the hill and to the horizon. “I have come to love you, Bren. But if you are going to get through the next few weeks, you’re going to have to start listening.” He paused. “The druids of old engineered these standing stones to help their people understand the natural world. One of the things the stones told them was the exact date of Midwinter’s morning.”

“How could a stone tell them that?” My curiosity was piqued by Tathan’s serious tone.

Tathan pointed over his right shoulder, back out to a body of water that I could only guess must be the Severn. "There is a notch in the hills across the Severn. On Midwinter’s morning, the sun rises in the notch of the hill and lines up perfectly with the standing stones on this hill.”

“That’s pretty amazing. Does it still work that way? How many years ago are we talking?”

“Aye, it still ‘works.’ And the antiquity depends on which stones you are talking about. In Ireland, standing stones were used 5,000 years ago. These particular stones fell out of use around the time the Romans lured the Celtic tribes out of their hill forts, about 1500 years ago.”

“Why did the druids care so much about Midwinter morning?” I noticed the long grasses on the hill were becoming more visible as the sky continued to lighten.

Tathan began walking again, up toward the first standing stone. We were still a few minutes away from the moss-covered stone. “Several reasons. The first was that Midwinter morning, or the winter solstice, as we now call it, was the shortest day of the year. Tomorrow, the sun will shine in the sky a little bit longer than it did today. And so on… The Celtic people used this information to begin preparing their agricultural calendar.”

“Fascinating…” I said, beginning to lose interest.

Tathan noticed. He put his hand on my shoulder as we walked. “It was an amazing time, especially on this particular spot. The people of the town came out of their earthen homes and celebrated one of the few days of the year when the veil between this world and the Otherworld was thin.

“The Otherworld?” I asked.

Tathan nodded. “The land of magic and the undying. And on the solstice, the fey spirits and Celtic gods could come and be amongst the people, here in the mortal world.”

I held back a laugh. “Aren’t I a little old for fairy tales?”

“You’ll have to ask the fairy.”

“What?” I was beginning to worry about Tathan. I wasn’t sure where this conversation was going anymore.

We stopped next to the rough-hewn standing stone. It was tall, rising to around my eye level. At the top of the stone was a notch cut about three inches wide. I looked at my older friend. “Tathan…you’re really starting to freak me out.”

“I know,” he replied, with an expression that looked oddly like pity. “I’m trying to prepare you for what is coming.”

“I know I’m not a great listener, dude, but from the sound of things, the great magic of Midwinter ‘morn’ is going to suddenly restore my memory. There was something about some dead gods… oh, and a fairy.” It was too early for this nonsense, and I was starting to get upset with Tathan and his cryptic riddles.

“I never said anything about dead gods.” Tathan turned serious. “It is time for sunrise. Take your place behind the stone and watch the horizon.”

I paused and then sighed loudly, wanting him to recognize my frustration. Then I walked to the uphill side of the stone and took my position.

I placed my nose near the notch in the top of the stone and scanned the distant hillside across the River Severn. The mist that surrounded us burned away as the first rays of the sun began to crest the hill.

A brilliant color came to us as if in slow motion. And through the notch in the old druid stone I saw the world anew.