December 29, 2014. 7:10am

Shrewsbury, Vermont, USA

Ériu

Back at camp, the púcas tended to me as best as they could. They had only a basic medical kit, so they went through all of their gauze in all of five minutes. There wasn’t much they could do for my wounds except to do a mostly rudimentary clean. There were enough sterile bandages to cover my hands, but not much more. They gave me a fresh shirt for my body and hoped that the clothing would offer some protection for the wounds on my back.

“We are going to go meet with the rest of our kin at Clarendon Gorge,” Roy said as he packed up his meager belongings. “We will take you to see the healer there.”

Keeley touched the top of my head. “Thank you. You protected our Jamie. We will be forever thankful.”

I was sitting in the shelter with my hands held up in the air like I had something gross on them and couldn’t set them down. I held them there awkwardly, afraid I might bump them on something. “I have a question for you both, if you don’t mind helping me to understand.”

“Of course.” Roy stopped his packing and came to stand in front of me with Keeley.

“Is Jamie your son?”

The two looked confused, but Keeley took the first stab at trying to explain. “You really don’t know much about Annwn, do you? How do you think souls come to be in the Otherworld?”

“Well…Tuatha and new Fae species are shot out of the Heart-shaped Pool, from what I’m told. Fomorian and changeling kids can be born in Annwn but have to come here to be ‘aged.’ I don’t know about the existing Fae species.”

“‘Existing Fae species’ would describe everyone else in Annwn,” Roy said dryly.

“I guess, that’s what I’m asking,” I said. “How does it work for your family here?”

Keeley sat down on her pack and looked like she was thinking hard about where to start. “For the most part, Fae reproduction doesn’t work the same way as it does for the Fomorian and Changelings. When someone dies here, their spirit goes to Annwn. There are some that are tired and want to rest. Those souls proceed directly to Uffern with the God of Death himself. The other souls…”

“The vengeful and unfinished ones…” Roy added. “Oh, and the volunteers.”

Keeley nodded. “Yes, those souls stay behind and remain in Annwn as some form of Fae.”

I raised one of my injured hands to let her know I had a followup question. She continued to talk, anticipating what I was going to ask. “Some of those souls are adults and some are children, based on the age of the soul when they pass.”

“Jamie isn’t related to Keeley and I biologically, if that is what you are wondering,” Roy added.

“So will Jamie remain a child forever?” I asked. The child hadn’t left my side since we’d returned to the camp.

They nodded and each placed their hands on Jamie. “If we had stayed in Annwn,” Keeley said.

I still had so many questions, but the group had finished packing up the rest of the camp and begun to mobilize. I stood and joined Roy and Kelley to walk further in on the trail.

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“We have just over two miles to go to meet up with the others,” Roy said.

We walked in a single-file line, except for the new shadow at my side. Jamie insisted on carrying my dagger and armor, though we had all told him it was too cumbersome.

Roy and I talked at length about the war with the Tuatha. The general consensus was that the Fomorians had broken the peace. Roy blamed the Fae that had aligned themselves with Cai and his adopted brothers and sisters. I could hear an undercurrent of resentment at the Tuatha for lumping whole categories of Fae into the Slaugh category.

“Are there others like you, fleeing the war?” I asked as we crossed Vermont Highway 103.

Roy nodded. “More and more Fae will come to Ériu to avoid imprisonment or death.”

Keeley rejoined us as the trail widened. She took Jamie’s free hand. “Those that don’t flee will have to pick a side or keep their heads low.”

I looked around. The gorge parking area was on our right as we approached. There were no cars in the lot, but I could tell that this section of the Long Trail got a lot of traffic. I could hear the rushing of ice cold water ahead.

We walked another few minutes and I could see the narrow suspension bridge that crossed what Roy and Keeley had told me was the Mill River. With the snow pack on top of the bridge, it felt like we could topple over the side at any moment. I could hear the sound of people talking and laughing down over the bank to the left. In the clearing ahead waited a small group of people who greeted the first of our party to cross the bridge with embraces. Some eyed me with suspicion.

I continued to hold my bandaged hands in an uncomfortable, upright position. But other than my awkward-looking hands, my wounds weren’t visible. I just looked like a strangely dressed hiker that had decided to tag along with Keeley, Roy, and the rest of their group.

The children sprinted forward and began whispering and pointing at me. Even some of the adults did the same. Before long I had random púcas coming up to say thank you or to just touch me. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with it, but they were so happy to see each other, it was hard to be grumpy about a little extra attention.

Colin, Becca, and Leslie had headed down the snowy bank to the river where the rest of the púcas had their main camp. I could smell some sort of meat cooking from where I was up on the hill and would have been making a beeline for the food had I not been in so much pain.

Keeley and Roy had gone into the crowd when we arrived and now I saw them leading a handsome, bearded man in my direction. He had short, slightly curly hair and a perfectly manicured beard. His striking green eyes were accentuated by his green cloak and undershirt. He wore no coat, but appeared unbothered by the cold.

“Bren,” Keeley said with a smile. “This is the healer I told you about. Everyone here just calls him D.”

The man stepped forward and offered a hand. Suddenly realizing I would not be able to shake, he instead gave a slight bow. “The pleasure is all mine, Bren.”

That voice…I knew that voice. Where had I heard it before? The man gave me a small smile and gently took my right hand in his. He began to unwrap the bandages. “You won’t heal quite as fast in this realm as you would back home.”

I couldn’t quite place how I knew the man, but he had a deep, familiar voice. It was soft and nurturing.

“You should really stop trying to blow yourself up,” D continued, producing a vial of golden liquid.

“Is that súg?” I asked.

The man nodded and waved his left hand in a flourish before dabbing his finger on the top of the vial. He then outlined the injuries on my hand with the golden liquid. With a final wave of his hand, the flesh began to knit itself closed. I felt a brief sensation of popping and stretching from the tips of my fingers up to my elbows on that arm. When it stopped, the pain in that hand did, too.

He repeated the action again for my left arm, using only a small portion of of the súg, before asking me to remove my shirt. Strange, as I hadn’t told him that I had injuries beyond my hands. Maybe Roy or Keeley had?

He winced when he saw the claw marks from the Bodach. “Did you hear the voices?” he asked, meeting my eyes.

“No,” I lied, remembering the screaming earlier that morning that drove me to my knees.

“What’s he talking about, Bren?” Keeley asked, looking concerned.

“He will be fine, my dear.” D looked meaningfully down the hill to the tents. “What Bren needs now is a hearty breakfast. Would you and Roy mind going down to get him some food?”

The two púca left hesitantly and made their away down the hill and away from us. The top of the hill, where the reunion had taken place minutes before, was now devoid of people. D opened his mouth again, saying

“You have one blood-born curse: Mark of the Bodach.”

It was the way he said it. I immediately recognized his voice, except this time it wasn’t inside my mind. Though it had taken coming back to Earth, I seemed to have found the missing god of magic.