The babes of the mist must pay a fee,

Their stones will forever hold the key.

To the waves of the wells they'll always be,

For the babes of the mist are free.

As my mother recited the last lines of the haunting song, I listened to the words more closely. This time, I tried to pick apart the meaning, as opposed to reveling in the nostalgia of the familiar tune. What stones was she singing about?

“This one was yours.” My mother pointed to a mound with a larger opening than many of the others seemed to have. The hill my mother motioned to had not yet given in to time and the elements. There was moss on the stones, of course, but it appeared to be less a part of the landscape than the other mounds. She smiled, remembering. “You and Cai built it up, stone by stone, as you grew here with us.”

I could feel a slight pull on my body, drawing me closer to the mound. I reached out to touch what must have been the doorway. The rough edges of the stone felt familiar to me, as though my fingers still remembered cuts and calluses from a time that had passed.

Slowly, a memory emerged from the recesses of my mind. I remembered a cool night, the moon shining on my sweaty arms. I had marveled at the dirt congregating on the inside creases of my elbows. I remembered the smell of the damp air as I had worked with my brother, carrying a stone over hills to the very spot I was now standing. I remembered finally putting the stone in place above what would become our doorway to the mainland. Cai had smiled at me, looking both proud and sad.

The memory faded, the remembered dusk turning into the dawn I found myself in now. And instead of my brother, I had my mother beside me. “To get from this isle to the mainland,” she said, “the sons and daughters of the mist must build their own doorways. Once they have built their mounds, they may enter through to the Heart-shaped Pool. You and Cai were no different.”

I nodded, thinking about the memory, as I looked across the rocky landscape around us. “All these mounds were constructed.”

This time it was her turn to nod. “Brú,” she said. “We call the mounds the brú. It can mean ‘mansions,' but I think a better translation is ‘womb.’”

“It was a right of passage… a rebirth,” I mused, realization sinking in. “Once we were strong enough to build our brú, we were strong enough for our genesis.” I had to hold fast to the archway then, as the gentle tug in my chest had begun to grow stronger.

She gave another nod. “On the night of the Cold Moon, you and your brother placed the keystone in the archway. Your Da and I had watched you both toil all day. Finally, as the moon rose in the sky, there was a roll of thunder, and you both sat exhausted in the rain.”

I could imagine the hills then, as she described them. I could even picture the briefest flash of lightning on the face of my brother. And suddenly, the memory of that night came flooding back.

The tugging in my chest grew painfully strong, becoming a nearly irresistible pull toward the entrance of the mound before me. I turned to look at my mother.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

She smiled sadly. “Your time with me is at an end, it seems. He gave you as much time as he could.”

I reached out a hand, but she stepped back, simply waving. I watched tears fall from her eyes as I was pulled backward into the doorway of my brú for the second time in my life.

It was like the time I had traveled back to Annwn from Earth. There was no wind or sound or any other stimulus in the vast blackness. Even the pull in my chest had subsided.

I floated there, with the newly remembered scenes from the night of the Cold Moon playing behind my eyes. I remembered my first crossover from Hy-Brasil to Annwn and I remembered what had come before that moment, starting with the placing of the keystone in our mound.

After carefully placing the stone above the entryway, we had flopped down, spent. It had taken the strength of both of us to lift the large stone. Laughter had filled the air that night. We were dirty and wet all over from our efforts. Cai had been joking about carrying more stones than me when the storm broke above us.

The rain had washed our bodies of the dirt from the day. We had felt safe in the storm. We had felt no malice around us and saw no danger. Before the panic, I had seen a shimmer from just below the keystone. We had done it! The lights of the weave began to dance out from the doorway of our brú.

We had jumped up, smiling at each other. The ramifications of what we had done registered with Cai before it reached my conscious mind. Despite the smile on his face, Cai's eyes were sad. He knew that it was time for us to leave our home on the misty isle and go into the wider world.

These memories were so clear to me, even though I couldn't see beyond the boundaries of the other brú or before the placing of the keystone. I remember knowing that father sat with my mother nearby that night, but I couldn't picture his face.

What was now clear in my mind was the silhouette of the woman who had stepped from the shadows. She had been difficult to see, at first, because she appeared behind Cai. At first, I had thought it was my mother, but the proportions were off. She was smaller and clothed in black, though it seemed more like the deep black wore the woman. It flowed off of her like a living thing, almost as if she were a symbiote from Marvel Comics. I had frozen at the sight.

It was my mother's scream of primal fear cutting through the night that had prompted me into action. The sound thrust me forward, knocking Cai aside. The woman had reached for me, wrapping black extensions of herself around my face and head. A cold burn pushed into me through her grasp as she took my memory. I don't know whether it was intentional or accidental, but I knew I had changed completely that night.

Cai had grabbed me then, pulling me away from the woman. I had felt dizzy, I remembered. I hadn't known where I was, or who he was. Only in seeing these scenes play out in my mind now, could I understand what had happened to me that night.

My eyes had locked onto Cai’s, just for a second, and he had seen the confusion in them. The woman lunged again, wrapping herself around Cai’s torso. His face twisted from the pain and cold, but instead of turning to fend off his attacker, Cai had kicked me through the doorway of our brú.

Blackness. The end of the memories. I knew I was here again, the same nothingness I had been in after Cai had kicked me through the doorway and into the safety of the in-between. In a few moments, I would splash down into the Heart-shaped Pool...just as I must have done that night four years ago.

So this was why I had appeared in the Pool ahead of Cai, and this was why I had remembered nothing of my time in Hy-Brasil. The woman had stolen away my memories. Now I had at least one memory back...though it prompted even more questions about my past.

What had happened to Cai that night? Had she corrupted him in some way? Our love for each other on the island was plain to see. And why oh why had I not thought to ask my mother more questions about her and my father? Even their names would have been something that I could have asked Morias about later.

Morias…I couldn't believe I had forgotten about him, even for a moment. Had he even survived the battle at Gorias? I hoped I would find out.

Soon, I knew I would be reborn into the larger war between the Tuatha and the Fomorian. I would likely face my brother on the battlefield. I wondered if he remembered the events of that night. I wonder if he remembered saving me.

The lines that had once seemed so clear began to muddle themselves in my mind. I felt the sensation of water cover my body, and as I swam to the surface of the sacred pool of water, I saw the now familiar purple sky of the Otherworld welcoming me home.