Chapter 11: DREAMS?

I sigh contentedly on Friday morning and remain in the warmth under my comforter even though I feel the need rising within my bladder to use the bathroom soon. I think I can hang on a little longer though, not wanting to disturb Etain, whose lovely head is resting on my chest, her light snoring reminding me of the slumbering bees who are probably only now waking up for another long day of foraging.

Yes, Etain is still sleeping in my bed, five nights on. She has done so ever since she begged to stay with me on Sunday night after Caoimhe retired early ready for school next day, the poor girl exhausted after the excitement of the weekend with the unique Etain as our guest.

I had been exhausted too, and I confess that I put up little resistance, agreeing with her sentiments that, "although I know that I love you Richard, I want to be absolutely certain of our mutual feelings before we … you know. Can I somehow ‘soothe thy savage breast’ by singing to you?"

Well, it has been a long time for me to share a bed with anyone, let alone a maiden and, even though it seems odd, even as the thought crosses my mind again, knowing she tells us that she’s at least about 1600 years old, I just cannot help react to how young she looks and conscious too, that if we did settle into the long term relationship that she seems to desire, when I’m seventy and clearly mortal and running out of time, she’ll still look only twenty and as immortal as only a goddess can be.

In a matter of just a few days, Etain has insinuated herself into every aspect of our lives, my daughter and I.

Even though her house has had the electric power restored and she still prefers cooking half our meals over her own open peat fire, she is learning to use our switched on domestic appliances.

She cooks our breakfast every morning and most of our main meals, and prepares Caoimhe’s school snack box to take with her for lunchtime.

So Etain sleeps with me at night, testing my resolve to keep my hands off her delectable body every night and every morning. Now she spends most of the day with me too, travelling to my various work sites in my car or, if I am at home making online meetings or updating servers remotely, she will do the housework or continue to explore the extensive grounds on her side of the cottage and forage for food that I didn’t even know existed.

Then we collect Caoimhe from school together, which almost makes me feel that we are becoming a family. And, of course, Etain has instantly got on with the Moms that we share the school runs with. They don’t have the same school bus system here as in the US, due to the short distances and the schools are much smaller and more neighbourhood based.

Some of the Moms were included me with moving eyebrows and winks. They think that Etain is perfect but then they don’t know that she’s a powerful witch who can calm me with a touch and immortal so she will outlive me and my child’s children and my grandchildren’s grandchildren.

It is a lot to think about as we lie there at dawn.

I think that she goes to the faerie ring too, and even went out Wednesday in the middle of the night, as I noticed her gone when I woke up alone in the middle of the night. I didn’t hear her go or even feel her return but she was back here Thursday morning, much as she is this morning, Friday.

She snuffles and hums with a low drone sometimes. She never really disturbs me, if anything her presence is a comfort, she is always warm to the touch.

***

Monday I had actually travelled with her through the Faerie Ring to a similar portal in Cork, behind a garage in an overgrown garden from where I called a cab to pick us up. They don’t have Uber or Lyft in Ireland but there are plenty of local cabs listed online.

What of my brief experience in the Otherworld?

Well, not much to say other than it mind boggling to take in while you’re there.

I was only there for about 90 seconds on the way to Cork and only about five minutes on the way back. First of all the bramble area of wood in my back yard was replicated in the Otherworld, only outside of the brambles there was no wood, just grass land and rolling hills as far as I could see, under a gorgeous blue sky, while in my back yard it was overcast and drizzling. We took one step and the brambles disappeared back to the Ordinary World, leaving us in grassland.

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We walked down a well trod grass path, around a thicket and into an unfenced and overgrown back yard.

As soon as we stepped into that yard, the heavens opened up with heavy rain and the garden was suddenly enclosed by a close boarded fence, with a boarded up house at one end.

Frighteningly unreal transitions from world into another and back again, with no sign of another soul … or devil or god for that matter.

A gate next to the sealed-up and part derelict house enabled us to get out of the garden into a Cork street which was just a short cab ride to the office where I had to spend half the day setting up and testing a new server.

While there, the beautiful Etain, never far from my side, chatted and charmed all the men and women she met in the offices. She even went out of her way to touch one woman who Etain told me later she sensed had a difficult time in her immediate future and had a quiet word of advice for her to avoid what was to happen. Etain said the woman was almost in tears in gratitude because no-one had understood what torment she was going though or had the solution that Etain suggested.

Living with a witch is never dull, that’s for sure.

We went back home after my work, through a different garden this one at the back of a pub, stepping out of that wet beer garden into the warm sunshine of the Otherworld again. This time it was a longer walk to find the edge of my back yard bramble patch, which took us back home in a matter of steps into overcast skies and the fresh ozone of recent rain.

***

While I lie here reminiscing over my last five days with Etain, I feel her move. Looking down at her lovely head resting on my chest, I see her eyes blink open as she smiles at me.

“Were you away with the faeries and dreaming, Richard?” she asks, her voice still husky from sleep.

“No, I never dream. I was just thinking about our two short journeys through the Otherworld, and how strange that the transition seems so, well neat and tidy. If it wasn’t sunny there and raining here, I wouldn’t even feel the transition.”

“Well, now that I know I have a right to be there in the Otherworld, it sort of takes the edge off,” she grins. “When I rushed past that Faerie folk on my very first foray into the unknown, I was shaking with excitement and hid for all the days I was there from everyone, fearing that they would hold me until I was forced to slake my thirst and be trapped there forever.”

“But you were not trapped.”

“No, but I didn’t know. I thought I was a trespasser and I still feel I don’t belong. I still refuse to eat, drink or sleep while there, all the while I still have the calling to return to this place, the world of my birth.” She sighs. “Is it time to get up yet?”

“No, we’ve twenty minutes before we need to get Caoimhe up from her sleep and feed her breakfast. Were you out at the faerie ring last night?”

“No, not last night, remember it will be Friday night tonight and I promised that we are going dancing together," she smiles. "So, were you not dreaming of me just now?”

“Thinking of you, yes. I seem to be doing a lot of that … ever since you appeared into my life soaked to the skin a week ago, I seem to be thinking of nothing else but you.”

“And now you’re making me wish that I had listened to Kaetlynn all those years ago and met you and Caoimhe then. I am sorry. It took me a long time to make up my mind what was best for me. I rarely act on impulse. Now I realise that you are the answer to my dreams and my only worry is that I will not fulfil the promise of your own dreams.”

"I never dream while I sleep, Etain, at least I never remember any dreams when I wake."

"Not even nightmares?"

"No, Etain, never had nightmares. Caoimhe used to when she was younger."

"That is so odd, Richard, that you do not dream, or you think you don’t dream. Almost everyone I’ve known dreams. I’ll ask Kaetlynn whether that means anything. Now, what do you know of Irish myths?"

"I only know of your Finn MacCool, that he was a giant who made or destroyed the Giant’s Causeway in a fight with some Scottish giant. I think I only heard of him through Ella, possibly after she spoke with your sister Katie. I mean, I now know a bit about Faerie Rings and the like and about witches, but I only ever heard of the Witches of Salem kind, but never heard of any witch stories in Ireland."

"We Irish witches are quiet by nature and we only do good, not evil. My sisters and I were caught out by a sense of injustice, not malice and were punished for our reaction."

"Well, I don’t blame you for what you did, they were cheats who deprived you of a deserved victory, although the hero at the centre of the story was a cheat and liar," I say, adding, "What other myths should I know?"

"There are many, Richard," she smiles and, with questioning eyebrows, asks, "So you’ve not heard anything of the Irish legends of Changelings?"

"No, I don’t think I even heard of them. What are they?"

"Ah, well, Changelings are people who are cursed to occupy other people’s lives, never their own, often they bring mischief and devilment to normal children’s lives."

"What, by taking over bodies and changing from a sweet and child to one who’s been a permanent pain in the butt for the last couple of years?" I say with a degree of feeling but temper my comment with a smile.

"No, Richard, Caoimhe is not a Changeling, she is merely a girl forced to grow up quicker than she should because her only parent is a man, admittedly an adorable one, and doing the very best for his daughter he can, but Caoimhe needs a mother right now and will do for the next few years. You already sense this and dread telling her about sex and menstruation and strategies for dealing with it."

"I thought you couldn’t read my future?"

"I can’t but I know a little about you and know the solution," Etain smiles, "and I’m applying for the job, it’s the only job I’ve applied for since meeting the King of all Ireland somewhere back in the mists of time for my messenger role."

"Well," I say giving her a squeeze, "the job is yours but I’m not sure what I can offer you in return."

"Your heart, Richard," Etain breathes in reply before she sweetly kisses my hairy chest with her soft warm lips, "that, is all I want."