Chapter 13: WITCHES’ DANCE
"Right, Caoimhe," I say to my daughter, "if you want to stay awake for the dance at the Faerie Ring tonight, you need to get your head down for at least a couple of hours."
"Aw, Daaad!" she whines, "I’ll be far too excited to sleep."
"At least try, sweetheart," I say, "you will be much more alert and will enjoy the dancing more if you are refreshed. I’ll set the alarm on my cell phone and make sure I get you up in plenty of time. Honestly, you won’t miss a thing."
"I’m going to have a wee sleep, too," Etain says, which seems to end the argument.
Caoimhe does go down to sleep after supper and a cup of hot sweet cocoa, without too much objection. Hot sweet cocoa always makes me sleepy so I hope it helps her relax enough to get a little sleep.
I do have to wake Caoimhe when we all get up at midnight, although the dancing is not going to start until about a quarter after one, when the moon will be directly overhead in our world. We do get well wrapped up first against the chill damp night and we enjoy the adventurous walk as we make our way by LED torchlight, through the backyard to what is now Etain’s house, to the wood where we found the Faerie Ring.
Once there, with Etain leading the way, as soon as we step into the bramble patch the brambles melt away and disappear while the overcast skies of our world clear and the three-quarter moon illuminates the ring perfectly.
As I said before, these connecting portals between our two worlds seem to straddle both worlds and what is overgrown or flooded on one side, is open grassland on the other side and, as we enter or leave the Ring, we move between our world and the Otherworld seamlessly, so that it seems a little part of the Otherworld sits on our bramble patch.
Then, out of the apparent shadows on the edge of the ring, the other six Witches appear and, without any preamble, Etain waves us to stay where we are on the edge and she joins them in the center of the ring.
They start to dance hand in hand in a glorious ring of beautiful fluidity, all of them suddenly wearing flowing gowns.
Etain had worn training shoes and jogging bottoms with a warm woollen coat over her sweatshirt in our walk to the Faerie Ring but now she is totally transformed, wearing a diaphanous wisp of what could only be called clothing by a stretch of the imagination and silver satin dancing shoes on her feet as she and her witch sisters dance in a ring, a flowing affirmation of elegance and beauty.
Caoimhe clings to my arm on the edge of the Faerie Ring as she watches on fascinated by the dance. I am only a little less moved by the fantastic pageantry of fluid movement before us.
After maybe five minutes or so of dancing, one of the witches peals off, and approaches us as if she is on wings.
"Caoimhe," she says to my daughter in a sing-song voice, "go and join the others, they desire to dance with you again, while I take this opportunity to talk to your father."
"OK, Aunt Katie," she replies, before she eagerly jumps up and, as she runs towards the circle of dancers, Kaetlynn describes a figure of eight in the sky with her index finger while pointing at my daughter, and Caoimhe’s waterproof anorak and sensible wellingtons turn into clothing entirely appropriate to any simple cavorting dance of witches under the bright bewitching moon.
If I was ever in doubt at the tale of Irish mythology that Etain has woven for us for the past seven days, I can clearly have no shred of doubt about it now.
"My dear sweet Kaetlynn," I greet my former neighbor, "I’ve never seen you such before as you are now. You are indeed as beautiful as Etain described and more beautiful than I have words to describe."
"And you, my dear Richard, are as charming and as handsome as ever. Now," she says as she kisses my cheek, squeezes my shoulders, then turns and we both face the prancing dancers, "are you yet resolved in your relationship with my sister Etain?"
"I do not know yet," I reply carefully and as honestly as I can, knowing there can be no secrets in the adventure that our realigning lives have become recently. "Etain tells me that she loves me, and she tells me that constantly so that I can be allowed no doubt," I laugh, "and I do find her absolutely fascinating. In her I know I would find eternal joy for as long as I live. But I must consider Caoimhe before everything else."
"Caoimhe loves her already, Richard, and she is at the start of her time when she needs both a mother and a father, each for different reasons, both for her protection and her wellbeing as she develops into a woman. As wonderfully well as you’ve been in being both parents for her for so many years, it is now time for her to have a real mother, one who can take her through the next few steps to womanhood and, when she has a family of her own and a man of her own to please, she will get the advice a growing woman needs. At the time that I left the pair of you, and that was partly what made me leave here to force her hand, Caoimhe’s need was becoming more important than I was able to forego any longer. Etain had prevaricated for far too long until that point and, well … our father was getting anxious."
"Ah, I thought that the spectre of the Tuatha Dé Danaan would rear his ugly head sooner rather than later."
"Hush, Richard, you stand two metres inside the land of the Tir na nÓg and, while there are no walls about us, every tree, every daisy, everything has ears in this place and the Tuath Dé may not be pleased to hear of your disrespect. Yes, our father is involved as he is in everything and I have myself had little to do with his interference, being only of the Otherworld for a short while. I know that Etain has told you of the Changelings —”
"Wait," I interject, "Etain has mentioned them but really told me absolutely nothing of them. What are Changelings and what do they have to do with me?"
"Everything, Richard, everything," Kaetlynn whispers, "but I too, know little of them, only that throughout Irish history child abuse and infanticide has been blamed on Changelings, where mothers and even fathers have believed that their normal children have become possessed by devils and changed beyond recognition. My father has been searching for a Changeling forever.”
She waved a hand towards the dancers.
“My sister Afric will explain to you what you need to know. She is the eldest of us and has been here in the Otherworld the longest, since she was 12,” Kaetlynn says, “Etain barely knows Afric, she was only two summers old when Afric left us and Etain only met her again a couple of nights ago.” She pauses. “No matter how many times Etain visited this place through portals such as this, she has never felt that she belongs here. Know this, Richard, whatever happens tonight, I know Etain truly loves you. She feels as though you two were meant for each other and no telling her to relax and breathe will hold her back from that belief. If you decide she is not the one for you, then please let her down gently and while we are here with her to protect her. She has always been alone in this world, and has not committed herself to this world, yet, and doesn’t feel she fits in your world either, and she has been happy for all these years to drift along as she is, feeling she had a destiny to fulfil but knowing not what it is. We hoped you might provide the answer and suggested she visit with you. Now she has met you she wants what she may never be able to have and such discovery of a false dawn might destroy her. She is more delicate than you might imagine.”
“I know, Katie,” I say, “I do believe that I love her. I realised that earlier today, not long after she gently embarrassed me in front of my friends and I actually felt pleased and delighted that so soon after meeting me she could regard me so comfortably in the presence of others. If felt as though we were already a couple confident in the sharing of our lives. I haven’t felt like that since, well, since Ella. And I think Caoimhe is already convinced that Etain is family."
"Having an Irish witch in your family, Richard, is a unique advantage that few even know they would wish to dream to embrace. While she would never be able to read the future of herself, or you or your family, well, who wishes to curse themselves to know everything that is coming? Life is to be lived in the day, to have a future full of hopes and dreams. Only those who know their future almost as well as they know their past, have no wishes or hopes or even dreams.”
“Well, I do not have a clue about my future and still I have no dreams.”
“But,” she grasps my arm firmly, “You do have hope and wishes?”
“I do.”
“And is Etain now part of those hopes and wishes?”
“I hope they are,” I admit, “In a week since I’ve known her, I feel that she has made us a family, so, yes, I have hopes that she is an intrinsic part of our future.”
She squeezes my arm a little harder before releasing her grip and, with her eyes moving to the side and back again, she directs my gaze to where she has glanced. “Good, Afric is coming.”
Towards us walks, no, glides with effortless flowing movement, a tall, willowy young woman with long flowing dark brown hair, a goddess, who smiles so disarmingly that any male who has not just this second determined where his love firmly lay, would be instantly smitten.
Kaetlynn melts away from me, back to the dancers who, I see in my peripheral vision, pull her in, hold her hands and restart their joyous dancing, Caoimhe eagerly among them, her long red hair flowing behind as she joins the joyful throng as if she has always danced with immortal witches every Friday night when school is out.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
***
“I’m Afric, Richard,” the willow woman that Kaetlynn has left to take her place in keeping me company says in a husky voice, “Are you enjoying the dance?”
I turn my attention from the dancers and look at the goddess now standing at my side also looking at the joyously moving scene before us. She is very tall, an inch or two taller than me, and I am more often than not the tallest man in the room and never yet met a woman taller than me, especially one who is otherwise so light and feminine in her build.
“I’m sorry for my distraction,” I say, “My daughter has always had a love of dancing, but I don’t think I have ever seen her so happy as she is now. And, though Etain is still an enigma in my life she looks totally at home even though I get the impression that she is normally a solitary soul. As for Kaetlynn, I’ve only ever known her as an elderly woman, who tended to shuffle with the aid of a walking stick rather than glide and bob and leap so athletically and it is fascinating to me to see her so, well, so buoyant and full of beans. And beautiful, too. I’d always thought she was a lovely person, but seeing her now as she really is, is …”
“Magical?”
I see Afric is smiling with both her mouth and her glittering eyes, amused no doubt by the wonder she detects in my eyes.
“Yes," I agree, "truly magical. You must forgive me. I am from a culture where ‘magic’ means CGI, smoke and mirrors and fakery. Since Etain appeared everything seems to have to be looked at in a new light."
"I can see it is bewildering to you," Afric smiles. "My father would like a word with you in a few minutes if you will permit."
"Why?" I ask, "Does he want me to ask for the hand of one of his daughters?"
She laughs, "Is it yourself asking for her hand now?"
"Maybe," I smile back, "I don’t want to get on the wrong side of a ‘god’."
"My father is not really a god, Richard. Powerful, vengeful, and not of this Earth, but he is no god. I have asked Bebhinn to speak with you shortly before my father summons you. He is unable to enter the circle as he has tried the patience of those who maintain the treaty between our worlds too often. Etain and Kaetlynn have mentioned the Changelings to you and I would like to explain what they are."
"I am all ears."
"Down the centuries mothers have complained of their baby, toddler or older child suddenly changing, as if some devil had got into the child."
"Like demonic possession?" I ask, "I know what it is like going through the ‘terrible twos’ and recently the ‘pre-teen tempers’, but is possession really a thing?"
"No, Richard, it is not," she laughs, "I have three daughters, all grown up now, but there were trying times when they were younger but they were not possessed, just children growing up and testing the boundaries. But there have been persistent stories, and many crimes against children, blamed on Demonic Possession of the child occupied by some kind of demon that changes the child from within so the child is unrecognisable by the mother. Think about it for a minute; I’ve seen your cars and aeroplanes. In my day in your world, driving a dog cart or a chariot is easier, once you know the one it is easy to learn the other, but a heavy haulage cart full of stone for building a church, pulled by six oxen was a different matter, as it would be to fly an aeroplane when you’ve only ridden a car before. Same with the body of a child, would a demon be able to control the child’s movements straight away, especially while the original child was still there. No, Richard, it doesn’t seem possible but, in the Otherworld, it is whispered that there are people who are cursed to move directly from death to a newly formed unborn child … and that child has no memories of past or future lives, is a little awkward in relationships, rarely dreams and that witches cannot read their past or future because they are not born normally in this world."
"And you think I might be one of these Changelings?" I ask.
"Possibly," Afric smiles, "You know, my witch sisters of the Otherworld have kept up our observations of our three sisters in your world ever since the curse that banished them to Slievenamon. We would have loved to have grabbed them and brought them to our world, or at least attempted to lure then here. But my father had tried the patience of the High Council for too long and were permitted only to allow Etain to believe she sneaked past Alannah to first enter the Otherworld."
"So you sisters lured her in?"
"Aye, quietly, using Alannah, a sister who was taken to the Otherworld before Etain was even born. Thereafter we watched her whenever she entered and again when she left and were surprised that it was 20 years before she brought Kaetlynn and Bebhinn with her, time passes so differently in both worlds. We could never really see them in your world until recently and have been able to hack into the Web and search CCTV footage. Anyway, time for me to dance again, Bebhinn is come."
Afric squeezes my arm, kisses me on the cheek and walks back to the dance.
Towards me walks another absolute vision.
I know I have said these sisters are all beautiful as a group of young lovelies dancing in this ring for the last ten minutes or so, but the present one approaching me is simply outstandingly stunning.
Now, I have already committed myself to Etain, a beautiful girl I have known for barely a week, because I know I love her, and accept that these other witches are her sisters or half-sisters, so they are almost family and I may have to meet them together or individually for many years to come, knowing that these immortal beauties will always appear young and beautiful, while I grow old and even more careworn than I already am.
Above all I must act responsibly and not embarrass myself, my daughter or my new love but already feel I’m lost already, my jaw has gone slack and my eyes are stuck out like organ stops.
I mean, I love Etain, I no longer have any doubts. I love Kaetlynn, too, having known her as a kind-hearted and a well-preserved but pension-aged white-haired old woman, who I relied on for her freely given time and help with Caoimhe for all my daughter’s life and even a couple of years before that as our neighbor. Now, that she looks as though she’s around my own age, with red blond hair and flashing green eyes, she is indeed very beautiful and currently unattached. I can easily detach myself sufficiently and regard her as a dear friend that I’ve known for almost a third of my life. As for the sensual she-tiger with the looks of a catwalk model that Afric presents, well, she admits that she is married to one of the gods of this place, for probably much of the last millennia and a half — no mortal can be blamed for being affected by the presence of such an unattainable goddess.
But this voluptuous, dark-haired smiling woman with long black hair, olive skin and soft brown eyes like shiny mountain stream washed hazelnuts, is simply stunning … a girl that Etain once described to me as being ‘plain’. No, she’s gorgeous and I’m already completely discombobulated in her aura.
The vision holds out a hand, her face clearly amused by my obvious reaction, "How goes ye, Richard, it’s a pleasure to meet you at last. I’m Etain’s slightly older sister Bebhinn."
Her voice is soft and charmingly sing-song, her smile seems to occupy her whole face, very sweet and endearing. I relax, she is sweet next-door-neighbor lovely, not at all as threatening as I thought, and return her smile.
"The pleasure is all mine," I reply as I gently squeeze her offered hand, "forgive me if I appear that I am a little stunned at your appearance but I was grossly misled to believe that you were the plainest of your sisters, while now I believe you could easily launch thousands of ships effortlessly without lifting a finger."
"One of the advantages of being a witch, Richard," Bebhinn smiles sweetly, "is that we learn how to fog minds early on in life." She chuckles, "Being told throughout your earliest memories by your mother and all her friends that you are the most beautiful baby that ever existed, and then be ousted in their affections by the arrival of baby Etain, not her fault, of course, and further replaced as second choice by the next baby Dubheasa, would shake the confidence of any child. Then, having the lessons of my mother having seven husbands of such short and sudden durations and departures, and Kaetlynn’s first marriage ending in such tragedy, I decided that I wanted a simple life based on having no child of my own, but sweet sisterly affection and the loving care of my bees, I decided that being attractive to the male of my species was counter-productive in my life."
"So you would not object to me and Etain?"
"No, of course not!" Bebhinn squeezed my arm and kissed my cheek.
How do all these sisters calm me by the nearest touch?
"No, Richard, I would delight in being able to call you my brother. Now you must listen carefully, as the time of meeting my father is nigh and there is much you must know. Firstly, the Tuatha Dé are not human at all. They came to this world through the same sort of portals as this, because their own world was destroying itself and, powerful as they are, they could not save it."
"They are aliens?" I ask.
"Aye, just as we witches are."
"You witches aren’t human, either?"
"To be honest, Richard, I haven’t been able to find out exactly where we came from. The restriction on reading our own future applies equally to our past, but I early on noticed when treating people’s ailments over many years, seeing the children and grandchildren inheriting the same genetic conditions made this a lifelong study. The discovery of DNA was great for me. I took a biological degree at Trinity while we lived in Dublin and set up a lab in my basement so I could extract, quantify, amplify and separate samples and analyse without risking outside observation."
"And what does DNA tell you?"
"That we three witches of Slievenamon, are clones, that we are, as far as human research into genetics goes, virgin births, with only tiny traces of influence by our previous genetic make-up on the genes of the three of us."
"Virgin births!" I explode. "But…,"
"Hush, Richard," she soothes me with a touch of her hand on my arm, reinforced with a brush of her lips on my cheek, "my father has admitted to me years ago that what I found out is true. The Tuatha Dé Danaan are not of our world, they assumed their perfect beauty by analysing the humans they found here, and copying what they found here, probably the Neanderthals, and, through a breeding programme, similar to how horse breeders make their horses faster, they produced the first Homo sapiens and changed their bodies to match."
"Oh my god!"
"Yes, I have no memories of my father, he may even have left Mother before I was born, my father isn’t how I remember Etain’s father either, as he didn’t tarry for long. No, I remember our family’s last father and step-father, Elloth, a black man from North Africa, but all seven husbands were actually the very same person, whose settled appearance nowadays is as Afric’s father Crédne. He admitted to me that he was obsessed with defying the Treaty and visiting here and he was all our seven sisters’ ‘fathers’ but he has no human DNA within him to pass on, so he cannot mate with humans, but during their breeding programme over hundreds of thousands of years, they were able to produce a seminal fluid which acts as a catalyst so the hostess of the human egg can self fertilise their egg, rather like an hermaphrodite. Since moving to the Otherworld, I have checked the DNA of all my sisters except Etain, who as you know is never still long enough! The six of us are all clones each with subtle differences absorbed from the DNA Records."
Behind us the dance ends and Afric claps her hands to get my attention and gesticulates that I alone must follow her.
"So little time to explain so much, Richard," Bebhinn says breathlessly, "Crédne is ready for you now. Do not be afraid, he means you no harm, although the Tuatha Dé Danaan are powerful, they are few in number and they can never replenish their numbers, the Otherworld is otherwise filled with people they have known and loved and invited here. It seems that many Tuath Dé are ensnared by Witches, there are many of us here. There is peace in the Otherworld and there can be no breaking of the Treaty, so you must go to him and he will tell you all you wish to know or all that he will wish to tell you.
"One last thing, Richard. I met your Ella when she first came to look at my house with a view to buy. Both Kaetlynn and I sensed her future and also detected that she was one of us, a Witch, very weakly part of her, watered down over many many centuries, but I confirmed her status by DNA testing; she was a Witch and so is Caoimhe."
"I think she would be delighted to hear that."
"I haven’t told her yet, Richard, but I sampled Caoimhe’s DNA on Wednesday and finished analysing it and comparing it to Ella’s that I had kept on file only this evening."
I look puzzled, "Is anything wrong with her DNA?"
"No, it’s as perfect as Etain’s or mine, only…."
"Only … what?"
"Richard, Caoimhe is a clone of her mother Ella…."