“I didn’t know how I should feel. Part of me wanted to embrace the anger, to let it surge up and take possession of me – yet, another part wanted to know why, wanted to understand, wanted to have a memory in which to latch itself onto. Call it sense, which was seemingly in short supply in this place called Faerie. Maybe if I could make sense of things…

We had been walking for quiet some time and it felt like we were just going in circles.

“Tell me again why we shouldn’t go to Fiacuil’s cave?” I asked H.

“Well, if I was Goll that’s where I would go. He’d try to separate you from your biggest supporter.”

“Faicuil.”

“Exactly, and with Bovmall needing to sleep, he’ll have to seal up the cave to keep the Morna brothers out.”

“How many of them are there?”

“Four. There’s Goll, the humorous, Con’an, the foul mouthed, Garra, the rough, and Art, the savage.”

“What are you? I mean these guys seem to have cool attributes. Do you have one, like H, the disemboweller or something?”

She gave me a steady stare. “No, just H.”

“Do you think I could have one? I mean a cool attribute?”

H started to laugh.

“What?”

“You don’t need to be given one; you already have one.”

“I do, what is it?”

“You have to find that out yourself.”

We were standing in the middle of a field when H looked around and gave a satisfactory nod. “Good, we’re here.”

“A middle of a field?”

H knelt down on the ground and using the long staff she had cut from the woods drew on the ground, then she gave the dirt a smart wrap. A heat mirage rose from the ground, and within it solidified a three story Inn.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“It was always there, you just didn’t see it. Maybe your attribution will be Fionn, The blind.”

“That’s not funny.”

She laughed. “Of course it is. Come on. If we’re going to find a way back to the Library, we’re going to find it here.”

“What’s here?”

“Not so much what, but whom?”

H gave the iron studded Inn door a rap with her fist. The sign hanging above the entrance was of a caldron. A sudden spectral breeze caused it to swing, creaking on the pole.  A little latch slid open and a pair of bloodshot eyes stared out at them.

“Who dares disturb the repose of the great Dagda?”

In the background rose the muffled sounds of laughter and music. Someone was having a party.

“Just tell Birg, it’s me, H.”

The wood latch closed, but it only took a few moments of waiting before the door swung in. A fellow, no taller than three feet, glowered up at us. I recognized the bloodshot eyes. Watching the door close, I looking behind it for some explanation; the wooden slot was at least six feet up.

Another nock sounded at the door, a midget who had been sitting in the shadows waddled over. The bloodshot fellow jumped up on his shoulders and repeated the phrase: “Who dares disturb the repose of the great Dagda?” This time the response wasn’t satisfactory and the midget told the applicant to ‘bugger off.’

“Oh,” he groaned despairingly, “it’s been like this all night ever since Bono from U2 arrived.”

As the top midget toppled down from the shoulders of the other, he motioned us forward. “Come on, Brighid has been expecting you.”

The melodious, driving sounds of  U2, sliced apart by Bono’s rather whining, sharp edged voice was a bit muffled, but when we stepped past the second door we were drenched in it. The big room was filled with jumping, gyrating and screaming people. Sure enough, black sunglasses on, hair slicked back, center stage, stood Bono holding the mic as though he was drinking from it. He howled and the band tried to keep up.

H seemed to like the music, I was indifferent. My problem with U2 was that after Joshua Tree all the songs sounded the same, just a variation on tempo, but same sound.

Only having to kneecap several people, the midget made it to his target out on the dance floor: a willowy blond girl that was dancing out of time with the music. She was swaying to her own internal music that obviously nobody else could hear. The little fellow tugged on the hem of her sheer, white gown and she came out of the trance, bent down to the midget who yelled something in her ear.

She looked up and in dawning great delight and clapped her together. Jumping with excitement she skipped across the dance floor to us. The midget scowled and made his way back to the door.

“H,” she giggled wrapping her arms around her and pulling her into a tight embrace. “Sister, I knew it was you. I could feel you. It’s been so long, come, let us dance.”

I watched in wonder as Birghid pulled a resisting H out onto the dance floor. H shuffled a bit, looking about self-consciously and tried to tactically retreat from her willowy sister, who wasn’t having anything of it. Every time she went to move away, Birghid pulled her back. Two sisters: one who couldn’t dance and the other who danced to her own drummer. Then, H caught me laughing at her obvious discomfort, reached out and pulled me into the melee.

“Enjoy the pain,” she snapped.

Dancing was never my thing, not because I wasn’t co-ordinated or anything, but just because I never saw myself dancing with anyone – until I met H.

The music changed and Bono whipped out his harmonica and was mournfully wailing out a ballad. H and Birghid joined arms and both began to slow dance with me. I was rather shocked, but in Faerie...Then, I noticed, swaying crowd dancing with a girl that looked rather Elvin was one of the poets.

“Hey, I said,” trying to avoid the discomfort that was coming from slow dancing with two women, “isn’t that one of the poets Fiacuil...”

“Yes,” said H sharply. “My sister loves poets.”

Birghid was staring up at him adoringly. “I understand you bested them in the forest?”

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“Ah, well, that was luck. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but do you two always dance like this?”

H laughed relaxing a bit. “You’re lucky our other sister isn’t here.”

Birghid giggled and the sound of her voice was music. “What a wonderful idea. She should be here, but she’s away delivering one of father’s new children.”

“You’re going to be an aunt?” I asked H.

She blushed. “It gets a bit old after the thousandth time.”

“You’re dad really – gets around.”

 “You don’t know the beginning of it.”

“So,” said Birghid continuing to eye me, “is he a Smith?”

“A Smith?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said with some difficulty, “I have an affinity for Smiths.”

“No, I’m...” Suddenly possessed with a desire to impress Brighid I was about to embellish my experience with the poets and tell her that I was Fionn, but H elbowed me sharply in the ribs.

Bono must have finished his last set because when I looked up onto the stage he was gone, which was encouraging because if Bono could be whisked in and out of Faerie for a gig, I might be able to make it back to the Library. This must have been why H had brought me here.

On centre stage there was an enormous man holding, what looked like a child’s mic. Flaming about his head was a wild mass of red hair. His trunk like arms and legs gave him the impression that nothing could move him. He also had an enormous belly. In a way he looked like Santa gone Celtic.

“Give a hand for our mortal friend and advocate for the reintroduction of many Faerie species that are on the border of extinction.”

Birghid was clapping fervently. “Extinction: a very nasty place.”

The applause nearly raised the roof.

“Now, as a special treat, in from the tempestuous coast and the blood soaked battle fields of the brave and the free...the Morrigan Three!”

I don’t know why the blood seems to drain out of a person’s face when they are shocked or why they seem frozen in time. Once, I heard it described, about the great earth quake that destroyed a large part of Lisbon, how people just stood there. After a few moments survival instincts took over, but at first, they just stood there in shock. That’s how H was, as she stared at the three beautiful identical women who strode out onto the stage.

Everything was indistinguishable about the three women, from their dresses to their hair fashion, long and flowing, to the harps they carried. And all three, turning in synchronicity, seemed to see us all at once. They smiled.

Brighid grabbed her sister and tugged on her, but she remained rooted to the spot.

“Give me a hand,” said Brighid through her teeth as she tugged forcibly again.

I tore my eyes from the Morrigan Three, which was really difficult, and grabbed H. Pressing her on the shoulder must have brought her out of her trance because she aimed a wild swing a my head. I ducked it.

“I’m so sorry,” she said coming back to herself.

“Come on H, let’s get you out of here.”

I touched her by the shoulder again, but this time I was careful. I felt the connection between the Morrigan Three and H, but I didn’t know the reason.

Harp music filled the room and one of the poets cried out in ecstasy and fainted. The further we got away from the music the more animate H became, the less enslaved she looked.

“I can’t believe she has the nerve to show up,” agonized H.

“Well,” said the willowy Brighid, “you have been gone awhile.”

“I bet as soon as she heard I left, she was all over the place,” accused H.

I was about to open my mouth and say something stupidly profound, but a door crashed open and the hall filled up with the enormous presence of the fellow who had announced The Morrigan Three.

“Where is she, where is she,” bellowed the flame haired Santa who after targeting us charged. Either he was going to kill us or...

He scooped up both the girls in his massive arms and was swirling them about laughing with great abandoned joy. So infectious was his laugh that we all began to laugh. I laughed until my eyes ran with water and my sides began to hurt. Then I realized that I was the only one still laughing.

He looked at me in cursory examination and then at H. “Boy friend?”

H blushed, but gave an almost embarrassed nod.

“About time,” he clapped me on my back sending me into the wall. “Listen, I’ve got to get back to the party. You know how you’re mother gets when I’m not around.”

H gave a bit of a frantic nod. “You better go, dad.”

He laughed again. “So good to see you; you know you’re going to have to talk to her.”

Groaning H nodded. “I know.”

Then he was gone rumbling down the hall and leaping back into the swell of the music and the heat of the dance.  

“He’s your dad?” I asked.

“His name is Dagda,” she said examining my face looking for a response. “The All Father.”

Birghid put a hand over her mouth and giggled.

“When you say All Father, you mean...” I said. I tended to be slow with things of an interpersonal nature.

“He’s the father of a lot of the Tuatha de Dennan,” Birghid said delighted.

“Which one of The Morrigan Three is your mom?” I said trying to pick up on the awkward relationship dialogue.

H blushed again.

“All three of them,” said Birghid with delight.

Obviously, things worked a bit differently in Faerie.