((content warning: themes of domestic abuse))
“Come away, o human child…"
Moving like an old woman, Róisín picked up her sleeping baby from her cradle, and wrapped her snugly in a blanket. Biting back gasps of pain, she limped through the house as quietly as possible. A pause, a whispered prayer, and the latch opened with the barest click.
Róisín looked up and down the darkened road, and, casting her shawl over her head, hobbled down the winding path, and away. Prayers were on her lips, whispered with each breath:
“Blessed Virgin, help us…. Holy Mary… Mother of God… pray for us sinners…. now and at the hour of our death... Our Lady… guide and strengthen… Star of the Sea… forgive me… save my child….”
Midsummer, and the night was ablaze with stars, the half moon a bright shape in the sky. The air was never still, not that close to the coast, and the wild Atlantic. But the smell of salt on the breeze was a familiar comfort to Róisín. The smell of home. She followed the worn track past the drystone walls, the stunted and wind bent trees, casting faint and eerie shadows in the moonlight. Up to the top of the cliffs, across the sheep cropped turf, where the rath was.
For those not of the area, it wouldn’t have looked like much. A half ring of low earth, grassed over and studded with wildflowers, enclosing a semicircle of ground. The ring of the earthworks was cut by the edge of the cliff, backing against the fall into the rocky sea, many tens of feet below. A scholar would have sighed, marked it down on their map of such places, and moved on to a bigger, better preserved site.
But for those who lived in the area, those who knew the stories - well, they knew better than to trespass there, and even worse, to do so at night. For wasn’t it only a few years ago that Séamus O’Dwyer had fallen to his death from these very same cliffs? Sure, he was a drunkard, but it was a long way out of his way to go for him, on his way home from the pub. As for the music - well, no one believes that, now do they? Do they?
Tonight, there were none to witness, none to cross themselves, or try to stop her, as Róisín carried her month old baby to the rath. As she made her way, step by painful step, to the very edge of the ring fort, to the gap in the earthworks that once, perhaps, had held a gate. To the boundary, the edge, the line between Here and There. And at that edge she stopped, her nerve failing her, as the baby started to cry, sinking down onto the dew wet grass, shushing and rocking her child.
“...ssshhh… mo chroí… hush now, mo ghrá… all is well… all is well… I won’t let him hurt you… I’ll never let him hurt you...”
“What is it you have brought me?”
The voice rang in Róisín’s head with strange echoes, and she looked up with a start, clutching her baby to her breast, reflexively making the sign of the cross over them both.
The speaker was a woman, but taller than many men, richly dressed, thin and willowy, with angular features, and all the strength and sharpness of a sword blade. Alien and other, not of this world. Fae. She simply smiled at this display of piety.
“...my lady…” Róisín murmured. “I beg your forgiveness… but I seek… I seek…”
Her voice faded away as horror crossed her face. The realisation that she could picture the face of the man, the Fae Lord, the faery harper, but his name was gone. Humiliation twisted like a worm in her gut, and the faery woman looked on in amusement. At the young, desperate woman, with the staring baby in her arms.
This close, the strain and pain on Róisín’s face could be clearly seen. Lines of hurt and worry drawn on her face, stealing her youth and beauty. Dark shadows of bruises on her wrists, around her throat. Marks of a man’s hand, a man’s violence and anger.
“He’s not here… but you are… and with a baby, no less.” The faery-woman’s tone was deliberately light, but she looked at the baby with barely hidden longing.
Róisín’s face crumpled, like she was going to cry. The baby in her arms started to whimper too, only to be hushed once more by her mother. The faery-woman tilted her head, looking at the pair like they were a puzzle to be solved. A cipher, a mystery.
“...please…” Róisín’s voice was a whisper. “...please… help my child…. I fear that… that my husband will kill her…”
“Your husband? Not her father?”
Róisín hung her head in shame, a crimson blush darkening her cheeks like a bruise.
The faery-woman laughed, long and low.
“Oh, you don’t know, do you? Oh, my brother… what have you been up to?”
The tone was musing. Then, a command:
“Let me see the child.”
Wordlessly, reluctantly, Róisín handed her daughter over.
The faery-woman accepted the baby carefully, cooing softly as she parted the blanket to look at the child’s soft features. The baby regarded her curiously, large dark eyes staring.
“...yes, little one… yes… you are special, aren’t you… it’s almost a pity… poor child… the sins of the father…”
The baby screwed up her little face and squalled.
“...hush, little dreamer…” the faery-woman soothed, as she parted the front of her gown. “... here…”
And she put the baby to her perfect breast and nursed her.
Róisín looked on, a mixture of despair, horror, and bleak determination on her face.
“Will you take her? Will you keep her safe?” she asked the faery-woman, desperate. “My husband… he wanted a boy… he’s a drunkard… he’s already…. one night he’ll come home in a rage… I know he will... and… I won’t… I won’t be able to...”
Róisín couldn’t bear to finish the thought. She scrubbed at her face with her hands, angrily wiping away the tears.
“Help her. I beg you. I will give you anything. Anything.”
The faery-woman smiled, serene and content, an expression of bliss on her face as the baby suckled.
“You offer? Of your own free will? Knowing what it means?”
Róisín nodded, biting hard on her lip, not trusting her voice.
Long moments, as the waves crashed against the cliff face, as the breeze caught the edges of Róisín’s shawl, the strands of curly red hair that had escaped from behind the woven fabric. Then the faery-woman sighed, and said in tones of deep regret.
“Alas, that I cannot take her, no matter how much I wish. But your Virgin Queen protects her, your Sacrificed God protects her. Your prayers have not fallen on unheeding ears. This little songbird has a destiny that I cannot take from her. I can give her my blessing. And I will.”
The faery-woman looked wistful. For a moment, the mask of her beauty slipped to reveal the sorrow of centuries.
“... I always wanted a child…”
Milk-drunk, the baby was now fast asleep, making little suckling movements as the faery-woman handed her back to her mother.
“Be brave, and be strong, little mother. Teach her to sing for us, and she will sing with the voice of angels. Give her a harp, so she can take our music, awaken other dreamers. Bring her to the hidden places, the boundaries where your world and ours meet. Do this, and she will play and sing and dream and grow, and one day… well… she will find the truth… and it will free her… or destroy her… but this I swear… it will not be your husband who kills her...”
The faery-woman sighed, and reached out with one long-fingered hand to stroke the baby’s cheek, gently, in farewell.
“My blessing upon you, little dreamer, for the love of the child that I once might have borne… had but the world been different… and the Sons of Man less cruel...”
Her gaze sharpened and she stared at Róisín, cold and hard.
“Time to get your baby home to bed.”
It was a command, and Róisín knew better than to disobey. Despite the fear, churning in her gut, demanding she run, she backed away carefully, murmuring polite thanks.
“...thank you… thank you… may the old gods and the new bless you…”
The faery woman watched Róisín go, a dark shape moving slowly and painfully across the fields.
“The old gods are dead and gone… and the new care little for my people… but your little dreamer… she could change that all…”
~
Back at the house, Róisín tucked her baby back into the cradle, looking lovingly at her as she slept.
“I will protect you, my little girl. No matter the cost. I swear it, by the old gods and the new. My little dreamer, my changeling child. My Aisling.”