Sunday crawled to an end accompanied by the static heartbeat of the cluttered kitchen, a radio fixed on Lyric FM. The smell of her mother’s roast clung to everything and sat in her belly an unwanted visitor. She pushed the half-eaten plate away and sunk further into the unvarnished pine chair. Outside, a crow, perched on the old swing-set, nuzzled and folded its wings, just about visible in the passing light of day. It had been sitting there for hours, folding and unfolding each wing, watching her watching it as her grandmother droned on and on in the background.
“You look well tired, Erin, are you sick?” She winced at the crone’s unrelenting scrutiny; the woman saw everything. Erin met those tight, beady eyes of Bronagh Gregory with the usual revulsion. Except now things were different. Now her cropped perm that frizzed and greyed gracelessly, her slash of a mouth and angry lines which revealed such a lack of laughter terrified Erin. And the cross at her neck…Erin averted her eyes to the window. Beads of sweat were building upon her forehead. Her throat burned. The crow was gone.
“I haven’t been sleeping.”
Bronagh had come for tea after her twelve o’ clock mass and, of course, stayed through the dragging hours until dinner. It was a mercy that her granny despised the eleven o’ clock youth choir. She didn’t look at her mam. She thought of those crushed yellow petals again and fought off a feverish shiver. “Nightmares is all.”
Erin heard the front door shut from her foetal position on the bathroom floor. In the hall, her mam sighed in relief and a few minutes later the sound of the telly grew louder before fading back to a hum. Her hands clutched her lower stomach, her insides on fire. She was going to have to tell mam; the Wikipedia page had said medieval women often died from too much tansy. The tears flared up in her eyes as she struggled to her knees, her hands finding the cold toilet seat. You stupid, stupid, stupid girl! She must have walked passed that golden plant a thousand times on the road home from school, not knowing her life would depend on it, not knowing it would do this to her. No, he did this to her. Her attention wandered as her sanity slipped and she gazed upwards, the Sacred Heart painting her granny had gifted her indifferent mother taking no notice. That pale, Irish Christ had made it clear long ago he’d have no time for the likes of her.
Water might help. She might be able to flush it out of her system. Call an ambulance, the irrational part of her mind screamed, but there’d be no help. They too had no time for the likes of her. If she could make it to the kitchen, she could call her mam; dad wouldn’t have to know.
Erin brushed her red hair back and took a deep breath. She hauled herself up with the help of the brass door handle and slipped out into the hall, careful not to make noise.
There’d be no hiding her state now.
The simple trek to the kitchen was unbearable; she reached the sink with shaking, volatile hands. Her throat swelled in rebellion. It was dark now outside, only the sensor light illuminated the inky world of garden and the forest behind. Water, she needed water. Erin fumbled to flip the tap and when she failed to pick up a cup, slumped forward until her face met the cool stream. It was no use, she’d have to call her mam.
Erin pulled herself up only to pause. A crow flit from the window sill, its black eye burned in her brain. It flew towards the flourishing trees behind the garden wall and settled on the shoulder of a woman whom Erin was certain was her grandmother. Except her hair was long, her face did not look so beaten down – it could have been the lighting. Had she not left through the front door? For a moment, Erin was horrified to think that Bronagh Gregory might know, that they all might know.
The woman raised her hand and beckoned Erin forth. She felt her throat filling up with iron and heat. If she was to call Mam, it would be now, only now. Somewhere, the pain stopped. The crow called out and the woman waited. Erin’s hands found the back door and her bare feet met wet decking then the damp sea of grass. She limped forward, her heart thumping their last song, a song of life. Now she reached the cold stone of her garden wall. Erin came face to face with the Woman of the wood. She was Bronagh Gregory and she was not. She was every Irish woman that had become like Bronagh and all they could have been.
Erin thought she should flinch at the inquisitive eye of the black bird, but it did not scare her, nothing about the animal scared her; the chaos of her eye was natural.
“I have a gift for you, Erin Gregory.” The woman said, her voice filling all her being. She took from her heavy black coat two black cards, each one bigger than Erin’s hands. Erin reached out, hardly hesitating as she took the first then the second. “Turn them over.”
Erin did as asked, turning the first. A woman stared back at her and Erin’s lip trembled. There, was her face, painted into the card. In one hand she held a sceptre, in the other that golden plant. On her head, a crown of thorns and how she bled.
“The other?” The woman asked. “Ah, Death.”
The Reaper in fields of tansy did not move her so much, but she shook. “What does it mean?”
The woman smiled and reached forward, she brushed the wet from Erin’s cheeks. “Come with me, will you? Not many are given such an opportunity.”
The woman’s lips pursed, “No. No they do not.”
It was beginning to rain again, the early autumn cool calling Erin to. She blinked, starting at the dark silhouettes of thicket that swept down towards the river clearing. Behind her, her warm house whispered her parents’ names, her sisters’ hearts and all the good she knew. It did not mention the darkness, it did not mention her screams, her tears, her head pressed into a pillow, her long absence from school. It did not want to know. It did not want to understand.
But the Woman of the Woods knew. Erin studied the two cards in her hand and she knew this woman understood.
The muck had hugged her small feet, but Erin climbed the wall she’d hopped a hundred times before, but this time, she felt, she would not be coming back.
The woman was ahead, descending earth with ease unknown to her ancient age. The crow danced from branch to branch in the canopy, each caw a victorious battle cry. Erin hobbled after. The pain had subsided, but she was not so good at knowing the placing of each oak tree’s root. She had forgotten.
In the light of the full moon, they came to a smoky clearing at the riverside. Here, a natural ring of trees grew tall. It had been a perfect setting for games in her childhood. Now it was full of women, women with burning torches that blazed and moved through the air like ancient beacons, guiding Erin home at last.
The harvest moon above swayed, protecting the clearing as much as the crows in the trees. When Erin gazed up, she saw hundreds of them huddled in the branches like silky shadows.
“Come closer.” The voice to her left made her wince. She had forgotten the woman beside her. “Do you know? Do you see true?”
Erin took a tentative step forward. She did not want to disturb the dancing ring, did not want to inhale the thick smoke when some part of her recalled the crisis of her body.
She scrutinised the ring. Who were these women? She did not recognise them from the village at all. Everyone knew everyone, there were no strangers. She continued to watch, something wakening in her brain, demanding to be remembered.
Erin took a deep breath, saw the quilted cape of one golden-haired woman and knew. There was Brigid of spring, and Áine of summer, Banba, Eiriú and Fódla, Danú and Boann, Flidais and Clíodhna.
“Would you like to join?” The woman to her left asked and it took all of Erin’s will to avert her eyes from the scene before her. She could join that? The cards in her hand slipped against each other from the sweat of her fingers. The question hung in the torchlit clearing waiting to be answered.
For a moment, Erin thought to look behind, imagining to see the soft light of her home at the top of the hill. Instead, she saw only darkness, saw only the lines and lines of women, dead in life, wandering the underworld screeching the name of an eastern god, the endless prayers unheard, their faith alone keeping them on their feet. But the faith was theirs, she realised as she fell backwards, her feet catching in broken glass and yellow tufts.
Warm hands caught her mid-fall as she wailed. At her feet grew buttons of tansy and she backed up into the arms of whom she hardly cared to know. Her womb was empty of agony, of writhing pain.
Erin could not go back. There was no going back. She did not want to go back.
When she found her balance, she twisted around to find the face of Danu. The goddess smiled, her all-knowing eyes, having seen everything, sorry.
“We will look after you.”
The words were a promise, the unfinished mention of eternity in the fairy ring left for Erin to grapple with. It was better to be free in the ring from skylines of steeples and apathetic virgin queens than the outrage and imprisonment of home. Erin took a breath, holding the cards to her chest, and with her free hand took the hand of the goddess.
2087
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