Annaldra

Donald stepped into the night. The air was sharp and fresh, its coldness sinking deep in his lungs as he breathed. With each breath he exhaled, a small mist appeared. He paused on the doorstep to admire the moon and made small mist rings with his mouth; something he used to do when he smoked hash. He felt slightly guilty, if he was honest with himself; it was more suspicion than concern that had prompted him to check on Ann. Looking towards the hotel he could see her light on, then, a moment later it went off. Christ, she must really be ill going to bed at this time, she was, after all, a night owl. Part of him was disappointed that she was not up to something. The things Norlu had told him along with what he had noticed himself had made him more than curious.

As he turned to head back into the party, he took one final look over his shoulder. A dark figure wearing a long, flowing cloak, exited the hotel. It was Ann. She was still wearing her costume but was clutching something against her chest. I knew it. His gut instinct was right after all. He watched her turn left before disappearing around the corner. Where the hell could she be going at this time of night—and what was she up to? He had to follow her even though his conscience told him it was wrong to spy on a friend. He wanted answers.

When he turned the corner, he watched as she left the village in the direction of his caravan. He kept a safe distance as there was no hiding in the dark tonight with the moon and stars illuminating the world, albeit in black and white, and every shade of grey in-between. He watched from behind a tree for a while until he saw her take the lane that led to Clementina Hill. She was going to the stones on the mound, but why tonight?

Donald took up pursuit once she was out of sight, his mind racing, trying to piece together everything he knew about her, be it fact or fiction. The speed her wound had healed—and without scarring—was impossible. Nothing logical could explain that. So, could there be any truth in her mother’s story? Could Ann possibly be half-human and her father a god? And what did she know of these things? As far as he knew, she had only heard her mother’s crazy story, the one that he had told her, and there was a strong chance that it had been exaggerated over time, so what were the chances of it actually being true? The story, now twenty years old, was in itself a legend. Strangely though, she had gone from almost believing to not believing overnight, and an adamant disbelieving of it at that.

As he neared the stone circle, he saw Ann sitting in the centre beside the flat sacrifice stone. The one the experts believed was a burial marker, though the locals preferred to call it the sacrifice stone as it sounded far more exciting, especially to children. As a child when the boys played there it was customary to ‘sacrifice’ the loser of whatever game they were playing. The loser would lie on the stone, while the other players stood above chanting ‘die, die, die,’ until the winner inflicted the death punch. It was usually a semi-hard punch to the stomach, but sometimes it was just hard. If you cried out, you were not dead and would get another. Every so often, it got out of hand and a messy scrape developed. As far as Donald knew this game was old; his granny had told him her great grandfather had played it as a boy.

Donald crept up the far side of the mound and hid behind the stone at Ann’s back. He watched as she unrolled a cloth, revealing its contents, but he was too far away to see them clearly. Using both hands Ann lifted one of the items and held it up allowing the moonlight to illuminate it. It looked like a glass bottle. She brought it to her face and kissed it, then removed the glass stopper before placing it on the sacrifice stone. Next, she lit a candle, and he thought he heard her whisper something but if she did, it was inaudible. As Ann reached for the next item, Donald saw a flash. Using both hands again, she held it up as though showing it to the moon. It was a dagger. He could see it clearly now, its long silver blade glinting in the moonlight, the golden handle sparkled with gems. Again, she kissed it and whispered something before placing it in front of her. Then she took down her hood before untying her cloak and laying it beside her. She was not wearing the grey wig, and she had removed the green makeup, but she was still wearing the black, sleeveless dress she had on at the party. Her platinum hair looked illuminated and her arms were the colour of snow in the moonlight. She certainly looked the part for whatever this was. He watched as she sat back down and proceeded to remove her boots placing them on the cloak.

Kneeling in front of the moon, Ann picked up the dagger. ‘Mehaney,’ the sound formed somewhere in the back of her throat.

Donald’s heart raced; goose bumps rose on his arms as fear chilled him to his core. Christ, what was she going to do with the dagger? He knew he should stop her before she did something serious, but his curiosity held him back. For the first time it hit him. This was real. He was certain. This was not Pagan worship or some silly lassie playing witches, this was magik, proper magik—and something big was about to go down.

Ann raised her arms and using the dagger cut the palm of her left hand from her middle finger to her wrist, releasing a dark stream of blood that ran down the inside of her arm. Straining his eyes, he could see it must be deep, judging by the amount she was bleeding. Next, she closed her hand containing most of the dark liquid within her fist, allowing only small streams to escape, trickling like small black eels squirming from the gaps between her fingers. Placing the knife beside her, Ann picked up the glass bottle and held it to the moon. Opening her hand wide again with her palm facing upwards, she stretched her fingers apart like a star. ‘Mehaney,’ she repeated the peculiar sound, before pouring the contents of the bottle over the wound as she turned her outstretched hand so the fluids ran off.

Donald watched in wonder as the cocktail of the clear liquid and blood trickled over the flame of the candle, but instead of distinguishing it as he expected, it shone brighter, much brighter.

‘Mehaney!’ This time the strange sound was louder, like the call of a wild beast.

At once, the flame from the candle shot out like a giant white laser racing towards the moon. Within seconds, the beam of light reached its target, hitting it smack in the centre. The moon appeared to explode causing the sky to light up with a blinding white light, expanding across the sky as it sped towards them, consuming everything it passed.

Donald watched in horror as the horizon disappeared. Quick as a lightning-bolt, he got behind the standing stone. Then closing his eyes tight he covered his face before the dazzling whiteness reached him, and, god forbid, annihilated him. One elephant, he spoke the words in a pant, two elephants, three elephants…

Shaking violently and with his eyes still tightly shut, he could feel the coldness of the stone against his back, but now he could hear a buzzing sound in the air. It felt charged, almost as if it were alive. What the fuck just happened? He opened one of his eyes, squinting as he did, for fear the brightness would blind him, but the white light had gone. It was dark again. The view in front of him looked normal. Everything was the same except for the buzzing sound.

Donald turned to peer back to the scene he had just witnessed. The moon was still there as big and beautiful as it had been earlier. He had half expected it to be gone … obliterated by the laser.

Then he noticed Ann slumped on the ground, not moving, her pale hair and arms the only noticeable parts in the dark. He froze for a moment, paralysed in terror, his stomach churning, only for panic to replace it seconds later. ‘Ann, Ann, are you alright?’ he called out as he rushed to her.

Before he could reach her, Ann sat bolt upright and stared at him with a look of horror on her face.

‘What the hell are you doing here, Donald?’ Her voice was shaking and he could see her knuckles bulging white as she clenched the grass. ’What did you see?’Her cold eyes glared at him.

She sure was not pleased to see him, but in light of what he had just witnessed, he decided to ignore her anger. ‘Wow, what did I see? I don’t know, Ann, you tell me.’ Donald shook his head in disbelief. ‘I mean what the fuck was that? It was bloody awesome… way better than any drug I’ve ever tried.’

Ann slumped. ‘You don’t realise what you’ve done,’ she whimpered as she raised her hands to cover her face. ‘God, this is terrible.’

Donald put his arm around his friend and she buried her head in his shoulder accepting the comfort he was offering. He could feel her body trembling in his arms and hear her plaintive sobs. ‘I don’t understand, Ann, you have power. What you did was incredible. It was out of this fuck’n world.’

Ann pulled away and looked at him, her wet eyes red and swollen. ‘Donald, do you know what a geis is?’

Donald tilted his head thoughtfully. There was something familiar about the word. He was sure he had heard it before, but whatever it was, it lay just beyond his grasp to recall, like a shadow skulking in a corner of his mind. He looked at her sad face and shook his head.

Ann sighed long and deep as she looked away to think. ‘I suppose,’ she said meeting his gaze again. ‘It’s like a powerful promise. Well, at least in this case. I don’t really know how to explain it. It’s a condition placed on you, one that you must adhere to, or something really bad will happen.’

A ray of light suddenly illuminated the memory he sought thanks to Ann’s explanation. ‘Ah yes.’ With half his mouth curled he slapped his head lightly giving a little snort as he did. ‘I remember the stories of Cúchulainn we learned at school. He was the Hound of Ulster, the great Irish warrior. There were two geasa placed on him. One forbade him from eating the meat of a dog, the other being he could not refuse food offered to him by a woman. Therefore, when a woman offered him the flesh of a dog, there was no way out without breaking one of the geasa. He ended up dead because he broke one.’ Donald was staring at her intensely, realising what he had said. ‘It’s just a story. They are not real—are they?’

Ann looked lost as she confirmed they were with a slight nod. ‘I had a geis placed on me.’ Her eyes refilled with tears. ‘You shouldn’t have seen any of that. I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. You know I would have told you, I wanted to tell you, but the geis stopped me.’

‘I’m sorry. I wanted to see you were okay when you didn’t return to the party, so I followed you when I saw you leaving the hotel because… well, because I was curious. I didn’t mean to break any geis. What will happen?’ Now it was Donald’s turn to sound serious. Yesterday he probably would not have believed in such things, but after what he just witnessed—well, anything was possible.

‘I really don’t know, but whatever it is it won’t be good. What if I die like Cúchulainn?’

‘I am sure that won’t happen,’ said Donald as confidently as could. ‘I mean, you’d be dead already. Wouldn’t you?’

Ann snickered slightly at his jest, before throwing her head back, letting out a despondent sigh in the process.

‘Who placed the geis on you?’

‘Please, let’s not talk about this, we might make things worse.’

‘I don’t think it’s broken. Look around, nothing bad has happened.’

’Yet,’ emphasised Ann, as she surveyed the scene.

‘Okay, but if it’s broken, what difference will it make? I mean I have sort of pieced things together in my head anyway, without you telling me—’

‘Please, Donald, stop.’ She slapped the ground hard with both palms. ‘I can’t talk about this!’

Donald waited a moment before he spoke and when he did, he spoke softly. ‘You were right about your mother and father living in the Otherworld, weren’t you?’

He watched Ann trying to stifle a smile. She was still staring at the grass determined not to look at him as though looking at him would give it away, but it was all he needed to confirm his suspicion.

‘Bloody hell, Ann, that is awesome. You do realise that makes you a demi-god!’

Ann’s stifled smile grew to an unstoppable grin. Pleased by his statement she looked up at him but did not speak.

‘Look I saw you, I saw the magik. I know now. Please cannot you tell me?’

‘You’re right,’ she said still smiling. ‘What’s done cannot be undone. You obviously know a lot now, a lot you shouldn’t know. But you don’t know what I just did, do you?’

‘Eh, magik… some kind of spell?’

‘Exactly. However, you don’t know its purpose and that is how it will stay. The geis made specific reference to the spell and forbade me from talking about it so please don’t ask.’

‘Okay,’ agreed Donald with a reluctant sigh. ‘You know for a minute there I thought you were dead when I saw you lying there.’

Ann pulled back from him. ‘I was listening,’ she said excitedly.

‘Listening to what?’

‘To the earth, go on try it.’

Donald lay down placing his ear to the ground. ‘What am I listening for?’ he asked after a few seconds.

‘Can’t you hear it? Can’t you hear her song? She is singing. It is so beautiful.’ Ann was beaming now. Her expression was one of innocent wonder, like that of a young child gazing in a toyshop window for the first time.

‘I can’t hear it,’ said Donald sitting up. ‘But I can hear a buzzing sound in the air, like electricity.’

‘That’s her life force. It is the earth’s energy that makes that noise,’ laughed Ann. ‘Do things look different to you?’

Donald looked in both directions, his eyes darting from stone to stone, then he tilted his head back to look skyward, before settling his gaze on Ann. ‘No, not really.’ He shook his head as he spoke.

‘Doesn’t everything look sharper and brighter? Colours are more vibrant, and I can see the vibrations of life in everything, can’t you? It is mind-blowing. Everything looks so alive, even the stones.’

Donald took another look around, slower this time. ‘No,’ he heaved a disappointed sigh. ‘It all looks the same. It’s a bit surreal maybe, but that’s just the brightness of the moonlight, the same surrealness as other moonlit nights.’

‘Can you see the purple haze around the Moon?’

Donald’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the Moon, studying its every detail. ‘No,’ he eventually said. ‘It looks exactly the same to me,’ and resumed scanning the scene for anything out the ordinary.

‘Shush, listen to the wind,’ whispered Ann as a breeze picked up.

Donald listened for a minute. ‘I’m sorry it just sounds like the wind to me, but I can still hear the buzzing, but it’s getting fainter.’

‘That was amazing,’ she said when the breeze died down.

‘How? It sounded normal to me.’

‘I could hear sounds, like whispers in the wind as if a million voices were all talking at once,’ she said with exhilaration in her voice, her twinkling eyes alight with wonder .’It’s…it’s like I’m using my senses properly for the first time. I mean really using them. It is as if they’ve been locked away, but now the door has been opened allowing them to function to their full potential. I can experience everything more intensely… see the world as it really is. It feels… well, almost primordial.’

Donald was hooked. ‘So what were the voices saying?’

‘I don’t know. I couldn’t understand them…’ she paused to reflect, outwardly staring at nothing. But, I think the words held great power like magik and secrets. However, she could not reveal that to Donald. She suspected it might be the trees talking though she could not be sure. Even though she had been a tree, tree senses were so different to her own; it made it impossible to make any comparable memory through feelings, only the wordy description in her mind could tell her what it had been like being a tree, but it felt detached, like someone else telling her about the experience now. ‘It is as if there is a whole other level of communication going on that no one is aware of, something ancient, perhaps as ancient as the earth itself.’

Donald looked at his friend animated with excitement, and smiled, happy for her. ‘You are an enigma, Ann, a proper mystery.’

Ann returned his smile, but hers was an ear-to-ear grin.

Donald had no doubt now, who she was. Everything Norlu had told him about her was probably true as well, but he did not want to let on in case she panicked again, knowing how much he knew.

’You know, Donald, when the moon expelled that massive burst of light, I felt superhuman. A pureness shot through me and for a moment, I felt like nothing I have ever experienced. I felt like a god. I knew everything. I felt the connectedness of everything in the universe. I was everything, but in a feeling in every cell of my body, not a thought in my head. I suppose it is like the moment you’re conceived. You are washed with innocence, and at that moment you become a new universe, time does not exist, and you are standing at the dawn of creation. I know this probably sounds crazy because there are no words to describe the wonder of it. It was the purest and most real feeling I have ever felt. It was so beautiful, but I only felt it for a fleeting moment, and now it’s gone, lost to me.’

Donald put his arm around his friend’s shoulder and she laid her head on it. The pair sat silent, lost in their own inner worlds.