Chapter 8: The Mage

The year Saoirse saw her ninth birthday, the dreams came. Night after night she woke, terrified. How quickly her small feet padded across the room. She crawled into Nana's narrow bed from the foot, pushing Nana away from the wall to get to her safe place, with the wall guarding her back and Nana's warm body protecting her front. 

“Another dream, little one?”

“Black eyes.”

Nana wrapped her arms around the child, trying not to moan. Every joint hurt, especially the swollen knuckles in her hands. Now that she was awake, it would be hours before she could sleep again. The pains in her hands and her knees were not the worst of it. She breathed in trying to inflate her lungs fully. Always it was the same, like a heavy weight was pressing down on her chest. Oh, to breathe as she once had, when she was a girl.

“Nana, it was a dragon. It was looking at me. Is it going to come here, too? Nana, maybe we should run away.”

“Best we stay in the castle until the last moment. Then we will flee.”

“But it's coming, Nana. It's coming. We need to run now.”

“Sleep, child.” Nana's crippled hands smoothed Saoirse's hair, so blond it was silver.

The child wouldn't be comforted. “The dragon's black, really, really black. It's like,” she searched for the words, “like hiding in a closet under a blanket. I'm scared.”

Nana's kiss was the touch of a feather on Saoirse's forehead. “Oh, child.”

“Do you dream about the dragon, Nana?”

“No, child. But whenever I have bad dreams, I try to think about good things . . . delicious things.” She grinned. “Tomorrow let's go into the market and eat spice cakes.”

“With raisins?”

“Of course. Who'd buy a cake without raisins!”

Saoirse tried to think about the spice cakes and the sweet raisins, but when she closed her eyes, and sleep washed over her, she dreamed of swimming in ink, black ink, and breathing black air, all under a black sky without a single star.

The next morning after breakfast, Nana, Saoirse by her side, set off for the village, down the long sea road; the ocean on their left, the forest on their right.

Saoirse raised her head, her eyes open wide with wonder, a smile of pure joy on her lips. “Listen, Nana.”

Nana knelt, softly moaning, as she lowered her knees to the sand. “Child, you know, I canna hear the music. It comes only to you; it is a gift of the magic.”

The tinkling of bells and the long clear blast of a single note from a distant horn drifted in on the wind to Saoirse's ears. With a cupped hand around Nana's ear, Saoirse whispered, “It comes from the sea. You have to listen very carefully. Swish, ping ping ping, bong, bong.”  The child looked up, listening. As seconds passed, her hands clenched themselves into fists and her face got squished from concentration.  “Oh . . . where did it go?” She stomped her foot and pressed her lips together in what Nana called “her mad face.” “It's gone.”

“Well, there's still the spice cakes.”

Nana's words had Saoirse running ahead. “Hurry up!”

Bought from young Jacob, who smiled at all the pretty girls who smiled back, the spice cakes were perfectly warmed. Nana purchased goat's milk to drink and cheese. “To keep your tummy full,” she said.

Autumn was settling onto the land. The air cooled Nana even with her shawl about her shoulders and her cap on her head. By the well, on a bench, she exchanged rumors with the smithy's wife and the cobbler's aunt. “Turned up big with child.” “Well, we knew it,” while Saoirse played, a street away, among the dangling ribbons in Berta's shop. Nana didn't fear for the child. The entire village knew Saoirse, and Berta was Nana's cousin.

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Berta was out on the stoop when the first curls of black smoke crept through the open door, sliding across the floor like snakes. Saoirse scooched backward against the wall, stepping up on a chair to keep the smoke from her feet. Outside the murmurings of the crowd increased.

“Gather round! Gather round!” The voice was two voices—to Saoirse's ear—one soft as butter, one harsh and gritty like gravel grinding under wagon wheels.

Berta rose and walked toward the sound of the soft as butter voice. Saoirse watched her go, walking right through a pile of cow droppings, soiling her new leather boots. “Cobbler finished them just yesterday,” she'd told Saoirse.

Saoirse, her eyes fixed on the smoke, climbed up on a table pushed against the wall, and then ducked behind a group of shawls and scarves hung on hooks. As she peered out behind the edge of a blue wool scarf and out the door, the smoke covered the ground like a dense black fog, rising four feet high.

The stars on her arm twinkled, one green, another the clearest most beautiful blue, another soft brown like a newborn fawn, another sparkled silver, another white  . . .

“Nana!” she squeaked.

“Come, come,” the voice called. “I'll show you the stars during the day. And whosoever the stars choose shall win a prize.”

“No, no,” Saoirse whispered.

From the doorway came the sound of sizzling, like sausages on a hot griddle, followed quickly by gasps of delight. The people clapped. “Bravo! Bravo!” Over the tops of the houses showers of colored stars flew into the air. Most fell straight downward, but a few drifted over the rooftops. When they came near Berta's door they were sucked into the shop, as if by a whirlwind, and pulled toward Saoirse. She ran from them across the tops of tables, knocking over cloth and thread. When they lit on her, they tickled her skin, then disappeared. She grew warm, calm. Like raisin cakes, the stars brought happiness. High in the corner of the room a bright green light flickered.

“Oh, it's a spider.”

Curled up next to the fireplace, Berta's calico glowed a deep forest green. More sparks of color fell on Saoirse. And music strummed—from the spider—as if the insect played a guitar. A low hum filled the room, two notes, moving upward in pitch—it was the cat.

“Magic.”

Dread filled her belly. Saoirse trembled, repeating Nana's words, “Where there be magic, there be dragons.” She shook from head to toe. Out the back door of the shop she dashed, fear giving her feet wings. The stars followed her, alighting on her. As each twinkled and disappeared into her skin, she giggled uncontrollably. Down the sea road, she ran faster than she'd ever run before, half terrified of the dragon, half wanting to skip. As she crested a low dune, the ocean music, the color sound, hit her full in the face. Never had it been this loud. The sea was alive with it. She covered her ears. Cymbals crashed; there were drums and tingling bells, stringed instruments and horns, clicks, and swishes, pings and pongs and thumps. She fell on her knees in the sand, but she couldn't look away. The colors captured her gaze; they enchanted her. Everywhere the ocean glowed green, swirling shades of blue-green, and emerald-greens, moss greens tinged with yellows and browns, foaming greens lighted with white, grayed greens as if they'd captured within them the storm clouds.

“No, no. Too much.”

More stars landed on her. She tried to brush them off. As they disappeared into her skin, the greens of the sea blazed so brightly they threatened to blind her. Yet, she couldn't make herself turn away, couldn't close her eyes. Taking her hands from her ears, she put them over her eyes. Only then could she turn her head and look back toward the village and Nana.

“Nana, it's too much. Nana!”

Above the village, stars of color still shot into the air. Suddenly, a cloud of purple smoke rose, and the sparkling colors disappeared. Around her, the stars that had followed Saoirse descended quickly and were absorbed into her skin.

The dazed villagers were roused by Berta's cry. “Nana is gone! Oh, Lord, did he take the little princess, too?” The whole village frantically searched. Almost an hour later, they found Saoirse, lying in the sand, shuddering, gasping for breath. They carried her back to the castle. “It was a mage, my lord,” the cobbler told Lord Togair. “Used magic, he did, had the whole village in a trance. He took poor Nana. I fear for her, my lord. Never was there a mage that wasn't working for a dragon. The child we found on the beach, convulsing.”

 

 

 

 

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