Naamah's Kiss - Jacqueline Carey [36]
I inclined my head. "Thank you, my lord Oengus."
A wizened old woman behind him burst into a cackling laugh. "Ah-ha-ha! Lord Oengus, is it? Listen to her, manners fit for a lady of the Dalriada!"
I flushed, hurt and angry and embarrassed.
"Peace, Nemed." Oengus gave her a sharp look. "The lass needs no reminding of her loss."
"Oh, aye." The old woman worked her shriveled lips in a chewing motion. "Forgive me, child. I'm old. I guided your mother through the rite, and her mother before her. Such a pity that one died young."
My mother took a deep breath. "Nemed…"
"I mean no harm, daughter of Eithne." She patted my mother's arm. "I was fond of your mother. You'll be blunt-spoken, too, come my age. Now." She tugged my hair with surprising strength. "Bend down and let me have a look at you."
Given no choice, I obeyed.
Nemed peered at me with rheumy eyes, clucking her tongue. "Look at you, caught all betwixt and between!" She sniffed at me. "You'll drive the lads mad, that's for sure. And mayhap a few of the lasses, too."
My mother made a strangled sound.
"Peace, Fainche." The old woman flapped one hand at her, the other still tangled in my hair. "You laid down with a D'Angeline. Are you so isolated in your hermitage that you've not heard what manner of mischief they get up to?"
"No," she said shortly.
I cleared my throat. My neck was getting stiff.
"Ah, right." Nemed let go my hair with reluctance, letting the length of it run over her crabbed fingers. "But you're here, eh? That's something." She shook her head. "What Herself will make of you, I've no idea."
I swallowed. "I pray She finds me worthy."
"It's not a question of worthy." The rheumy eyes were shrewd, but there was compassion in them. "It's a question of whether or not you're one of Her own. Do you believe so, daughter of Fainche?"
"I do," I said.
Nemed patted my hand. "We'll see, won't we?"
Although I had supposed it would be a large gathering like the pilgrimage to Clunderry, there were only two others present—a young woman named Camlan and a young man named Breidh. They were the last two members of the Maghuin Dhonn to have passed through the rite and tradition dictated their presence. Until the moment this was made clear to me, I hadn't realized men went through it, too.
"Of course!" Breidh looked surprised. "How not?"
"I don't know." I felt foolish. "You, ah… how is the timing of it reckoned for men?"
Camlan giggled. "A year from the night they first spill their seed unwitting in their sleep." She nudged Breidh. "First but not last, eh?"
He shrugged. "Better our way than yours."
She rolled her eyes. "That's the truth!"
I wanted to feel at ease with them. They were of my people and my own age—and yet I was different. As easy as they were with each other, I could sense that they were uneasy with me.
"Come." Camlan took my arm, doing her best to overcome her discomfort. "Would you see the glade, Moirin?"
"Aye, please."
She led me to the far end of the cavern, Breidh trailing after us. The wide mouth opened onto a ledge that presided over a sharp decline. We were atop the very peak of the mountain. The glade lay below, a green bowl held in the cupped hand of the earth, dotted with pine trees. There was the lake, and there was the stone doorway.
I gazed at it.
It was a simple thing. Two great standing stones, taller than a man's height, with a slab laid across them. Its shadow slanted eastward toward us.
"How…" I hesitated. "I don't understand."
"There are worlds and there are worlds," Oengus said in his deep voice. Having joined us unseen, he sat on the ledge, dangling one leg over the drop. "When we call the twilight to us, we take half a step into the spirit world that lies alongside ours, the same and yet different. When you pass through the stone door, you take the whole step."
The younger two nodded, their expressions reverent.
"One day it may be that the folk of the Maghuin Dhonn will pass through it forever," Oengus mused. "Pass into myth and become spirit rather than flesh, haunting the hollow hills and the sacred