Chapter 13: Witches’ Dance

“Right, Caoimhe,” I say to my daughter, “if you want to stay awake for the dance at the Faerie Ring tonight, you need to get your head down for at least a couple of hours.”

“Aw, Daaad!” she whines, “I’ll be far too excited to sleep.”

“At least try, sweetheart,” I say, “you will be much more alert and will enjoy the dancing more if you are refreshed. I’ll set the alarm on my cell phone and make sure I get you up in plenty of time. Honestly, you won’t miss a thing.”

“I’m going to have a wee sleep, too,” Etain says, which seems to end the argument.

Caoimhe does go down to sleep after supper and a cup of hot sweet cocoa, without too much objection. Hot sweet cocoa always makes me sleepy so I hope it helps her relax enough to get a little sleep.

I do have to wake Caoimhe when we all get up at midnight, although the dancing is not going to start until about a quarter after one, when the moon will be directly overhead in our world. We do get well wrapped up first against the chill damp night and we enjoy the adventurous walk as we make our way by LED torchlight, through the backyard to what is now Etain’s house, to the wood where we found the Faerie Ring.

Once there, with Etain leading the way, as soon as we step into the bramble patch the brambles melt away and disappear while the overcast skies of our world clear and the three-quarter moon illuminates the ring perfectly.

As I said before, these connecting portals between our two worlds seem to straddle both worlds and what is overgrown or flooded on one side, is open grassland on the other side and, as we enter or leave the Ring, we move between our world and the Otherworld seamlessly, so that it seems a little part of the Otherworld sits on our bramble patch.

Then, out of the apparent shadows on the edge of the ring, the other six Witches appear and, without any preamble, Etain waves us to stay where we are on the edge and she joins them in the center of the ring.

They start to dance hand in hand in a glorious ring of beautiful fluidity, all of them suddenly wearing flowing gowns.

Etain had worn training shoes and jogging bottoms with a warm woollen coat over her sweatshirt in our walk to the Faerie Ring but now she is totally transformed, wearing a diaphanous wisp of what could only be called clothing by a stretch of the imagination and silver satin dancing shoes on her feet as she and her witch sisters dance in a ring, a flowing affirmation of elegance and beauty.

Caoimhe clings to my arm on the edge of the Faerie Ring as she watches on fascinated by the dance. I am only a little less moved by the fantastic pageantry of fluid movement before us.

After maybe five minutes or so of dancing, one of the witches peals off, and approaches us as if she is on wings.

“Caoimhe,” she says to my daughter in a sing-song voice, “go and join the others, they desire to dance with you again, while I take this opportunity to talk to your father.”

“OK, Aunt Katie,” she replies, before she eagerly jumps up and, as she runs towards the circle of dancers, Kaetlynn describes a figure of eight in the sky with her index finger while pointing at my daughter, and Caoimhe’s waterproof anorak and sensible wellingtons turn into clothing entirely appropriate to any simple cavorting dance of witches under the bright bewitching moon.

If I was ever in doubt at the tale of Irish mythology that Etain has woven for us for the past seven days, I can clearly have no shred of doubt about it now.

“My dear sweet Kaetlynn,” I greet my former neighbor, “I’ve never seen you such before as you are now. You are indeed as beautiful as Etain described and more beautiful than I have words to describe.”

“And you, my dear Richard, are as charming and as handsome as ever. Now,” she says as she kisses my cheek, squeezes my shoulders, then turns and we both face the prancing dancers, “are you yet resolved in your relationship with my sister Etain?”

“I do not know yet,” I reply carefully and as honestly as I can, knowing there can be no secrets in the adventure that our realigning lives have become recently. “Etain tells me that she loves me, and she tells me that constantly so that I can be allowed no doubt,” I laugh, “and I do find her absolutely fascinating. In her I know I would find eternal joy for as long as I live. But I must consider Caoimhe before everything else.”

“Caoimhe loves her already, Richard, and she is at the start of her time when she needs both a mother and a father, each for different reasons, both for her protection and her wellbeing as she develops into a woman. As wonderfully well as you’ve been in being both parents for her for so many years, it is now time for her to have a real mother, one who can take her through the next few steps to womanhood and, when she has a family of her own and a man of her own to please, she will get the advice a growing woman needs. At the time that I left the pair of you, and that was partly what made me leave here to force her hand, Caoimhe’s need was becoming more important than I was able to forego any longer. Etain had prevaricated for far too long until that point and, well ... our father was getting anxious.”

“Ah, I thought that the spectre of the Tuatha Dé Danaan would rear his ugly head sooner rather than later.”

“Hush, Richard, you stand two metres inside the land of the Tir na nÓg and, while there are no walls about us, every tree, every daisy, everything has ears in this place and the Tuath Dé may not be pleased to hear of your disrespect. Yes, our father is involved as he is in everything and I have myself had little to do with his interference, being only of the Otherworld for a short while. I know that Etain has told you of the Changelings —”

“Wait,” I interject, “Etain has mentioned them but really told me absolutely nothing of them. What are Changelings and what do they have to do with me?”

“Everything, Richard, everything,” Kaetlynn whispers, “but I too, know little of them, only that throughout Irish history child abuse and infanticide has been blamed on Changelings, where mothers and even fathers have believed that their normal children have become possessed by devils and changed beyond recognition. My father has been searching for a Changeling forever.”

She waved a hand towards the dancers.

“My sister Afric will explain to you what you need to know. She is the eldest of us and has been here in the Otherworld the longest, since she was 12,” Kaetlynn says, “Etain barely knows Afric, she was only two summers old when Afric left us and Etain only met her again a couple of nights ago.” She pauses. “No matter how many times Etain visited this place through portals such as this, she has never felt that she belongs here. Know this, Richard, whatever happens tonight, I know Etain truly loves you. She feels as though you two were meant for each other and no telling her to relax and breathe will hold her back from that belief. If you decide she is not the one for you, then please let her down gently and while we are here with her to protect her. She has always been alone in this world, and has not committed herself to this world, yet, and doesn’t feel she fits in your world either, and she has been happy for all these years to drift along as she is, feeling she had a destiny to fulfil but knowing not what it is. We hoped you might provide the answer and suggested she visit with you. Now she has met you she wants what she may never be able to have and such discovery of a false dawn might destroy her. She is more delicate than you might imagine.”

“I know, Katie,” I say, “I do believe that I love her. I realised that earlier today, not long after she gently embarrassed me in front of my friends and I actually felt pleased and delighted that so soon after meeting me she could regard me so comfortably in the presence of others. If felt as though we were already a couple confident in the sharing of our lives. I haven’t felt like that since, well, since Ella. And I think Caoimhe is already convinced that Etain is family.”

“Having an Irish witch in your family, Richard, is a unique advantage that few even know they would wish to dream to embrace. While she would never be able to read the future of herself, or you or your family, well, who wishes to curse themselves to know everything that is coming? Life is to be lived, to be full of hopes and dreams. Only those who know their future almost as well as they know their past, have no wishes or hopes or even dreams.”

“Well, I do not have a clue about my future and still I have no dreams.”

“But,” she grasps my arm firmly, “You do have hope and wishes?”

“I do.”

“And is Etain now part of those hopes and wishes?”

“I hope they are,” I admit, “In a week since I’ve known her, I feel that she has made us a family, so, yes, I have hopes that she is an intrinsic part of our future.”

She squeezes my arm a little harder before releasing her grip and, with her eyes moving to the side and back again, she directs my gaze to where she has glanced. “Good, Afric is coming.”

Towards us walks, no, glides with effortless flowing movement, a tall, willowy young woman with long flowing dark brown hair, a goddess, who smiles so disarmingly that any male who has not just this second determined where his love firmly lay, would be instantly smitten.

Kaetlynn melts away from me, back to the dancers who, I see in my peripheral vision, pull her in, hold her hands and restart their dancing, Caoimhe eagerly among them, her long red hair flowing behind as she joins the joyful throng as if she has always danced with immortal witches every Friday night when school is out.

“I’m Afric, Richard,” the willow woman that Kaetlynn has left to take her place in keeping me company says in a husky voice, “Are you enjoying the dance?”

I turn my attention from the dancers and look at the goddess now standing at my side also looking at the joyously moving scene before us. She is very tall, an inch or two taller than me, and I am more often than not the tallest man in the room and never yet met a woman taller than me, especially one who is otherwise so light and feminine in her build.

“I’m sorry for my distraction,” I say, “My daughter has always had a love of dancing, but I don’t think I have ever seen her so happy as she is now. And, though Etain is still an enigma in my life she looks totally at home even though I get the impression that she is normally a solitary soul. As for Kaetlynn, I’ve only ever known her as an elderly woman, who tended to shuffle with the aid of a walking stick rather than glide and bob and leap so athletically and it is fascinating to me to see her so, well, so buoyant and full of beans. And beautiful, too. I’d always thought she was a lovely person, but seeing her now as she really is, is...”

“Magical?”

I see Afric is smiling with both her mouth and her glittering eyes, amused no doubt by the wonder she detects in my eyes.

“Yes,” I agree, “truly magical. You must forgive me. I am from a culture where ‘magic’ means CGI, smoke and mirrors and fakery. Since Etain appeared everything seems to have to be looked at in a new light.”

“I can see it is bewildering to you,” Afric smiles. “My father would like a word with you in a few minutes if you will permit.”

“Why?” I ask, “Does he want me to ask for the hand of one of his daughters?”