Chapter 11

The following characters appear in the next few chapters:

Angela

Aengus’s youngest daughter, 5’-6” tall, 130 pounds, 58 years old, brown hair going gray, blue eyes

Fergus Feeney

Guide, 5’-9” tall, 145 pounds, 45 years old black hair, blue eyes

Brian

Chief Druid, older man, tall, somewhat thin with a long white beard and hair

Etain

Sorcerers, older woman, tall, still with a nice shape, not too thin, long brown hair with silver highlights

Emer

Fairy, very blond with long hair, blue eyes, 3’-0” tall

We were shown up to a large bedroom with a King sized bed. Our luggage was already there. Margie and Katie changed into their long green dresses with petticoats and brushed and arranged each other’s hair. I just changed into my gray suit from the slacks and sports coat I had been wearing. At 12:30 there was a knock on our door and a woman of nearly sixty entered when told to come in.

“Lunch is ready now,” she told us, and then added, “Please don’t wear father out. His health isn’t that good, and he tends to overexert himself.”

“You’re his daughter then?” Katie asked.

“Yes, I’m Angela, his youngest daughter,” she told us, and then asked, “Are you really the same sisters that father has always talked about?”

“Yes, dear, we are. We’ve been this way for 160 years,” Margie told her, near tears and in a very soft quavering voice.

“It must be wonderful to always be young!” Angela said, not understanding.

“No, it’s anything but wonderful,” Katie answered her. “Everyone we used to know is either dead or very old now. We’ve seen too many come and go. We’ve seen too many changes. It’s not wonderful at all,” she finished near tears. I put my arms around both sisters and hugged them to me. They turned and put their heads on my chest for a time, as they cried.

“I ... I’m sorry. I had no idea,” Angela said, also distraught. “Will you be able to attend lunch?”

“Yes, we’ll be down in a few minutes,” Katie told her with a sob. “Don’t wait for us to start.” The door closed behind Angela, and I held both sisters for some time before they recovered enough to wipe the tears away and redo their makeup after washing their faces.

“We’ll lick this thing,” I told them, affected by their sorrow.

After lunch the sisters spent time with Aengus remembering things they had done in the past. I spent some time with his library, which was quite extensive. He had some wonderful old books, and I was pleased to go over them.

Dinner that evening was very formal and both Patrick and Angela were there. The six of us spent some time discussing world events, especially the happenings in the middle east. After dinner, there were drinks. Aengus had a very fine bar in his study. Katie, Margie and I only had some of his fine porter. The others imbibed somewhat stronger drink.

“You know,” Patrick told me, “thanks to the O’Connell’s help, father not only kept the ‘Keys and Crown’ but managed to acquire several other Pubs over the years, but not in Dublin itself. The others are in the area surrounding Dublin. My brother, I, and our sons have been kept quite busy running them. They have provided a good living for our families.”

“Have the O’Connell sisters done as well?” he asked next.

“Yes, they still have part of their old plantation where they live, and have a considerable number of investments. They have done very well for themselves,” I assured him, without going into too many details.

That night in bed both sisters needed sex again before we could go to sleep. They did their best to be as quiet as possible while here.

In the morning after breakfast, we attended church with the O’Briens. The sisters didn’t have any problem attending mass at their local Catholic church, but did draw some attention with their long dresses and wonderful voices.

After returning from church and having lunch, the subject of the trip was brought up.

“Patrick will drive you out to Castlebaldwin tomorrow. There is a man there who will guide you up to Kesh Corran. However, you will have to make contact with the Aos Si by yourself. We can’t help you there. Are you all right with that?” Aengus asked.

“Yes, we will be all right with that. Will he be able to return for us on the morning of the 16th of August?” Katie asked.

“Will you be staying that long?” Aengus asked in surprise.

“Yes, we will be staying as long as possible. Can the man in Castlebaldwin contact you if we should need to leave earlier?” Margie asked.

“Yes, that can be arranged,” Aengus assured us.

“We have one other request,” Katie said after that. “We have a check that we need delivered.”

“Couldn’t it be mailed? We have an excellent postal system,” Patrick told us.

“This check is for 10,000 euros, and we would rather not mail it,” Margie answered.

“No, not a check that large,” Aengus agreed. “Who is it to?”

“It’s for our dressmaker, Anne O’Malley. She’s a maker of Bespoke Clothes in Dublin,” Margie told him.

“Young Michael can deliver that. He’s in Dublin all of the time. It won’t be a problem,” Patrick assured us. Katie gave him one of Anne’s cards along with the check in a plain envelope. Michael arrived shortly after that, and his father informed him what he had been volunteered to do. Katie also spoke to him about retrieving the three coins before also giving him the check for the work on the pub.

We retired shortly after dinner, which had started at 8:00 that evening, as we needed to repack the clothes we would be taking with us. Katie and Margie had purchased new backpacks in Dublin to carry the new clothes they had purchased there for this portion of the trip. I, of course, already had a backpack and got to carry the ten pounds of gold. There wasn’t any sex that night, only a little hugging and kissing before we went to sleep, together.

In the morning we were up early and had breakfast alone. Patrick showed up in a different vehicle around 8:00 that morning and we were soon on the road. Patrick took the R136 to the N4 and we headed northwest to County Sligo and Kesh Corran.

County Sligo is the 22nd largest of the Republic of Ireland’s 32 Counties. Located on the Irish west coast it is 26th in population with around 61,000 residents. The County seat is Sligo town, which is the birth place of Mary O’Hara, the noted Irish folk singer. The distance from Dublin to Sligo is listed as around 207 km. Since we were already outside of Dublin and Castelbaldwin, our first stop, is around 26 km east of Sligo town, we had approximately 190 km to travel. The journey took a little over two hours.

Our destination, the hill of Kesh and its caves, rises from the Plain of Corann at the western extreme of the Bricklieve Mountains in South County Sligo. The mountain has been known throughout history and pre-history as a place of magic and wonder.

Arriving in Castlebaldwin on the N4, Patrick drove to a small cottage on the outskirts of town. There he knocked on the front door and spoke with a thin man of medium height before bringing him over to meet us.

“This is Fergus Feeney. He’ll be your guide to Kesh Corran. He’ll take you as far as the caves. You’ll be on your own from there,” Patrick told us before turning back to Mr. Feeney.

“Fergus, these are the Sisters O’Connell and Mark Kent,” he told him. “They will all be going up to Kesh Corran.”

“Good day, Mr. Feeney,” we all said, as we exited the vehicle. Mr. Feeney seemed quite surprised that the two women would be going with me.

“Are you sure of this, Patrick?” he asked in Gaelic.

“Yes, quite. These three all speak excellent Gaelic,” Patrick informed him. We could see that Mr. Feeney was embarrassed by this revelation.

“Sorry,” he apologized, “but you don’t look...!” He broke off there and appeared to be even more embarrassed then previously.

“Like Sorcerers,” Katie finished for him.

“How are we supposed to look?” Margie asked with a grin.

“Older, much older,” he replied, uneasily.

“Would it help if we told you that we have looked like this for the past 160 years?” Katie asked.

“A ... a 160 years, you say!?” Feeney asked in shock.

“Yes, a 160 years,” Margie reiterated. Mr. Feeney didn’t know quite how to reply to that.

Patrick had the boot of the car, as he called it, open by then and handed out our backpacks. Each of the women took theirs. He handed me mine last.

“That one’s a lot heavier,” he said as he handed the backpack to me.

“That’s because of the ten pounds of gold in it,” Katie told him with a grin.

“Ten ... pounds!?” Patrick asked in shock.

“Yes, the Aos Si will require payment for their assistance. That is how we will pay them,” Margie told him.

“Aren’t you worried about being robbed?” Patrick asked.

“No, we’re sure the Aos Si would understand if we were to tell them that we had ten pounds of gold for them and that someone stole it,” Katie told him.

“Aye,” Feeney said with a grin, “They would be outraged and would track down the one that did it, for certain.”

“Yes, exactly,” Margie said, also with a grin, “And extract a price from them also.”

“Will you come in for a little tea before we start?” Feeney asked. “And I’ll get ready to go.”

“I really need to get back to Dublin,” Patrick told him, apologeticly. “I’ll be back here on the evening of the 15th of August, and will wait for your return,” he assured us. I shook hands with him and both sisters gave him a kiss.

Feeney’s cottage was small but neat, and his wife had water boiling for tea when we got inside. She served us tea while her husband changed into his walking clothes. Katie gave her fifty euros, as she was sure that her husband wouldn’t accept it.

Feeney had a rather small car, but we all fit in it with a little work. He drove the approximately 11 km to the even smaller village of Kesh at the foot of the mountain. Feeney parked here in the town square, and we commenced our walk.

“It’s fortunate you didn’t delay any longer,” he told us, as we left Kesh village. “On the last weekend of July the annual festival of ‘Lughnasa’ is celebrated here, as it has been for the last three thousand years. Many will be here and some will be making a pilgrimage to climb Ceis Chorainn or Kesh Corran, as they’re calling it now. This coming weekend is ‘Garland Sunday’ and there will be many here celebrating and climbing the hill.” We had proceeded a little further before he asked about our destination.

“You’ll be wantin to go up to the caves, I’m imaginin?”

“Yes,” I answered. “That is where we need to go.” We proceeded at a leisurely pace on a trail that climbed through grasslands, then into moorland with peat loving plants, and finally into an area of deep heather. There were many dry stone walls all around the rolling rocky drumlin hills. As we gained the heights of the hill, Lough Arrow came into view on the other side of the N4.

Shortly the line of limestone caves came into view near the top of the west side of the hill. They were at the top of a steep slippery incline, and were more difficult to reach than we first suspected. Katie and Margie did as well as I did on the climb. It took us around twenty minutes to reach the area of the caves after we started climbing.

“I’ll be leaving you here,” Feeney told us, as we neared the caves. “I have no business with the Aos Si.”

“We do appreciate your assistance, Fergus,” Margie told him and gave him a hug. Feeney flinched at the contact.