Page 26 of The Winter Goddess

The Seventh Life

“Cailleach!”

Fionn was shouting my name when I opened my eyes. “You weren’t breathing,” he gasped, “you weren’t breathing.”

Then he pulled me close to him and the stars were above us and I was alive again, alive and in my own mortal body, and he knew me. Fionn knew me. He, a mortal man, and I, a mortal woman.

My next life. And my last.

My seventh life was long and sweet.

Fionn continued to travel the road each year, returning to me before the snow fell. I continued to keep bees and gather honey and turn golden wax into golden candles. I made friends with the villagers and held their children on my knee and watched them walk and then run and then dance, but I had none of my own. I’d had Mór, and at the end of this life, I would I hold her again.

And, for the first time, I grew not just older but truly old. My back began to ache and my eyes to cloud, my face filled with lines. Fionn’s hair and beard became grey, his strong hands shook when he held a knife, and eventually he stopped walking the road. It relieved him to rest, to lay down his voice and begin working with wood, spending the last years of his life carving little animals for the children of the village.

I was so busy with our lovely life that I did not notice at first when Fionn began to cough.

One day, I found him sitting on the bench that overlooked the sea. He put his arm around my waist, leaned his head into me. “Cailleach, my love. I am dying.”

My eyes blurred with a rush of tears. He had not lied to me since that day he’d told me the truth about Fia. And yet I could not, would not, believe him now. Nor could I look him in the eye. “Don’t speak such nonsense.”

He pulled me into his lap, and I wound my arms around him. “I will miss you, my love.”

“No.” My voice shook, the tears spilling from my eyes. “No, please. Don’t leave me.”

Fionn pressed his lips against my brow gently. “You know, more than any, that nothing can stop death.” He twined his hands with mine. “You gave me back my life, Cailleach. And I hope I have given you one in return.”

I buried my face in his chest and cried for a long, long time, and he let me. Held me close, kissing my hair, my temples, my eyes.

I lifted my head to look at him. “You might go before me, but I will come too, as soon as I can.” I held my age-spotted hands in front of me. “I made a decision when I last stood before Danu.”

Fionn frowned, removing his arm from around my waist to meet my gaze. “What do you mean? You will not die. Not really. Eventually Danu’s punishment will end, and you will become what you were—are. A goddess.”

“I am not a goddess any longer, and I never will be again.” My voice tremored with eagerness, with the excitement of finally telling him, of him knowing we would see each other again. “I am mortal. I realized when I confronted Danu about Fia that I could not go back to that world of indolence and power. I will not go back.”

“Danu won’t let you—”

“I bargained with her—I would keep her secret, I told her. If she let me die a true death. She agreed.”

Fionn stood, pushing away from me. His back was bent now, and he leaned on a long wooden staff he had carved himself as he looked out onto the sea far below. “You are a coward,” he said.

I reeled back as though he’d slapped me. “What?” I did not know what else to say. Fionn had never spoken to me so harshly before, and when he turned, I saw spots of color in his face.

“Cailleach, you have received what none of them did—not Enya or Mór or Fia. The chance to become a god. And not just any god—but one who understands what it is to be mortal. To live and die, and to watch those you love live and die. You are the only one who will not forget, who loves us for what we are. Who will speak for us.”

“But if I become immortal again, I will never see those I love.” My voice trembled. “I will never see Failinis or Enya, Mór, you.”

“Cailleach, my love.” He came back to me, placed his hands on my wet cheeks; I had not realized I had begun, once more, to cry. He leaned his forehead against mine. “By becoming a god again, you would honor all of them. You could do what Danu has never done, comfort and guide and protect. Give, rather than take.”

“I will forget,” I whispered. “You do not understand what it is to be a god. It is endless eternity. It is how Danu became the way she is. She forgot her mortality. So will I, eventually.”

“You won’t,” Fionn said simply. My heart ached at his easy trust, his faith. “You have lived as she never lived, died as she never died. And you had us. Your friends, your family. You will remember.”

“You would curse me like this? You would have me never be able to see you again, never touch you, know your embrace?”

“You will. One day.” He spoke with utter conviction. He smiled gently. “My love, Danu has not always been. She will not always be. And neither will you. Eventually the Tuatha Dé Danann will pass. Eventually, you will die. And then, then we will be together again.”

Fionn died two days later, clasped in my arms.