Page 27 of The Winter Goddess

The Seventh Life

After Fionn’s death, I was alone as I had not been in many years. I did not know what to do, so I went about life as normally as I could, keeping my bees, tending my garden, trading for fish in the village, taking the time I needed to mourn him—all the while thinking about his final words. His belief that I would remember mortals even if I became a god again. His faith that I would take care of them. Guide them. Love them.

And his certainty that one day, even the gods would end.

I thought of Danu too. I had spent much of my seventh life determined not to remember her, but now I pictured her as she had been, new-made and alone. I did not know if her other stories were true, if Danu had made the world as she claimed, but I did believe her when she spoke of her loneliness. I felt that solitude when I woke alone in my croft on the hill, all the people I had loved, gone now, taken by death before me.

Still, I was not sure what choice I would make.

One night I was on my pallet, lost in thought, thinking again of Fionn and what he had told me, when I began to drift. It was late, the fire flickering, and I blinked and suddenly there was Siobhan, the first mortal who had ever shown me kindness, standing over my bed. The words came to my lips: “I’m sorry, Siobhan, so sorry about Brigid.”

Siobhan’s face was hard but not unkind. “I know you are,” she said. “But your sorrow will not bring her back. I thought of her every day until I died. My wee girl.”

“I lost my own child; I know what it is to—”

“No.” Siobhan cut me off. “Your child lived . You saw her walk and run and play. She married and had children and grew old. I never saw that.” Tears ran down my face, but I did not contradict her. She was right. Mór had died—as all mortals do—but first, she’d had a life. Because of me, Brigid never had a chance to know such joy.

For so long I had blamed mortals for their greed, but it was I who had taken from them. “I did not understand.”

“And do you now?”

I woke with tears on my cheeks.

Somehow, I knew death would come that day.

I climbed from my pallet, made porridge in my old black pot, slowly poured in the honey I had harvested with my own hands. Then I went out to my hives. This year I had not destroyed them, so I could still hear their gentle humming.

I placed the hives into a cart and brought them through the wood until I reached the little clearing where I had stumbled upon Failinis. The thought of him made me smile. Rescuing Failinis had been my first selfless act as a mortal. I bent to touch the ground where I had found him, then rested my hives against the trees. Failinis had loved the bees. He had never snapped at them or frightened them, would just follow them with his eyes, gently bump them with his nose. I hoped my bees would enjoy creating new hives in this clearing, turning it into a place full of flowers.

Thinking about Failinis gave me courage enough to lie down, to look up at the sky growing dark. I held up my hands, and in the evening light they looked blue again. I closed my eyes and let myself remember.

That first day, when I fell in the mud and it splattered wet on my cheek. Siobhan’s eyes on me as she told me about the child I’d killed. A dog whimpering, struggling in the underbrush, then licking my hand, his body warm against my chest. áine kissing me, brushing my long silver hair with her gentle hands, and then those same hands holding a burning torch against my throat, and me screaming and screaming. Then, Mór crying in fear. My daughter in my arms, and me holding her tightly, vowing to never give her up, and dancing at her wedding. My girl leaving me—then coming home, holding my hand. “I love you, Mama, I love you,” she was saying. The world grey as I wandered it, looking for my daughter, and then finding Fionn—the miracle of Fionn—strong and solid in my arms, telling me a story, smelling of smoke and earth. He was saying my name.

“Cailleach,” he said.

“Cailleach.” Their voices were a chorus in my head.

“Cailleach.” Enya reached her hand out, just as she had all those centuries ago. My first friend. My sister.

I lay there for a long, long time, remembering. So that I would not forget.

Snow began to fall.

And I called her name.