Page 5 of The Winter Goddess

The First Life

It took me days to hunt down a rabbit, even though the hill was full of them. I’d watched them go in and out of their burrows, and at first I’d thought it would be easy—all I needed to do was throw out my hand and grab one—but my hands were slow and all the rabbits escaped me. Thankfully, I found an old snare in the wood, and after much trial and error was able to re-create it; before long, I’d caught several. Their meat was tough and fairly tasteless, but the hens did not lay enough eggs for me to depend entirely on them.

I was chopping through a rabbit heart when the knife I was using slipped, scoring a line through my thumb. One moment, my skin was whole and smooth, and the next it was as bloody as the creature I’d just put into the stewpot. I was startled by the blood’s brightness, could only stare at the gash as red trickled down my finger.

I had never bled before; gods did not bleed. And even if we did…I could not imagine Danu dripping red. Her blood would be sap green, slow, and sticky and sweet, and mine should have been silver, silver as ice, and Lug’s would be —I would have stood there stupidly coloring all the gods’ blood had my thumb not begun to throb. I hissed at the pain, setting down the knife I still gripped, wrapping a cloth around my thumb tightly until the bleeding stopped. After that, I gently dunked my hand in the bucket of water I’d brought from the stream, cleaning the blood away, but when I held it up, I still saw a slender red slash where the knife had bit. Enya had once shown me a thin white scar on her knee, and I remembered now that I had not been able to understand how her skin could hold such a mark. But now I understood; now I remembered that mortal bodies changed . They grew thinner, fatter, greyer. They grew lined from smiling and from weeping alike, scarred from war, marked by falls and brambles—and knives.

After that, I was more careful and finished the stew slowly, pleased with the scent it threw into the air. I had not had a real meal since I’d been forced into this body, and I decided to enjoy it outside in the cooling spring air on the hill, which sloped down a long way until it met a green wash of sea. It was pleasant to sit there with nothing but the frogs croaking while swifts flew overhead, rising and falling, their bellies gleaming, catching the last light of the sun.

I stayed out there for a long time, my face softening as I watched the birds, filled with a quiet peace I had not known since Danu had sent me down here. I would have stayed longer if my stomach had not started to pinch with pain. Had the stew made me ill? I didn’t want to go in, but sitting out there in pain made me feel small and fragile as though I were no stronger than the tiny birds above, so I went inside and fell into a blurry sleep.

I woke just a few hours later to a prickling feeling between my legs. I reached down, and when I pulled my fingers up, they were tipped with blood. I heard Enya’s voice echoing down through the centuries, Surely your ma’s told you, all women bleed? Once we do, we can have babies .

I shivered and wiped my fingers on the pallet. Enya had bled and then she had died. I knew that she had died because of the babe in her belly, but I found myself wondering if, because I had bled, I too would die. Worse, a shiver of fear ran down my back at the thought. How strange it was, to have a body that knew instinctually, in some animal way, that death came for all. But was this just the fate of all women? To bleed and be marked as ready, then to bear children for their husbands until they died?

I tried to make the idea a shape I could understand, but I must have fallen asleep because I suddenly jumped awake at a knock. I’d rehung the curtain over the doorframe, so I could not see who was banging on the hut. At first I thought it must be Danu, that she had watched me bleed into the pallet through the night and decided I had suffered enough and could now be allowed to return home. I flung the curtain away from the door, but when I saw a red-haired woman standing there, all welcome slid from my face. It was the same woman who’d come that first morning. I had seen her down in the village below me, could pick her out by her bright hair, but neither she nor anyone else had even glanced at my hut on the hill after their first attempt at welcome.

“Thought you’d be more settled by now and wanting a bit of company.” The woman pushed past me and into the hut. “I’m Siobhan. And you’re Fianna’s niece, are you? The others thought I should just leave you alone,” she continued without waiting for my response, her eyes darting penetratingly around the cabin, “but my mother made me promise to always aid strangers when I can.”

I frowned, about to tell her I did not need her pity, when a cramp roiled through my belly and I grimaced, pressing my hand against it.

The woman narrowed her eyes at me, looking me up and down before her gaze flicked to the pallet. When she saw the bloody stain, her face softened. “Did you not feel it coming, is that why you bled through the pallet?” I shook my head. “But surely it’s not your first time? You’re much too old for that. You’re of an age with me, and I’ve just reached my thirtieth year.”

I stifled the urge to laugh. I was older than her oldest relation and could have told her so, but of course she wouldn’t have believed me, would have just thought I was even more mad than they had first assumed.

“Did your mother not tell you what to do?”

The thought of Danu teaching me about blood was ludicrous; she cared only about pleasant things. I opened my mouth to tell the woman as much, but my stomach twisted again and I winced, shaking my head.

“Well, I’ve no liking for you, but I can’t leave you alone here, bleeding freely,” the woman said. “The wolves will smell you.”

I had never thought of wolves as dangerous. Even the greatest of them frolicked around me like puppies when I stepped in their midst, recognizing me for what I was. I’d heard howling a few nights before, and I hadn’t been frightened—indeed, I’d smiled when I’d heard them lift their voices to the air—but now just remembering the sound made my skin prickle with fear.

“It was a long winter. They don’t come down to the village, not after we drove them farther out into the forest some years back, but they’ve been known to come to the hill. And now they have pups to feed. I don’t think they’ll pause just because you’ve not got the weight of me.” She stoked up the fire then glanced at me. “Well, at least you’ve water,” she said, peeking into the pot that sat over the fire. “You can clean those”—she pointed at my soiled undergarments—“while I show you what to do.” She reached as if to take them off me herself, but I backed away, not letting her touch me. She raised an eyebrow but just said, “You can take them off on your own.” She turned away and I slipped the bloodied things off, throwing them into the pot. After I pulled on my other pair, she tied her shawl around my waist like it was a skirt, pushing me out the door. “My ma said that some women who don’t get enough to eat never bleed. Maybe your bleeding never came because of how thin you are.” She strode into the forest. “But if it’s started now, you’d best know how to attend to it.” She turned to see that I had not followed her and gave me a long, hard look. “I’m offering you my help. And I’m not asking anything in return.”

I looked away from her. I did not want to learn, to be among mortals, but it was true that she was offering me something kind, something I desperately needed. It was foolish, absurd, to need her help, but what choice did I have? So when she began to walk toward the wood, I followed her. Reluctantly I asked, “Is there something that might help the pain?”

“There are some plants and herbs we can gather in the forest that will help,” she said. “But first we need to fix it so you’re not bleeding down your legs and walking around without anything decent on.”

Siobhan and I walked through the forest quietly, until we came to a large mossy clearing. She reached over, peeled a large piece of moss off a tree, and held it up. “This absorbs the blood. And it’s soft besides. Go on now, gather it yourself. Pull it gently so you don’t have any bark come off with it.” It was easier said than done, but eventually I managed to fill a pocket.

“The other too,” Siobhan said when I showed her all I’d gathered. “Even then, probably won’t be enough. You’ll bleed for several days at least. You’ll need to come back.”

Days , I thought in disbelief. Mortal women bled for days?

Siobhan must have read my face because she said, “Did you truly grow up around no women?”

I thought of my brief days with Sorcha, with Enya. They had been the only mortal women I’d ever known, but it had been so long ago. So I said, “No. We did not live near any others.”

The woman looked sad. “That must have been lonely.”

I shook my head. “I liked it.” I tilted my head up to the green trees, let my eyes linger on them for a moment. “It was peaceful.”

Siobhan didn’t respond, though I waited, and I wasn’t sure why I felt a twinge of distress at her silence. She was just helping me because her ma had once told her she must. And why was I searching for anything more? It didn’t matter. I did not need a friend.

“You’ll need shoes,” Siobhan said after several long minutes of silence. “Not during spring and summer, but the winter here is cold.”

“Is it?” My voice was tight with longing, remembering the soft, quiet world I’d walked through so recently, my feet bare in the snow.

“Sometimes it is unbearable.” Siobhan’s voice was quiet. “I…I lost a child to the winter. I’ve never known a winter like that.” Her eyes were distant, remembering. “It happened the first year after I was married. Snow up to my waist, cold that stole breath. My babe was just a wee thing, and she began to cough. I’d heard of it before, babies that could not draw breath in the cold, and all that winter I waited, holding her close to me, until spring came. Only that year…it never did.” Siobhan sighed softly and turned her back to me. I thought she might be wiping her eyes.

I remembered how I’d grieved for the mound they had desecrated, letting the world turn white around me in my anger and loss, but I felt more than sorrow at the memory. I felt…shame, my cheeks flushing red. She did not know that it had been because of me, my fault that she had lost her child. Had we wept together—me over what the mortals had taken from me, and she over what I had taken from her? I looked down at my pale white hands and knew that as I would mourn my clearing forever so too would she mourn her child.

Shame , I thought triumphantly the next moment. I had felt shame that I had caused her child to die. Surely now Danu would end this punishment? She would know that I understood what she was trying to teach me.

I looked up into the sky, but nothing happened. Danu did not come down and release me. “I’m sorry,” I said finally, hoping that Danu needed me to speak the words aloud, to hear me express my sorrow to this woman, but nothing happened. Siobhan just kept gathering moss. “I’m sorry!” I repeated, louder, and Siobhan turned.

“I heard you. But your sorrow won’t bring back my little girl, will it?” Her eyes were hard. “All of them say ‘I’m sorry.’ They say it as though it will be the same as having my girl in my arms again, as though their words can ease me.” Siobhan ran a hand through her hair, and suddenly she looked very young.

“Brigid.” A familiar voice spoke. “Her girl’s name was Brigid.” Danu stepped through the trees, close enough to Siobhan that she could touch her cheek, though the woman did not move or give any indication she knew Danu was there.

“Danu.” Relief flooded me, making my hands tremble. Danu had come to take away my punishment. “I’m sorry.” I pointed at Siobhan. “I am truly sorry that her daughter died because of the cold.”

Danu didn’t say anything, just looked around the clearing, touched the moss that bulged from Siobhan’s pockets. “They are fascinating, aren’t they? They bleed between their legs every single moon. But they find a way to stopper it up with the simplest of things. Moss.” She looked down at her own legs. “I don’t remember bleeding as a mortal woman. I wish I did.”

“You don’t.” My voice was pinched as another wave of pain ran through me. “It’s horrible.”

“You’ve bled?” Danu’s voice held a note of wonder, almost of avarice.

I nodded. “I had to get something to stop it up so the wolves wouldn’t smell it on me.” I hoped Danu would pity me. “It hurts.”

Danu’s eyes lit up. “You get to feel , Cailleach. Do you understand the gift I—we have given you?”

If I had been in my immortal form, I would have bounded away from her foolish questions. I would have gone somewhere quiet and cold, a place with snow so thick it muffled all sounds. But I was not in that form and would not be without her consent, so I nodded. “I understand.” My voice was quiet. “And I am sorry. Did you hear me tell Siobhan I was sorry?”

She shook her head. “No.” Her voice was distant. “I merely thought to see how you were doing after so long away.”

“It has only been six days.”

Danu blinked. “Only six? I thought it had been…months at least. Years, perhaps.”

In a way I understood. Time passed differently as a god. We did not mark the passing of it, not as mortals did. But…I’d thought they would all be watching me. To see how I fared. I found that I was angry that they had not been. “It has been six days.” I tried to keep my voice soft. I needed Danu’s pity, her desire to make me happy again. “Six. Surely, Danu, you will not doom me to stay for years. That will be thousands of days. Tens of thousands.”

Danu’s eyes sharpened. “Six days is nothing, Cailleach. Six days does not atone for those you killed. You must stay until you learn what you did. Until you understand what it is to be one of them.”

“But I had remorse for this mortal, that her child died. I’ve bled. I’ve known pain. Is that not enough?”

Danu glanced at Siobhan, who was still motionless. “Her child did not die; she was killed, Cailleach. By the winter you brought.”

I caught her arm in desperation. “You were right.” My voice was pleading. “I understand mortals now. I understand their pain and fear. I understand blood. I was wrong to do what I did. Please, Danu, give me back the winter.”

Danu looked at me for a long moment. “You understand mortals now,” she said dreamily, smiling, and a deep relief filled my body, making me sag like I’d suddenly dropped a great weight. She believed me. She saw I had changed.

Then her smile vanished like the sun behind a cloud. “In all of six days? I am not a fool, daughter. You will not end this punishment with sweet words,” she snapped, before she disappeared into a slant of sunlight that blinded me before being doused by the shadow of the trees. I wanted to run after her, to scream now instead of beg, to say that this punishment was cruel, unjust, but without my true form I could not follow, could only feel my heart thudding in my chest, a swirl of emotions that I could not interpret.

I decided then that I would not pretend or playact for Danu anymore. Even though I wore a mortal body, I was still a god. And I would act as one.

“Thank you for your sorrow,” Siobhan said, turning back to me as though she had not just been frozen and mute. I did not respond as she shoved one final handful of moss into her pocket and began walking back toward the hut. “My daughter’s name was Brigid.” Her quiet voice carried through the forest. “Brigid.”

Spring and summer passed slowly, but not easily. Never easily. I fought with weeds in my garden, with small animals that ate my carrots and onions before I’d harvested them. Each day I walked to the stream multiple times to fill my pail with water, my back aching at the end of each evening.

At first I thought I would be able to live with what I had at the hut, but some days I did not catch a rabbit or the hens didn’t lay, and I went to bed hungry. Worse even than the hunger was the endless repetition of the same food day after day: tough, gamy rabbit cooked inexpertly; eggs without salt; berries sour from the bush. One day after I’d eaten yet another breakfast of the like, I decided that I could no longer stand it and would go down to the village to trade for something else.

Siobhan had told me a little about the village that day in the wood, had said it was small and unimportant, ignored by the local king who cared only about the fertile inland and not the sea-hardened coast. The little sickle-shaped clearing of land encompassed the hill my hut sat on and the village below it—no walls, no defenses, just a squalid collection of round huts with thatched roofs. What likely protected it most was that it was surrounded by a dense forest on one side and by a roiling sea on the other.

As I walked through the village, the people I passed did not look terribly friendly. I assumed Siobhan had told them of me, so they did not pull out knives when they saw me, but it was clear that they did not trust strangers—made more obvious when I tried to trade the rabbits for milk and cheese. I had cleaned them well and they were fat, but none of the villagers wanted them. I was about to trudge back up the hill when I saw Siobhan. Several children trailed behind her, all with her red hair, and when she saw me, she raised a hand. “You’ve finally come down,” she said when she reached me.

“I was trying to trade for some cheese and milk.” I contorted my face into a tight smile. This was one thing I remembered quite well from my time among the mortals; they smiled at each other even when there was no true joy in their hearts.

“What have you got to trade?” Siobhan lifted an eyebrow, and I opened the sack to show her the rabbits. She held one up, stroked the soft fur. “I can use them.” Her voice was soft. “I want to make sure my children have fur-lined boots this winter.”

She gestured for me to follow her, and we walked to her hut in the center of the village. She didn’t invite me inside but came out with a jug full of creamy milk and a large piece of yellow cheese. My mouth watered at the smell, and I threw the rabbits down, grabbing both from her before she had the chance to change her mind. I paused before turning away to walk back up the hill. “Why are you trading with me? No one else will. They say they can’t spare it.” I was uncomfortable with her generosity toward me and I needed to know what she wanted. What I owed her for it.

Siobhan wiped a hand across her brow and looked out toward the sea. “My mother was very devout; she prayed every day and she hung on every word that the druids said. She believed that sometimes the gods walked among us in mortal skin.” I laughed then, bitterly and without mirth, but Siobhan didn’t seem to take offense, just continued her story. “I prayed, as a child prays, but I didn’t believe her.” Then she pointed out toward the harbor where the fishermen bobbed in their little hide-covered coracles. “I loved to swim, you know, just there. One day, I was swimming in my usual place when I was pulled out to sea by a wave. It was too deep, and I could barely move against the strength of the tide. I was drowning. I was certain I’d taken my last breath—but then I was pulled from the waves. I felt arms around me, carrying me back to shore. They laid me on the beach…” Her face grew soft, almost dreamy. “Their face was like a mortal—the most beautiful of mortals. Too beautiful to be one. And their blue eyes that shimmered like fish scales.” As she spoke, I realized that she was describing Manannán. God of the sea. “I was certain in that moment that my mother was right. That gods walked in the earth in disguise, and I had just been spared by the god of death. Since that day I’ve treated all outsiders as though they might be gods.” Siobhan sighed and looked at the ground. “I felt that same god’s presence on the night that my—that Brigid died. It was the only way I could let her go. Knowing that she would go to be with the god who had saved me.”

I had opened my mouth to say no, that it was not Manannán who had sat by her. Manannán might have rescued her from the sea, but they did not care about death. If there had been a god with her, it would have been Danu. With her great compassion for mortals , I thought sourly. And wherever your child went, it was not to the gods. I nearly spoke the thought but kept silent. Siobhan was willing to trade with me. I did not want to give her reason to stop. If I had a twinge of guilt at allowing her to have faith in such falsehoods, I ignored it.

But perhaps Siobhan could see some kind of conflict on my face. “Do you believe in the gods?” she asked.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t need to believe in the gods. But I knew that some mortals were so devout that they grew angry when they found someone who wasn’t. “I don’t believe the gods need worship like the druids claim,” I said carefully. “I think it would be better if mortals and gods left each other alone.”

Siobhan blinked at me, surprised by my words. “But the gods require worship.” Her voice was insistent. “They require our prayers and sacrifice in order to listen to us. That is as it always has been.”

“The gods must have had their beginning, once. As everything begins.” I thought of Danu deciding that the gods could not give their gifts for nothing in return. She had been the one who had wanted burnt offerings and gifts of gold to make Tara shine all the brighter.

“You don’t worship them?” Siobhan looked concerned. “Not even our mother, Danu?”

I laughed, short and bitter, at the irony of her question. “I suppose I do speak to Danu. But often I find she does not listen.”

Siobhan sighed, as if there was relief in my answer. That was another thing I did not understand about mortals and their worship. Was their belief, their faith, so faint that the absence of it in another could cause them such worry? Was that faith at all? A part of me wanted to stand there, to argue about it with Siobhan, but I didn’t want to press her; I needed her if I wanted to trade again and upsetting her wouldn’t do any good. I had already said too much. So instead I thanked her for the milk and cheese and walked back up my hill alone, wondering if Danu had been listening.

After that, I walked to the village every few days to trade with Siobhan. I brought rabbits and birds in exchange for milk and cheese from her cow. She smiled when she saw me and sometimes invited me to sit with her, even once to eat with her family—a boy and two little girls. Sometimes I even wanted her company, wanted to stay and talk with her awhile, wanted to play with her children, but I worried that Danu would see a friendship between us as me softening, as her being right to take away my godhood, and so I always shook my head when Siobhan asked me to stay.

The weeks went on. I had enough to survive but little else, and the little I had needed my constant care and attention. When the trees began to lose their leaves, I finally had some degree of comfort. I had never liked spring and summer—these were Danu’s domain. I mistrusted their warmth, their sweetness. I was more clearheaded when cool wind blew on my face, when my feet crunched against the ground. Sometimes that winter, when evening had finally fallen and there was less to do, I would lie down in the frosted grass and look up at stars. Even when my fingers and nose froze, I resisted returning to my dank hut, preferring the clear night. I could pretend I was as I had been—that I, Cailleach the goddess, was in a clearing in a dark wood, gazing up at the stars. Those times were the closest I ever felt to my winter self and were some small measure of happiness, and so I stayed out as long as I could—until my whole body began to shake with cold.

When it grew colder, I traded with Siobhan for boots. Though the shoes were soft, lined with rabbit fur, I hated wearing them—they pinched and constrained my feet with every step. But after the first snow I had realized it was not possible to gather wood or check snares without them or I would injure myself.

However, my boots did nothing to warm my hut when the wind battered it—so hard I thought it might fall down on top of me. I wore all the clothing I had each night, but this did not fully protect me from the drafts that blew down the chimney or from the fire going out in the night.

I spent long hours gathering wood, going deeper and deeper into the forest to try to find more when I’d gathered all near me. I was watchful as I walked, listening for what might be around—for bears, yes, but mostly for wolves, as I had to go into their territory to gather kindling for my fire. Because of this, I carefully checked each clearing before I entered. I had thought this one I entered was safe, that I was alone, but while crouching to grab a piece of wood, I saw a pair yellow eyes just through the bush. The wolf was crouched as well, and so close I could have brushed its ears with my sleeve. I would have in my immortal body—would have run through the forest and hunted deer with it, but now as I caught its eye, my heart began to race.

The wolf was white with flecks of grey, melding perfectly into the snow-covered forest. It was fat and round, with ears that flicked forward then back, but it didn’t snarl. I wondered where its pack was. I rarely saw a lone wolf; more often they hunted together in order to bring down their prey. I wanted to race away but I could not seem to stop staring into its eyes. There was something I understood when I looked at him. Some quiet coldness that promised an end to this mortal life. And for a moment, a brief moment, I considered it. I knew, though, that if I took that death there would be pain and blood—things I now knew to fear—so instead, I slowly let go of the stick and backed out of the clearing until I could no longer see the wolf. Then I turned and did run, as fast as I could—past my hut and all the way into the village, toward the yellow light coming from the crofts. Siobhan was standing outside her door when I approached. “Have you come to celebrate the solstice with us after all?” She held a burning torch out to me, but I did not take it.

“A wolf,” I gasped. “I saw a wolf in the forest.”

“Already?” Siobhan sighed. “It’s early for them to be out. A bad sign of the cold to come.” She looked for her children. They were bundled up and obviously warm, their cheeks flushed, but I saw the fear on Siobhan’s face, that the frost would take them from her. She turned back to me and held out the torch once more. “But here. We can still celebrate the light.”

I had forgotten that tonight was the longest night of the year and that the villagers gathered together to celebrate. Siobhan had told me a few days before that they would light a bonfire and dance around a sacred oak, singing and praying all night, staying up until dawn when light returned. She had invited me to come, but I had turned down her invitation. Now, I was so frightened from seeing the wolf that for a moment I considered staying. Some part of me longed for the light, for the warmth of their fire and songs, the comfort of company—something I had not felt in so many years, so long that I had forgotten I once enjoyed it.

But then I remembered with whom I had shared those nights. How Enya’s future had been ripped from her on one of them. How her face had paled when she’d looked at the old man she was to marry, at the father who had promised he wouldn’t force any such thing upon her. I remembered how Danu had carried me away shrieking—remembered Enya’s lifeless body. I had to bite my cheek to keep tears from filling my eyes. I turned away from Siobhan and said, “No. I have to return home.”

I trudged slowly back up the hill and lit my fire. I’d forgotten that I had not actually gathered any wood that day, but I couldn’t go now. I kept thinking about those yellow eyes and was too frightened. Again I wished for my goddess self, who would have never feared such a creature—but in my god form, I wouldn’t have needed a fire at all, and frustration coiled tightly in my bones. I decided there was nothing to do but go to sleep and hope for warmth. I lay there with all my clothes on, my blanket pulled tight as it could be around me, and, unbidden, I thought of Enya with a ferocity I had not in years; the village and their celebrations had awoken something in me. Or maybe it was the cold of the night. I found myself wishing that she were here, that she were still alive, that we could fall asleep curled around each other as we had so many times as children. I missed her so much then that I began to cry. I did not bother wiping away my tears. After all, who was here to see them? I was alone, not even the winter to give me solace. So I lay there and sobbed for a long time until finally, I fell asleep.

When I woke in the dark some hours later, I realized it was still night. The longest night. My fire had gone out, and I knew I needed to stand, to go and stir it up, to go out to the forest to gather wood, but my body was too stiff, too cold. I couldn’t uncurl my fingers from around my blanket, couldn’t get my legs to swing out into the open air. I was frozen with the same panic that I’d had the day I’d nearly drowned in the stream—a swirling, gasping terror—but this time, I could not respond to it, could not make my limbs move, could not make them fight. I could only lie there, knowing that I was about to die.

My last thought before blackness took me was that I had never before been afraid of the cold.