Page 8 of The Winter Goddess

The Second Life

Dagda’s skill and knowledge of bees helped me survive that winter and the next. I became more and more adept at keeping them myself too, able to tell on my own when a hive was sick or had lost its queen.

Failinis was my constant companion as the years passed. Though the villagers had once thought him nothing more than a nuisance, they grew to adore him, calling him when we walked through the main road, holding out bones they’d saved and letting him take them gently from their hands. Several children took their first steps with his help, a fistful of his long hair tangled between their fingers. Sometimes the fishermen from the harbor would even whistle for him when they’d had an especially good catch, and they’d laugh and laugh as they watched him race down the long hill toward them. It made me glad to see how they loved him, and with their love for him their wariness of me decreased. I would not say I was friends with any of them, not like Dagda, but people liked me at least well enough to give me small smiles or nods when they saw me.

I had not seen Danu since the night she’d shown herself to Dagda, and I was glad. I certainly lived better now than I had my first life, but I still did not want her to see my mistakes: the afternoon I dropped the well lid on my foot, badly bruising it, or the days I spent in bed after eating rotten fish, or even smaller missteps, like the time Failinis ate half a jar of honey when my back was turned. I also didn’t want her to see my triumphs. She did not need to know that the villagers loved my honey, saying it was sweeter than any they’d known. She did not need to see that my candles always shone gold and true down to their very dregs, or that my friendship with Dagda had become strong and sturdy as a deeply rooted tree. If she saw any of these things, she would take it as proof that I liked the life she’d given me—or worse, that I was grateful to her for it. And while there were things I did appreciate about this life—Failinis, talking with Dagda, the satisfaction of selling all my candles during a single market day—I did not like mortality . I still longed for the freedom to do whatever I wanted, to eat and drink as I wished, to spend my days in more than endless chores. I missed the easy power of godhood—a wave of a hand to light candles, a blink of an eye to bring water to my lips, a thought from Danu that I could answer even if I was on the other side of the world. Mostly, though, I missed winter. It had been heady to send wind sweeping over the mountains, to release the weight of snow from my shoulders, to send that weight over the hills and watch as they turned from green to white. The days I’d sent winter had made me feel complete, as though I were giving the ever-moving world a small rest, a moment when it could close its eyes and sleep for a while, a bear in its den.

Now, when my longing for godhood grew too strong, Failinis and I would walk through the wood as far as my dog’s little paws would allow, or into as much cold as my fingers could stand, before we turned back for home and the warmth of our own fire.

We were coming home from one such walk when I noticed that Failinis was trailing behind me. He’d been a bit slow all day, but I thought he’d just spent too long dozing by the fire. Usually a walk invigorated him as it did me.

“Come”—I clucked my tongue at him. We had stayed out longer than we should have. I could hear wolves’ cries in the air; the moon was rising above us. He lumbered toward me and kept up for a few paces, but quickly fell back again. “Failinis, come,” I called again impatiently. He could not be so slow when there was so far left to go; I still could not see the light from my hut. He tried to bound to me, but his head was low to the ground and his ear that usually stood up so jauntily was flat against his head. He looked exhausted, as though he could barely stand, and gave a little whine as I hurried back toward him, chest tight in worry.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I stroked his head gently before picking him up and cradling him against my chest. He licked my neck, then buried his head in my shoulder. It was a struggle to walk through the snow with him, but I marched grimly on until we finally reached our hut. I set him down on the pallet and examined him closely, but I didn’t see any wound or obvious problem. “Did we go too far?” I murmured, sitting beside him. He gave a little sigh and stretched his head across my stomach. “He just needs rest,” I said to the hut, to the coals that had burned low. “He’ll sleep and wake better in the morning.”

Failinis usually slept against my leg, but that night he sprawled across my chest. When I woke the next morning and tried to get up to feed him, he whimpered softly until I returned to bed and let him curl up against me again. I gave him a few sips of water, but he refused to eat, and fear rose in my throat like a great black snake. Failinis had been young when I’d found him, and even now he couldn’t be older than seven or eight. I’d only recently begun to see grey hairs on his muzzle.

He refused to move for the rest of the day. Evening drew on, and I knew I had to get him to eat. I went to retrieve the large bone that Dagda had given me a few days before; I’d meant to use it for soup, but now I offered it to Failinis, hoping the smell of it would tempt him to get out of bed. He climbed wearily from the pallet and took the bone from me, and my worry retreated slightly. He would be fine. He was just sick. But he gnawed at the bone only for a moment before dropping it with a soft flump on the floor. I sat back on the pallet and put my head in my hands, all my fears returning. What could I do for him? He crawled back into my lap, setting his head on my knee with another sigh, and I lay back onto the pallet, holding him against my chest. We would sleep again. Then I would get up early the next morning and go to the village to see what remedy they might have.

When I woke, Failinis was still asleep on my chest. I eased him off me to lay him gently down on the pallet. I did not even bother to tie my shawl around my head and ran out the door, barefoot and bareheaded as I’d once run through the world. I banged on Dagda’s door until he appeared, bleary-eyed. I told him about Failinis and begged him to ask around the village to see what might be done for him. Dagda, who loved Failinis too, nodded gravely and set out with an urgency that made my heart ache. Then I ran back up the hill to my dog.

Failinis rested in my lap all day as the villagers came, bringing what remedies they could. They offered him tinctures and tonics, bones still thick with meat, cream, and honey, but he refused them all. Several of the children who loved him best tried to get him to chase them as he always did, but they had to be taken wailing from the room when he only watched them with dull eyes.

Dagda and I finally managed to get him to swallow one of the tinctures that Niamh had brought, saying that it was her granny Siobhan’s recipe to cure ailing livestock. After he drank it, Failinis’s eyes brightened and the tightness around my chest loosened. Siobhan would save me again, save my little dog.

Dagda would have stayed with me all night, but I told him to return to the village, saying that I wanted to sleep. He gave Failinis a kiss right between his eyes, and Failinis licked his cheek. I laughed, and then surprised both of us by kissing the same spot on Dagda’s forehead. “Thank you”—emotion welled in my chest—“for helping us.” I could have been alone in this life, but I wasn’t. I had Dagda, and just knowing that I could turn to him when I needed to filled me with relief in the same way that the scent of snow in the air did.

Failinis fell asleep cradled on my chest, and finally I did too, holding my little dog tightly against me.

It was Dagda who found us early the next morning. “Cailleach,” he said, tears in his eyes, shaking my shoulder. “Cailleach.”

I did not need to open my eyes to know that he was dead. There is a peculiar lightness to mortal beings that leaves them as soon as their souls do. Failinis, my little dog, was heavy against my chest, his body already growing hard as a stone. Tears welled in my eyes, but I didn’t let them fall; I was brittle as glass. If I moved, if I even tried to, I would shatter with the despair of losing him—but if I stayed still, if I stayed perfectly still, I could keep him against me a little longer, long enough that perhaps I would turn to stone too, and then we would be two stones together and I could follow him to where he had gone. So he would not be alone. And neither would I.

When Enya died, I had instantly felt her absence in the world. I had known as soon as I saw her chest stop rising that she was gone and would not be coming back.

Though I knew that Failinis too was now gone, I could not understand it. I did not believe it. I could not fathom that he would not come padding up to me, rest his head on my lap, and beg to go out to the stream for a drink as he’d wanted to each morning. Why was he not begging? I stood, unsteady on my feet, needing to go out there myself. Perhaps he was already there. Perhaps I would find him, bring him home to me.

I stumbled over rocks and twigs, my feet cold on the hard ground, but I did not care. I was numb to the pain. I needed to find Failinis, I needed to get water for my dog. The stream was frozen over when I got there, but I did not care. Failinis wasn’t there. I needed to find him. I needed to get him water. I walked out onto the stream, the ice clinging to my warm feet. The water rushed by beneath me. I needed to reach it. I took another step, searching for a stone I could use to carve a hole in the ice, when I heard it. A crack , like the sound of a great tree groaning under a strong wind—or of thin ice breaking under mortal feet. I have to get water for Failinis. I have to get water for my dog , I thought, as I fell into the icy river.