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Lines etch Máthair’s face as she looks between Sion and me. “You told her of your fate?”
I hate the way they’re talking as if I’m not here. I counted on my grandmother for answers and instead, I find her living in a tree and as cryptic and obtuse as Sion on his worst day. “I know he’s a wanderer, fánaí, Veil guide, whatever. I’m helping him with the soulfall?—”
Relief crosses Máthair’s face. “So, you believe?”
All the years of folktales and Faerie stories she’d tell me in front of the fire come flooding back. She was prepping me for the day when I’d be forced to take a leap of faith and let those words fly off the page into my lap.
“I accept St. Augustine’s belief in what can’t be seen, in doomed souls, and—” My eyes meet Sion’s. “Him. Even though I want to drown him in this lake.” I wait a beat to calm my tone. “I do believe his heart is true to his purpose.” A swell of tenderness rises, but I bat it away before it muddles my thinking.
“Thank the powers of earth and sky,” says Máthair. Not exactly the Catholic prayers of thanks she brought me up on. “Then you know this is his last chance to break the soulfall.”
I nod. “Or he’s stuck in the Glade of Chimes. Here.”
Máthair’s face slackens. “Failure of his duty to the spirits of others will bind his soul here forever.”
“Is that so bad? This isn’t a soulfall.”
“It’s not the land of dreams, my child.”
I train strands of white-blond hair behind my ears. “Not Tír na nÓg.”
“Aye.” Sion and Máthair say together.
They stare at one another until Sion speaks. “Imagine being surrounded by the smell of bread baking or meat roasting every day of your life, but you aren’t allowed a bite. All you do is starve day after day.”
A bitter laugh escapes me at his metaphor. “Let me get this straight.” I point to my grandmother. “Somehow, you messed with time and adopted me to help Sion free the souls to earn his ticket to Tír na nÓg or heaven?”
A look passes between them that makes my skin crawl. The creepier stories of changeling children click to the forefront of my memories. “Oh, no. Did this Finnbheara character snatch a baby from my real parents and stick me in its place? Is that why they gave me up for adoption?” A horrible thought occurs to me. Did a baby die so Máthair could raise me like one of her prized apple trees to save her real kid? Have she and Sion spied on me since I was born, waiting for me to ripen? My failed DNA tests flash through my head. “Am I not human?” I hate the tremble in my voice. “Am I a Faerie?”
Máthair breathes deeply, spawning tiny whirlpools in the water around her. “Finnbheara is a mercurial being. He’s dawn light and the deepest of shadow, a star-filled sky and the wickedest of maelstroms. But a kaleidoscope of generosity and benevolence lie at the base of his tumultuous nature. Once in ten ages does the king summon essences from the earth to create a spirit such as you, child of swan and oak.”
Eala Duir.
Swan oak.
“And that’s supposed to give me special power to help the soulfall?”
Máthair’s eyes drink me in with the familiar love I’ve sorely missed. “The spirit of an oak grants breadth of vision and self-confidence.”
Finnbheara didn’t put enough oak in his Eala recipe because I am neither of those things. I prefer the narrow lens of a safe and small life. The very thing these two ground to dust by forcing their agenda on me.
“And the swan—” Even through the shining filter, I see tears sparkle in my grandmother’s eyes. “Has a powerful connection to Tír na nÓg and represents the compassion of the human soul.”
The only connection I have with a swan is my ridiculous feathery hair. I dig my fingers into my arm to touch flesh and convince myself I’m real. “I’m supposed to buy my very existence was created via magical interference from Finnbheara?”
“Has your life not been a happy one, my darling girl?”
I flinch at the question. Up until Máthair was taken from me, my life was filled with happiness.
“I am the mother you were given. Finnbheara created your spirit, but you were born of flesh and are as human as any begun the natural way. I insisted it be so. For you to have compassion for humanity, for the souls, you had to live a human life.”
Sion runs a hand along my arm. His touch is both comfort and confusion. My face flushes, recalling his embrace and the sweetness of our lovemaking. Those things were real to me. Despite mythical overtones and our out-there skill of bopping across centuries, we are flesh and blood and bone. I meet his gaze. “My parents were real people?”
He nods. “A barren couple. The woman was a welcome vessel. After your birth, Finnbheara adjusted their perceptions to shield you, then blessed those folks with many other children as thanks for bringing you into the world for our ma.” Sion breaks eye contact. “They’ve no memory of you.”
This is ludicrous. I bite the inside of my cheek. As crazy as traveling through time or souls falling or rising from a gray tower. Insane enough to possibly not be a lie.
I look back at the face in the water. “Why you?”
