The Book of Dreams (31 page)

“The giant will rise with the moon.”

It was the signal they were waiting for. They jumped up as one man. Coins were showered on the counter as they prepared to leave.

“Don’t forget the bags,” said the Cailleach mildly.

Dana and Jean were hauled over burly shoulders and carted out the door.

• • •

It was a rough passage down the road and up the hill. Inside the bag, Dana was jarred and jolted with every step. Whenever the men broke into a jog, it was all the more bruising, as she was bounced off bony backs and shoulders. There was a lot of loud talk and wild laughter and grunting and yelling. As well as the noise, there was also the smell: a heady mix of booze, belches, and body sweat. She began to feel as if she had been kidnapped by pirates.

After what seemed an eternity of discomfort, she was unceremoniously dumped on the ground. As the loud voices moved some distance away, she hazarded a low call to Jean. She could see nothing through the air hole.

“Are you there?”

“Oui,”
came Jean’s whisper. “You okay?”

“More or less.”

They struggled to loosen the ties on their bags and peeked out cautiously. The landscape rolled in dark shadows around them. They were in the hills overlooking Lake Bras d’Or. Below glinted the cold waters of the lake. Above shone the night sky, sprayed with stars and a sliver of new moon. But where was the circle of stones they had seen from the air? There was no sign of it.

They were on the highest hilltop. The ground was tamped earth with coarse patches of grass. Just beyond them, the goblins were busily building a bonfire. Some piled up sticks of driftwood and dried branches. Others lit torches soaked with petrol. One of them emptied a canister of gasoline over the kindling and threw in a match. The great
WHOMPFF
of flames made them all jump back. When they recovered from the shock, they screeched with laughter.

“Ye singed Black Murphy’s ears, ye
omadhaun
!”

Red sparks exploded into the night air as the wood crackled and burned. The men stood around the fire, torches held aloft, gulping down whiskey by the neck of the bottle. A fiddle appeared amongst them, then a bodhran drum and a tin whistle.

Dana squinted through the dimness. The three musicians? Looking over the circle, she understood the Cailleach’s warning. The goblins looked even bigger and wilder in the firelight. Their faces were flushed from heat and exertion, their eyes crazed with drink. These were hard men engaged in a hard man’s ritual.

Up rose the shivery sounds of the fiddle, then the shrill of the whistle, and the thunder of the drum. Harsh voices sang out.

Cold wind on the harbor

And rain on the road

Wet promise of winter

Brings recourse to coal

There’s fire in the blood

And a fog on Bras d’Or—

The giant will rise with the moon.

They began to dance as they sang, weaving around one another with surprising grace. They held their torches and their bottles high, footing it lightly over the rough ground, then stamping their feet down with great crashes. The ground trembled beneath them. Whether it was the firelight or the night shadows or the nature of man-magic, Dana found her sight wavering. In place of the goblins, a great circle of stones took shape to form a rampart around the bonfire. Then out of the stones stepped a new group of dancers—dark-robed men with gold torcs at their necks and blue spirals scoring their faces.

’Twas the same ancient fever

In the Isles of the Blest

That our fathers brought with them

When they went west

It’s the blood of the Druids

That never will rest—

The giant will rise with the moon.

The music grew more frenzied, the singing more frantic, and the dancing increased in speed and complexity. The bonfire flared like solar explosions. The stars in the sky spun deliriously. A vortex of energy was mounting in the circle.

The stones and the Druids melted into the darkness. The goblins returned, drunk as lords. They stomped and bellowed and shook their fists at the moon.

And crash the glass down!

Move with the tide!

Young friends and old whiskey

Are burning inside

Crash the glass down!

Fingal will rise—

With the moon!

Now the dancing reached such a pitch of ferocity and aggression that Dana and Jean hung back, appalled. Where could this end but in murder? They were about to make a run for their lives when the circle turned again.

No longer stones or goblins or dark-robed Druids, they were ordinary men, familiar men. Yes, there they were, the three musicians she had met in Toronto! They played their instruments and they sang and they danced in the company of other men like themselves. Maritimers from the coasts and the islands, from Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, and Cape Breton. They sang with passion to a fever of music. They drank their bottles dry and crashed them to the ground till the glass splintered and sparkled like the stars above. In young and old voices, men’s wild voices, they sang with ardent fervor to warm the cold heart of the moon. Throats hoarse with whiskey and cigarettes and age, they were men of the sea and men of the mines, hard men who lived hard lives, eking out a living, battling bad governments and poverty and hardship, their lineage not forgotten, the blood of the Druids in their veins, the memory of the ancient stones, the blood sacrifice, and the other world so close to their own. The fire was in their blood, in their voices, in their music, in their indomitable will to survive, to live on. Whooping it up around the bonfire, they waved their torches and their bottles of whiskey, roaring full-throated a song lusty with life.

The wind’s in the north

There’ll be new moon tonight

And we have no circle to dance in her sight.

So light a torch, bring the bottle, and build the fire bright—

THE GIANT WILL RISE WITH THE MOON.

O see how he rises! Rising up from the waves! Rising up from the deep! Up out of the deep of the great lake of Bras d’Or! Wet and shining like the stars, dripping water and kelp and sea-wrack, knobbled with barnacles,
wet out of the sea and luminously wet
, gigantic and beautiful against the night. FINGAL THE GIANT! He it was who once strode between the northern shores of Ireland and Scotland, who had crossed the broad Atlantic, wading through the swell with massive legs like tree trunks, over the heaving waves of the cold vast ocean to follow the ships that bore his people, those who told his stories and sang his songs. He couldn’t let them go without him. Like a faithful dog he followed, nearly drowning at times as he sank beneath the water then rising again to plow the main till at last he arrived in the new land, exhausted beyond belief. He collapsed on Cape Breton Island where he heard them singing in the Gaelic. It was early in the morning and the sun was rising over Lake Bras d’Or. He saw the gold light reach out like arms to greet him. He fell into its warm embrace for the merciful sleep of the deep. And there in his wet seabed he still lies at peace. But he will rise, oh yes he will rise, on the night of the new moon if you sing his song with enough fire in your blood and your voice to wake him.

Now with slow, heavy tread, the giant waded out of the lake. As each gargantuan footstep landed on the ground, it sent tremors through the earth. He was huge beyond imagining. Bigger than the hills he crossed to reach the bonfire where they had called out his name.

Towering over the goblins on the hill, the giant lowered his head for a closer look. Expecting a terrifying visage, Dana and Jean were surprised to see a big, round, friendly face. He had a bald head, cauliflower ears, and a thick, bushy beard. The grin was broad and toothless.

“I do love that song, byes. We’re havin’ a party, eh?”

D
ana was so surprised by Fingal’s affability, it took her a moment to act on the Cailleach’s instructions. Then, heart beating wildly, she struggled out of the bag. As she ran toward the giant, she shouted as loudly as she could.

“Yoo hoo! Hello there! Help!”

The goblins went berserk. Screeching with rage, wielding their torches like cudgels, they charged at her.

Jean had just crawled out from his bag and saw the danger to Dana. He turned as he ran, face elongating to a snout, black hair sprouting from every pore in his body. Dropping on all fours, he faced down the goblins, baring his fangs and snarling and snapping. In the fiery shadows of the bonfire, he looked all the bigger and more savage.

Surprised, the wild men stopped in their tracks, but it didn’t take them long to recover. Brandishing their torches, they circled the wolf warily.

By this time, Dana had run back to join Jean. They were hopelessly outnumbered. But before the goblins could move to attack, Fingal’s big hands reached down.

“Now, lads, be pleasant!” he boomed as he scooped up Dana and Jean. “Ye know the rules. The lass got the first word in. Away ye go now and thanks for the song. See ye next new moon, if ye’re up for it.”

This was met with a blue streak of curses, but the men did as they were told, grumbling among themselves as they headed back down the hill.

Fingal lowered his massive face to peer at the two in his palm. His eyes were as big as moons. His nostrils were like caves stuffed with hair.

“Pay no heed to the byes,” he said in a friendly tone. “They work too hard, them fellas. Take no holy-days. Makes wee Jock all cross and cranky.”

He patted the wolf lightly with his baby finger. “Nice doggie, don’t bite.” But as Jean unraveled to his own form, the giant’s eyebrows shot up. “That’s a good trick. I never seen that before. A Frenchie, I betcha.
Loupgarou
, eh?”

Dana expected Jean to be offended by the remark, but he only laughed and nodded. Fingal turned to Dana.

“So, what is it ye want, lass? I’ll do your biddin’ this night.”

Dana shouted to be heard. “The Cailleach said you could help me.”

“An Cailleach Dubh? Aren’t ye the lucky one to be gettin’ advice from the likes of her. She be the sister of Aoife, her that was the wife of Manannan, the Irish Lord of the Sea. I shouldn’t be tellin’ ye this now, but I’ve always been partial to a bit of gossip. I’ve heard tell that Aoife stole secrets from her husband. The language of nature, it was, and all the wisdom it gives. Well he murthered her for that, didn’t he? She was of the crane family so he made a bag of her skin and put the secret language inside it. Now her sister, An Cailleach Dubh, got ahold of the bag. She’s not a crane, mind, she’s—”

“A cormorant!” Dana burst in with sudden insight. Images of the old woman flashed through her mind: the feathery shawl, the hooked nose, the high-stepping gait. She wasn’t human at all, but a bird-woman. “Of course!
An Cailleach dubh.
The black witch. It’s the Irish name for the cormorant, and they do look like witches with their raggedy black wings!”

“Anyhows,” the giant continued, “once the Cailleach got the bag, she had to scarper from the wrath of Manannan. She flew all the way across the ocean till she dropped down here in Cape Breton, almost dead. And here she stayed. A bit like me own tale,” he finished.

“She told us you can find things,” Dana said. “I’m looking for the Book of Dreams.”

Fingal scratched the top of his bald head. The rasping noise was like a saw cutting through a tree.

“Can’t say as I’ve heard of it. But there’s another one of your lot wandrin’ about the place lookin’ for a book. Brendan’s his name. A saint from the Old country, travelin’ like a sailor in a wee boat. I could find
him
for ye. Maybe you’re after the same thing?”

Without waiting for a response, the giant strode from the hills and headed straight for the ocean. He didn’t slow down as he reached the seashore, but simply kept going, into the cold waves. Soon Cape Breton was but a shadow behind them.

Cupped in the shelter of Fingal’s hands, Jean and Dana peered through the lattice of his fingers. They were striding over the water as if crossing a plain. On their left rose the jagged coastline of Newfoundland. In every other direction swelled the far-flung sea.

“I know some saint,” Jean said to Dana. “Who is Brendan?”

“He’s an Irish one,” she explained. “Very old. He sailed to Canada in a leather boat, long before the Vikings or the French and English.”