The Light-Bearer's Daughter (34 page)

“You’re it!” she shouted at the top of her lungs. Then she whispered quickly into his ear. “It’s okay, Bird. We’re friends.”

As soon as the others heard her cry, they shrieked with glee. The game was on. Dana smiled as they scattered, but didn’t join them. She didn’t feel like playing. It was then she admitted to herself that there was only one person she wanted to meet there. And she was suddenly that lonely child again, sitting on the steps, looking up and down the street, waiting and wishing
.

She had just decided to leave when a voice chirped at her elbow
.

“Here you is! I be’s looking for you everywhere!”

Ivy was all dressed up in a skirt of woven bluebells with a necklace and bracelet of lapis lazuli
.

Dana was so delighted to see her she picked up the little boggle and swung her around
.

“Am I ever glad you’re here! I hardly know anyone. I don’t suppose …” Dana hesitated. She didn’t want to spoil the fun, but Ivy was like her best friend. She could be honest with her. “I want to go home. Could you help me get back to Bray?”

Ivy burst out laughing
.

“You can’ts go home, silly. This be’s your party!”

“What?”

“Don’ts you know? This be’s in your honor!”

ully restored and resplendent, Lugh of the Mountain, Lugh of the Wood, stood upon the crest of the ridge. He saw nothing and no one but the Lady of Light who stepped toward him, her hair aflame like the sunset
.

They did not draw close, but kept the distance of strangers. Each wore a golden mask of pain. Yet they gazed hungrily upon each other, desiring to bridge the dark of their past
.

“My Lady, forgive me that I did not come to thy aid when I heard thee cry out from the shadows.”

“You were bound under a spell of stone and earth
, a chroí
.”

“Still, I should have come to thee.”

“My Lord, forgive me that I did break our covenant and cause thee such torment.”

“You fell into a spell of love and forgetting
, a stór,
and you suffered for it.”

“Still, it grieves me to have afflicted thee so.”

As they spoke together, their masks faded away. For love is as strong as death. Passion as fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench it. Neither can floods drown it
.

She flew toward him like a bird flying home in the evening. His arms were the branches of a tree on the lee of the mountain
.

“My love,” they murmured to each other. “My only love.”

And lo, the winter is past, the flowers appear on the earth, and the time of the singing of birds is come
.

efore Dana could say anything more to Ivy, a tantara of trumpets rang out over the mountain. Now a great roar rose up from the throng as King Lugh and Queen Edane arrived. He wore the green and brown of hill and forest, with a flowing mantle of dark-purple and a chaplet of oak leaves. She glimmered like the sky in silver-blue and white, her fiery hair bound with a winged crystal crown. Arm in arm, the royal couple greeted their subjects with the same love and joy that was showered upon them
.

Dana edged her way to the back of the crowd. Her feelings were jumbled. She could barely comprehend that this beautiful queen was her mother, and Lugh himself seemed too majestic and unreachable. Her overriding emotion was one of dismay. Must it be like this? Would she always be an outsider?

Silence fell over the huge gathering as the King raised his hand
.

“Pleasant it is, beloved friends, to meet at last on the summer lawns, after the longest winter the Mountain Kingdom has ever known. This is a time of great jubilation. Let it be known that there is one amongst us whom we must thank for this wondrous day.”

Dana nearly died of embarrassment as all eyes turned in her direction. Both Lugh and Edane were smiling at her with such an intensity of love that she had to look away
.

The King lifted his hand to quiet the applause
.

“Yet it is not we who shall give her praise and thanks this night, but honored guests who come to our table. Give welcome, my people, to the High King and High Queen of Faerie.”

As the horns of Elfland rang out once more, a fatamorgana of sound swelled over the mountain. Bands of multicolored light shot into the air like fireworks, as a mighty stone archway took shape in their midst
.

“There’ll be talk of UFOs in the Wicklow Hills tomorrow,” Dana whispered to Ivy
.

“You’s for what?” hissed Ivy, but she kept her eyes on the shining portal
.

When their High Majesties stepped through the arch, Dana was more than surprised to discover she knew both of them. The High King over all kings was none other than the tall stranger she had met in the glen, the one who had first told her to follow the greenway. Clothed in black like the night, he wore his red-gold hair loose upon his shoulders. On his brow shone the star of sovereignty
.

But it was the young woman beside him who surprised Dana the most. No longer caught betwixt and between, no longer uncertain of who she was, Honor stood by her husband with the regal poise of a High Queen. Her silken gown was green and gold, her crown inlaid with precious stones. She addressed the assembly
.

“Joyous we are that our Tánaiste, Lugh of the Mountain, Lugh of the Wood, is restored to the Realm. Joyous, too, are we that the Light-Bearer has returned to us. Today a battle was won in the heart of the woods and in the hearts of humanity. Yet more glad tidings we bring to thee.”

An expectant hush fell over the crowd. Only Dana was uneasy. She found it hard to catch her breath. Some nameless thing was pressing against her chest, demanding to be recognized. Her heart beat wildly, like the heart of a bird, as the High King spoke
.

“Today the mortals saved the woods. As it has always been since time began, it is humanity who must come to the rescue of Fairyland. It is humanity who must fight the shadows of the Enemy. We have many champions in the mortal realm whom we call our dear neighbors. But know this and rejoice, my people. One more powerful than all the rest has entered the two worlds.”

The child part of Dana wanted to run. Off down the slope and onto the road and back to Bray. Far, far away from the grand destiny that called to her
.

Queen Edane stepped forward with a glad proud look
.

“I am the Light-Bearer who bore the Light. Where is the Light to bridge the darkness?”

Dana did not run
.

Her mission in the mountains had prepared her for this. Her quest had been her training. Her search was for herself. Deep in her mind, the wolf threw back its head and howled; the monster rose up from the lake to rest its head against her brow
.

As the crowds parted before her, cheering and crying out her name, Dana took her place among kings and queens
.

Lugh winked at Dana before making the last announcement
.

“The formalities are done! Let us play in Dana’s name! For what use is life without fun and laughter?”

As the party resumed with even more abandon, Dana turned to her mother; but before they could speak together, Queen Edane was swept away in a wave of well-wishers clamoring to see her
.

Dana’s heart sank
.

“It will not always be like this,” a voice said gently beside her. “Your time with your mother will come.”

Dana turned to Honor with an air of reproach
.

“You’re the High Queen of Faerie!”

“Yeah, can you believe it?” Honor burst out laughing
.

“Did you know, then? Who my mother was? That I—”

“I did and I didn’t,” the older girl said quickly. “Honestly, I hardly knew my own name half the time. Midir—the High King, my husband—he knew, of course, he knows everything, well, almost everything, since he’s been around for millennia or more. He says it was better that way, as it let me get around the rules.” She shrugged. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.”

The High Queen reached for a tray of fairy buns as it flew by them on wings
.

“Here, try these. They’re fantastic! Those are flakes of real gold. You can eat them.”

Dana couldn’t resist the cakes or her friend’s good humor
.

“I did not mean to deceive you,” Honor added in a more serious tone. “Know that I, too, was on a mission to find my true self. My husband took a risk bestowing the task upon me, and he did it for my sake as well as yours. Thus you helped me even as I helped you, as is the way in all the worlds.”

“I understand,” Dana said, nodding. And she did
.

With the matter resolved between them, the two were giggling and laughing together when Queen Edane joined them
.

“My dear daughter,” she murmured, planting a kiss on Dana’s head. “I am so proud of you.”

Dana’s heart swelled, but she was also a little uncomfortable. It would take time to accept that this fairy queen was indeed her mother. Dana had already decided to call her by her first name, the way she did with Gabriel
.

“I should go home, Edane. Gabe’ll be out of his mind. It’s not fair to him.”

The Queen slipped her arm around Dana’s shoulders
.

“Do not fret
, a leanbh.
You will return to your father soon. Time is a thing we may order as we will. While you revel here, not one second will pass in the Earthworld. This is your feast, Dana. The reward for all your hard work. Enjoy it!”

Edane’s words melted the last of Dana’s reservations, and enjoy herself she did: frolicking with Ivy and the other boggles; dancing with foxes and fairies, tree spirits and giants; singing with the wild birds who nested on the crags; and rolling down the hillsides with parties of pixies
.