Free Magdalen Rising by Elizabeth Cunningham Page B

were food. On the last of those days I remember sitting with Grainne overlooking the sea. The surf was hardly a whisper and everything—the sea, the sky, Grainne, me—seemed to hold its breath.
    Then one morning we woke to billowing black clouds, and a powerful wind, gusting from the North. (Boann couldn’t help grinning.) Oak leaves from the grove miles inland soared out to sea. No one said much, but everyone knew: it was the morning of Samhain. After we ate our stirabout, my mothers ganged up on me, ignoring my protests, and bundled me into many more layers than I wanted to wear. Outside, we corralled a couple of goats to pull a cart laden with gifts of food and cloth for the Cailleach. Then wordlessly—for our words would only have blown away with the leaves—we bent to the wind and made our way to the Valley between Bride’s Breasts.

CHAPTER SIX
    BENEATH BRIDE’S BREAST
    â€œD RINK,” THE CAILLEACH COMMANDED me.
    We were standing by the Well of Wisdom at what you might call the witching hour. My mothers had left hours ago, driving herds from the far pastures to winter in the byres. I would not be there when they lit the bonfires. I would not stay up all night roasting hazelnuts and apples and listening to my mothers’ stories. I was here in the valley that was anything but golden now. The wind had blown itself away or perhaps never entered the valley at all. The air was still and cold like something dead. The waning moon rose over the east breast. Now it was high enough for the pool to catch its reflection. The white curve in the water reminded me of the skull I had found hidden beneath the pool’s surface.
    â€œYou must drink.”
    â€œThere was a skull in that water.” I attempted to keep my tone light and conversational. The truth is, though I was thirsty, I didn’t want to drink. I was hungry, too; we’d eaten none of the feast my mothers had laid on the rocks nearby.
    â€œDrink,” she said.
    â€œI want to know how the skull got there first.”
    â€œThis pool is one of the gateways,” the Cailleach said. “Whoever clothed that bone with flesh has long since passed through. Birth. Death. They’re the same door. There’s only going in and out. In and out. That’s the rhythm of everything.”
    I was so surprised to receive any answer, I was silent for a moment.
    â€œDrink now.”
    â€œJust one more thing,” I stalled. “Do you go through the gateway when you’re ready or does someone give you a shove?”
    â€œIt all depends,” she said. “Drink.”
    Finally I gave up, figuring I wasn’t going to find out what happened next until I got this part out of the way. So I knelt down and cupped my hands, the reflection scattering into bright fragments as I broke the water. Once I got started, I drank for a long time. The water was burning cold, sweet and fiery at the same time.

    â€œNow,” she said when I stood again. “Since you raised the question: are you ready?”
    I stared at her, the gleam of her face within the hood like the gleam of moon in the night. Then I stared at the pool where the moon’s reflection had cohered again. The hairs rose on the back of my neck. My stomach tried to bail out of my body. I wanted my mothers.
    â€œNo, Maeve Rhuad,” she said. “This is not the way for you.”
    In my relief, I barely registered that she had added to my name.
    â€œBut it is time for you to go inside. Into the dark. Come. I’ll show you.”
    Abruptly she turned and led me from the pool towards the great darkness of Bride’s eastern breast. She moved so swiftly that more than once I almost lost sight of her. At times I had the impression that I was following, not an old woman, but a grey wolf or a black bear. We hadn’t climbed very far when she stopped, and I came alongside her human self.
    â€œHere,” she said.
    First I didn’t see