Free NaGeira by Paul Butler Page A

was a bull-like man with huge shoulders and a round head. Through his sparse white hair, I could see pink bumps and furrows.
    “Indeed,” he said, continuing a conversation that must have been in progress before I came into the room. “Bedlam is not the place, Mr. Ridley.” He had a reedy voice and a nervous smile, neither of which matched his robust figure. “You did well to think of us. It is a disease of morals, not of wits, and without confinement it would, as you correctly imply, spread and infect your household. From all that you say, the dark lands of Ireland with their pagan lures have her firmly under their spell.”
    I watched the man’s forehead as he spoke, curious about the bumps and abrasions of his permanent frown. I thought about the cratered moon I had glimpsed through the inn window and wondered how a similar surface could be beautiful in one place and ugly in another.
    “Young girl,” he said abruptly, turning towards me. His eyes were as pale as Thomas Ridley’s, but there was a coldness about them that chilled me. His nervousness and humility were gone.
    “I want you to answer me truthfully. Your mother tells me you used to go outdoors often in Ireland, to the countryside surrounding your home. Tell me precisely where you went.”
    “The forests,” I said. I looked at my mother again, but still could not catch her eye. Mr. Ridley handed her his handkerchief; Mother took it delicately in her fingers. She seemed a strange creature to me at that moment, a butterfly without colour, fragile and timorous yet somehow not graceful.
    “Indeed,” said the stranger with a knowing sigh, “and what did you do there?”
    “I climbed trees and watched the birds and animals.”
    The man frowned sadly and looked across the table at my mother, whose face was now half-buried in Mr. Ridley’s handkerchief.
    “And in that time, young lady, did any of the animals speak to you? Did they become your companions?”
    “They were my companions, yes, but they did not speak directly to me. They were animals.” I looked from face to face, but met only the stranger’s eyes. “Why? What’s wrong?”
    “Just answer the questions I put to you, girl,” the man said, fixing me for another while with his stare. “And did you converse with any other being? Any creatures that you did not recognize as animals?”
    Suddenly the room became airless and my face started to burn. He was asking what he already knew. It would be dangerous to try to lie.
    “The man of the forest,” I blurted out. The burning sensation on my face spread to my neck and shoulders, and my knees began to feel weak.
    “The man of the forest?” he whispered. “What man?”
    “A man of leaves and branches,” I replied. “He whispers like the leaves. He comes and goes like the breeze.”
    The black centres in the stranger’s eyes shrank to pinpricks. His shoulders heaved like those of an animal set for slaughter. “This is more serious than I thought,” he said. Mother looked up from her handkerchief. Mr. Ridley narrowed his eyes.
    “She is conversing with the green man, the pagan spirit of the forest.”
    “But all this happened in the Pale, Mr. Jarvis,” Mother sobbed. “Surely there could be no pagan spirits in a land under the English Crown.”
    “I wish you were right, Mrs. Ridley, but things are not so simple. You were protected there by armies and the fortresses. You believed perhaps that the dark lands began only beyond the Pale. Being a good and devout lady, dedicated to the faith of your Sovereign, you were safe from the corrupting influence of paganism and witchery. But a girl on the brink of changes would be so much more receptive to heathen forces than you or—pardon me, Mr. Ridley—your late husband would realize.”
    “You must not blame yourself,” said Mr. Ridley leaning toward my mother, laying his hand on hers.
    “No, indeed,” agreed Mr. Jarvis. “The very air wafted ungodliness into her lungs. No mother, no