Chapter 1 – “How it begins”

The mist clung low to the glen, curling around dark stones like breath held too long. A whisper of wind threading through ancient hawthorns. The Neolithic grave was barely marked: a scatter of moss-covered boulders beneath a twisted thorn, its branches clawing at the pale morning sky. Locals said it was a queen’s resting place, though none had ventured near in years.

Then came a single sharp shot.

It cracked through the valley like a whip, tearing across the heather like a wound. Moments later, the crunch of boots on gravel broke the hush.

A man burst from the bracken, blood gushing from his side, one hand pressed tight to his ribs. His eyes were wild, frantic. Behind him, two shadows gave chase, driving him onward.

The raven watched from the crooked tree, its eyes black as peat, unblinking. One drop of blood struck the stone below. The earth drank it greedily.

Beneath the cairn, something shifted.

“No point running, ya wee shite,” came a voice from the mist. “You’re a tout, and everyone knows what happens to those who talk too freely to the peelers.”

The wounded man dropped to his knees, his back against a stone slab. “But I never,” he gasped. “I never said a word!”

The two men stepped from the fog and loomed over him. One of them pulled a snub-nosed revolver from his coat.

“If you’ve a prayer, now’s the time to say it.”

The man on the ground looked up, trembling.

The gunman smiled slightly. The revolver coughed once.

And just like that, the man was gone.

They turned and walked down the hill toward the road.

“Well, that’s that. Another tout meets his maker,” the taller one said. “Fancy a pint in Walsh’s?”

Their footsteps faded into the fog.

The raven fluttered down from its perch and landed on the dead man’s head. It let out a harsh, gurgling croak.

Beneath the cairn, something moved again.

Chapter Two – “Happy to meet”

Maeve O’Connell pulled her scarf tighter around her neck, breath puffing in short white clouds as she jogged along the winding country road. Her trainers crunched rhythmically on the frost-hardened gravel, the morning cold biting at her cheeks. Sixty-two, and still running every day though the knees didn’t always thank her for it.

She ran past hedgerows heavy with old spiderwebs, silvered in the chill. The rising sun turned the mist over the glen to gold, but the hill above remained shrouded in grey. Always colder up there. Always quieter.

Her thoughts wandered back to the half-finished hemline on the table, the thread she needed to pick up in town, and the silence of her cottage when she returned. The children had their own lives now. She wasn’t bitter, not really. Just… alone. Most days she could live with that.

Then the shot cracked through the air.

She froze mid-step, one foot off the ground. The sound hadn’t come from far just over the rise, up near the old stones. Her heart thudded louder than her footsteps now.

Maeve hesitated. Most folk wouldn’t go up there. Old stories clung to that place like it had too many memories, but something curiosity, perhaps, or the same stubborn streak that kept her running each day pulled her forward.

She reached the rusted gate that led up toward the ancient grave. It hung slightly ajar, the lock broken years ago. Beyond, the fog was thicker, curling in eddies above the ground.

She stepped through.

At the crest of the hill, she stopped.

A figure stood before the cairn. Tall. Still. Cloaked in something dark and hooded. Three ravens perched, 2 on the figure’s shoulders one on the right arm silent, watching her with eyes that seemed too knowing and jet black.

Maeve’s breath caught in her throat.

The figure turned.

The hood fell slightly back, revealing nothing of a face only the sense of presence beneath shadow. A voice rose from the fog, deep and resonant, layered like wind passing through stone halls.

“An iad Ó Néill fós ina ríthe ar Aileach?”

Maeve blinked. The words curled strangely in her mind old Irish, the sort Sister Catríona had drilled into them back in school. She hadn’t thought of it in decades.

She cleared her throat; uncertain she arranged the English in her head translating
and said in Irish

Yes… I’m sorry,” she said, stumbling, “it’s been a long time… since then. No. There’s no king now. The last O’Neill… about five hundred years ago.”

The figure was silent for a moment. Then:

“Cén bhliain í seo?”

Maeve hesitated. “It’s 2025. After the death of the Jesus.. of the new god.”

The fog thickened, and the three ravens shuffled their wings, but did not take flight.

The figure nodded slowly.

“Fada go deimhin,” it said. “So much time. So many years passed in silence.”
The voice dropped lower, the syllables soft, almost tender. “Tá mé traochta… I am weary.”

Maeve’s breath hung in the air between them.

“What you see is not me, it is a memory of me, a shadow a ghost, I have things that need to be done and I need a vessel,” the figure said. “One given freely, without reserve.”

The ravens cawed softly, like breath rattling in an empty room.

“Will you allow me to live in you?”

Maeve took a step back. Her heartbeat like a drum beneath her ribs, not from the run now, but from something older primal and uncertain. The figure stood unmoving, the three ravens still as carved obsidian. Their black eyes fixed on her, as if they could see right into her marrow.

She swallowed. “Will it hurt?” she asked. “Will I still be… me?”

The fog curled between them like breath.

“There will be no pain,” said the figure. The voice echoed again deep, sonorous, and patient. “Perhaps a moment of confusion. But you will remain. I will dwell within your soul, not overtake it. You will be yourself… and yet more.”

Maeve’s hands trembled slightly. “Why me?”

“Because you are untethered. Strong in ways that matter. And because for this I always ask I can never take.”

Maeve stared at the figure, the shadow of it blurring in the shifting mist. Her life, so carefully arranged, unrolled in her mind like fabric on a cutting table. Safe. Predictable. A little lonely. A little dull. Her ex-husband was off playing Romeo with a girl half his age in Belfast. Her children were scattered across the world calls on holidays, the odd video chat, sweet but faraway lives. The men in the village were married or dead, and she’d never been one to chase shadows or dreams.

She’d never done anything reckless.

Maybe once, just once, she should.

She looked again at the cloaked figure, at the ravens watching in absolute stillness.

“Who are you?” Maeve asked, voice low.

The figure inclined its head.

“I am Morrígu.”

The name echoed in the fog like a bell rung in an ancient chapel.

Maeve blinked.

The Morrígan. The Phantom Queen. She remembered the name from some half-forgotten school lesson war, fate, death, sovereignty. A goddess. Or something older.

The wind rustled the grass at their feet.

Maeve’s breath caught. The idea that she might go back to her little cottage, to the needlework and the quiet evenings and the same road every morning suddenly felt like a kind of dying.

“I haven’t done anything brave in fifty years,” she said, almost to herself.

Then, louder: “All Right!”

She squared her shoulders, heart pounding. “If I’ll still be me… and if you’ll leave when it’s done… you have my yes.”

Chapter 3 — “Into the out of”

The world slowed down and stilled.

For a moment, there was silence  no rustle of leaves, no distant gull crying over the sea. Just the two of them beneath the crooked hawthorn, the tomb behind them silent as stone.

Maeve stood tall, though her knees trembled. Her hands, rough from years of sewing and sun, were open at her sides. Ready.

The Morrígu reached out not with menace, but with something older. Older than time, older than grief. Her long fingers, cold as moonlight, brushed Maeve’s chest just above her heart.

A sigh escaped the goddess’s lips, light and long and full of mourning.

“I have waited,” the Morrígu whispered. “Now, I am remembered.”

She began to fade.

Not like smoke. Not like shadow. But as if the world had forgotten how to hold her.

First her cloak, which once seemed made of thunderclouds and crow-feathers, unravelled into dusk. Then her hands, then her face ageless, unknowable softened and melted into the air.

Only her eyes lingered, and for an instant Maeve saw herself reflected in them not as she was, but as she would become.

Then they too vanished.

And the ravens remained.

Three of them, perched now on the ancient stones: one on the broken lintel, one on the low wall, one at Maeve’s feet.

They cawed, not as birds, but as witnesses.

Maeve took a breath that was not quite her own.

She blinked.

The world had not ended.

She was still standing, though a sudden lightness in her head made her sway, like she’d stood too fast after an evening of mending shirts on the worn couch in her sitting room. She sat heavily on one of the cairn’s outer stones, the cold pressing through the fabric of her jogging bottoms. Her hands found her temples, cradling her head like a thing too full.

The dizziness passed. Her breath steadied.

She looked down at her hands, half-expecting them to glow, to tremble with unearthly power, to feel like something other than hands. But they were just hers calloused, veined, honest.

No thunder cracked. No runes burned into her skin. No swirling vortex of ancient energy lifted her into the sky.

“Well,” she muttered. “That’s a bit of a letdown.”

She looked around the clearing. The ravens watched in silence, three dark commas punctuating the end of a sentence she didn’t understand.

Maeve rubbed her arms, suddenly aware of the chill again. The breeze had returned, slipping through the trees like a rumour.

She cleared her throat. “Are you there?” she asked out loud, feeling vaguely foolish.

Nothing answered no voice from the heavens, no whisper in her ear. But one of the ravens tilted its head, as if listening. Or waiting.

Nothing happened for a long time.

Maeve sat there, waiting like a woman expecting a kettle to boil by staring at it. The wind stirred the leaves again. The ravens blinked, feathers ruffling as if bored.

Then, like the first shimmer of a dream before waking, she heard a voice not in her ears, but deeper, somewhere behind thought.

“Yes. I am here.”

A pause.

“This English you speak is a hard tongue. It lacks beauty, passion, and fire. I sense the descendants of Quirinus in its bones.”

Maeve frowned. She had never heard of Quirinus, but somehow, she knew or rather, the knowing bloomed in her like a memory not her own. Legionaries. Marching feet. SPQR on weathered standards. Dust and blood and sun.

“Oh. Romans, you mean,” she murmured. “Yes, there’s a lot of Latin and Greek in English. My old literature teacher called it a Romance language, but I’ve never seen much romance in the words of the men around here.”

The voice laughed rich, warm, like the sound of peat fire cracking on a cold night.

“Men? If they had brains, they would be dangerous.”

Maeve couldn’t help the smile tugging at her lips. “Now that,” she said, “is a truth I’ve lived.”

A moment passed in stillness, the air dense with something old and watching.

She spoke again, quieter this time. “What now?”

The Morrígu’s voice returned, more focused, colder.
“There is a body behind you, in the cairn. The soul of the dead man is… unhappy.”

Maeve turned sharply, heart rising into her throat. She stood and walked toward the trench in the earth, the ancient stones silent around her.

There, just visible in the shadowed hollow, was the body.

“Jesus Mary and Joseph,” she gasped. “That’s wee Liam McManus. I know his father. What what happened?”

“Hold out your arm and ask Badb to show you,” came the Morrígu’s answer, firm and low.

Maeve didn’t question how she knew which raven was which. She just did. Badb, the death-seer. Macha, of land and horses. Nemain, shrieking through the blood of battle. The names came to her as if remembered from the womb.

She extended her arm. “Badb,” she whispered.

The raven flew to her without hesitation, its talons surprisingly light. It stared at her with one glossy, fathomless eye.

“Show me.”

The air shimmered like heat rising from summer tarmac.

A vision unfolded before her thin as mist at first, then clearer: Liam, staggering into the cairn, blood blooming through his shirt. Two men following. Angry voices. A gun raised. The crack of a shot.

Maeve’s breath caught in her chest.

She knew the shooter.

“Seamus Byrne,” she said aloud. “Bloody hell. That’s my brother-in-law.”

Seamus: a brute cut from the same cloth as her late husband had been running with paramilitaries since before his voice broke.

The vision dissolved.

In its place, the shade of Liam emerged, gray and flickering like ash in the wind. His eyes were empty, but his voice echoed with bitter purpose.

“Revenge.”

“Can he see me?” Maeve asked, chilled to the marrow.

“No,” said the Morrígu. “But he can sense me. His was an innocent death. There is no stain on his soul but he cannot rest. He has placed a Geas upon me.”

Maeve knew that word. Around the hearth fires of her youth, the old ones had told tales of heroes bound by sacred vows terrible and binding.

She swallowed. “What do we do?”

The goddess hesitated, as though choosing carefully from the strange, angular vocabulary of this new century.

“Simple,” she said at last. “We go and kick some ass.”

A beat passed.

“…Though I still do not understand why one would wish to kick a donkey.”

Maeve barked out a laugh, sharp and genuine. “’Ass’ can also mean ‘bottom.’ Or ‘bum.’ You know. As in giving someone a good thump.”

The Morrígu chuckled in reply.
“Ah. That makes sense. Then yes, let us go. Let us kick some ass.”

Chapter 4  — “Run Woman”

Maeve continued her jog into the dawn of a new day, breath misting in the cool air. The three ravens flew ahead, landing every so often to wait, like impatient children on a school run.

The Morrígu was silent for a while. Then she asked,
“Nemain wants to know: are we going to a battle? Do you need help to go into a fight frenzy?”

“What??” said Maeve. “No, no, no. This is jogging. It’s for my health most importantly, my weight.”

“You do this… willingly?”

“Yes well, willingly is for the young. I may not enjoy it, but I miss it when I don’t do it.”

There was a pause. Then:
“Ahhh. I see. Tell Nemain: fast.”

Maeve squinted at the ravens, picked out the one that always looked like it was judging her, and said,
“Nemain. Fast. ,” she paused and then added “please.”

The raven cocked its head at her and gave a sharp, metallic caw.

Suddenly, Maeve felt lighter. Her legs stronger. The air itself seemed to flow into her bones, into her heart. She felt as if she were drawing energy from the earth and sky. The Morrígu whispered,
“You are doing exactly that , run woman.”

And Maeve ran.

She ran like she had never run before. Her body no longer wobbled like jelly on a plate. Muscles contracted and released in perfect harmony. The dull ache of her arthritic hip was gone, vanished like mist under sun. She moved like the wind along the country road. Hedges blurred. Her feet barely touched the ground. And she smiled.

So this is what it’s supposed to feel like.

On the outskirts of town, she slowed to a more normal pace. She didn’t want that auld witch Sheila seeing her run properly next thing she’d be asked to referee the Under-14 Camogie team, which, in Maeve’s opinion, was a fate worse than death.

“So… people still play the old sports?” asked the Morrígu.

“Yes. Hurling for the men. Camogie for the ladies,” Maeve replied.

A pause.

“Do you still use the heads of your enemies?” There was a definite tone of pleasure and anticipation.

Maeve grimaced.
“Ahhh, no. That’s not allowed. They just use a ball now.”

“Hmm. Pity,” said the Morrígu, “I do like a good game of Hurley”

They arrived at Maeve’s small house. The front door creaked open, and the Morrígu seemed to hesitate at the threshold.

“Interesting,” she said slowly. “Your dwelling… it is very… square.”

Maeve stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

“Ahh yes,” she said, glancing around her tidy little hallway. “The last time you were around, we humans lived in roundhouses.” She smiled, amused by the thought of smoky huts and mud floors.

“Yes,” the Morrígu replied thoughtfully. “Your home… smells much better.”

Maeve raised an eyebrow.
“Thanks. I think.”

There was a pause, and then the voice within her shifted growing deeper, darker, echoing with something old and unrelenting.

“Now prepare yourself, woman. We have much to do.”

Maeve sighed. “Of course we do.”

She kicked off her running shoes, and went to the kitchen, and muttered.

“Let me just put on the kettle first. You might be a death goddess, but this is an Irish house.”

Chatper 5 – “Introductions”

Maeve filled the kettle and set it on the hob. Steam curled upward. She leaned on the counter for a moment, catching her breath. Just a jog, she thought and yet somehow now it felt like the beginning of something much larger.

The Morrígu’s voice stirred within her again, quieter this time, almost reverent.

“You should introduce me to the Good People tell them I am an invited guest who means no harm and who will bring blessings to them.”

Maeve frowned.
“The Good People? You mean the fairies?”

“No,” came the reply, tinged with something ancient and firm. “Not fairies. That word is too light, too playful. These are the ones who have always been here the manifestations of all the beings that lived on this land for thousands of years. They live beside you. Inside your homes. They tend to the knots and twists in your life’s thread. Where they can, they protect. But they are older than their stories, and not to be taken lightly.”

Maeve felt a chill that wasn’t from the morning air.

“Tear up some bread. Small pieces. And place them, with a saucer of milk and honey, on the floor. They deserve an offering.”

Maeve obeyed, placing the torn bread carefully in a shallow dish and pouring warm milk into a saucer, adding a swirl of honey. She set it down gently on the kitchen tiles near the hearth, almost embarrassed by the ritual but unable to deny the sense of ceremony that hung in the air like the scent of bog myrtle and wild heather.

The room held its breath.

Then the air blurred.

Tiny shapes emerged no taller than six inches, shifting in and out of sight as though moving faster than the eye could track. At first, they appeared red, like embers flickering in a breeze. But as they lingered, their hue began to shift from red to a shimmering blue, like the deep pool of a forest spring at dusk.

Inside Maeve’s chest, the Morrígu began to speak in a language that wasn’t Irish not even Old Irish. It was something else. Something before. A language born of stone and storm and bone, from before the Milesians brought their Gaelic words to the island. Maeve couldn’t understand a word, but the meaning hung in the air, electric and full of memory.

The tiny beings gathered near the saucer. They did not bow, nor did they smile, but their colour settled into a steady blue, and Maeve felt something relax in the house. The walls seemed to breathe.

Acceptance.

The Morrígu fell silent.

Maeve stared at the place on the floor where they had flickered and danced.
“Well,” she muttered, “this is very odd!”

She shook her head slowly, as if trying to clear a dream from her eyes.
“And here I thought the weirdest thing today would be running like a banshee.”

“My sister is many things” whispered the goddess “an athlete is not one of them”

Maeve watched the last of the milk swirl in the saucer, the golden thread of honey dissolving like morning fog. The small, blue beings flickered around the offering, luminous and strange, their presence more felt than seen.

The Morrígu’s voice stirred once more.

“The head of your… other household is named Naoise. She has lived here or hereabouts for a long time. She remembers Fionn mac Cumhaill sleeping beneath an oak tree that once grew in your garden. She remembers Cú Chulainn, striding past on his way to face the army of Queen Medb in the Táin Bó Cúailnge.”

Maeve blinked.
“That’s… some memory.”

“Naoise is the duine a cuimhin,” the Morrígu said. “The one who remembers, for her Clann. She holds their past and future in story and song. She is their memory, their keeper, their fire.”

One of the small beings had separated from the rest, stepping forward with grace and composure. Unlike the others, who flickered with constant motion, she was still perfectly still and her form was clearer: delicate features like a carving of wood and wind, eyes dark and ancient. A soft blue glow shimmered around her.

“And she is very pleased to meet you, at last.”

Maeve, overwhelmed but oddly serene, smiled and nodded at the figure.
“As I am to meet you.”

The tiny being inclined her head, and for the briefest moment, Maeve felt known. Not just seen, but known as if her whole life had been leafed through by gentle, careful hands.

But then the Morrígu’s tone shifted, sharpening like a blade being drawn.

“But we have a job to do. A soul to free.”

At once, the Good People stopped. The rustle of tiny feet, the flicker of movement it all ceased. The blue glow that bathed the kitchen dimmed, then flared into a fierce, fiery orange.

Maeve’s breath caught.

She felt their anger. Not noisy or wild but deep and righteous, like the tremble of ahill before a landslide. It passed through her bones and set her teeth on edge. These beings, ancient and hidden, had sensed the Morrígu’s geas the divine obligation and they responded not with fear, but agreement.

She heard no words, yet the meaning rang clear in her chest:

This wrong must be righted.

They blessed the intent. They blessed the plan.

Maeve, stunned, looked down at the now-fiery figures still gathered around her floor.
“Well,” she murmured, half to herself, “I suppose it’s official now.”

A job to do. A soul to free.

Chapter 6 – “The Direction of travel”

Maeve stood for a moment after the last of the Good People had vanished. The kitchen was quiet again, almost too quiet. She looked down at the offerings on the floor most of the bread was gone. The milk had a faint shimmer to it now, like something sacred had passed through.

She exhaled.

“Well. We can’t just go barging into the underworld or whatever it is you have planned. Not yet.”

The Morrígu stirred within her.

“There are steps to be taken, I know,” Maeve said. “But the first is this: someone needs to call the police. That boy’s body can’t be left out there in the moss to rot. His people deserve the solemnities. The decency of closure. Someone needs to mourn him properly.”

There was a long pause. Then the goddess replied, her voice low and solemn.

“Yes. You are right. The soul must pass, but the flesh must rest. These rites matter.”

Maeve nodded and picked up the phone. She called the anonymous hotline. Her voice was steady, carefully vague. She gave directions to the place near the tomb enough to find Liam, not enough to trace her.

When she hung up, the kettle was still hot. She poured herself a mug of tea, sat at the kitchen table, and waited.

The Morrígu spoke again after a long silence.

“The soul is bound. It cannot move forward. It cannot return to the land of the ever-young, to Tír na nÓg. This is why I am here. A geas was laid upon me long ago: I must answer when a soul is caught between worlds by violence and injustice. Especially if no one else will act.”

Maeve looked into her tea.
“A geas… that’s like a sacred command, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” the Morrígu replied. “But not just a duty it is a thread of fate, braided into one’s essence. To break it is to unravel part of your being. In the old days, heroes would live by their geasa. Some even died by them.”

“And this one?”

“To answer the unavenged. To carry the soul of the wronged across the threshold. To do otherwise would be to deny the shape of who I am.”

Maeve sat back in her chair. The news would be on the news by noon, another statistic to add to the bloody history of her home.  She knew it wouldn’t take long for people to start whispering.

“I suppose you don’t know what paramilitaries are?” she asked aloud.

Silence.

“They were once freedom fighters, some of them. Fighting for a cause, they said. Ireland free or united or pure or whatever it was.” She waved a hand. “But that’s over now. The cause has long since curdled. The ones still out there Loyalists or Republicans are just gangsters with flags. They deal drugs, run guns, smuggle people into the sex trade, poison their own for power and money.”

Her voice tightened.

“Seamus is one of those. Rotten to the core. Always was. Everything he touches turns black. All he sees is his stuff flashy car, expensive watch, imported whiskey. All bought with blood and pain.”

The Morrígu said nothing. She was listening.

Maeve stared into her mug.
“But Liam… he was just a boy. A quiet one. Always polite. Did well in school. Got an apprenticeship with a plumber, for God’s sake. He was doing well.”

She looked up.
“So why kill him like that?”

There was silence for a beat.

Then the Morrígu said,
“We need to find the killer. This Seamus.”

Maeve set down her cup and stood.
“Aye. I suppose we do.”

Chapter 6 – “The Punisher and Potatoes”

Maeve explained that there was a pub on the edge of town called Davitt’s, run by the paramilitaries. Ordinary people didn’t drink there not because they couldn’t, but because it was far too dangerous.

“There aren’t just bad people in there,” Maeve said. “It’s the worst of the worst, drinking most nights. Even the police only go near it when they absolutely have to in full riot gear.”

The goddess nodded thoughtfully.

“Let’s go there,” she said.

“NO!” snapped Maeve. “There is no way in God’s green earth I would set a foot in there. Within thirty seconds, the tongues would be wagging and my reputation such that it is would nose-dive like a gannet after mackerel… but…”

She hesitated, thinking. Then her tone softened slightly.

“There’s a chip shop next door. Best in town, I could wait across the road until that awful Range Rover Seamus drives shows up. Then we’d be on the pavement to meet him but what then?” She turned to the goddess, concerned. “He’s dangerous. All of them are.”

The Morrígu gave a faint smile that Maeve felt more than saw.

“Having a soul as guest to a ten-thousand-year-old goddess has some… advantages,” she said. “You need not worry. All will be well.”

“But he’ll recognise me! And you don’t know these people. If you annoy them once, they get you back a thousand times over.”

The goddess tilted her head, considering.

“Well,” she mused, “did you ever hear of how I would appear to Cú Chulainn in different forms?”

“Oh yes,” replied Maeve. “You’re a shapeshifter!”

“Indeed.” There was something quietly proud in the way she said it.

“But,” Maeve continued, “changing into a bear or a wolf or an eagle isn’t going to help much in this day and age.”

“Do you have something in mind?” the goddess asked.

Maeve thought for a moment, then went to the spare room. She rummaged in an old box and returned with a DVD.

“Let’s watch this,” she said, sliding it into the machine.

The goddess stared at the television in awe.

“What is this magic?”

“It’s not magic it’s a DVD and a TV,” Maeve chuckled. “Electronics. Wait until you see the internet.”

They sat together as the screen came to life. The film began The Punisher, something Maeve’s grandchildren had left behind during their last visit. As they watched, Maeve had to explain a great deal: that fiction wasn’t real, what the police were, what guns did, why things exploded, and what kind of world this was.

By the time the credits rolled, the goddess sat in thoughtful silence.

“Your world is strange,” she said at last. “But I approve of this Frank Castle. ‘The Punisher’ it is a good name. Quite close to what I have been… and what I am, even now.”

She paused, then added with a gleam of interest, “Do you have a shirt like his? I adore the skull. And the black it is… very me.”

Maeve laughed. “I think everyone wants to be Frank Castle. Or maybe Robert McCall in The Equalizer. I’ll play that one for you later. There’s a part of everyone that craves justice real justice beyond what society’s willing to give.”

The goddess frowned. “Why are your people unwilling to give firm, hard, and fair justice?”

Maeve was quiet for a moment, then said slowly, “Because there’s a very fine line. If you cross it, you can become as bad as the people you’re punishing. That’s why we make films like this. We cheer on the Punisher or the Equalizer… but we’re quietly glad it doesn’t happen.”

“I have heard,” murmured the goddess, “that nature abhors a vacuum. Perhaps that is why I exist. To fill the void left by the absence of true justice.”

She looked up suddenly. “So, tonight, we go to the chippy?”

Maeve nodded. “Yes but remember we wait beside the church hall until Seamus’s black Land Rover parks up in front of the pub. And then you can take over. But I’m telling you now: no killing. Not even a little killing.”

The goddess tilted her head again. “One more thing what is a ‘chippy’? I sense something called a potato is important in the answer.”

Maeve smiled, delighted. “A potato is the best thing that ever came out of the ground. Boiled, mashed, roasted, fried feeds you, fills you, warms you. In a chip shop, it’s sliced and fried till golden, then salted until it could raise the dead.”

The goddess gave a satisfied nod. “I approve of this potato.”

CHAPTER 7: “The First Visit”

Maeve waited for Seamus on the bench outside the chip shop, legs crossed, eyes on the passing traffic.

A battered Nissan Micra coughed its way by, trailing smoke.

“They’re like chariots,” she explained quietly to the presence within her. “But with engines instead of horses.”

The Morrígu sniffed as another diesel groaned past.
“Modern magic,” the goddess murmured. “It reeks of Fomorian forges. Something their dark mages might have conjured on Tory Island.”

Maeve nodded slightly, then caught sight of Seamus’s Range Rover cresting the hill. She rose, dusted off her skirt, and crossed the road to stand by the shop window of Spiffy Homeware, pretending to study a pine wardrobe she’d never buy.

The Range Rover pulled up, engine grumbling as it parked half-up on the kerb. Seamus stepped out, all swagger and cheap aftershave.

Maeve muttered under her breath, “Over to you. And remember no killing.”

The air shimmered.

It felt like her body was melting, as if she were hot wax slipping down the side of a candle. Not painful, exactly just deeply strange. Maeve no longer stood behind her own eyes.

Instead, she watched through them.

Her reflection in the shop window caught her attention.

She was a man. Square-jawed, broad-shouldered, wearing a black T-shirt with a gleaming white skull emblazoned on the front. In her hands his hands was a hurley stick, monstrous in size, dark and gnarled like something carved from myth and there was something in her trousers!

Frank Castle.
Bloody hell, she thought.

Maeve Frank turned and strode across the road.

Seamus blinked at the approaching figure; brow creased.

“What the fuck who are you?!”

No reply.

In a blur, the hurley swung low, cracking into Seamus’s right shin with a sickening thwack.
He collapsed, wailing.

“Fuck! You broke my fucking leg!”

The hurley rose again and slammed into the other shin. Seamus screamed high, ragged, animal.

“Jesus, Mary and fucking Joseph! Do you know who I am?! I’ve got very bad friends, you mad bastard!”

The figure raised the hurley, held it horizontally between both hands like a staff.

“This is not revenge,” came the low growl, an accent more Hell’s Kitchen than Donegal.
“It’s punishment.”

A pause. Then:
“This is the first of three visits. At the end, you’ll have paid the full price.”

Seamus whimpered on the ground, blood seeping from his trouser leg.
“Price for what?” he groaned.

The figure said nothing more. Just stared down with something far colder than rage contempt. Then turned and walked away, rounding the pub and heading back toward the chip shop.

The shimmer returned.

The wax flowed backward.

Maeve blinked and found herself in her own body again if slightly off-balance.

“See?” said the Morrígu cheerfully. “No killing. But plenty of hurting. That should focus his mind. Now. Let me try these chips you mentioned.”

Maeve stumbled into the chip shop like a woman emerging from a very weird dream.

She’d never been in a fight. Not even in school. But now she’d stood in a stranger’s body, beaten a man senseless, and and been in temporary possession of a penis. That, more than the hurley-swinging, rattled her bones.

She ordered a battered sausage supper, paid, and stepped back outside. A small crowd had gathered around the fallen Seamus. He was still screaming and swearing, but nobody seemed moved to help. One lad popped his head into the pub to alert the barman.

As she walked past, not a soul looked at her twice.

An ambulance roared past her cottage just as she reached the gate, siren howling, blue lights bouncing off windows as it sped toward the pub. Inside, Maeve unwrapped her supper. The chips were warm but, as expected, under-vinegared.

“She skimps on it,” she muttered, dousing them properly. “Profit margin, my arse.”

A splash of ketchup. A pot of tea on the hob.

She sat.

“Right,” Maeve said aloud, staring at the skull-faced man still lingering in her mind. “What the hell was that?”

“The flickering box,” said the goddess. “You called it Dee Vee Dee Last night; you showed me this Frank Castle. I thought, since you didn’t want to be recognised, he was a suitable proxy. He reminds me of a young Lugh of the Long Arm nice chap. Very… symmetrical. And not hard to look at.”

Maeve blinked as a memory rose unbidden: a tall man, muscles like sculpted bronze, blonde hair tousled in the wind, standing on a green hill beneath the sun. The curve of his bottom was she conceded to herself, not hard to look at.

“Next time,” she said sternly, “we’re using Black Widow. That way I get decent boobs and a firm bum not a bloody willy. That was… disconcerting.”

The goddess giggled like a schoolgirl.

“Yes,” she said. “In ten thousand years of shapeshifting, that still makes me cringe. You should see what it feels  like when you get exci…..”

“No. Just no!” Maeve cut in, holding up a finger. “Don’t finish that sentence. Not now. Not ever.”

The kettle began to sing.

Maeve poured the tea, took a bite of her sausage, and stared out the window.

Chapter 8 Sausage supper and Fiadh the Cat

As Maeve ate her sausage supper, she felt the Morrígu’s reactions echoing through her body   not intrusive, but vividly present. What was familiar and comforting to Maeve was utterly novel to the goddess. And the goddess, in all her long memory, was delighted.

“This,” Morrígu declared, her voice ringing in Maeve’s chest like a temple bell, “this is a meal worthy of the Lughnasa feast at the high table of Tara! The richness, the salt, the heat ! These ‘potatoes’… they speak of a land far west of Éire. Perhaps Tír na nÓg? Though I’ve wandered its meadows often, and no one ever served these.”

“It’s a sausage supper,” Maeve replied drily. “Greasy spoon stuff. I only let myself have one now and again   once a month, tops. I’m a woman of discipline. You know the old saying: A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips.”

She felt the Morrigu’s laughter inside her   warm, ancient, resonant.

“Is fearr an tsláinte ná na táinte,” murmured the goddess.

“Aye, I know that one,” said Maeve, smiling around a mouthful of battered sausage. “Health is better than wealth. Sister Xavier used to scream that at us during PE. Wicked old bat. Ran the discipline too. Believed firmly in ‘spare the rod, spoil the child.’ And she made damn sure none of us were ever spoiled.”

The meal fell into a companionable silence, punctuated only by occasional delighted exclamations from the goddess   low hums of pleasure, murmurs of satisfaction.

“I wish my throat were a mile long,” the Morrígu sighed, utterly enraptured.

When the last chip was gone and the paper wrapping crumpled, Maeve tossed it into the blue recycling bin. She licked a final trace of grease from her fingers and leaned back.

“So,” she said, “about Seamus. What now?”

The goddess was silent for a breath, then two. Maeve felt her presence shift   the warmth retreating slightly, sharpening.

“Tell me more of him,” said Morrígu, voice now iron-edged.

Maeve’s smile faded.

“He’s been in and out of prison since his teens. Assault, GBH, malicious wounding   the official stuff. But there are darker things whispered. When he’s with a girl, he doesn’t understand ‘no.’ Doesn’t stop. The women here avoid him like the plague. So he went to the next level trafficking. Brought women from Poland, Romania and the east. Ones too frightened or isolated to go to the police. He’s scum. Worse than scum. In the world of bastards, he’s royalty.”

She felt the goddess leafing through her memories, absorbing the weight of it, the sickness in the community. And then Morrígu spoke, her voice like a blade drawn in moonlight:

“Droch chríoch ort.”

Maeve nodded grimly. “Aye. He’s long overdue for a bad end.”

Then   a sudden noise, sharp and soft, breaking the tension: a scritch-scratching at the back door.

“Bugger,” Maeve muttered. “I forgot all about Fiadh.”

She stood and opened the door. The cat entered like a storm in fur huge, orange, tail high and face thunderous.

“Sorry, Fiadh. You’ll be wanting your tea,” Maeve murmured, brushing her hand over his back.

“Feck! About time. My stomach thinks my throat’s been cut,” said Fiadh.

Maeve froze.

“Wha… wha… wha ?”

“Ah, yes,” said Morrígu, casually. “I may have forgotten to tell you you now speak the tongues of cat, bird, and wolf. Though I’d avoid sparrows. Tiresome little hedge-obsessives. Even I can only tolerate five minutes of their chatter.”

“Come on, Maeve. Get the finger out,” said Fiadh with a sniff. “There’s silver showing at the bottom of my bowl, and I’ve had a long bloody day.”

Maeve, stunned but obedient, grabbed a tin of tuna and opened it. She mashed the meat into his dish and set it down.

“Ahhh. Tuna. I thought you’d lost the tin opener. That Kit-e-Kat mush? Swill.”

“Sorry. I think,” Maeve said, her mind spinning with this new, uncanny reality.

“Formalities,” Morrígu interrupted. “Introduce me. Cats, especially ancient ones, value such things.”

Maeve blinked. “Introduce… right. Of course.”

She turned to the cat.

“Fiadh,” she said carefully, “I’d like you to meet the Morrígu. She’s, eh… borrowing my body for a while.”

The cat looked up from his bowl. His yellow eyes glowed like twin moons.

“Anú, a chara,” he said, dipping his head. “It’s been some time.”

“Cats walk different paths than men,” Morrígu said to Maeve. “Time touches them gently. They pass from body to body, but they remember. Your Fiadh was once a wildcat in the high Sperrins, thousands of years ago. That’s where I met him, long before the name Morrígu was whispered in fear. I was Anú then.”

Fiadh licked his paw.

“I remember. Good days. Wild days. You hunted with us, wore a cloak of shadows. You laughed more then.”

Maeve stared at the cat. At the goddess. At her hands. At the tuna tin.

Her cat was smiling. She saw it now   the lift of his tail, the flick of his ears, the soft curl at the edge of his mouth. A feline grin.

Fiadh returned to his meal, and the room fell into a hush once more.

“This Seamus,” the Morrígu said at last, “he desecrates the sacred, harms the innocent, dishonours women.”

“Aye,” Maeve said darkly. “That he does.”

“Then he will be our next working. But first tomorrow, take this to the stones. Leave it for Liam. Let him know justice is waking.”

The air shimmered, thickened, and in Maeve’s hands appeared the heavy hurley stick. The flat end was stained, dark and dried, remnants of Seamus’s blood.

Maeve nodded. She would do it. On her morning run.

She turned, noticing Fiadh had finished his meal and now sat at the window in deep conversation with the three ravens. From the tone, it seemed they were planning a hunt.

Maeve looked down at her hands, then around the room that had always been so ordinary. Something deep inside her shifted. She felt it   a turning. The old world and the new were no longer separate.

“Well, Fiadh,” she muttered, “we’re not in Kansas anymore.”

“Fucking true that” replied Fiadh
And for the first time in years, she wondered if there might be magic slippers waiting no to take her home, but to carry her deeper into the mystery she’d already stepped into.

Chapter 9 – “The first Offering”

Maeve had a restless night, her dreams full of memories not her own.
 Heroes, villains, kings, queens, monsters, and magic came and went in a blur as the goddess remembered events from long ago. Maeve woke, as usual, around 6 a.m., and rolled out of bed, stretching and yawning.

Her internal guest was silent for now. Maeve guessed that goddesses slept later than humankind, and there was nothing wrong with that. Pulling on her tracksuit and tying her hair into a ponytail, she checked herself in the mirror and thought, “Not bad for an auld doll first thing in the morning.”

Fiadh greeted her with a grumpy, “About fecking time,” as Maeve filled his kibble and water bowls. She patted his furry head and said, “You are, as always, very welcome.”

“Pffffffftttttttt,” replied Fiadh, mouth full of kibble.

Out of the corner of her eye, Maeve saw a blur of blue.

“…And good morning to you, Naiose.”

The blue blur shifted to a sunny yellow, and for a moment, a tiny female figure appeared, smiled, waved, and vanished in a small cloud of golden sparkles.

Maeve grabbed the large hurl from beside the door and stepped out for her morning run.

The three ravens roused themselves and fluttered down from the branches of the old ash tree in the garden. They settled on the wall, waiting for her to open the gate. Maeve nodded.

“Badh, Macha, Nemain. Not a bad morning.”

The ravens replied with noisy caws. Badh tilted her head at Maeve, inquisitive. Maeve considered for a moment and said, “Not this morning, Badh. It’s sort of cheating, running like the wind. I need to do this myself.” She smiled. “But thank you for the offer.” She started jogging down the lane, the birds fluttering alongside sometimes leading, sometimes trailing behind to peck at something in the long grass.

As she passed her neighbours’ houses most still asleep Maeve noticed the now-familiar glow of the Good People. Each home displayed its own colour of lightshow in the front rooms as the Good Folk went about the business of starting the day. Maeve realized the old traditions leaving out small offerings on special days like Halloween were not quaint superstitions after all but acts that maintained the balance between the seen and unseen. Small gestures that acknowledged, as Shakespeare put it, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”

She ran between hedges, gradually rising onto the slopes of Carntogher Mountain. It was a bright morning. Clouds scuttled across the sky, and now and then the sun broke through, bathing the spring day in warmth.

Turning onto Knockoneill Road, she passed the McEwans’ farm and arrived at the five-bar gate to the tomb. Maeve paused, shifting the hurl from one hand to the other. She wasn’t sure what to do next.

The familiar voice of the goddess said, “Maidin mhaith, a Maeve.”

Maeve smiled. “Ah, there you are! Welcome to a fine morning.”

She felt the goddess smile within her.

“So, we have arrived at the dolmen,” said the Morrígu. “Do you mind if I take over for a while?”

Maeve relaxed. “Yes, please,” she said. “I’ve no idea what to do. I don’t think I’ve ever talked to a ghost before and if I did, I didn’t know I was doing it.”

She felt the goddess take over. It wasn’t unpleasant more like the sensation of sunbathing while your mind drifts. Maeve simply let go, watching quietly through what were now the goddess’s eyes.

They walked up the hill, around the low wall draped in blooming hawthorns. Passing the fluttering remnants of police tape, they stood beside the stones one lintel resting atop two upright pillars. The goddess took the hurl and laid it across the lintel.

“Seo an chéad cheann de thrí thairiscint don anam óg atá ceangailte leis an áit seo. Beidh dhá cheann eile ann agus ansin beidh tú saor chun bogadh.”

Maeve translated in her head:
 “This is the first of three offerings for the young soul bound to this place. There will be two more, and then you will be free to move on.”

There was a shimmer, like mist, and from the grass emerged a translucent figure. It was the ghost of young Liam. His sadness manifested as a massive stone chained across his shoulders.

He inclined his head.
 “Go raibh maith agat, a bhanríon na dtaibhsí. Is féidir liom mo ualach trom ag éirí níos éadroime a bhraitheann.”

Maeve translated again:
 “Thank you, Queen of the Ghosts. I can feel my heavy load beginning to lighten.”

Liam and the hurl faded away. In seconds, they were gone.

“Done,” said the Morrígu firmly.

She turned and walked back down the field. As she did, Maeve felt herself move forward, once again in control of her body.

“So… you’re a Queen?” she asked. “Should I have to call you Your Majesty?”

“Some gave me that title,” the goddess replied. “It’s not something I care about. You may call me Morrígu or Anú, for those are my names.”

Maeve nodded. “So what now?”

The Morrígu considered, then replied, “First you need to finish your run. Then some breakfast. Can we have…” a pause “…chips again?”

“Ah, no. Breakfast is porridge. With golden syrup.”

“Oats? Well, now that is something I do know and quite acceptable, if chips are not an option. Then we have a journey to make. Do you have a fast horse?”

“A horse?” said Maeve. “We need a horse? Oh right for the journey. Sorry, no horse… but I do have something better. A Fiat 500 called Bumble.”

Chapter 10 “Day trip to Dunseverick”

Run completed, breakfast eaten, showered and dressed, Maeve was sitting in the kitchen finishing a cup of tea.

Naoise appeared on the table in a small blizzard of blue sparks.

Maeve heard a tiny, sparkling voice:
 “Maeve! The clann have asked me to ask you would you mind leaving the radio on when you’re out? The rest of the clann like Q-Radio, particularly Mid-Morning with Yazz. They sing along with the hits and seem to work harder.”

“Oh dear God. Not Q-Radio,” muttered Fiadh.

Maeve looked at the cat. “Not your taste, pussykins? Let me guess you’re a Nathan Carter fan?”

“Catch yourself on, woman. I’m a cat. We like metal. Good and hard. Nothing like a dash of Metallica to make the day better!  .. and never call me Pussykins again… Ever!”

Maeve suddenly had an image of her large ginger cat in a studded leather jacket, headbanging to Master of Puppets.  She shook her head to lose the image which, she had to admit, was more worrying than she’d imagined.

“Maeve,” interjected Morrígu. “We have a mission. We need to get to the fortress of Dún Sobhairce.”

Maeve replied confused, “I have no idea where that is.”

Morrígu explained, “There were five great roads in the time of the High Kings of ancient Ireland. One of them, the Great Northern Road, started at Tara, went through Emain Macha, and ended at a castle on the north coast.”

Maeve thought about this. “Well, there are three castles on the north coast Dunluce, Kinbane, and Dunseverick. Here, let me show you.”
 She dug out her mobile phone and showed the goddess the three castles. When she got to Dunseverick, the goddess said, “YES! That’s the one. That’s where we need to go!”

After a quick spell of flask-filling, sandwich-making, and refilling Fiadh’s kibble dish, they were ready to head off.

Maeve grabbed her keys from the dish by the toaster, threw on a light raincoat, and turning on the radio to Q-Radio for Naoise and her family she headed out the door to the small garage.

Pulling up the door, she revealed her pride and joy: a duck egg blue Fiat 500 with an asymmetric “go faster” stripe.

She got in, put on her seat belt, checked her hair in the mirror, put the key in the ignition, and started the car.  The noise was deafening in the small garage.

“BY THE DAGDA’S WARPED STAFF!” exclaimed Morrígu. “WHAT IS THIS BEAST?? And why do I want to say ‘FUCK’? Is the act of congress somehow important?”

Maeve grinned, slipped the car into gear, and drove out of the garage and onto the road.

“This is a car,” she explained. “We use them like you used chariots, only we don’t need a horse. There’s an engine that does all the work no magic involved. Oh, and ‘FUCK’ is a swear word, not used in polite society. You picked it up from me. I say it when I get a bit of a shock. I usually reserve it for politicians and nuns.”

They drove up out of the village and joined the main road to Coleraine.

Maeve could feel the goddess’s amazement as the world slipped by the windows.
 “And everyone has a ‘car’?” Morrígu asked.

“Not everyone, but most folks who don’t drive take the bus or train which are like cars, but bigger and can handle more people.”

She paused, “Tell me about Dunseverick. Why do we need to go there?”

“I have to speak to Sobairce, son of Ebric and a great-great-grandson of Míl Espáine, who was the first real human to live in Ireland. His family line is the oldest in the land, and I need to borrow something he has or at least, he had it the last time I was awake.”

“Okay… interesting. Tell me more.”

“Sobairce and his brother Cermna Finn became the High Kings of Ireland at the same time. Rather than start a war, they split the island in half. Sobairce ruled the north from the castle of Dún Sobhairce; Cermna ruled the south from Dún Cermna in Cork.

Everything went well for a while the two kings mostly ignored each other, and the country was at peace.  But… up until then, there had only ever been one High King, uniting all the septs on the island. There was strength in unity. When Ireland was divided, the land’s old enemies the Fomorians saw their chance of a perceived weakness.

 They attacked Dún Sobhairce late at night from the sea. It’s said they stole Manannán mac Lir’s magic sword Fragarach, the Retaliator. Though they lost the fight against Sobairce’s men, in a final act of defiance, the Fomorian leader hurled the sword at Sobairce, knocking him off the cliff and into the sea.
 Fragarach is an ancient thing of great magic, and we need to borrow it for what comes next.”

Maeve nodded, not really understanding. It seemed the right thing to do. The answer to her next question “Why do we need a sword?” might not be anything she wanted to hear.

The car passed through Coleraine, then on to Portrush, past Dunluce, Bushmills, and the Giant’s Causeway, where Morrígu was dismissive of Finn MacCool.

“Big and stupid,” she scoffed.
 “Oonagh, his wife, now there was a hero smart, good-looking, and able to use magic properly.”

Shortly afterward, the car pulled into the car park above the three walls that were all that remained of the old castle.

Maeve got out and stood by the wall.

The goddess inside her sighed. “There’s not much of the glorious castle I knew, left.”

“When was the last time you were here?” asked Maeve.

Silence for a moment.

“6,241 summers ago,” Morrígu finally replied.

They stood in silence as the gulls squawked worried by the three ravens who had popped into existence beside the car.

Chapter 11 – “Fragarach”

Maeve had a moment of confusion as she did not know what to do next.

Morrígu said, “Go to the walls on the right side.”

Maeve scrambled down, then up the steep grassy slope and onto the flat top of the promontory. She passed the three crumbling walls of the old tower all that remained of the ancient citadel and positioned herself near a low wall at the eastern edge.
Beyond it lay a patch of grass dotted with sea-pinks in full bloom.

“This will do,” said the goddess. “May I take control?”
“This may be frightening. Please try to control yourself if you can. Do not interrupt the balance between here and where Sobairce exists will be hard to maintain.”

Maeve nodded and braced herself. She felt the now-familiar sensation of becoming an observer within her own body.

Morrígu raised her arms and began to mutter in a language Maeve did not recognize yet somehow remembered, as if from a dream. It was the language the goddess had used long ago, back when she was young in the city of Falias, far to the north of Ireland. In Maeve’s mind, the words shimmered in a strange alphabet and translated themselves into English. The goddess was addressing the sword as if it were a living soul.

“Ancient Fragarach, companion of Manannán mac Lir, friend of Lú, passed to Cú Chulainn and Conn of the Hundred Battles I seek your counsel, and that of the one who holds you now.
I, Morrígu whom you once knew as fair Anú, daughter of Emmas and Nuada, sister of Ériu, Banba, and Fódla ask you to appear.
I was there when you ended Indech, the Fomorian king, and took from him the blood of his heart and the kidneys of his valour.
I give you full honour for the deeds you have done, and those you have yet to do.”

The light breeze stilled.
The sea beneath the cliff became mirror-flat.
It was as though the world held its breath. Seconds passed… then the water rippled and parted.

A tall, blond man dressed in leather rose from the depths of the cove. In his hands, he held a gleaming silver sword its pommel pointing to the sky, its tip to the earth.
To Maeve, he looked like one of those carved kings lying atop medieval tombs but older. Much, much older.

He rose and hovered in the air, a hundred feet above the water and only a few yards from where Maeve stood behind the wall.

His piercing blue eyes flashed. In an annoyed voice he asked,
“Raven Queen of the Mustered Host why do you disturb my slumber?”

“I have need of your sword, noble Sobairce. A wrong has been done, and I must put it right.”

“No!” came the firm reply. “If I give you the sword, I return to a world where all I loved is dead. My sweet Áine turned to dust by the millennia.”
His head bowed. A single tear coursed down his cheek and fell into the sea below.

“Áine is not gone,” said the goddess gently. “Look yonder there she sits, spinning.”

She turned her head. At the far end of the promontory sat a beautiful, dark-haired woman on a low stool, spinning wool at an old wheel. Two young girls sat at her feet. Maeve could hear her song on the wind.

“Áine!” Sobairce called. “And my sweet daughters too!”

“She cannot hear you,” Morrígu said.
“Fragarach holds you here, but your wife and children are in Ildathach the multicoloured land. I can take you to them. All you must do is pass Fragarach to me freely and without reserve and you will be with your family once more.”

“It has been so long,” Sobairce whispered.
“I have been alone. My only companion and friend was Fragarach. I cannot give him up!”

He stood torn until the sword itself spoke, in a silvery voice both masculine and feminine.

“Sobairce, my friend.
Your time is served.
We were joined in battle, and though we won, our fate was to wait for this day.
Take no sorrow in our parting. I will always be a part of you, and you a part of me.
Give me now to the Queen of Ravens. Her cause is just, and her deeds past and to come are mighty.”

Sobairce looked once more at his wife and children, then down at the sword.

“Farewell, my friend,” he said.

He reached out and offered the sword to Morrígu.

The goddess grasped the pommel, and Maeve felt something powerful surge through her body like electricity and then an equal force pass from the goddess to the sword. It was a joining, like the reunion of old friends.

Morrígu laid the sword gently on the grass and took Sobairce’s hand. Together, they walked across the field toward his family.

Maeve felt herself drawn out of her body, as if watching from a distance.

Áine saw her husband and cried out, “Sobairce, my love!”
She rose and ran to him, the children chasing behind her, laughing and shouting with joy.

Maeve saw herself or more properly the goddess, turn and smile, then walk back toward the low wall. As she neared, she felt her spirit slip back into her body.

“So,” she said once the joining was complete, “that was heaven?”

“Yes and no,” replied the goddess. “It is complicated.
Life is complicated. Death doubly so.
His wife and children are in Ildathach the multicoloured land. It is but one of thousands of realities where those who have passed from one go to when their time has come. That is why you could not enter. That place is not for the living.
Your place when the time comes will be different, and it will be shaped to suit you and your loved ones.”

Maeve felt oddly reassured.

She picked up the sword. Once more, she felt the blending of forces one from the goddess, one from the blade. She felt the need to speak.

“I am Maeve O’Connell. I’m helping Morrígu. I’m the… err… the body, so to speak.”

“Greetings, Maeve of the clan O’Connell,” came the whispered, musical reply.
“I am Fragarach.”

“Now,” said the goddess, “we have one more thing to get. Back to Beachóga  and let us away to the White Wife.”

Maeve blinked. Beachóga?
Then she remembered it was Irish for a young bumblebee.

A much better name for her little car, she decided.

They turned and scrambled back toward the car park, which was harder this time there was, after all, a four-foot sword in Maeve’s hands.

Chapter 12 The White Wife

Maeve drove westward toward Portrush under a heavy sky, the wind coming in from the Atlantic like a long, cold breath there was rain coming.  Beachóga newly christened under the goddess’s eye hummed along the narrow roads. Maeve’s hands rested on the wheel, but she wasn’t truly the one steering. Not entirely.

The Morrígu, riding with her now in more than spirit, gave the directions in that voice like black feathers brushing stone. “Past Dunluce,” she said, and Maeve obeyed.

The sight of the castle pleased the goddess. “It was not yet standing when last I walked here,” she said, half to herself. “But I remember the Mac Domhnaill clann, strong from Dál Riata, crossing the sea in long, low boats…”

At her next instruction, Maeve veered off onto a B-road she hadn’t even known was there. Just outside Portrush, on the brow of the hill where the land dipped toward the town on its peninsula, the Morrígu said:

“Stop.”

Maeve pulled over beside a rusted gate and stepped out, rolling her shoulders. “What now?” she asked, brushing a lock of wind-blown hair from her face.

“Over there,” the goddess said, pointing into the field.

A tall stone stood about fifty feet out, weathered and whitewashed, topped with a smooth boulder rounded by the sea. From where Maeve stood, the stone looked uncannily like a woman in a white cloak, her back to the road, gazing ever toward the horizon.

“Never knew that was here,” Maeve said.

“She is called the White Wife,” the goddess replied. “She has waited long upon this hill. The family who owns the field keeps her cloak whitewashed each year, lest misfortune befall them. She is remembered, if not understood.”

Maeve folded her arms. “What’s her story, then?”

The goddess’s gaze turned toward the sea.

“In the age of Conchobar mac Nessa, there lived near here a maid called Aisling. Fair beyond measure was she, her name sung in hearth halls and mead houses. Word of her beauty travelled even across the sea, to the ears of Fergiu Mór Fergus the Great king of the Isles, who ruled from Banrìgh Innse Gall.”

She gestured toward the faint outline of a blue island on the horizon.

“Islay,” Maeve murmured.

“Yes. Fergus was bold, noble in bearing, and already wed to a woman of power Aoife, mistress of spells and secrets. Yet his eyes and hunger turned toward Aisling. He came in silver-sailed ships bearing gifts and promises, and the girl, young and untried in sorrow, fell to him.”

Maeve sighed. She could already guess the shape of the tale.

“She waited for him here, watching the sea, her heart tethered to a man who would never unmoor from his own lies. And when Aoife learned of his treachery, she did not curse her husband no, she called upon the raw marrow of the land and cast her wrath upon the girl. The earth obeyed. Aisling was turned to stone, held in place by the gift Fergus had given her a torc of five rods of gold twisted like longing itself. And so she stood, frozen in her watching, through storm and season, for five thousand years.”

Maeve scowled. “Cursing the girl, not the cheating bastard? Seems Aoife’s aim was off.”

“Agreed,” said the goddess, and her tone was colder than iron. “Had she called upon me or my sisters, justice would have struck the rightful soul.”

The Morrígu raised Maeve’s hand and guided it to the stone, resting it where a shoulder might be. Maeve felt the shift begin the now-familiar melting, her senses slipping back as the goddess stepped forward.

The goddess stood fully in Maeve’s form, her voice low and resonant.

“Aisling. Hear me. Wake from thy long grief.”

The stone shivered, a faint glow blooming from within. Slowly, a young woman stepped into view beside the menhir her form ghostlike but vivid. Her hair was dark as peat water; her white silk dress touched at the hem with embroidered flowers in blue and yellow. Upon her right wrist, the golden torc gleamed softly.

Aisling bowed her head.
“Raven Queen. I know thy name and thy shadow. Long have I waited. I greet thee.”

The goddess inclined her head in return. “Thy vigil has been long, and thy sorrow undeserved. I come not to stir thy pain, but to end it. The torc thou wearest I have need of it. In exchange, I shall break the binding of the spell that holds thee to this hill. The debt of another’s sin need trouble thee no more.”

Aisling looked to the sea, eyes bright with tears that could not fall.

“I waited for a man who never returned,” she said. “My heart turned stone before the spell did. I would see this land no longer through a prison of stillness.”

“Then choose,” said the goddess. “Would you pass into the otherworld, or remain in this realm, in a form of your own choosing, until your time is done?”

Aisling raised her chin. “I would remain, but not as I was. I would become one of the birds that came to visit me in my silence. A falcon. Let me fly.”

The goddess’s voice softened. “A wise and sovereign choice.”

Aisling unclasped the torc and placed it gently in the goddess’s hand. At once, her body shimmered. The light of her form faded and changed, limbs folding inward, shape compressing, until a sleek falcon stood where she had been. The bird stepped onto the goddess’s arm and looked at her with fierce amber eyes.

The goddess stroked its feathers once, then raised her arm.

“Fly, daughter of sorrow. Be free.”

The falcon sprang upward, wings beating strong and sure. It soared high into the sky, climbing until it was just a speck against the dark clouds.

The goddess watched it go. Then she turned to Maeve’s thoughts and said dryly, “Right. Time for something to eat. Having a body is inconvenient it’s always thirsty or hungry. Do you know of a hostelry nearby?”

Maeve, blinking back into herself, smiled faintly.
“I know just the place.”

Chapter 13 Prawn Cocktail

With the sword and torc hidden under a tartan blanket on the back seat, Maeve drove down into Portrush and parked in Lansdowne, beside the old lifeboat house.

“This is a bit of a treat,” she said, getting out of the car and carefully locking it. “I only come here when the kids are home or on the very, very rare occasions I have a date. The food’s excellent, and the Guinness is hard to beat.”

She felt the goddess stir, sifting briefly through her memories. Then came a pleased hum of agreement.

“I see they do steak. I approve. It has been a long, long time since I’ve had a good steak.”

Inside, the waiter greeted her. “Table for one?”

Maeve stopped herself just short of correcting him there were, after all, two diners. He showed her to a table by a wide bay window, overlooking the sea and the Skerries, and left her to peruse the menu.

Two sets of eyes scanned the page.

“What, pray tell, is a starter?” asked the goddess.

“It’s a small dish something to prepare your palate for the main course.”

“So, a little feast before the big feast?”

“Exactly. I usually have the prawn cocktail. Terribly old-fashioned, but I love it.”

The goddess nodded in approval, then tilted her head. “What is a prawn?”

“Little shellfish,” Maeve replied. “Like baby lobsters.”

This seemed to mollify her companion. Maeve turned the page. “You can choose fish, beef, lamb, or pork for your main. What would you like?”

The goddess considered the options. “Much here I do not recognize… but yes, a steak would be nice. Will there be… chips?”

“Of course,” said Maeve. “But special chips. Cooked three times, and much thicker. May I recommend the Bushmills whiskey sauce? It’s really very good.”

The goddess gave her blessing, and Maeve placed the order, selecting a small glass of dark, rich Rioja to accompany it. Only one and a small one. She was driving, after all.

As they waited, the goddess turned to look out the window and smiled. Between the shore and the islands, six dolphins cruised by. It seemed that even goddesses could be made to smile by dolphins.

The prawn cocktail arrived: prawns dressed in Marie Rose sauce on a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce, served atop two thick slices of wheaten bread. Maeve took a bite and was immediately swept by a wave of otherworldly pleasure.

“Never,” said the goddess, awed, “at any of the kings’ tables I’ve dined at have I tasted a dish quite like this!”

Maeve attempted to explain the recipe, but her knowledge was limited her Home Economics class had been taught by Sister Mary Margaret, a woman who smelled of lavender and Gallagher’s Blue Untipped cigarettes. Not the most inspiring source.

The rest of the meal passed in a mixture of Maeve’s quiet appreciation and the goddess’s unbridled joy. The sun was setting as they left. They paused to watch it slide down behind Ramore Head, the sky awash in gold and flame. Goddess or human, some things could still elicit wonder and joy in both.

The drive home was uneventful except for Maeve introducing Morrihu to the wonders of Android Auto and Spotify.

The goddess watched in fascination as Maeve said, “Google… play Keane on Spotify,” and music sprang, ghostlike, from the dashboard.

As the first bars of Somewhere Only We Know filled the car, the goddess frowned slightly. “Is there a band of troubadours hiding in this carriage?”

Maeve laughed. “Electronics. The internet. Modern music can be recorded, All that.”

There was a long silence before the goddess finally said, “This is a strange world, full of strange wonders.”

Maeve nodded. “Yes. But at the end of the day, we’re still human. We still suffer from the same joys and burdens as you once knew love, loss, trust, betrayal, tears and laughter. We’ve just found new ways to experience them.”

Chapter 14 Reunions

Arriving home sometime later, Maeve lifted the sword and torc, still wrapped in their red tartan blanket, and was surprised to hear them singing “The Parting Glass” the very song she had played on the radio on the drive home.

Fragarach, the sword, had a rich baritone voice, while the torc whose name Maeve had learned was Éabha sang in a warm alto. They sang:

By a time to rise and a time to fall
Come fill to me the parting glass
Good night and joy be with you all
Good night and joy be with you all.

Maeve fumbled in her handbag for her keys as the last notes faded.

“That is a very fine song!” Fragarach declared. “A perfect way to end an evening of fine food, fine friends, and fine craic.”

Éabha asked, “From where does this fine song come?”

“Hauld on a tick,” Maeve muttered, still struggling with the key. Click the door swung open. Stepping inside, she placed the sword and torc gently on the sofa.

“I believe it’s a Scottish song, originally from the 1500s so, about six hundred years ago, give or take. It’s very popular both in Scotland and here, especially at wakes and funerals.”

Fiadh, the cat, leapt up onto the sofa and stared at the sword and torc.

“What the absolute fuck?” he exclaimed. “Are those what I think they are?!”

At the sound of his voice, a flurry of silver and blue shimmered through the air, and the Clann of the Good Folk appeared. Naiose solidified from the blur and perched on the arm of the sofa, eyes wide with shock at the contents of the blanket.

“There is strong magic in this house,” she said, looking directly at Maeve. “Is this your doing, Mother of Ravens?”

Maeve felt the goddess stir within her.

“Can I?”  the goddess asked.

“Yes”, Maeve replied.

In the blink of an eye, the goddess stepped forward, her presence unmistakable. Her voice rolled like a hundred ravens taking flight.

“Fragarach, the living sword of Mac Lir. Éabha, the torc given life by Goibniu. I bid you meet Fiadh, feline companion of Maeve and friend of Oisín and Naiose of the Good Folk of Cenél Conaill. Fiadh and Naiose, bid welcome to these beings to your hearth and home.”

Fiadh narrowed his eyes and flattened his ears. “Are you sure this is a good idea, Goddess? Having such powerful, ancient beings here?”

But Naiose bowed with a tinkling laugh. “Fragarach and Éabha, I bid you welcome as honoured guests. My Clann and I will aid you in whatever you may need.”

Éabha responded, “Naiose! You have fared well since last we met?”

Naiose smiled. “Well, you know the Clann keeps me busy and if I complained, who would listen?”

Éabha’s laughter rang out like bells.

“Is Cian of your family still with us? I remember him raising the Good Folk to battle with us against Balor.”

Naiose nodded. Then, raising her voice, she called, “Cian! I have someone here who wants to see you!”

The air shimmered, and a golden glow took form a figure old, yet vital, stepped forth. His face lit up with joy.

“Éabha, my love it does my old heart good to see you again!”

The torc wobbled, lifted into the air, and drifted over to encircle Cian in what could only be described as a hug. The rest of the Good Folk shimmered gold, and a sound like distant, joyous cheers filled the room.

Naiose hovered on Maeve’s shoulder. “Cian and Éabha had a…” She paused, searching for a word Maeve would understand. “…thing, thousands of years ago, Éabha was one of us and were betrothed ….. But life gets in the way. When Éabha’s soul was transferred willingly into the torc by Goibniu the Smith, they were parted. But the love remains.”

Maeve watched the glowing reunion and nodded in quiet understanding. She felt the goddess move again.

“Friends,” the goddess said, “I must summon some of my brothers and sisters tonight. There will be a meeting. I tell you this because it would be best if you all retired to another room when this happens.” She looked meaningfully at Fiadh.

“Will that cockwomble Aengus be here?” he asked.

“Yes, he will,” the goddess replied.

“Right,” said Fiadh. “Then I think a nice long hunt in the woods is in order. I can’t stand that wee arsehole.”

“That’s my brother you’re speaking of,” the goddess said, disapprovingly.

“He turned me into a fucking snail,” Fiadh hissed.

“You probably deserved it,” she replied.

Fiadh slunk off toward the kitchen, grumbling about the lateness of his supper.

“Let us leave the Good Folk to their reunions,” the goddess whispered. “We have to prepare for the meeting this evening.”

Maeve nodded her agreement. “Just let me shut up that damn cat first.”

Chapter 15 Preparation
After Maeve had fed her grumpy cat, she put the kettle on. No preparation in Ireland was ever complete without at least one pot of tea.

“So,” she asked the goddess, “what is this all about?”

The Morrígu explained:

“You descendants of the Milesians call us ‘gods’ but we are not truly divine. We are like you: alive, but different. Our lives are measured in millennia, and we command forces humans cannot truly comprehend. That makes us appear powerful, which led to the idea of us being gods…”

She paused.

“Life is arranged in levels. There are powers on all of them. The dolphins we saw this evening they’re gifted with rare intelligence and a deep capacity for joy. The sparrows in your hedge can hold and understand a hundred conversations at once, and they see much more than you or I ever could. There are levels above humans, like me and my family and above us, even higher beings exist. They are gods to us. Do you understand?”

Maeve considered this. “Yes, I think I do. I’ve always felt that the world, and the beings in it, share so much. There are things we don’t understand, and those things seem like magic to some normal to others.”

“Exactly,” said the goddess. “Now, my family didn’t simply appear. We came from a land far to the north of this island from four cities: Falias, Gorias, Murias, and Finias. My tribe were the children of Danu, my mother, and her consort, Bíle.

“While Danu was the personification of life, Bíle was the personification of death and partings. There was love between them, but their spirits were antithetical. Eventually, a parting became inevitable. So Danu gathered her family, and we left the four cities and came to this island your island about 10,000 years ago, in your reckoning.

“Others of our kind had been here before, so we were familiar with the land. When we arrived, Ireland was vast forest, surrounded by peat bogs and lakes. The only beings here were the Fomorians ancient people who lived on or around the many coastal islands.”

The goddess paused, remembering.

“We had many battles. Many lives were lost. We sought peace and accommodation with our foes, but none could be found. When humans the Milesians arrived, we had just won our final battle against Balor and his clan.

“We were tired. Three millennia of war had taken its toll. We no longer desired to fight, so we made peace with the Milesians. We withdrew from this world to other lands. We left gateways behind the stone where we met is one of them.

“Some of us slept, like me. Some visited this world now and again. Some became the Good Folk like Naiose and hid in plain sight.

“We meet only rarely now. But when we do, we risk upsetting the balance of power in the world. My being here within you is already upsetting that balance. I will need help from some of my kin to reset the scales, and to ensure that the Mother of us all the world itself remains in harmony.

“There is nothing to fear from this meeting. But you will experience things far outside your understanding. I will not be able to explain them to you as they happen, for I will be occupied. However, I can open my memories to you. You may find some understanding that way. Would you like me to do that?”

Maeve considered her options. Being completely in the dark didn’t seem wise.

“Yes, please,” she replied.

“Excellent,” said the goddess. “Now we must prepare. Do you have access to a waterfall?”

“A waterfall? Why?”

“I need to wash before the meeting.”

“Ahhh. I have something better: a power shower.”

“Good. I’ll need to take full control. I will be washing the real me. Are you ready?”

“I doubt it. I’ve never been a goddess,” Maeve replied with a grin.

The change was gradual. It didn’t hurt, but it was a shock. Maeve, proud of her five feet and one inch, suddenly found herself becoming six foot two both a surprise and a revelation. She was now tall enough to see the dust on the top shelves, which had been blissfully out of sight and out of mind. She felt mildly affronted and thought her great-aunt Mary would be spinning in her grave.

Looking down, her body was… was… the only word that came to mind was goddess. She was definitely a goddess.

Passing the hall mirror, she noted that her mousy brown hair was gone replaced by a waterfall of jet-black tresses reaching her waist. Her shoulders bore tattoos: interlocking spirals that moved with the muscles of her arms.

“Maeve,” the goddess interrupted, “concentrate, please. How do I work this thing?”

Maeve helped her open the sliding door, turn on the shower, and pointed out the shampoo and conditioner. Then she respectfully retreated to the back of the goddess’s mind some things, like showering, were best done in private. Even if someone else had your body, you didn’t want them staring at your boobs, no matter how impressive they were.

Once the showering was done and after explanations of what a hairdryer was and how it worked the goddess produced nine ribbons and spent a careful half-hour plaiting nine braids. Maeve found in her memories that this was an Anú thing a signature style: nine braids, four yellow ribbons, four red, and one blue.

At last, the goddess held out her arms. In a flurry of movement, she was dressed in what appeared to be a robe of silk but on closer inspection, it was made entirely of raven feathers. As she moved, light caught the feathers, revealing a rainbow of colour like oil on water shimmering across their surfaces.

Not for nothing is she called the Mother of Ravens, thought Maeve.

The goddess looked in the mirror, nodded once, and said, “That will do nicely.”

Maeve felt that was rather an understatement but said nothing.

Chatper 16 – The Emergency Cake Tin

Maeve was still only an observer in her own body. It was disquieting to see the world through her own eyes but feel her movements interpreted by another. Anú, now in charge, cleared the kitchen table and began poking through the cupboards.

“What are you looking for?” Maeve asked.

“It is important that I offer food to my family. Hospitality is sacred to us. Entire kingdoms have fallen over a botched feast.”

“Ah,” said Maeve. “You need the emergency cake tin. Every Irish home run by a woman has at least one. You never know when the house will be full of children, grandchildren, and random strangers and I’d be mortified to offer a sparse table.”

“Just so,” replied the goddess. “Now where is this tin you speak of?”

“Emergency cake tins are always well hidden. Otherwise, when you have a son or grandson, they very quickly become empty tins. Utility room, cupboard with the bin liners.” She pointed. “Over there.”

Anú retrieved two battered old shortbread tins, their paint chipped, and colours faded. One held various tray bakes Maeve had baked recently, expecting a visit from her children that did not happen. The other held a three-layer chocolate cake with thick fudge icing. The goddess ran a finger around the edge, licked the rich, chocolatey cream, and smiled.

“This will do nicely.”

“Oh,” said Maeve. “There are some Kimberleys in the biscuit tin too. I filled it Saturday. It’s that thing on the counter. You’ll find plates, cups, and saucers in the dresser over there.”

In the goddess’s mind, she had begun to think of herself as Anú. Maeve realized, with a start, that Morrígu was more a description of power than a name Anú was what her parents had called her.

With Maeve’s guidance, Anú laid the table and set the kettle to boil. Tea wasn’t something the ancient Irish had, but the goddess had quickly understood its modern importance on every table.

She reached for the large teapot and, under Maeve’s direction, poured in some hot water to “warm the pot.” Then she reached for the tea caddy and found it nearly empty.

“Damn! I had it on the list for this week’s shop,” Maeve exclaimed. “But never worry. The wee shop will have some. Get my purse and give me control for ten minutes.”

Maeve felt herself shift back into her body. She grabbed her purse from the sideboard and, stepping outside, whispered, “Nemain… fast… please.”

Time slipped sideways. A wind tugged at her face, and then she was standing outside the local SPAR. Catching her reflection in the automatic doors, she froze: she was still Maeve, but with jet-black hair in nine long braids, wearing a dress of raven feathers.

She hurried inside, grabbed a box of 144 Barry’s teabags, and headed for the counter.

“Maeve,” nodded Peter, the shop owner. “Looking well tonight. Going to a fancy dress party?”

“Just a few friends visiting,” Maeve stammered, cheeks flushing at the unexpected compliment. Peter had been her boyfriend back in school. As far as she could remember, this was the first nice thing he’d said to her since 1978.

Tea paid for, she stepped outside. “Nemain home fast… please.”

A raven cawed. The world blurred, and moments later she stood again at her front door. Fiadh, lying under a bush in the garden, looked up.

“Fuck’s sake, woman,” he muttered, giving the nearby crow a evil glance. “Give us a bit of warning when you’re going to do that.”

Maeve felt the goddess take control again. The largest pot in the kitchen was put on the stove to draw.

Anú, hands resting on the counter, let out a long breath. “Done.”

At that word, silver sparks filled the air and the Good Folk appeared en masse.

The goddess nodded, and Naiose emerged from the cloud. She bowed formally, then immediately began fussing over the Good People in her care, splitting them into two lines on either side of the rug leading from the door.

One by one, each sparkling explosion solidified into a small person no more than six inches tall. They fidgeted with excitement.

Naiose fluttered to Maeve’s shoulder and whispered, “Maeve… I know you can hear me. This is a special day for us. This is a great honour. The goddess’s family are seen very seldom in this world some of my clann have heard of them but never met them! I’ve given them a stern talking-to. They will NOT embarrass you or your home.”

The front door creaked open.

A giant cloaked figure entered, carrying a staff. The room filled with the scent of midsummer deep in the forest. Anú bowed low.

“Well met, husband.”

Naoise, still perched on Maeve’s shoulder, breathed, “That is the Dagda, leader of the Tuatha. Once her husband.”

The Dagda was followed by a pale woman in a yellow silk dress; long blonde hair braided behind her. She bowed to the goddess.

“Well met, Mother,” she said.

“Welcome, Bríd,” Anú replied. “Your wisdom will be needed this evening.”

Bríd was followed by a tall, striking young man carrying a spear that shimmered with firelight. Anú bowed again.

“Nephew Lú. Welcome to this home.”

“Anú,” he said warmly. “It’s been a while. Good to see you again.” He noticed the tiny onlookers. “Naoise! Still leading your clann, I see.”

The little fae nearly exploded with pride. “Master Lú! It is a delight to see you again!”

The final arrival stepped into the doorway an older man holding a basket of flowers and herbs. The goddess lost all formality and ran forward, arms wide.

“Uncle!” she cried. “I’ve missed you.”

“Niece,” the man said, smiling as he wrapped her in a tight hug.

Naoise whispered, “That’s Dian Cécht. His magic is healing.”

Holding the goddess at arm’s length, the old man studied her. “All is well?” he asked. “That injury from the Battle of Moytura is it still troubling you? I was concerned when the ravens brought word of this meeting”

“No, everything is fine, Uncle.” The goddess smiled. “I seek your counsel, not your arts.”

The last arrival was another man, tall and wistful in countenance.

“And this”, Whispered Naoise, “Is Aengus Og, step son of Anú, his power is in language, he is the Tuatha’s Poet”

“Mother” he nodded at Anú and then acknowledged Dagda “Father”

“Well met Aengus” said Anú in reply and closed the door to the cottage.

The gathering was complete. The Good Folk fussed and pointed at the gathering and then under Naoise’s guidance slipped away, leaving the goddess and her family alone in the small kitchen.

Outside, the day turned softly to evening … and the meeting began.

Chatper 17

Chapter 17: Fifteens Before a Bit of a Shock

With her family assembled, Anú placed the sword and torc on the table in front of them.

The various gods and goddesses nodded in agreement, and Dagda spoke.

“Éabha and Fragarach, I bid thee welcome to our table.” He turned to Dian Cécht and added, “Free them, if even for a moment.”

The elderly god of healing reached into his bag, selected some herbs and flowers, crushed them in his hands, and sprinkled them over the table. The air parted with an audible sigh and a faint fragrance of marigold. Two figures materialised: a tall, raven-haired man of stunning good looks, dressed all in dark leather, and a red-haired woman clad in green from neck to feet.

Anú stood, pressing her hands on the table.

“Family, I need both to tell you my plan and ask your advice.”

Naoise appeared on the goddess’s shoulder and whispered into her ear. Anú listened and then nodded.

“…But first, we will break our fast in peace, as tradition requires.”

There was a flurry of silver-clad good folk activity. Plates and cups appeared before the assembled guests. Tray bakes and cake were distributed, and tea was poured.

Dagda reached across Brid and grabbed for another Fifteen. Brid slapped his hand.

“FATHER! That’s your third one!”

“Daughter, mind what is this? You know how I love cherries!”

“But you have to think of your waistline. You’re starting to look a little chubby thereabouts.”

“Pfffffffffttttt. These are just too good. It would be a sin to waste them.”

Lú nodded in agreement. “They are indeed very, very good.” He turned to Anú. “Are there any more?”

Maeve could feel the goddess floundering and whispered, “They’re easy to make, and they don’t require cooking.”

She felt the goddess probe her memories until she found a moment in Maeve’s kitchen making Fifteens with her grandchildren. Maeve smiled at the memory. Then Anú lifted a hand, palm upward, and Maeve felt a pull and the plate refilled with freshly made Fifteens.

Anú whispered in Maeve’s head, “Still not sure what a Coco Nut is, but the beach in your head where they grow looks lovely.”

Maeve remembered her trip to the Caribbean forty years ago. Those were good times. She smiled.

“Right,” said the goddess, taking a sip from a mug with World’s Best Granny on the front, “to business.”

“You are all aware of my geas. When a soul cries out in death, I am obliged to hear and help them on their onward journey.

“Such a cry came at the gateway beyond which I slept. There is a soul that needs my help, and to do so I need the aid of both Fragarach and Éabha. I did not want the ripples of what I plan to do to disturb you.”

As her family leaned in, Anú switched to a language Maeve could not understand. But Maeve gathered that the plan was generally accepted by the gods. She whispered, “I do hope there’s no killing involved in your plan. That is a line I will not cross.”

The goddess replied, “No. No killing. But there may be a bit of wishing for the release of death.”

“Fair enough,” said Maeve.

Lú cleared his throat. There was a pause. He leaned forward.

“But that’s not all, is it, Anú? What else is there?”

Anú looked down at her hands. Maeve felt something shift in her something new. A darkness. A silence like the calm before a storm. Maeve was nervous about what might come next.

“There is a cloud gathering over the island,” Anú said. “From my first steps into the Now, I felt it. I’m sure you can feel it too. Something is out of balance in our land.”

Brid nodded. “Indeed, Mother. When I came in from the Other, I felt it. The fire we kindled when we were last here is waning. Something dark in the land is waking…”

Dian Cécht frowned. “I felt it too. A sickness. One I saw long, long ago.”

Aengus, who had remained silent, finally looked up. A single tear ran down his cheek.

“My gateway is high on Grianán of Aileach, and when I stepped into the Now, like Brid, I felt the darkness. And I know its source. It is coming from An Gleann Neimhe…”

The group gasped. An Gleann Neimhe. The Poisoned Glen. A place where no bird sings. The place where Balor, king of the Fomorians, was killed by Lú.

“…Balor’s eye is opening,” Aengus sobbed.

Chapter 18 Plans and marshmallows

Maeve leaned forward, cradling her tea. “So… who exactly is this Balor? Everyone gasped like someone had said ‘Voldemort.’”

Anú’s expression darkened. “Worse than Voldemort. Older and very real.”

She reached across the table and picked up one of the Fifteens, absently turning it in her hand like a talisman.

“Balor was Fomorian. Not a god, not exactly but something ancient. A chieftain, a king, a monster, depending on who tells it. He ruled from Tory Island, long before the Tuatha Dé Danann set foot here. He had an eye one eye that could kill with a glance. Not a metaphor, Maeve. It opened like a stormcloud and what it saw, it unmade. Flesh, stone, forest it didn’t matter.”

Maeve blinked. “A death-ray eye?”

“A gaze that brought rot and ruin,” Dian Cécht said grimly. “It was a curse laid on him in youth. Poison gathered beneath the lid. So potent, he kept it shut unless he meant to destroy.”

“And Lú,” Maeve said, pointing at the quiet young man at the end of the table. “He’s the one who ”

“Killed him,” Anú said. “Struck him down at the Battle of Mag Tuired. Put a spear through the eye and drove it out the back of his head. The eye landed face-up on the battlefield and burned a hole into the earth that never healed. That hole became An Gleann Neimhe. The Poisoned Glen.”

Maeve shivered. “I’ve been near there. It’s… silent. Like the ground’s holding its breath.”

“Because some part of Balor never died,” said Aengus softly. “His malice, his hunger for suffering it clung to the land. And now, something is stirring it.”

“So,” Dagda said, putting both hands on the table, “we have two things that need to be addressed.”

Maeve could feel the memories the goddess had promised would be available, and she understood now that he was the leader, the planner, the strategist of the Tuatha   the one the rest of the clann took direct orders from. He was both wise and strong, never assuming loud was strong and quiet was weak. He could be both fierce and soft, when the occasion demanded.

He was silent for a moment and then set out the next steps.

“Anú, Maeve, and Éabha   you shall go to the Poisoned Glen and investigate this wakening we all feel. Tread carefully. The risk is great.
Bríd and Dian, I need you to start gathering the healing powers at your disposal   I fear we will need them.
Lú and Aengus, you will visit Seamus with Fragarach.” He looked at the tall, dark man. “If you inflict a wound, no matter how small, it still renders the wounded person to answer any question truthfully?”

The sword-bearer nodded. “It does.”

Dagda turned to Lú. “No killing! Just a little cut   or Maeve will never make us more of those marvellous fifteens!” He smiled.

“For my part, I will go and let our one mother, Danu, know of this development and get her blessing. I fear Mother Earth will not be left unscarred by what is to come.”

The assembled Celtic gods nodded their agreement, and one by one they faded like mist on a summer morning, leaving Maeve, Anú, and the torc on the table.

Maeve felt herself slip back into her own body, complete with the same old aches and pains. She kind of missed being a raven-haired goddess.

There was a frantic scrabbling at the back door   Fiadh wanted in. Maeve opened it and a ginger tornado bounced into the room.

“They’ve gone?” he asked, hackles up, eyes scanning the room.

“Yes,” said Maeve. “There’s only us.”

“Thank fuck for that,” the cat exclaimed. “There was NO way in the green earth I was going to spend another ten years as a fucking snail!”

Maeve had the strong sense there was a story she needed to know, but Éabha interrupted.

“What lies ahead for us is fraught with danger.”

“It is,” replied Anú. “Balor has a power that we in the Tuatha know nothing of. Our power comes from the earth and sky. Balor’s comes from a much darker, unknown source. His power comes from pain, suffering, and despair   the more of these he can cause, the stronger he became. But he was killed. I saw it myself. My sister Bé Chuille keened his passing. How is it he is waking?”

Éabha’s voice was musical as ever. “His power was strengthened by the suffering of this world, but it came from a darker place   beyond the ken of mortals and Tuatha. A place we would not want to go to, even if we could, he is tapping into someone’s suffering.”

In Maeve’s head, the stories the priests and nuns told her of the fiery pits of Hell rose up, and Anú said quietly, “Yes, very like that Hell you know of. And Balor was the king   the king of pain, the sovereign of suffering.”

Silence fell in the small kitchen, broken at last by the voice of Naoise, who had been fluttering unnoticed by the fireplace, staring into the flames.

“Mother of Ravens,” she said formally, “my clann and the clanns of every home are at your disposal for anything we can do to help. Our memories are long, and the seven years where Bres and Balor ruled the land   many of the Good People perished. It was the hardest of hard times. I will NOT allow them to return!”

The glow around Naoise turned fiery red, and the room filled with the sparkling cloud of her clann   their collective anger a palpable force.

“And I can speak for the cats,” said Fiadh. “They will all be at your command, should you need us.”

Anú nodded her acceptance of these offers.

Maeve stood.

“Well. I suppose if we’re going to be poking about with the King of Hell, we probably need a good sleep. Anyone fancy a hot chocolate with marshmallows? There’s nothing that seems quite so bad when you have hot choccie and marshmallows.”

Chapter 18 Seamus’s Second Visit

The hospital ward was closed for the evening. Nurses pulled the curtains and dimmed the lights. Seamus Byrne lay in his bed in a side room, dying for a cigarette but unable to move both his legs were in casts, the right one pinned in place with external fixator rods holding his femur together.

The police had already come and gone, taken his statement, and left unimpressed by the fact that “The Punisher” had shattered both his legs with a hurl. Now Seamus lay fuming, not so quietly, plotting revenge. He radiated such hostility that the nurses only approached when absolutely necessary. He’d been told he’d be bed-bound for at least four or five weeks.

Staring out the window at the setting sun, he muttered, “Fuck,” and fidgeted, trying to ease the pain in his leg. What he wouldn’t give for a wee blast of ketamine to take the edge off. Then the door to his room slowly closed, ending in a not-so-reassuring click. He turned his head. “What the fuck now?” he thought. “Them fucking wee lassies need a good seeing to, take some of the nasty bitch off of them.”

Two men appeared as if stepping from fog. Both were tall and well-muscled. One was covered in tattoos eldritch, knotted patterns that twisted across his skin. He carried a large silver sword. Neither spoke. They simply stared at the man in the bed.

“What the fuck?” Seamus snapped. “Since when does the NHS need swords, or are you two on your way to some medical fancy dress party?”

The man without the sword leaned forward and placed a large hand on Seamus’s broken leg. Seamus screamed in pain.

The man whispered, “No-one will hear you, or care if they do. This is your second visit. You’re learning not to get on the wrong side of those who step into the now from the beyond. We are ancient, beyond your understanding. We arrange for justice when there is none.”

His accent was strange, and his words cut deep.

“Listen,” Seamus stammered, “we can work this out. What do you need? Money? Women? Drugs?”

The sword carrier dismissed the question with a sharp, “Pffffft,” and swung the sword a few times in slow, practiced arcs at the foot of the bed.

“I am Lú,” he said. “Some called me Lú of the Long Arm, because in my hands a sword or spear became part of my body. I have fought and defeated mighty warriors. You are not worthy of the name. You are an ant. A cow pat already trodden underfoot.”

The other man, eyes shadowed beneath a hooded cloak, spoke quietly, his words heavy with power.

“Lú holds an ancient sword imbued with the force of one of our mages. It is called Fragarach. Tonight, you will feel its power.”

Seamus shivered, his bravado crumbling. “Honestly, we can work this out…”

Lú swung the sword in a low arc. Seamus flinched, certain it would take his head but the blade passed cleanly upward, slicing a neat cut along his cheek. Bright red blood flowed. The hooded man leaned forward and gently wiped it away with a square of linen.

“It is done,” he said. “This is the next stage of your punishment. The magic of Fragarach is that anyone wounded by its blade is bound to the truth like a man chained to a rock. Any and all questions you are asked must be answered truthfully. If you try to lie or hide the truth, the words will burn in your throat. The pain will be real. Very real. There is no escape. This is your fate until the day you leave this world.”

The two men stepped into the shadows at the back of the room and faded from sight, leaving Seamus bleeding and terrified.

“NURSE! NURSE!” he screamed. Two nurses burst through the door, shocked to see their patient sitting upright, blood streaming down his cheek. One ran for the doctor on call; the other cleaned the wound.

When the doctor arrived, he examined the injury and asked, “How on earth did this happen?”

Seamus hesitated, then muttered, “I tripped and fell.” The pain started immediately deep in his chest, spreading upward. It bloomed like fire in his throat.

“JESUS CHRIST!” he screamed, face contorted in agony. “OK! I was attacked! Two psychos with a sword call the police! This isn’t a hospital, it’s a fucking madhouse!”

The pain subsided. The spell considered whether “psychos” was a lie or just exaggeration, and decided the lesson had been learned.

The doctor, disturbed by the chest pain, ordered an ECG and then stitched the neat cut on Seamus’s cheek. By the time he finished, two policemen had entered duty officers on hand for the usual Saturday night chaos.

“Well, if it isn’t Seamus Byrne,” one said. “What have you been up to? Killed the wrong person and annoyed their family?”

Seamus was well known, so the question wasn’t entirely in jest. He started to deny it but the pain began before he could speak. It was as if the sword was being driven slowly into his chest. He tried to resist it. It only intensified. His mouth opened. The truth forced its way out.

“I shot Liam McManus,” he said. “I told him it was because he was a tout. But really, it was because I thought he was a dick.”

The eyebrows of both policemen shot up like four caterpillars that had just been tazed by a blackbird.

“You did what now?” one asked.

Seamus repeated his confession. The pain that had been fading returned sharply as if to remind him what dishonesty would cost.

“Anything else you’d like to get off your chest?” the second officer asked.

Even thinking about lying brought the pain back.

Seamus groaned and began to speak. The smaller policeman pulled out his notebook. His partner whistled and muttered, “Looks like we’ll need a bigger book…”

Chapter 19 Of Fay Tailors and Cat Litter
Maeve yawned and rolled out of bed, her body making all the noises she’d grown accustomed to in recent years.

She gave her knees a moment to acclimatize to the idea of walking and sat on the edge of the bed, idly stroking the head of Fiadh, who was weaving a figure-eight between her legs.

“What sort of time do you call this, madam?” he asked.

Maeve squinted at the alarm clock. “Hmm… 7:45 a.m. And good morning to you, Fiadh.”

“Pfft,” replied the cat. “Stir your stumps I need a pee and then breakfast! immédiatement s’il vous plaît”

“Me first,” answered Maeve as she plodded to the ensuite, deciding not to ask Fiadh  how he knew how to speak in French

“Quicker, quicker,” urged the cat from the rug in front of the toilet. “How long does it take to have a pee, for god’s sake?”

“I preferred it when it was just meeow meeow chirrup,” muttered Maeve.

“All the world’s a critic,” spat Fiadh, “especially when you need a pee.”

“If it is that bad you have a litter tray. Go there,” suggested Maeve.

“I have standards. Not many but they are my own,” huffed Fiadh.

Maeve finished, put on her dressing gown, and headed downstairs to the kitchen, preceded by an orange tornado.

Entering the kitchen, she opened the back door and Fiadh shot out, disappearing behind a hebe.

“Oh dear God thank fuck,” she heard him sigh from behind the shrub.

“Yes,” she sighed. “Definitely better when it was meeow meeow.”

She left the door ajar for his return, filled his bowl with fresh food, and began making tea. The day always seemed less awful with tea.

The Goddess was off doing whatever goddesses do first thing in the morning, and for now, Maeve was alone with her thoughts.
She sipped her tea and remembered a story from long ago a fairy tale about a tailor and the elves who helped him.
She glanced at the sofa. The work was starting to pile up.

“Naoise?” she called.

A flash of blue appeared from behind the letter rack.

“Good morning, Maeve,” said the small being.

“Good morning, Naoise. I was just thinking about a book from years ago something by the Brothers Grimm. A story about three good folk who helped a tailor. It’s old, in German.”

“I know it,” Naoise smiled. “I believe it happened. Though I know only a few of the clanns from the Continent, the story’s told when we all gather around midsummer. Why?”

“Weeeeeeeellllll…” Maeve hesitated. “Can any of your clann use a needle and thread? With all this temporary goddess business, I’m falling behind on my work, and I could really use a hand.”

“Of course!” said Naoise. “We have carpenters, fishermen, farmers all sorts of tradesfolk in the clann. And most importantly: tailors.”
She gave a whistle, and two light-blue beings appeared.

“This is Cian and Niall,” she said. The small beings bowed.

“Tell them what you want, and they’ll do it.”

Maeve explained about shortening the curtains, the hem on her summer dress, the turn-ups on a pair of jeans, and the embroidered flowers for a hat.
Cian and Niall nodded, asked a few questions about where to find her supplies, and got to work on the sofa.

“We’re glad to be of more direct service, Maeve,” Naoise said. “And remember you just have to ask.”

“You’re lifesavers,” Maeve replied. “This’ll help bolster my pension so I can pay the bills.”

She took another sip of tea and noticed the linen cloth wrapped around the sword on the table.

“Wait… didn’t what’s-his-name and doodah take that yesterday evening?” she asked.

Naoise nodded. “Yes. Lords Lú and Aengus returned it before sunrise. They said the second visit was complete, and all was well.”

Maeve wondered if she turned on the radio, would she hear about a mysterious beheading? She tuned into Radio Ulster with trepidation.

No news of sudden head or other less fatal limb loss. But there was a curious story: Police had closed 115 open cases overnight several of them murders.
Commissioner O’Rourke described it as “unprecedented in modern policing” and announced a press conference for 3 p.m.

Maeve blinked. “Was that… us?”

“It was,” said the sword.

“Ohhh, sorry I forgot you could speak. Good morning, Fragarach. So what’s the story?”

“Ah,” said the sword. “One of the gifts bestowed upon me by Danu and Goibniu is the power to compel truth. A person who carries even the smallest wound made by me cannot lie. Lú gave Seamus the tiniest nick on the cheek more than enough to make him sing like a canary.”

“When you say ‘compel,’” Maeve asked, “what exactly do you mean? Or do I not want to know?”

The sword paused. “You know when you get a paper cut and then spill lemon juice on it?”

Maeve nodded.

“Well. It’s like that if you had paper cuts all over and someone poured a jug of lemon juice over you every time you try to lie.”

Maeve winced. “So lying is… unpleasant for Seamus?”

“Very.”

“I approve. But what’s with the blood-soaked cloth?”

“That’s proof for Liam that the second visit happened,” Fragarach answered.

Maeve nodded, and as she did, she felt the Goddess wake within her.

“Morning, Anú,” said Maeve. “Fancy a run before porridge?”

The Goddess mumbled something unintelligible but approving.

“It seems,” Maeve thought, “even goddesses aren’t morning people.”

She threw on her tracksuit, turned the radio to the Q-Radio morning show, lifted the bloody cloth from the table, and stepped outside.
The joyful noise of twenty small voices singing along to Kylie’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head filled the cottage behind her.

It was a fine morning. The sun was breaking through a scatter of small clouds.
Blackbirds sang their hearts out mostly about the joy of eating worms and beetles, which Maeve could’ve done without knowing.

She picked up her pace.

At the gate at the bottom of the hill, she slowed.

“Do you want to take over?” she asked.

The Goddess approved, and the now-familiar sensation swept through her what Maeve had taken to calling “GFG”: Going Full Goddess.
She passed through the gate, crossed the field, climbed the hill, and stood beside the stones.
The ravens settled into the hawthorns, cawing quietly.

Anú leaned forward and placed the bloodied cloth on the ancient lintel.

“The second visit is done. The villain’s blood was shed. You will be free soon.”

The shade of Liam appeared. He lifted the cloth with a small smile.
The stone around his neck grew visibly smaller.

“Thank you, Mother of Ravens,” he said. “I await my freedom and leave with the thanks of a troubled soul being made easy.”

The ghost faded into the tomb.

Anú stood for a moment longer, gave a long sigh, and jogged back down toward the road. The GFG sensation faded, and Maeve returned to the front of herself.

“Right,” she said. “Breakfast and then saddle young Beachóga. To the west we will go.”

Chapter 20 Some backstory because Anú is good that way

Hello, gentle reader. Anú here. Yes, I know I’m breaking the fourth wall. But I’m a goddess. Sue me!

Maeve is busy driving to Donegal and is a bit preoccupied, so I’m taking this time to let you in on what’s going on and why it matters. And who better to do it than me because I was there when all this unfolded.

Okay way, way, way back, before the Tuatha came to Ireland, others of my people came to this island. They were called Clann Nemid, the family of Nemed. His family sailed in forty-four ships from what you now call the Black Sea. Along the way, they came across a tall golden tower rising from the sea and tried to take it for themselves.

Bad idea.

There was an ancient evil power living in that tower, and in the battle that followed, all but five of Nemed’s boats were sunk with the loss of all on board. A great storm called by the power in the tower raged across the sea and drove the five surviving boats ashore on the south coast of Ireland, near what is now Cork, this was the first crossing of my kind with the Formorians.

The land welcomed them plentiful water, game, fish, honey. Believing their luck had changed, Clann Nemed settled, prospered, and grew.

Now here’s something you need to understand: the Nemed were children of Danu, as we are, but even more closely bound. Their power dwarfed even ours.

But nature, as you know, abhors a vacuum.

When the world was young, there was no good or evil only chaos. When the Old Gods called the world into being, it began in balance. But Danu, the Mother Force, was too powerful. To balance her out, something else emerged from the chaos: the Fomorians.

They were not just “evil” in the way mortals understand it. They were anti-creation. Forces of destruction and disorder. While Danu nurtured, they razed. Their cities lay under the sea, and their black forges filled the waters with smoke and fire. Tory Island alone had dozens of forge-chimneys, belching foul smoke that spoiled the air across the entire northern coast.

Clann Nemed, growing strong, inevitably encountered the Fomorians for a second time.

What we were, they were not so of course, we fought.

Nemed himself was a ferocious warrior. He defeated two Fomorian kings Conand of Tory Island and Morc of Rathlin. But after those victories, Nemed fell ill, struck by a mysterious wasting disease, and died peacefully in his bed.

His people, left without a leader, stood no chance. They surrendered. Some were slain, some enslaved, some married into the Fomorian royal bloodlines.

And then came Balor.

Balor, the One-Eyed. The greatest of the Fomorians. He took a woman from among Nemed’s survivors as his wife. He ruled with cruelty and terror. Nothing good is remembered from his long reign.

His eye his cursed, single eye could destroy anything it looked upon.

At the Second Battle of Moytura, we Tuatha faced him. Before the battle ended, Balor smote our king Nuada, severing his arm.

But then came Lú.

Lú threw his spear with such force that it passed through Balor’s eye and out the back of his skull.

Balor fell, mortally wounded, unable to wield his terrible gaze. He clawed at the spear, but it would not come free. Blood-tears scalded the earth (remember this it is important later) . Lú stepped forward, planted a foot on Balor’s chest, and pulled his weapon free.

Then, using Fragarach yes, that sword you’ve met it he beheaded the monster.

Where Balor’s head landed, the earth recoiled. It opened wide, unwilling to receive such corruption. The ground tore open until the molten heart of the world was visible. Into that chasm, Balor fell swallowed by the earth’s fire.

The land tried to heal. But it could never truly forget.

Over time, the cleft filled with water. Nothing lives in it. No fish swims there. No swan lands upon it, no birds sing in the thorns that surround it This is why the place became known as the Poisoned Glen, forever marked by the fall of the greatest evil this land has ever known.

And now, dear reader, Maeve and I are investigating why that long-dead evil is stirring again. Why there are echoes of Balor’s presence in the land.

But enough of that. Back to the story.

Forget I was here. It was all a figment of your imagination. I blame that cheese sandwich you had for lunch.

Chapter 21

Two weeks before Maeve met the Morrígan, a man stood alone on the stony beach where the Owenabhainn River meets Dunlewy Lough, lost in thought.

His name was Brian. He was an accountant.

His life had been as grey as the suits he preferred, and he even admitted to himself that he enjoyed the dull and uneventful. Excitement, he often said, was overrated.

He knew he should be revelling in the view: the poisoned valley, its dark waters, the stark beauty of the ruined church two fields away. He should be challenged by the majesty of Mount Errigal, the summit was his target today.

But enthusiasm, over the years of work and marriage, had shrivelled into something stunted and frail.

So shrivelled, in fact, that his wife of twenty-five years, Maureen, had packed her bags and taken their two children, Jeremy and Nigel, off to Canada.
With a lumberjack named Claude.
Claude, who on his Hunks4Her dating profile, listed “wrestling grizzly bears” and “log rolling” among his hobbies.

“If only,” Brian thought, “she had swiped left. What does Claude know of accrual basis or variance analysis? All he can do is cuddle bears and stand on a floating log in a tartan shirt.”

He scuffed his shoe in the gravel and sighed.

“Nothing for it but to get started,” he muttered, and took his first step toward the mountain.

Something caught his eye.

A bright red flash in the gravel. Twinkling. A ruby?

“No,” he said aloud. “Don’t be daft. Rubies come from Asia. Though… they are a sound investment for long-term futures.”

He stooped and picked up the blood-red crystal, turned it over in his fingers.

As he rolled it between thumb and forefinger, a strange warmth pulsed through it, briefly, like a heartbeat. He frowned, blinked. The sensation was gone.

He dropped it into the pocket of his kagoul without thinking.

Up ahead, Mount Errigal shimmered slightly, as if seen through heat haze. Brian squinted, shook his head. Just the wind. Just his eyes.

From a rock on the far bank, a lone raven watched him, unmoving.

Brian didn’t see it.

He turned back to the path and began to climb.

Chapter 22

The road west narrowed to a ribbon of tarmac, curling up through brown hills and yellow grass, where the sheep moved like clouds grazing low to the earth. Maeve had driven this way once before, long ago, and remembered it as a place for postcards and photographs, back when her knees were younger, and her life less strange.

The wind rose as the car climbed. Maeve downshifted with a grunt.

“You do know Dunlewy’s back that way,” she said, nodding to the low sweep of valley behind them.

Anú sat, separate for a moment, like a misty presence the passenger seat, eyes fixed ahead. The way she did when something was stirring in that other world she carried inside her.

“There are places older than roads,” Anú said softly. “Older than kings or kingdoms. Some things must be done where the stones remember.”

Maeve’s knuckles tightened on the wheel. “And this is one of them?”

“It is the one.”

That was all she said, and the silence after it was heavier than the climb.

They came to the top at last, where the road ended in a gravel scatter and the land fell away on all sides. The Grianán rose before them, stone rings stacked like an ancient crown, crouched against the sky. The air was sharper here, the wind quick with whispers.

Maeve zipped her jacket started up the path. Each step seemed to echo underfoot.

Inside the fort, shadows lay in the hollows between stones, though the sky was bright. Maeve stopped short when she saw him.

Dagda stood in the centre like a tree given flesh: vast and calm his right hand gripping a staff that looked carved from the heart of the earth. His eyes, when they turned to her, were deep as bog water and twice as old.

“You’re here,” he said simply.

“Seems so,” Maeve replied, though her voice sounded small. “What’s this about?”

Dagda’s gaze softened, but his words struck like stones dropped in a well.

“The threads are pulled taut. He’s spoken. Every deed laid bare.”

Maeve frowned. “You mean Seamus? Spoken to who?”

“To all who needed to hear,” Dagda said, and that was worse than an answer.

Maeve’s gut gave a slow twist. “And now what?”

Dagda’s smile was a shadow. “Now, he moves on.”

The words fell into Maeve like cold rain. Moves on. She didn’t like the sound of that one bit.

Anú, though, only nodded. “Will you help us with the way?”

Dagda lifted his staff without another word and drove its iron tip into the stone floor. The ground shivered. A sound rose low at first, then curling into something like a breath drawn from between the worlds. Mist seeped from the crack that opened, spilling white and restless, twisting upward like smoke from a green fire.

The air was thick with the scent of wet earth and something stranger, something sharp as iron and sweet as heather bloom. The mist gathered into an arch, a wound in the air, pulsing faintly, through which another sky glimmered: gray, with stones and shadows beyond.

Maeve stepped back. “What in God’s name ….. ”

“No god’s name here, just us” Anú murmured. She laid a hand on Maeve’s arm, firm and cool. “Listen to me. You need to take control.”

“Control of what? Him? This?” Maeve’s heart thudded hard enough to taste.

“Control of the ending.”

Maeve stared at her. “You’re not saying, you’re not saying I have to kill him?”

Anú’s eyes were steady, black as the gaps between stars. “Not by our hands. But the story must finish. You must hold the weight for a little while.”

“I’m no judge,” Maeve whispered.

“And yet you’ve carried truth longer than any judge I know,” Anú said. “You have what he needs. You have what the dead need.”

Maeve’s throat felt dry as sand. “And if I can’t?”

Anú’s mouth curved, not kindly, but not without warmth. “Then the threads snarl. And the price will be paid by others.”

Dagda said nothing. He only watched her, as patient as stone, as if the whole world might wait for her answer.

Maeve swallowed hard. “Christ help me,” she muttered. Then, before her courage leaked away, she stepped forward and into the mist.

The cold hit her first cold that went through coat and skin and bone, into places no winter wind had ever reached. The light dimmed. She walked out onto a stretch of ground that might have been a shore once, or a burial place. Black stones stood like broken teeth in a ring. Beyond them, a sky of gray iron pressed low, and a restless wind tugged at her hair.

And there waiting by the central stone was Seamus.

His head was bowed; his shoulders hunched under a weight she could not see. The torc gleamed dull around his throat like a shackle, its gold tarnished to green. His hands were empty.

Maeve’s breath caught. For a heartbeat she almost called his name but the sound died in her chest.

He looked up.

And in his eyes was something she could not name, only feel: the knowledge of all he had done, and all that could never be undone.

The ravens were already gathering.

Chapter 23

Maeve stood just inside the ring of stones, the stones where this all began, the mist curling around her boots like smoke that wanted to climb. Her heart hammered in her chest, and her breath came out in clouds.

Seamus lifted his head slowly. His face was hollowed, paler than she remembered, as though someone had drained the colour out of him and left only lines and bone. His eyes fixed on her, and flinched.

“Maeve,” he said, voice raw as broken glass.

She opened her mouth, but nothing came. For all the nights she’d imagined this moment, imagined the words she’d hurl at him, her tongue felt useless now.

“I didn’t think…” He stopped, swallowed, tried again. “I didn’t think it’d be you.”

She forced sound past the tightness in her throat. “Nor did I.”

The wind stirred, hissing through the stones. Ravens dropped from the iron sky, one after another, until the circle bristled with black feathers and bright eyes. They did not speak, but their presence spoke enough: witness, judgment, the weight of something older than law.

Seamus dragged in a breath. “I told them. All of it. The guards, the priests, anyone who’d listen. I thought maybe…” His hands shook. “I thought maybe it’d make a difference.”

“It did,” Maeve said. Her voice was steadier than she felt. “You told the truth. But the truth doesn’t wash blood away.”

His jaw worked. “Then what does?”

Maeve looked down at her empty hands, then at him. What does? If she had the answer, she’d give it. She’d trade every word she’d ever spoken for it.

Anú’s voice came from behind her, quiet but sharp as a raven’s beak:
“It begins with acceptance.”

Maeve turned slightly. Anú had stepped through, though the mist barely touched her cloak. She nodded toward Seamus.

“You’ve confessed with your tongue. Now you must confess with your life.”

Seamus’s eyes widened. “What does that mean?”

“It means you give what is left of you to the balance you broke,” Anú said. Her tone was not cruel, but there was no softness in it either. “Not in chains of iron, nor walls of stone, but in the deep places where the wrong began.”

The wind rose, and from the far edge of the circle a shape uncoiled, a shimmer at first, then a figure, pale and lean, stepping into sight with slow grace. His hair drifted like smoke, his face hollow with shadows. But his eyes, his eyes burned like coals in the dark.

Maeve knew him at once. Liam.

Slowly, like smoke from a dying fire, other figures appeared behind him, silent, bowed, their faces veiled in shadow. Some she did not know. But near the back was a face she did.

Stephen.

Her cousin. Sixteen when he vanished in 1975. They’d whispered that he’d annoyed the paramilitaries, that they’d taken him. Now he stood among the dead, hollow-eyed and still.

Maeve’s breath caught in her chest.

Seamus crumpled. “Christ Jesus,” he whispered, crawling back a step. “No! No!”

Liam stepped forward. He did not speak. He only watched, and in that gaze was a weight that bent the air.

Maeve’s hands curled into fists. She turned on Anú. “What do you want from me? What am I supposed to do?”

“Bear witness,” Anú said. “Hold the space until the threads are tied.”

“That’s all?”

“That is everything.”

Maeve turned back. Seamus had dropped to his knees; arms wrapped around himself like a child. “Maeve,” he sobbed. “Don’t let them, don’t let them take me.”

Her throat ached. “I can’t stop this,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

“Please!” His voice cracked like ice. “Please, Maeve! You don’t know what it’s like….”

“Don’t I?” Her words snapped like a whip, and she hated herself for it. She jabbed a finger toward the shadows.
“Stephen. You took Stephen. He was only a boy!”

Seamus froze. The memory from long ago carved across his face. His breath came in ragged pulls, but he said nothing more.

The wind died. For a moment, the whole place held still, ravens silent, sky breathless, even the mist waiting.

Then Liam stepped closer. His outline flickered in and out of shape, like a candle flame in a draft, but his eyes never wavered. He reached out, one hand, pale and slow as frost forming.

Seamus gave a sound between a sob and a scream as Liam’s fingers brushed his chest.

There was no blood. No blow. Only a shudder that tore through Seamus like a wave. His back arched; his mouth opened in a silent cry. Then the light went out of him, not like dying, not like any death Maeve had seen, but as if a thread had been cut and the weight of the world slid free.

He slumped forward. The torc clattered dull against the stones.

Maeve stared. Her stomach roiled. “Is he…?”

“Gone,” Anú said.

Seamus’s body lay still. But above it, no, from it, something like smoke uncoiled, silver-gray and thin as breath. It twisted upward, trailing sparks like embers, and drifted toward Liam. He opened his arms, and the smoke folded into him like water into earth.

For an instant, his outline flared bright, sharp as glass. Then it softened, dimmed.

He looked at Maeve. Just once. And for that heartbeat she saw him as he had been, alive, laughing, warm with sunlight. He bowed his head, a single nod of thanks.

Then he, and the others, were gone.

The ravens rose all at once, a black storm beating skyward, their wings tearing the silence. The wind roared after them, ripping through the circle, snatching away the last of the mist.

When it cleared, Seamus’s body was gone too. Only the torc remained, green with tarnish, glinting dully among the stones.

Maeve’s legs gave way. She sat hard on the cold ground, head in her hands.

Anú knelt beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “It is done,” she said quietly. She picked up the torc, slipped it into a small black bag, and murmured:
“Thank you. Now sleep.”

Maeve lifted her head, her face wet with tears she hadn’t felt fall. “No,” she said hoarsely. “It’s never done.”

Anú’s dark eyes held hers, calm and endless. “Not for us. But for them.”

Maeve looked at the empty stones, the gray sky, the wind moving like a ghost through the grass. She didn’t answer.

Far away, in the bright hum of the real world, the on-duty doctor pronounced Seamus dead of a suspected heart attack. The nurse pulled the sheet over his face and closed the door.

The raven on the window ledge tilted its head, gave a single harsh caw, and fluttered off into the night.

Chatper 24

The mist shivered, parted, and the stones of Knock O’Neill faded like smoke from Maeve’s eyes.

When her boots struck the flagstones of the Grianán again, the world felt too bright. The wind off the hill was sharp, clean, but she tasted ash at the back of her throat.

Dagda stood where they had left him, staff grounded, watching the horizon as if listening to something far beyond it. His vast bulk made the ancient fort seem small.

Anú stepped out behind Maeve and let the mist seal itself with a sound like a sigh.

“It’s done,” she said simply.

Dagda turned, the weight of ages in his dark eyes. “The thread is cut,” he agreed. “But new ones are tangling in the weave.”

Maeve dragged a sleeve across her face, though the wind had already dried the tears. “That’s it? All this ….” she gestured at the stones, the memory of what had happened, the heaviness still clinging to her bones, “and you talk like it’s embroidery gone wrong?”

Dagda’s mouth curved in something like a smile, though it held no warmth. “You’ve walked far from the hearth, woman. The cloth of the world frays in more than one place.”

Maeve gave a sharp laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. “And I suppose that’s my problem now?”

“No.” Dagda studied her a moment longer, then shook his great head. “But you are tied to those who must answer it. And the storm is rising whether you stand in it or not.”

Maeve’s gut clenched. “What storm?”

Anú moved to the centre of the fort, her cloak snapping in the wind like a dark banner. “The old hunger stirs again,” she said. “Balor’s shadow. It should have ended on the day Lú drove the spear through his eye. But nothing truly ends, Maeve. Not when men still feed it.”

Maeve frowned. “Feed it how?”

Dagda spoke then, voice like distant thunder:
“Suffering. Despair. The ruin of hope. Wherever men turn against their own, Balor feasts. And his remains, scattered in the breaking, still carry that hunger. Even now, something wakes in the north.”

Anú’s eyes were black pools catching the last of the sun. “A Tear of Balor has been found.”

Maeve blinked. “A tear? Like, crying?”

Dagda rumbled low in his chest. “Not water, woman. A jewel, born from his eye when it burst in death. Hard as stone, and harder still in its curse.”

Maeve crossed her arms tight, as if that might keep the wind from her bones. “So, what does it do, this… thing?”

Anú answered, her voice gone softer, though it held no mercy:
“It whispers. It twists. It makes ruin sweet. Put it in the pocket of a grieving man and watch the world fall from under him.”

Maeve felt a chill creep down her spine that had nothing to do with the wind. “And someone’s found one.”

Anú nodded once. “On the shores of Dunlewy.”

Maeve stared past them, out across the long miles of hills and shadow to where the mountains crouched in the west. “So that’s where we’re headed.”

Dagda set the butt of his staff hard against the stone. The sound rolled through the fort like a drumbeat. “Go. Quickly. The longer the Tear drinks, the harder it is to stop.”

Maeve hesitated. “And if we can’t?”

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Then Dagda looked at her with a gravity that crushed the air from her lungs.

“Then you’ll wish it was only one man’s sins that needed reckoning.”

The wind roared over the stones, lifting Maeve’s hair like black fire. She said nothing more.

Anú touched her shoulder lightly. “Come. There’s a road still waiting.”

And together they left the Grianán, the shadows of ravens wheeling far above the hill as the sun bled into the edge of the world.

Chapter 25

The stones of the Grianán fell away behind them as the hilltop mist swallowed the sky. Maeve walked in silence, the night cool against her cheeks, until the car door thunked shut and she slid behind the wheel.

Anú followed, not as flesh this time, but as breath and bone folding back inside her. It was always the same, like pulling on a coat she could never quite take off. Maeve felt her settle in the quiet places behind her ribs.

The road uncoiled ahead like a black funeral ribbon, slick with dusk. The headlights carved tunnels through the dark, and the mountains leaned closer with every mile. Neither of them spoke.

When they finally rolled into Gweedore, the lights of the An Chúirt Hotel gleamed like gold coins spilled in the night. Maeve parked, killed the engine, and sat for a long breath before going in.

She booked a room with a smile she didn’t mean, dropped her bag on the bed, and stared at the neatly folded quilt. The silence in her head was loud as thunder.

The bar smelled of peat smoke and spilled whiskey, laughter curling through the low-lit corners. Maeve ordered a double Sawbox gin and cradled the glass in both hands before taking the first slow sip.

That was when Anú finally stirred.
“This… is not the uisce beatha I know,” she said, voice a ripple under Maeve’s skin. “But I taste the juniper. Strong. Clean. A plant of power, protection, purification, the breath between worlds. We burned it once, to sweep the dark from a home.”

Maeve gave a weary laugh. “Now we steep it and drink it when life kicks us in the arse. Cheaper than therapy.”

Anú hummed, a low note of approval. “The plant speaks still, then. Not magic, just the thread that binds flesh to root, breath to earth. All plants hold such a thread, if you know how to feel for it.”

Maeve rolled the gin across her tongue, the juniper sharp as a blade. “Guess I’m just drinking for the kick.”

“The kick is a gift too,” Anú murmured.

For a while, Maeve just drank, staring into the glass. The weight of Knock O’Neill still clung to her like wet clothes. Seamus’s face, his terror, his broken voice, rose and fell in the back of her mind.

“How the hell are we supposed to find this Tear?” she asked finally.

Anú didn’t answer with words, but Maeve felt the shift inside her, the long reach like fingers through water, searching, calling.

The bar door opened.

Every head turned. Every woman turned twice.

He stood framed in the glow from outside: tall, broad-shouldered, dressed in a suit so sharp it could have drawn blood. His hair caught the light like sun on steel, and his smile, God help her, was the kind of smile that rewrote priorities.

He walked toward her without hurry, but every step bent the room around him. The chatter dimmed. Jealousy whispered like static.

Maeve blinked. “Bloody hell,” she muttered under her breath.

Anú purred, low and pleased. “He came.”

Lú slid into the empty seat across from her. “You’ve been busy,” he said, and the Donegal night seemed to cling to his voice.

Maeve lifted a brow. “And you’re late.”

That smile deepened, dangerous as a secret. “I bring news. And a tool.”

She gestured with her glass. “Go on then. Enlighten me.”

He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “The spear. The one that ended Balor. It answers still. Blood calls to blood, and I” his eyes gleamed like wet bronze “I am his blood, after all. Half Fomorian, half what the poets sing. That link runs through me, and through the weapon that killed him.”

Maeve squinted. “So… what? It throbs when evil’s nearby?”

A beat of silence. Two divine stares.

Then Lú nodded once. “Yes. Probably.”

Maeve snorted into her gin. “Great. An evil GPS. That’s efficient.”

Neither of them smiled.

Lú rose, fluid as flame. “The Poisoned Glen,” he said. “That’s where the pull is strongest. We start at dawn.”

Maeve drained the last of her drink and set the glass down with a click. “Dawn, then.”

The hero left as he came, the weight of him rippling in his wake. Every woman watched him go.

Maeve sat in the hush that followed, her pulse kicking like hooves. Inside her, Anú stirred again, quiet but certain.

“This is only the edge, Maeve. The throat of the dark runs deeper than you dream.”

Maeve ordered another gin. “Figures,” she said softly, and didn’t look away from the door where Lú had vanished into the night.

Chapter 26

Breakfast in the hotel was hearty, bacon, sausage, eggs, and thick slices of fried potato bread. Maeve shovelled it in without apology.
“You need the calories if we’re climbing all over creation,” she told Anú, who only smiled that secret, knowing smile.

Lú joined them at the table, tall and sunlit even in the dim dining room. When they set off from Gweedore, Maeve drove to the Dunlewy Centre and parked near the lake’s edge. Mist curled across the dark water, and the jagged shoulders of Errigal loomed against the morning sky.

“The force is stronger here,” Lú said as they walked the gravel path, his voice like a harp string plucked in the wind. “But it has moved.” He lifted his spear, the ancient shaft humming in his grip. “That way.”
He pointed to the mountain.

Maeve snorted. “My mountain-climbing days are long gone.”
“Then let me walk for you,” Anú whispered inside her mind, and before Maeve could argue, the goddess was in her bones, stretching her limbs, filling her lungs with fire.

They climbed. The slope rose under them like a slow beast, the heather snagging their boots. Halfway up, Lú stopped, frowning. Ahead, the path split in two one thread climbing higher, the other spilling south toward the valley.
“There’s a fork,” Lú said. “A weaker trail upward. A stronger one…down, toward the ruins.”
“The ruined church?” Maeve’s voice was half her own, half the goddess’s, a double tone like two notes struck together.
He nodded. “Yes.”

They turned south. The graveyard walls crouched low among the bracken, the roofless church stark against the bruised sky. As they stepped inside, Maeve saw him, a sad man in a long coat, the kind you’d see in an old daguerreotype. If she looked straight at him, he seemed solid. From the corner of her eye, he was all smoke and wind.

“Good day to you,” Anú said, her voice formal, timeless.
The ghost tipped his hat. “Richard Lewis Crankshaw,” he said. “Once master of Dunlewy.”

Maeve folded her arms. “You’ve been dead a while.”
He smiled, melancholy as rain. “Aye. And still, I walk these stones. My Nellie lies yonder, in the Chapel of the Sacred Heart. A Roman Catholic she was.” His voice softened. “They buried her at an angle, so her grave faces mine. I…hope one day to see her shade.”

Something shifted in the air. Lú stepped forward, bright as morning. “You’ve wandered long enough.” He reached out, and when his fingers brushed the ghost, the man folded into feathers, bones reshaping in a flutter of gold and brown.
“Go now,” Lú said, lifting the small song thrush in his palm. “Find her. Sing to her until the sun sets. That is my gift.”
The bird darted skyward, spilling music into the grey light.

Maeve felt something stir in her chest a secret smile. Lú was more than beautiful. He was…well, he simply was.

Before he vanished among the trees, the ghost-turned-thrush spoke once more, its voice thin as wind:
“I felt a darkness pass, colder than death. It clusters by the river, a field away. The others…are afraid. Be creaful my friends for I fear that the source is pure evil”

They followed the rough path Richard had shown, down toward the river where the trees tangled thick. There, among roots and nettles, crouched a small blue tent, empty, but the small kettle was still warm.

Maeve picked up a discarded piece of paper, it was an invoice for the tent. She noted the name. “This tent was bought by a Brian McCloskey, in Carndonagh last week”

Lú crouched low, touching the earth. “The tear was here,” he murmured. “Not long ago.It seems this Brian has the gem”

Shadows pooled under the branches. The day was ebbing fast, bleeding into night.
“Watch,” Anú told one of her ravens, and the black bird leapt to a low branch, eyes glinting. “If the owner returns, tell us.”

Chapter 27

The hotel restaurant was warm and bright, a cocoon against the evening chill outside. Maeve sank into the chair with a satisfied sigh and ordered a chicken curry without much thought. When the waiter turned expectantly to Lú, he tilted his head, glanced at Maeve, and said with a grin,

“I’ll have what she’s having.”

When the dish arrived, steam curling fragrant with spices, Lú stared at it like it was a relic from another age. He took one tentative bite, then his eyes widened. “By the gods…” he murmured, scooping another mouthful. “This is… this is sorcery.”

Maeve chuckled. “It’s just curry. From India. You know, India? Far away, over the other side of the world.”

Lú swallowed, still enthralled. “We had stories of a land south of the high mountains,” he said slowly, “where the rivers ran warm and the trees bore fruit like jewels. But never…” He gestured reverently with his spoon. “…never tales of this korma.”

Anú smirked over her glass of wine. “You think that’s good? Wait until you try chips. The modern world excels at comfort.”

By the time the sticky toffee pudding and ice cream arrived, Maeve was glowing with contentment. For a brief, golden moment, they were just three people sharing a meal.

Then Anú made Maeve set down her spoon, sharp-eyed and still. “We have to go,” she said abruptly. “The raven says something has changed at the tent.”

The warmth of the restaurant dissolved into urgency. Coats were thrown on, the bill paid hastily. Minutes later, the car skidded onto the verge by the riverside. The tent lay dark in the distance, but by the water something moved, bent low, lapping like an animal.

Maeve squinted through the headlights. “What the hell…?”

As they drew closer, the figure straightened. It had the vague shape of a man, but its skin looked wrong pale and slick, as though moulded from melted plastic. Heat-warped. Almost dripping.

“Holy God,” Maeve whispered.

Lú’s breath caught. He knew what he was seeing.

Anú’s voice was grim. “The Tear magnifies hatred until the body can’t contain it. What you see now is only the beginning. Brian’s rage is feeding Balor, and Balor is twisting him in return.”

Maeve tore her gaze away from the nightmare shape. “Like… you and me?”

Anú’s eyes flicked to her. “Not like us. We are balanced. He is not. This is a possession without harmony. If we don’t stop him, he will gorge on every scrap of malice and despair in this land and then the world.”

The warped figure turned slowly toward them. Though its face was distorted, something in its stance screamed recognition, ancient, venomous recognition.

The head tipped back. The howl that burst from its throat was not human. It was a sound of wolves, a hundred wolves, screaming into the night. The trees shuddered.

Then, in a blur of motion, it wheeled and plunged into the river. Water erupted as it drove itself forward, faster than any man could swim, white foam marking its path.

By the time Maeve, Anú, and Lú reached the bank, only ripples and a string of bubbles remained, trailing out toward the black expanse of the lough.

Chapter 28

Maeve and Anú returned to the hotel with Lú at their side. The lobby’s warm glow felt jarring after the raw gray of the Poisoned Glen. They crossed to the restaurant, slid into a booth, and let the hum of conversation wash over them for a moment.

They didn’t order food. There were bigger things to chew on.

Anú spoke first, her voice a low current beneath the clatter of plates. “It’s clear now. The one you call Brian; he’s no longer just Brian. Balor’s tear is working its poison. The change is accelerating.”

Lú leaned forward, elbows on the table, his golden eyes dull with worry. “Once the transformation is complete, the avatar will begin gathering others. Then warps them, remakes each in his own image. He won’t stop with Brian.”

Maeve rubbed her face with both hands. “Grand. And where’s he gone now? Back into that lake? Because, and I feel this needs to be said chasing someone underwater is not in my wheelhouse.”

Anú gave a sharp laugh. “Nor in mine.”

Lú shook his head slowly. “Even I can’t follow him there. The depths are his ally now.”

The table fell silent. Maeve felt Anú’s expression tighten, her gaze going distant, like someone listening to a voice no one else could hear. Maeve felt it then the subtle shift in her bones, the prickling of her scalp.

She’s reaching out.

Lú saw it too. He nodded once, no questions.

Moments later, the air in the restaurant thickened, as if the tide had turned inside the walls. A breeze rolled through the room, bringing with it the smell of brine and deep water.

The door opened. An older man stepped in broad-shouldered, with a full gray beard dripping like kelp, his clothes travel-worn and salt-stained. Every step left the echo of a wave withdrawing from sand.

Maeve/Anú, rose as one, crossed the room, and clasped the man’s hand with both of hers. Her voice rang with solemnity, old as the ocean.

“Welcome and well met, Manannán mac Lir.”

The man’s eyes, blue as a storm surge, crinkled at the corners. His voice came heavy-laden with the weight of tides.

“Anú, child. It has been too long.”

He turned his gaze to Lú, inclining his head in greeting. Then, sharply: “Why did you summon me from my slumbers?”

Anú didn’t waste a breath. “I have need to borrow Enbarr. We hunt an avatar of Balor, risen again, wearing a mortal vessel. He hides now in the dark depths of the lough beyond, where we cannot follow.”

Manannán drew in a breath that tasted of storms. “Balor…” His voice faltered into a whisper. “I felt him stir, far below. The dark king… and now this.”

His eyes hardened like ice on a winter sea. “Of course I will give you Enbarr. Long ago, I granted Lú the right to call upon him whenever need arose. That oath stands.”

He turned, already half-gone, like a wave drawing back. “Give me a while, and I will bring him to the shore.” He pointed toward the window, where the lough brooded under the night sky.

As he left, the scent of salt and seaweed swept through the room. Maeve shivered. For a heartbeat, she thought she heard gulls crying in the distance.

Maeve sank back into her chair, heart thudding. The scent of salt still clung to her nostrils, and she swore there was a trace of damp on the floor where he’d stood.

“Well,” she said at last, blowing out a shaky breath. “He’s… a presence, isn’t he? Who exactly was that? Or do I even want to know?”

Lú gave her a sidelong look, the corner of his mouth quirking. “That was Manannán mac Lir. Lord of the Sea. Master of storms, tides, and all that moves in the deep. He’s as old as the foam on the first wave and twice as capricious.”

Maeve raised an eyebrow. “Capricious? He seemed polite enough. Bit dramatic, though. Smelled like the Atlantic in November.”

Lú chuckled. “That’s him being restrained. Once, he rode a chariot across the ocean’s surface pulled by Enbarr, his immortal horse, while throwing silver fog over Ireland just because he didn’t like being watched.”

Maeve tilted her head. “So… a storm god who does privacy curtains. Lovely.”

“More than a storm god,” Lú said, leaning in. “He’s a guardian between worlds, land and sea, mortal and Otherworld. His moods turn like tides, but when he gives his word, it’s iron.”

Maeve tapped a finger on the table. “And this Enbarr, his horse? It can swim?”

“Swim? Enbarr can run over sea and land as if both were solid ground. No tide can catch him, no depth can drown him.”

Maeve sat back, exhaling slowly. “A horse that ignores physics. Sure, why not? Add it to the list.”

For the first time in hours, Lú smiled, soft, almost fond. “You’re taking this better than most mortals would.”

Maeve gave him a look. “After everything today? I’ll save the breakdown for later. Right now, I’m just grateful you didn’t tell me I’d have to ride it.”

Lú’s grin widened. “Oh, but you will.”

Maeve groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “Grand. Absolutely grand.”

Chapter 29

About an hour after he left, Maeve felt that now-familiar tingle at the back of her mind.

“He is here”, Anú murmured to Lú. “And Enbarr is with him.”

They rose and walked down to the small group of  trees by the lough’s edge. There, beside the silver water, stood Manannán mac Lir with one hand resting on the neck of a great white mare.

Anú and Lú bowed deeply to both the man and the horse.

“Hello again, Lú,” said the horse in a warm, lilting voice. “Mac Lir tells me we’ve an adventure ahead.”

Maeve started so violently she nearly stumbled. “A talking horse now? My life has really changed!”

Lú smiled faintly, while Anú inclined her head in formal greeting. They both addressed the mare with respect, speaking her name as though it were sacred.

Lú stepped forward. “Yes, Enbarr. Though less an adventure and more a task of grave importance.”

He told her of the human possessed by the remnants of Balor, the shadow of the Evil King, and how, if left unchecked, Balor could return from the dead lands of the Fomóire and once again bring ruin to the living world. They needed Enbarr to carry them beneath the waves, to find where this human hid, and then plan how to end him.

Enbarr agreed without hesitation. “I remember well the time before the Fomorians were cast down,” she said gravely. “And I’ve no wish to see that darkness return.”

Anú turned to Maeve. “You’ll need to let me take full control for this, as Enbarr can shield my body beneath the waves, but not yours.”

Maeve swallowed, then nodded. “Do it.”

She felt rather than saw the goddess flood through her, steady and vast as a tide. Her limbs no longer seemed her own, stronger now, yet weightless.

Anú asked Enbarr if she might mount her. The mare dipped her head in assent, and Anú swung herself up with effortless grace, settling bareback, knees pressed to the mare’s sleek flanks.

Lú clasped her hand. “I’ll wait here with Mac Lir. We must prepare the family for what comes. We’ll go to the Assaranca waterfall and summon the rest of the Tuatha, gather our strength.”

Anú inclined her head. “Do what you must.”

She turned Enbarr toward the water, and the mare walked on without pause. The lough closed around them in ripples of silver and shadow.

The water rose over Enbarr’s flanks. Maeve felt its icy bite but, to her surprise, her body didn’t shiver or break out in gooseflesh. “Not mine to control anymore”, she realized.

“Breathe,” Anú’s voice soothed in her mind. “Don’t fight. Don’t hold your breath. Simply breathe as you would on land, Enbarr will provide what we need.”

The water climbed, and as Maeve’s head went under, she squeezed her eyes shut, remembering that first time in Corfu when she’d tried scuba diving. Panic fluttered in her chest like a trapped bird. She waited… and slowly, it eased. She cracked one eye open, and nearly yelped. A trout the size of her arm hovered inches from her face, staring with solemn glassy eyes.

“Well done, Maeve,” Anú said, a thread of pride in her tone. “You’re handling this better than I expected. Passing from the world of air into the world of water is never simple, even for me.”

Enbarr chuckled, the sound like distant surf. “Maeve, you’re the first human in ten thousand years to ride my back. I am impressed by your resolve.”

Maeve snorted. “Given that I’ve been Frank Castle, run marathons, have small people living behind my kitchen dresser, and own a talking cat, honestly, this is the easy part.”

They went deeper. The light thinned, green fading to blue, then to a dim slate gloom. Fish vanished into darkness. Bubbles streamed from Enbarr’s mane, racing upward to a world already far away. The ground below was a chaos of boulders, relics of a glacier’s passing, but Enbarr didn’t touch them her hooves skimmed the water six inches above stone.

Anú drew something from a pocket: the silver amulet, newly polished, gleaming even in the gloom.

“Éabha,” she whispered. “Light our way, if you please.”

The torc began to sing soft at first, then rising. Light bloomed, a pearl glow swelling outward until a circle of radiance haloed them, showing shelves of rock and deep scars carved by ice.

Enbarr halted. Before them yawned a vast chasm, its walls black as night. Anú shuddered.” The tear is close… I can feel it. But it lies below us.”

Enbarr whinnied, muscles bunching. Then she leapt.

They soared into emptiness, weightless, time unspooling into forever, until her hooves struck solid ground on the far side.

Maeve barely had time to breathe before she saw it: across the gulf, clinging to the opposite wall halfway down, something writhed.

Brian, what had been Brian, was no longer a man. A monstrous worm the thickness of a tree trunk twisted against the stone, its maw ringed with razored teeth, claws scrabbling for purchase. Around him swarmed thousands of smaller worms, a living tide that pulsed and writhed as if to a heartbeat older than the world.

Anú’s breath caught. Her voice was no more than a whisper, heavy as doom.

“It has begun. We must get back.”

Chapter 30

The return through the black water was a blur of motion and pounding silence. Enbarr’s muscles rippled beneath Anú as the mare leapt boulders and skimmed shelves of stone, swift as thought. Light from Éabha dwindled behind them until the ravine was nothing but memory and dread.

Maeve felt the goddess’s unease as a tightness in her own chest. Anú, who never flinched, was whispering a prayer older than the stones. Not for mortal ears, but Maeve heard every word inside her head. It chilled her more than the water.

They broke the surface in an explosion of spray. The lough lay iron-grey under a sky bruised with storm. The ravens were there, three black strokes wheeling against the clouds.

Lú and Manannán were waiting at the trees. One look at their faces told them everything.

“You saw him?” Lú demanded.

“Not a man anymore,” Anú said flatly.

Maeve pushed wet hair from her eyes. “More… worm than man. And he brought friends. Thousands of them.”

Even Mac Lir paled. “Then we’ve no time to waste.”

Mac Lir muttered and banged his staff on the ground and a portal opened; the group stepped through. The ground was slick underfoot, the roar of Assaranca filled the air. Mist drifted around them and Maeve felt its chill on her skin as they stepped into the waterfall’s clearing.

It was a place out of time.

The falls thundered down in white fury, splitting into two foaming streams that curled away through a tangle of roots. At their centre rose the trunk of an ancient tree, dead now, its bark silver-grey, its roots gripping stone like the fingers of a giant. Before it stood a single boulder, its surface worn smooth by centuries, a faint spiral etched into the face like a secret only the earth remembered.

Maeve stared at it, feeling something stir in her bones. Older than Anú, maybe older than them all, she thought.

“This is the place,” Lú said, his voice low with reverence. “Where the first covenants were sworn. Where water and stone and root keep the balance between worlds.”

“Let’s hope it still does,” Maeve muttered, hugging herself against the spray.

The air shivered. A bright shimmer danced in the mist, and Aengus stepped through, all grace and golden light dimmed by grimness. Brigid followed, her hair like fire beneath her hood, and with her came Dian Cécht, tall and spare, his hands full of gleaming silver tools that sang faintly in the air.

“Anú.” Aengus inclined his head. “I felt the breach before your summons. It grows.”

Anú’s jaw tightened. “We saw it. And what waits within.”

They gathered around the spiral stone. Mist curled at their feet. The sound of the falls was a living heartbeat.

“Speak,” Brigid said.

Anú told them. Of Brian, what was left of him. Of the tear yawning in the deep and the brood of worms swarming like rot. Maeve watched their faces as the words fell: no shock, only a terrible recognition, as if this was a tale they had prayed never to hear again.

When she finished, silence lay heavy as stone.

Lú broke it with a clang of steel as his hand struck his sword-hilt. “Then we go down now. Strike before he grows stronger.”

“No,” said Dian Cécht. His voice was quiet, but it cut through the roar like a blade. “A wound cannot be healed by tearing it wider.”

Maeve arched a brow. “Nice riddle, Doc. Care to translate?”

He turned those pale eyes on her. “If you kill the host in open water, the breach will split like rotten cloth. And then the dead lands will flood through.”

“So… what’s the better idea?” Maeve asked.

“There is still time,” he said. “If we battle the beast and force him back into the tear, I can weave a binding, a seal that will hold the wound in a place apart from this reality. Locked beyond reach.”

Brigid stepped forward, her hand glowing like banked fire. “It will take more than his craft. The seal must be welded by fire, mine and Éabha’s both.”

Éabha stirred in her silver torc, light rippling faintly. I will lend what I am, her voice chimed like a bell.

Maeve blew out a breath. “So the plan is… lure Wormzilla into his own hellhole, lock the door, melt the key, and hope nobody trips the alarm?”

Brigid’s mouth curved in a small smile. “In essence.”

“And this will… kill him?” Maeve asked.

“Kill him? No,” Dian Cécht said softly. “It will burn the tether between Brian and Balor. When that breaks, the spawn will wither, and the tear will sleep.”

Maeve frowned. “And what does it burn to do that?”

Anú’s silence was answer enough. When she spoke, it was like iron dragged over stone. “Me. It will bind me, or diminish me for an age.”

Maeve’s gut tightened. “You’re serious.”

The goddess gave her a level look. “Did you think this war was yours alone to risk?”

Lú slammed his fist on the stone. “Enough! Every moment we talk, the breach widens. When do we move?”

“Soon,” said Aengus, gaze fixed on the spiral as if it held all answers. “But we’ll need more than haste. We’ll need strength… and luck.”

Maeve leaned on the stone, letting the cold seep into her skin. “Great,” she said dryly. “Shadow, worms, apocalypse, sure, why not? Beats bingo night.”

Brigid laughed once, low and warm. “Few mortals walk so far into shadow and return.”

Before Maeve could answer, the stone shuddered under her hand.

They froze.

A thin crack traced itself across the spiral like a jagged smile. The waterfall boomed louder, and the ground trembled beneath their feet. From the pool at the base of the falls came a sound, slick, wet, and wrong.

A slither.

Maeve’s heart lurched.

Anú drew steel in a single silver arc. Her voice was barely more than breath.

“They’ve found us,” she said. “The battle begins sooner than we thought.”

Chatper 31

The heroes gathered again on the stony shore beneath Errigal, its pale slopes looming like a silent sentinel over the dark lake. One by one, they appeared.

Aengus came first, bronze glinting in his arms. The shield he bore gleamed in the moonlight, its boss fashioned like a fiery eye. Maeve stared, uneasy at the strange brilliance.

“That,” Anu whispered in her ear, “is the Shield of Balor, taken in the last battle. A weapon of terrible power… and the only thing that can guard what must be done.”

Dian Cécht was next, striding from the shadows with a small carved box clutched in both hands. Anu nodded at it solemnly.
“The Box of Goibniú Soar,” she murmured.
He knelt and opened it. Inside, darkness churned black liquid flecked with sparks that winked like distant stars.
“It looks like the sky,” Maeve breathed.
“That is because it is,” Dian Cécht replied. “The sky of another world. This box holds a doorway to another dimension.”
Maeve’s brow furrowed. “Like Doctor Who’s TARDIS bigger on the inside than the outside.”
“Just so,” he said without a trace of humour. “And into it we must place the Tear… when we prise it from the creature’s brain. That is the easy part. Convincing it to surrender harder.”

Brigid came after, bearing a great ball of silken thread.
“The Thread of All Stories,” Anu told Maeve softly. “It runs through every tale ever told of the Tuatha, and every soul who carries our blood. It can call their fire… if asked.”

Last came Lú, the Long-Handed, bow across his back and a leather sling in one fist. In the other, a smooth shining orb.
“A liathróidí inchinne a Brain Ball,” Anu explained. “Forged by the Dagda in the war against the Fomorians.”

From beneath her cloak, Anu drew Éabha and the sword Fragarach. Its blade caught the moonlight like a shard of ice.
“We are complete,” she said.

Maeve still felt like a child in a hall of gods. “So… what now? And what about me?”

Anu leaned close. Her breath was warm against Maeve’s ear.
“You must be Maeve. Entirely, utterly Maeve, rooted in this world, in its billions of lives, its beauty and its rot. You will understand when the moment comes. But first… we must lure the beast from the deep.”

Lú stepped forward, taking Fragarach in both hands and the torc on his arm
“Light  my way” he asked Eabha , the torc flared in bright light.
He raised the sword high, and it flared white-hot.
“One last time, old friend,” he murmured.
“One last time,” the blade replied, its voice like ringing steel.

He swung onto Enbarr’s back, and together they plunged into the black water.

Below the surface, the world was cold and lightless. Lú and Enbarr streaked downward like a silver arrow, straight to the ledge where the creature clung, a vast, writhing worm of armoured flesh, its head a nightmare of teeth. It recoiled from Fragarach’s glow, tail lashing against the rock in fury. Lú struck blow after blow, but the blade could not pierce its hide. With a soundless roar, the beast released its hold and lunged.

Maw gaping, it surged after Lú and his steed. Enbarr wheeled and shot for the surface, lightning-swift, the monster in pursuit its brood of vile larvae boiling up behind, a putrid tide of teeth and slime.

They broke the surface in an explosion of foam and moonlight. Lú loosed a war-cry that shook the stones, and Maeve felt it in her bones, a summons older than language.

On the shore, Anu set the shield upon the ground. She slid the shining ball into the sling and knotted the thread to it, the line stretching like spun silver in the night. She placed the thread’s end in Dian Cécht’s hands. Brigid crushed flowers and herbs into a paste and smeared it across Anu’s brow and palms.

The sling whirled. Faster and faster, until the night sang with its hum. With a cry, Anu loosed the stone and thread. It soared through the dark sky, trailing silver fire, and vanished into the beast’s yawning mouth.

With a hiss and a splash, the monster plunged back beneath the surface. But the thread held, gleaming taut between Anu’s fingers and the unseen depths.

The gods joined hands Brigid to Anu, Aengus to Brigid, Lú and Dian Cécht linking the circle. Maeve was apart but there beside Anu, heart hammering, watching as Anu’s voice rose in a chant that bent the air. Heat pulsed outward, thick and suffocating. Maeve staggered as the warmth surged into her flesh.

The thread kindled. A pale blue flame crawled along it toward the lake.

The blue flame raced down the thread, feeding on the chant, on the strength of the Tuatha, on something deeper, every tale, every life tied to that silken cord. It grew hotter, brighter, until the night was lit with a line of searing white. Maeve felt the heat on her face like the opening of a furnace door. Her skin prickled. Her breath caught.

The lake boiled.
Then the worm rose.

It broke the surface with a roar that shook the stones under their feet, its body writhing, armoured plates slick with flame and shadow. Smoke hissed from its open jaws. The thread burned white-hot, and the creature thrashed against it, but the line held, unbreakable.

Anu was trembling now. Maeve saw the strain in her face, the weight of power tearing through her body. The goddess leaned forward, her voice raw with effort.
“Do not falter, Maeve!” she gasped. “I need an anchor in this world, or I will be pulled where I dare not go. Hold me here!”

Panic clawing at Maeve’s heart. “How?”
“Think of something,” Anu rasped. “Something that gave you joy… hold it, Maeve! Hold it!”

Maeve’s mind flailed through the decades of her life, bills, heartbreak, the bitter scrape of loneliness, until, like a shaft of sunlight through storm clouds, it landed on a single day. Castlerock beach. The kids still little, their laughter dancing on the salt wind. A red blanket spread on warm sand. The taste of apple tart. Her husband smiling without shadows in his eyes. For once, everything right. Everything good.

She sank into it. The warmth. The brightness. The safe hum of belonging.
And through it all, a whisper slid like silk:
Yessssssssssss…

Anu jerked as if struck and pulled harder on the blazing thread. The worm shrieked, thrashing, but inch by inch, it came toward the shore.

The fire now burned like the heart of a star, fed by a million stories, a million lives stitched into that shining thread. The worm’s flesh blistered and cracked, oozing black ichor that hissed where it struck the stones. It swelled grotesquely; its body engorged with flame and power.

Anu strode forward, shield raised to guard her face from the inferno. With her free hand, she reached for the gaping maw of the beast.
Maeve’s breath hitched.
Anu bent low, her arm vanishing past the elbow into that nightmare mouth and wrenched.

There was a sound like a cork drawn from the throat of the world: a wet, sucking pop. Anu staggered back, her fist clenched around a shard of black crystal veined with crimson fire. The Tear.

Maeve felt it before she saw its effect, a surge of venomous heat, coiling through the air like smoke, searching. Hungry. The Tear wanted hate, blood, the bitter taste of rage. She felt it lick at her own fury, the old betrayals, the sharpness of every wound she’d buried. It wanted all of them.

Anu’s face twisted, dark power roiling in her eyes. Maeve’s gut knotted. Even the Tuatha carried shadows.

The box lay open at Dian Cécht’s feet, its carved sides drinking starlight. Anu reeled toward it, the Tear blazing in her grip. With a cry, she flung it in.

The black shard hit the swirling void inside, and was gone.

NOOOOOOOOOOOO! The scream ripped through Maeve’s skull, not sound but will, the howl of something ancient and vile being unmade. The air split with it. The lake heaved and fell silent.

Aengus stepped forward, face grave, and brought the lid down. It shut with a click that rang like a death knell.

Silence. Steam curled from the water. The worm lay slack upon the shore, its armoured bulk already crumbling into ash.

Anu swayed. Her eyes sought Maeve’s. She smiled a thin, breaking thing.
“Maeve… it is done.”

And then she was gone.

Not dead, no body fell. She simply, unraveled, like mist in sunlight, her presence fading from the world and from Maeve’s soul.

“No,” Maeve whispered, raw and desperate. “No. You don’t get to leave me, you bitch. No. No.” Her voice rose, cracking into a scream. “NO, YOU FUCKING DON’T!”

But the only answer was the hush of the lake, and the stars burning cold above Errigal.

Maeve collapsed to her knees, the stones biting cold through her jeans, her hands clawing at empty air where Anu had stood. A sob tore from her throat, raw, feral, then broke into silence as Brigid knelt beside her, arms wrapping her close. The goddess’s breath warmed her ear, whispering words Maeve could not understand, only the cadence of comfort. Dian Cécht joined them, then Aengus, then Lú, their voices rising low in a woven murmur that sounded older than language. Through the hum she caught the name again and again, Anu… Anu… Anu… The sound gutted her.

The grief came like a tide, dragging her under, and she let it take her, let it burn through her chest until it found shape. A single tear swelled, impossibly bright, the color of blue flame flecked with gold. It slid down her cheek and fell with a soft hiss onto the dark earth, seeping into the stones like something alive.

The prayer stilled. The steam lifted. And from the heap of ashen plates where the worm had died, something stirred, a man, naked, shivering, smoke curling from his skin as if the world had just given him back. His hair was matted dark against his brow, his eyes wide and empty, holding no memory of what had passed. Brian.

Maeve stared, breath catching, the aftertaste of salt and fire on her tongue. For a heartbeat, she almost thought she felt Anu smile.

Maeve blinked through the shimmer of tears, her breath still ragged when a movement caught her eye. From the mound of char and shattered scales, the man pushed up on trembling arms. The night wind curled around his bare skin, steaming faintly as though he’d been born from fire. He lifted his head, eyes glassy and unfocused, and whispered:

“Where… am I? Who… are you?”

Maeve stared. Her throat worked, but no words came. Her hands shook as if the grief inside her was trying to tear its way out.

Aengus stepped forward, his voice low and steady. “You are Brian. You had a worm but it is gone. The Ruby Tear you found is gone. You are only yourself now.” His hand touched Maeve’s shoulder, anchoring her. “You gave him that.” And he turned and gave the naked Brian his coat.

Maeve wanted to laugh or scream or collapse. She wasn’t sure which.

Brigid knelt beside her again, arms warm and strong, murmuring in the same old tongue as before. Dian Cécht crouched opposite, his clever hands already moving as if shaping some unseen pattern in the air. He studied Maeve with a half-smile.

“It was not an ending,” he said softly, “but a beginning. Anu was Maeve. Maeve was Anu. What is woven cannot be unmade.”

Maeve frowned through her tears. “What the hell does that even mean?”

Dian Cécht only winked, then dabbed a salve across her raw palms. Coolness seeped into her skin, the ache melting away like snow in spring. Her breath slowed. The crushing weight on her chest ebbed until it was… gone.

Dian’s voice drifted through the blur: “Sleep now. The work will wait.”

And Maeve, for once, let go. She slid under, dreamless and deep.

Lú stepped forward without a word. He gathered her in his arms, light as mist now and carried her toward the waiting road, back to the quiet of her hotel room, while behind them the others kept their vigil under Errigal’s pale crown.

Chatper 32 Epilogue

The ravens stayed. Fiadh still spoke in his clear, piping voice peppered with obscenities and the good people came often to Maeve’s kitchen, chattering, lending hands with the mending, passing the evenings in warmth and laughter. Most nights, Naoise sat across the table, her quiet eyes on Maeve. She never said it outright, but in her words Maeve heard the truth: the goddess was not gone. Spent, perhaps, diminished, but resting within her still.

“Keep running,” Naoise would say with a half-smile. “Ask Macha to call for Dian. He’ll bring what you need.”

And so, he did. Dian came with bundles of herbs, bitter and fragrant, and showed Maeve how to brew them into strengthening teas. The other gods called by in their turn, always kindly, but with a weight in their attention that went beyond friendship. Maeve felt it keenly, as though they waited for something she could not yet name.

Fragarach slept in the front room, swaddled in Maeve’s favourite tartan, laid carefully on the windowsill so he could look out when he wished. Badh the raven visited him often, croaking soft greetings to the sword. Éabha lingered in the house too, her golden torc gleaming with quiet satisfaction. She let Maeve wear her without harm, content in the rhythm of companionship and the chance to know the world beyond a warrior’s throat.

And life went on. The running, the sewing, the weekend fish and chips. Normal days, ordinary hours, though Maeve knew there was a thread beneath it all, something waiting to be pulled.

One evening, in the drifting mist, she found herself again at Knockoneill. The cairn loomed quiet, its stones damp with twilight. The ravens settled in the hawthorn, watching. Maeve laid her hand against the lintel stone. A vibration hummed through her palm, low and deep. Then, faint as a breath, a voice reached her from far away.

“Foighne…”

Patience.

Maeve let out a long, steady breath. That, she thought, I can do.

And so, she turned back toward the glow of her kitchen, her heart eased. Her friend was still with her. The waiting was not empty. And when the time came, she would be ready.

The End for now