NINETEEN
They had hardly returned when Far bustled away again, to Sive’s intense relief. He left Oran with a long list of chores, some so strange and sinister-sounding—replenish the crows, grind more bone—that Sive did not dare ask their meaning.
“I’m off after greener pastures,” Far announced cheerfully, as though the entire household shared his enthusiasm.
Sive had been in numb despair through the long, wet ride home, unable to face any thought at all. Now, with Far Doirche’s paralyzing presence gone, her courage returned.
There had to be a way out, if only she could find it. Long into the night she paced the house, or sat slumped against the wall, knees drawn up and head cradled in her arms. She tried to recall every comment she had ever heard about the Dark Man. She reviewed everything she had learned about him during her long captivity—his pride, his secrecy, his indifference to women. Was there a weakness she might make use of ? She tried to summon her father’s cleverness, to look at her plight with the bright, curious eyes of a magpie. She confronted head-on the question that had haunted her these past years—why had nobody found her? Was her father even searching for her anymore? He would have been barred from entering their secret valley, she realized, just as she and Oisin had been barred from leaving it. For all she knew, the Dark Man had been able to shield it from sight entirely. But now—would word not get out that Far Doirche had taken a wife? Would Derg take up the search again? It was a long string of ifs to hang her hope on—too long. If word of her existence reached Derg, if he found her, if he presented Manannan and the other Old Ones with proof of Far Doirche’s treachery, and if they stood against him…how many people, by then, would be under the Dark Man’s spell?
She could not wait for her father, or anyone else. It was her voice. She must find a way to still it.
It was late, the deep silent black of night, when Oran clumped through the back door. In the weak light of his lamp, Sive saw how his shoulders slumped with fatigue. Yet when he saw her awake, he came and sat beside her, setting down the lamp so it flickered and danced before them.
“I went to the cave,” he announced. “The barrier is down. Your son is not there.”
Sive was silent. She could find no words for the gratitude welling up in her heart. It did not mean Oisin was alive—she knew that well. But it was enough for her to believe he was.
She rested her hand on Oran’s arm and squeezed in silent thanks. She thought again about the long oppression he had endured, and the risks he had taken to help her, and realized she had misjudged his strength.
“Oran,” she murmured. “I must never sing for him again.” He nodded gravely. He had seen as well as she where the Dark Man was headed.
“Yet wherever I turn, I can find no escape.” She peered at his pale face. “Can you help me think?”
The light flared, catching the deep shadows under his eyes, his gaunt cheeks. He looked exhausted.
“You’re tired,” she said. “I should have realized. You’ve already made that long journey for me. Perhaps tomorrow—”
Now it was his hand on her arm, staying her. “Sometimes fatigue brings odd ideas that escape a person in daylight. Tell me what you have tried already.”
Sive summarized her day’s long, unhappy wandering.
“So,” Oran concluded, “you cannot kill yourself because it is forbidden. You cannot leave this place without permission. You cannot change to your deer form. By the time word reaches your father or Manannan that Far has you, he will have an army of men at his disposal. And I will add that, in all the years of your captivity, there has been no word that I’ve heard of Finn setting foot in Tir na nOg, which makes me think the Dark Man has managed to bar its doors against him.”
He sighed, running his hand through his dark hair and over his face. But Sive had an idea, a good one.
“Oran!” She paused, unsure of how to put it, and then said it directly, remembering that he had not flinched away from talk of suicide. “You could kill me.”
He shook his head. “Forbidden.” And then smiled sadly. “Also, I am not at all sure that I could bring myself to do it.”
Oran stood up, stretched and yawned. “I’m going to fall asleep at your feet. Let’s brew this overnight, and perhaps our dreams will whisper an answer.”
SIVE HAD NO DREAMS. She lay stiff on her pallet all night, her mind racing over the same dead-end roads, her belly in turmoil. By dawn, she was as drawn and pale as Oran.
Oran skipped breakfast to catch up on his chores, refusing to allow Sive to help. She was limited, in any case, to the house and the path to the latrine. And so, again, she roamed the close confines of Far Doirche’s dark walls, wrestling with her fate. Only as the sun neared the top of the sky did she find some relief in building up the kitchen fire and filling the hanging pot with water to boil barley. By the time Oran returned the house smelled of grains and cabbage and the tiny wild onions she had found growing in a fragrant patch beside the path.
He was pleased, she could tell. And hungry. He was halfway through his bowl before he came up for air.
“I haven’t forgotten last night,” he said. “The only new thing I’ve thought of is that there are sometimes holes in his commands.”
“Holes?”
Oran’s brow furrowed as he tried to explain. “We are bound to follow his words exactly, but not necessarily his intention. Sometimes that leaves an opening he didn’t see.”
Sive went over the commands he had given her so far. She didn’t see any openings. She didn’t even really understand what Oran meant. “I can’t…was there a time it happened to you?”
Oran nodded. “That’s how I was able to tell your father about Finn mac Cumhail. Far Doirche told me to inform him if Daireann said where you were. He didn’t tell me to inform him if she said where you might go, and so I was able to hide that from him. Not that it did much good, in the end.”
He went back to his bowl, scraping the last drops from the bottom, and then pushed himself up from the table. “I’m sorry, Sive, it’s not much. I’ll keep thinking.”
The door was almost closed behind him when he thrust it open again and poked his head back inside.
“How exactly did he say it?”
“Say what?” Far had said many things, she thought impatiently, and then regretted it. Oran had no need to help her at all.
“When he forbade you to turn to a deer. What were his exact words?”
Sive thought back. It had been her first day in this accursed house. She was exhausted, muddy, thrumming with fear for Oisin. And the Dark Man had paid her no more mind than a sack of potatoes, except to throw his commands over his shoulder as he left.
“You will not kill yourself. And you will remain in your woman’s body at all times.” She repeated the words back to Oran, who nodded thoughtfully.
“In your woman’s body.”
“Oran, what?” He had hold of something, she could tell.
He cocked his head to one side. “Is the head necessarily included with the body, I wonder? And if not, could you turn just your head, and leave your body as it is?”
Sive Remembers
All afternoon I tried. To change one part only—it is impossibly hard. And the Dark Man’s prohibition was clamped over my body, hard as tree bark. My muscles trembled with the strain, the sweat ran down my brow and arms and between my breasts, my mind strained to escape the bonds of his spell. But I could not find the division between body and head.
Last light found me slumped with exhaustion and despair, too tired even for tears. It was Oran who coaxed me to eat a bit and shooed me into bed. “You look near to collapse,” he said bluntly. “You must rest.”
“But if he returns—,” I protested.
“If he returns, you will try again after he leaves,” said Oran. “Or”—he hesitated—“is it his spell that prevents you?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so. My head does feel different. I just can’t do it.”
“So, it is a difficult feat. Yet you try to achieve it when you are half-dead from exhaustion.” He laid a hand on my shoulder gingerly, as if he feared overstepping himself, and spoke gently. “If it is possible to do this thing, you will need all your strength for it. Sleep now.”
I woke in the waiting dark before dawn with a dream, or a dreamed memory, so vividly upon me I felt it in my very bones. I had dreamed of the time my father came to me and made me turn back my change to keep me hidden from Far Doirche. I had felt again the jarring pain of it, how the smooth flow became fragmented, each part at odds with the other, as the streaming transformation slowed and reversed.
I lay quiet for a while, reliving every step of that memory. I knew now that different parts of my body could be affected separately from the others, and I remembered how it felt.
I held on to that feeling as I prepared myself. This time, I knew I would succeed.