TWENTY-SEVEN
Despite a generous bribe from Oisin, the serving girl who helped Sive with her bath and dinner did not keep quiet—at least not to the other servants—and so Oran knew of Sive’s return before her parents did.
He stayed in the background, though, and not only because it was for Derg and Grian to welcome her first. He was still not quite used to the way people saw him now, after all those years of invisibility. It made him uncomfortable to push himself forward, the more so that he was a servant and Sive a lady of the house.
It was Derg who thought to bring them together privately the next morning, the way she would not bump into him in the hallway or serving at table.
Her mouth had gone slack with surprise at the sight of him, and then, laughing and crying, she had rushed across the room and more or less thrown herself into his arms. Oran, beet red and not knowing what to do with his hands, looked at Derg helplessly. Sive’s father was smiling broadly.
“She’s a wee bit over-emotional right now, lad. Best just to let her be.”
“Oran, you’re so big!” Sive was feeling his arms and shoulders, completely unembarrassed. Oran blushed an even deeper red.
“You should have seen him eat when he got here,” said Derg. “At least, once I persuaded him he was allowed to.”
“I was so afraid he had killed you,” Sive confessed and burst once more into tears. “I couldn’t bring myself to ask, didn’t think I could bear to know.”
Oran again shot a pleading look to Derg, who made a patting motion with his hand and nodded encouragingly. Gingerly, Oran patted Sive’s shoulder.
“Aye, well, he made a good try at it,” growled Derg. Manannan’s healers had, indeed, brought Oran back from the very brink of death. They hadn’t been able to do much about the mangled leg though. That was an older injury, badly healed, that left him with a twisted ankle and a pronounced limp.
“Yet you have him working!” Sive rounded on her father. “After all he did for me, you make him a servant!”
“Sive.” Finally finding his voice, Oran interrupted. “I asked him to give me a position. He asked me how he could repay me, and this is what I wanted.”
Sive stared at him. “But why? Surely there’s no need…”
“There is for me.” Oran searched for the words that would help her, a highborn lady, understand. “I wouldn’t know how to live like you do. And I don’t want to be a burden on Derg, who had no need to take me in at all.” He held up a hand, most un-servantlike, to forestall her protests.
“Sive, imagine my life up to now. I have never had a choice. Never earned a wage of my own. Never had companions to work with or friends to pass my leisure with.” He gave a short, breathy laugh. “Never had any leisure to pass, for that matter.” He spread his hands wide. “This is so much better than anything I’ve ever known. Perhaps some day I’ll want more. But right now, this is what I need.
”
“You need to learn to be in the world again,” Sive said softly. “Just as I do. I should have realized.”
Oran nodded. He had had his own exile to endure, even longer than Sive’s. He couldn’t remember his home before the Dark Man took him.
But he had a home now. He and Sive, they had both been marked by the Dark Man. Yet among his victims, they were the lucky ones. They had come home.
Sive Remembers
I went back to the pool a few days after Oisin brought me home.
I needed to look with my true eyes on the place where my life as a deer had begun, and ended. Oisin was a bit alarmed when I told him what I meant to do; I could tell he half-feared I would change again and run off. But I assured him I just needed a little time alone, and he seemed to understand.
The water was dark and still, the woods hushed, and it was easy to imagine it as it had been that first morning, the light just breaking and I a young girl on the verge of her first change. It had been a different doe then, and a tiny fawn, and myself. And who could have foreseen how this one event would color my life?
Shapeshifting had been a gift and a curse to me, as my voice had been both gift and curse. Yet it had protected me from the Dark Man’s evil, if not from his wrath. A gift then, but one that came at a high price.
A blackbird’s cheery burble broke the silence. I took a final, lingering look around the pool. To see green again! Even in the shadows, the world was rich with color. Never again, I thought, would I trade the colors and faces of my world for the brown and yellow vision of a deer.
Or perhaps, after all, I would. Perhaps a far-off day would come when the memory of my years in exile would be as weightless and untroubling as a wisp of cloud in a blue summer sky, and I could once again play at being a deer. It was possible. After all, in the Land of the Ever-Young, never is a very long time.
A pronunciation guide to the
major characters and places in
SHAPESHIFTER
Some names have an extra “half-syllable” tucked into them: a slight uh sound, for example, DER-uh-g instead of DERG. I’ve indicated this with a • symbol. Kh is pronounced as a soft k in the back of the throat.
PEOPLE
Bodb Dearg ( BOVE Der•g) One of the ancients of the Sidhe; Grian’s first husband and Daireann’s father
Caoilte (KWEEL-tyah) One of the Fianna, and Finn’s close companion
Cormac (COR-mac) The High King of Eire (Ireland)
Daireann (DAIR-en) Sive’s half-sister
Derg Dianscothach (DER•G Dee-an-SCUH-hakh) Derg of the Quick Speech, Grian’s husband and Sive’s father
Elatha (EL-a-tha) Sive’s first love
Far Doirche (Far DUR•kha) The Dark Druid or Dark Man; evil sorcerer of the Sidhe who pursues Sive. (The more common spelling is Fear.)
Fianna (Fee-AH-nah) Elite troop of warriors serving the High King of Ireland
Finn mac Cumhail (FINN moc COO-ul) Leader of the Fianna who protects Sive
Grian (GREE-an) Sive’s mother, daughter of the great Manannan
Lugh (LOO) Lugh of the Long Hand; one of the ancients of the Sidhe, related to Finn
Maine and Sarai (MAH-nyah, SAH-rye) Sive’s first hosts in Eire
Manannan (MAN-an-awn) One of the ancients of the Sidhe; his realm is the ocean
Murigen (MUR-ee-gan) Woman of the Sidhe associated with lakes; sometimes called a “goddess of lakes”
Niamh (NEE•V) Grian’s sister through Manannan; loves Oisin
Oisin (ush-EEN) Finn and Sive’s son; his name means “little deer”
Oran (OR-an) Far’s servant
Sceolan (Scyo-LAWN) Sceolan and Bram were born to Finn’s aunt when she was under a spell that changed her into a hound; they had human wits and were Finn’s favorite hounds
Sive (SIVE) Pronounced with a long I. I have taken pity on my readers and used the anglicized spelling; the older version is Sadbh!
Tanai (TAH-nee) Bard who teaches Oisin
Tuatha de Danaan (TOO-a-ha day DON-an) Children of Danu; humans call them the “People of the Sidhe.” Sidhe can refer to either the people or their settlements.
PLACES
Baile’s (BOLL-ya’s) Strand—Beach near present-day Dundalk
Ben Bulben (BEN BUL-ben) Mountain near Sligo
Cruachan (CROO•khan) Royal seat of the king of Connaught, in the modern County Roscommon
Eire (AIR•) Ireland. Used in this book to signify the Ireland of the Celts
Glendalough (GLEN-da-lokh) A valley in the Wicklow Mountains, with two interconnected lakes
Hill of Almhuin (ALL-vin) Finn’s fort and headquarters, now known as the Hill of Allen near Kildare Town
Loch Lein (LOKH LEEN) Lake near Killarney
Mound of Hostages—One of the most ancient monuments on the hill of Tara, the Mound of Hostages is said to be a passageway between mortal Earth and the Otherworld.
Mourne (MORN) Mountains—Mountain range on the northeast coast of Ireland
Sidhe Ochta Cleitigh (SHEE OKH-ta CLET-ee) Sive’s home sidhe
Tara (TA-ra) The Hill of Tara was the political and spiritual centre of ancient Ireland. The monuments on the site are pre-Celtic and are said in legend to have been left by the Tuatha de Danaan.
Tir na nOg (TEER na nog) The land of the Tuatha de Danann, also known as the Sidhe, which exists as a (normally) invisible parallel land to Ireland. (Actually it’s more complicated than that, with several seemingly different “countries” within the Otherworld, but I chose to keep it simple.) Also referred to as the Land of Youth, the Undying Lands and the Land of the Ever-Young.
Underwave—Used in this book to refer to Manannan’s kingdom. Manannan is often called the Celtic god of the sea.
Ventry—Now a village on the Dingle peninsula, on the southwest coast of Ireland.
THE LEGEND OF SIVE
This story was inspired by an episode in the ancient Irish legends of Finn mac Cumhail, famous leader of the Fianna. The original story, or one version of it, goes like this:
Finn was hunting one day, and he and his men were chasing a strange white fawn. The fawn was surprisingly fast, and gradually the men and dogs began falling back, until only Finn and his two wolfhounds, Bran and Sceolan, remained. The dogs finally overran the deer, but to Finn’s surprise, when he caught up he found the white fawn resting on the grass, with the dogs gamboling and playing joyfully about her. Finn realized this was no ordinary deer and spoke gently to her. The fawn followed him home, and he commanded she was not to be harmed.
That night a beautiful woman appeared before him. “I am Sive,” she said. “I am the deer you spared on the hunt.” She was a woman of the Sidhe, and she explained that a dark druid, Far Doirche, had pursued her. He grew angry when she rejected him, and in punishment had laid an enchantment on her and turned her into a deer. (In other versions, as in my story, Sive turns herself into a deer to escape him.) Sive told Finn she had wandered Ireland for three years as a wild deer, until the dark druid’s servant took pity on her and told her that she would be safe within the walls of Finn mac Cumhail’s dun.
Finn fell instantly in love with Sive, and not only offered her shelter but married her. They were very happy together, but one day the Fianna were called upon to protect Ireland against an invasion, and Finn had to leave Sive behind.
Sive waited anxiously for his return. One day, she saw Finn climbing up the road to Almhuin with his two dogs. Too excited to wait for him, she ran down the road to meet him. Too late she realized it was not Finn coming toward her but the Dark Druid himself, wearing an enchanted disguise. He raised his hazel wand, and the last the servants saw of her, she had been turned into a deer and was being dragged by the neck into the forest. They tried to follow, but Far Doirche’s enchantments confused and tricked them, and they stumbled around in the fog after false voices without ever finding their quarry.
Finn was heartbroken on his return and searched everywhere for Sive, but he never saw her again.
However, six years later he and his men were hunting boar on Ben Bulben, when the dogs set up a great hue and cry. The men rushed after them, and Finn was astonished to find Bran and Sceolan set against the other dogs, keeping them away. Behind them sat a little, long-haired, naked boy. And Finn thought there was a look of Sive about his face, and that he might be her son. He took him home and named him Oisin—little deer—and when the boy was less frightened and found his voice, he told them that he had indeed been raised by a deer. They lived in a cave and had everything they needed there. But from time to time, he said, a Dark Man would come. He would speak nicely at first, but Oisin’s mother would huddle away in fear, and then the Dark Man would become angry. The last time he came, he drew out his druid rod and struck the deer, and then he led her away. And though she cried pitifully and tried to go back to her son, she was not able but was compelled to follow the man. And though Oisin tried to follow, an invisible barrier held him back. He fell insensible, and when he awoke, he was on the mountain all alone.
That’s the last we hear of Sive in the legend. But Oisin’s story continues. Years later, when he is a great champion of the Fianna, Niamh does appear to him, profess her love, and take him away to live with her in Tir na nOg. He stays with her for three years and then wishes to return to visit his father and friends. He travels back on Niamh’s white horse, only to find that in Ireland three hundred years have passed, and everything has changed. But that’s another story!
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Thanks go out once again to Richard Marsh of Dublin: storyteller, author, scholar and “legendary tour guide.” Over the past few years Richard has generously shared with me research sources, variant versions of legends, theories of the Irish “otherworld” (or worlds?), the pronunciation of Irish names and so much more. Any errors—in pronunciation, geography or mythology—are, of course, mine alone.
I would also like to express my gratitude to the unnamed and unknown people who kept the stories of the ancient Celts alive through many centuries, and to Lady Augusta Gregory, who first pulled them into some kind of logical order and translated them into English, so that those of us who are not Irish scholars can enjoy them.
Last but not least, a special thanks to all the students who attended my workshop during the 2008 White Pine Awards and helped brainstorm solutions to some tricky problems I had encountered with my work-in-progress, Shapeshifter. Their enthusiasm and creative ideas were a true inspiration and gave me the final push I needed to finish writing the book.
Holly Bennett is the author of The Warrior’s Daughter and the Bonemender series. She is the editor-in-chief of Today’s Parent Special Editions. Born in Montreal, Holly now lives in Peterborough, Ontario, with her family.