Holder of Lightning

"Aye, that you could, if you owned a book and if you could read at all," One Hand Bailey called out, and everyone laughed. Jenna’s mam had a book, a fine old thing with thick pages of yellow paper and gray-black printing that looked more perfect than any hand could have written. Thomas claimed he could read and Jenna’s mam had shown him their book once, but he claimed it must have been written in some other lan-guage, because he couldn’t read it all. Sometimes Thomas read stories from the book bound in green leather that Erin the Healer owned, but Jenna wasn’t alone in wondering whether Thomas simply made up the things he supposedly read.

"Tonight we saw the signs of the Filleadh," Aldwoman Pearce declared. "The first whisper that the bones of the land have stirred and will walk

again, that what was Before will be Now. A hint, perhaps-" She stopped and glanced at Jenna's mam again; a few of the others craning their necks to look back as well. "-that things that were hidden will be found again."

Some of the people muttered and nodded, but Thomas guffawed. "That's nonsense, Aldwoman.

The Before is Before, and the bones of the land are dead forever."

"The things I know aren't written in any of your books, Thomas Miller," the Ald sneered, tearing her hard gaze away from Maeve. "I know because my great-mam and great-da told me, and their parents told them, and so on back to the Before. I know because I hold history in my gray head, and because I listened. I know because my old bones feel it, and if you had a lick of sense in your head, you'd know it, too."

Thomas snorted, but said nothing. Aldwoman Pearce looked around the room, turning slowly, and again she fixed on Maeve. "What do you say, Maeve Aoire?"

Jenna felt more than saw her mam shrug. "I'm sure I don't know," she answered.

The Ald sniffed. "This is a portent, I tell you," she said ominously. "And if they saw the lights all the way in Dun Laoghaire, the Riocha will be like a nest of hornets hit with a stick, and will be buzzing all around the whole of Talamh an Ghlas. The R1 Gabair will be sending his emissaries here soon, because we all saw that the lights were close and within his lands." With that, Aldwoman Pearce drained her stout in one long swallow and called for more, and everyone began talking at once.

By the time Tara's clock-candle had burned down another stripe, Jenna was certain that no one in the tavern really knew what the lights had been at all, though it certainly made for a profitable evening for Tara-talking is thirsty work, as the old saying goes, and everyone wanted to give their impression of what they'd seen. Jenna slipped outside to escape the heat and the increasingly wild speculation, though Maeve was listening in-tently. Jenna shook her head as the closing door softened the din of a dozen conversations. She leaned against the drystone wall of the tavern, looking up at the crescent moon and the stars, gleaming and twinkling as if their stately transit of the sky had never been disturbed.

She smelled the odor of the pipe a moment before she heard the voice and saw the glowing red circle at the corner of the tavern. "They’ll be going for another stripe, at least."

"Aye," Jenna answered, "and they’ll all be complaining of it in the morning."

Laughter followed that remark, and Coelin stepped out from the side of the tavern, his form outlined in the glow from the tavern’s window. He took a puff on the pipe, exhaling a cloud of fragrant smoke. "You saw it, too?"

She nodded. "I was up on Knobtop, still, when the lights came. With our sheep."

"Then you saw it well, since it looked as if the lights were flaring all around old Knobtop. So what do you think it was?"

"I think it was a gift from the Mother to allow Tara to sell more ale," Jenna answered, and Coelin laughed again, with a full and rich amuse-ment as musical as his singing voice. "Whatever it was, I also think that there’s nothing I can do about it."

"That," he said, "is the only intelligent answer I’ve heard tonight." He tapped the pipe out against the heel of his boot, and sparks fell and ex-pired on the ground. Coelin blew through the stem and tapped it again, then stuffed the pipe in the pocket of his coat. "They’ll be calling for me to play soon, wanting to hear all the old songs tonight, not the new ones."

"I like the old songs," Jenna said. "It’s like hearing the voices of my ancestors. I close my eyes and imagine I’m one of them: Maghera, maybe, or even that sad spirit on Sliabh Collain, always calling for her lover killed by the cloudmage."

"You have a fine imagination, then," Coelin laughed.

"Your voice has a magic, that’s all," Jenna said, then felt herself blush-ing. She could imagine her mam listening, and telling her: You sound just like one of them. . Jenna was grateful for the dark.

She looked away, to where Knobtop loomed above the trees, a blackness in the sky where no stars shone.