The Singing, page 36
‘Hello precious,’ she said. ‘I’m here at last and I’m sorry I’ve taken so long.’ She closed her eyes and felt the warm weight of the child against her breast. ‘You’ll never be alone again,’ she said.
‘I will take you into myself and you can grow and bloom and be at peace. I will take care of you.’
Erin closed her eyes, holding the child close, and taking long, deep breaths, tears of gratitude standing in her eyes. Here was a piece of herself she’d been missing, and she meant to take very good care of it.
When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the room, but standing on a green hill, looking out over a vast, high meadow, the ground curving gently, the sky close enough to reach up and touch. The child was no longer in her arms, but she touched her chest, feeling its presence inside her, another piece of herself in its rightful place.
The air was cold and clear, the breeze stiff, pushing Erin’s hair back from her face. She stood, with Fox beside her, and surveyed the surrounding hilltops, and the one she stood on. Raven flew in a looping circle, black gaze fastened upon the ground, and Erin watched him disappear behind a low hill.
She bent slightly, and touched her fingertips to Fox’s warm fur, then set off in the direction Raven had shown her, and she listened to the wind as she walked, and heard nothing else – no bird song, nor any traffic noise – no sound of human habitation at all.
Just the wind, and the grass, and the hills rolling and turning upon each other in a slow dance that took millennia.
Down the slope, Raven stood on the roof of a low, long building that hunched under an overhanging roof. Erin walked up to it, looked at the blank windows and shivered.
She stepped up to the door, lifted her hand, and knocked upon it. The wood was old, unpainted under her knuckles.
The door opened and a pale face surrounded with dark red hair looked out at her with green-brown eyes.
‘What do you want?’ the woman asked. ‘Why are you here?’
Erin looked at herself and sought an answer. ‘I’ve come to take you home,’ she said.
The eyes, identical to her own, narrowed at the answer, and the mouth beneath them twisted. ‘What makes you think I would go with you?’
Erin bent her head. ‘I let you down,’ she said.
‘You did. You put aside everything I held dear. And for what?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do,’ Erin told her other self.
Behind the door, her shard shook her head, eyes hard in the dimness. ‘You were weak. You were willing to make only piddly efforts with our drawing and making our art, just for the sake of getting along.’
The door began to close.
‘Wait,’ Erin said. ‘I’m here to apologise.’
‘I don’t want your apology.’
‘But you deserve it,’ Erin said. ‘May we come in?’
The soul shard’s eyes narrowed in suspicion again. ‘Who is we?’
‘Fox and I,’ Erin answered.
The door opened wider again, and Erin’s other self gazed down at Fox’s smart, smiling face.
She blinked at the orange-pelted fox, then stood back, and held the door open for them.
Inside, the room was dim, and Erin allowed herself to look around curiously. It was furnished sparsely, with a narrow bed at one end, and at the other, near a window, a small table with one chair. Upon the table was a sketchbook.
‘May I look?’ Erin asked, her hand near the book.
She got a shrug in response, so she picked it up and looked through it. The pictures were unfinished, begun and abandoned, the book half full.
‘Do you have others?’ Erin asked, holding up the sketchbook.
Her other self shook her head. ‘I’ve only that one,’ she said.
Erin looked down at the book again, her heart contracting in pain. This was herself, unwilling to compromise, unwilling to live with the decision she’d made to be only half-hearted at best about her art, because her mother discouraged it, because Jeremy didn’t care for it, because it was easier to give in than to fight.
This part of her hadn’t given in, however. This part of her had split off, run away, rather than give up what was important.
And yet, here on this lonely hill, here in this ramshackle place, she’d only had one small sketchbook.
Erin looked at the table.
And one pencil to work with.
She bowed her head and put the book back down.
‘Things are different now,’ she said. ‘I am drawing and painting every day.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ her shard replied. ‘Why would you have changed?’
‘Because I discovered I needed to,’ Erin said, confronting the truth. ‘I found that I needed more – just as you knew I did.’ She looked down at her hands, so comfortable holding pencil or brush. Made for it. ‘I am not complete without my art, and I am not complete without you.’ She looked across at herself.
‘You paint? Every day?’
‘Yes,’ Erin said. ‘And I sell my art too, now.’
There was scepticism in the eyes looking back at her.
‘It’s true,’ Erin said. ‘I no longer live under our mother’s thumb. I’m not engaged to Jeremy anymore. I’m my own person, living a life I design, and I’ll never stop painting again.’
Her other self regarded her as though trying to make up her mind. Erin watched as she looked around the room, then down at the sketchbook and pencil on the table.
‘Do you promise?’ she asked at last.
‘I do,’ Erin said, heart lifting in hope. ‘I promise. And I will listen to your needs, and make sure they are met, so that you never have to choose like this again.’
There was a long pause, during which the wind swept down to the house and in through the eaves, making Erin shiver.
‘It’s so lonely here,’ she said. ‘How have you been able to live here?’
‘I’ve had my art to sustain me.’
Erin glanced again at the table, with the one small sketchbook and pencil. She shook her head. ‘I know why you came here, and I can’t blame you for doing so at all.’ She looked over at herself. ‘But this isn’t good enough for you,’ she said. ‘You need more, and I can give it to you now.’
Again a pause, and the other looked at her. ‘You sell our art?’ she asked.
Our art. That seemed hopeful. Erin nodded. ‘I do. A friend has helped me turn some of it into greeting cards, and others into prints for people to buy and frame.’
‘A friend?’
‘Yes,’ Erin said. ‘I have friends who are supportive now. Much has changed since you left me. I live a different life now. I have a cottage of my own, and I am happy.’
‘Happy?’
Erin smiled because it was true. She was happy, and things were only beginning. There was so much to look forward to, to strive for, to be part of. She nodded.
The other looked at her, and Erin waited.
‘I will come,’ her other self said.
Erin beamed at her. ‘I’ll make sure you never regret this,’ she said. ‘And that you never have cause to leave again. I will make sure that the things that are close to your heart – our heart, are never neglected again.’
Erin’s long-lost self nodded, and walked to the door, stepping outside into the wind that pushed her thick dark hair back from her face. ‘Let us go, then,’ she said.
Fox slipped outside and Erin followed. She glanced back at the sketchbook, then gently closed the door. Turning, she reached for her other self’s hand.
Their fingers met, and the woman who was a shard of her own soul stepped towards her, and inside her, and Erin felt her there, turning around, melting in, coming home.
She bent down for a moment, sank to her knees in the grass, feeling both of them – the baby who was wounded by being taken from one mother and given to another, and the woman who could not bear to give up the art that was so important to her. Tears flowed from her eyes so that she covered her face with her hands.
‘Blessed Goddess,’ she whispered. ‘I am following your path, and my heart is full of gratitude.’ She let her hands fall and held her face to the sky. ‘I have recovered that which was lost, and so shall never be lost again.’
She got back to her feet, and Raven fluttered down to settle on her shoulder, and Fox fell into step at her side, and together they walked back up the hill.
Back to the clearing where Morghan and Winsome waited.
47
Clarice gazed around the cave, holding her drum with one hand, keeping the beat steady, quiet but strong. A pulse to guide the travellers, a calling to the Otherworld. She blinked, feeling the dirt floor of the cave under her, seeing the shadows from the fire dancing around the rough, natural-hewn walls of the cave. She did not travel to the Otherworld on the sound of her drum, but she slipped sideways nonetheless, sitting in the cave, gazing at her companions with their eyes closed to this world.
She saw Morghan’s wolf and heard the beating of Hawk’s wings. The slither of Snake.
She saw the wiry fur and gleaming eyes of Winsome’s Dog.
She saw the white-tipped paws and tail, the sharp, laughing snout of Erin’s Fox.
She sat in the cave with the shadows dancing.
Her heart quickened in time to her drum. Her blood rushed between her ears.
Her head swam. She remembered her dreaming.
She remembered her mother, leaning close, her eyes keen, looking at her.
She requires the truth, her mother said. You must focus.
Clarice nodded. The truth. ‘Who requires the truth?’ she whispered.
Her drum carried her into the flickering dreaming and she stood, stretched, stepped in time to her drum.
‘Who requires the truth?’ she asked again.
She spun and the fire spat red sparks out at her. The shadows on the walls bent and stepped with her. The three sleeping women held hands beside the fire, swaying slightly, twitching.
The drum beat on. Calling Clarice into her dance, into the space between the worlds where everything existed, where there was no barrier, no veil, where everything was dream, and was real.
She focused. She drew breath, held it, let it out, danced.
And her mother came to dance with her, red hair in wild curls down her back, head thrown back so that the fire turned the skin of her neck rosy.
They danced together, eyes locking. Grainne smiled.
‘Call your kin, Clarice,’ she whispered. ‘You are at the heart of your own home and you require the truth.’
Clarice nodded, her drum singing. She beat the rhythm and the call.
Come to me, her drum sang. Dance with me, it called.
White wings swooped silently down to rest on Clarice’s shoulder. It was Sigil, and yet it was not Sigil.
‘Owl,’ she breathed. And danced with the bird on her shoulder.
Grainne wove a circle around her.
‘We danced like this when you were a child,’ she said.
Clarice nodded, remembering.
‘I danced with my mother and grandmother like this when I was a child,’ Grainne said, stepping on the cave floor, arms out, as graceful as Clarice’s owl.
‘And she danced with her mother, and she with your great, great grandmother, and she with her mother, grandmother.’ Grainne closed her eyes. Spun. ‘This is how I raised you. None of us alone.’
Now, the cave was full of women dancing. Clarice looked at them, red-haired, dark-haired, one or two as fair and wraith-like as herself.
Grainne smiled at her.
Clarice blinked, smoke in her eyes, and then tears to wash away the sting. She beat upon her drum and danced with the women who had come before her, who were her family, who held her in their dance, just as she held them in the singing of her drum, the stepping of her feet, the lifting of her arms, the weeping of her tears, the joy in her heart.
Then the dance slowed, and Clarice stilled, her drumming quieter now, a whisper through the dream, through the worlds. Grainne came to her, smiled up into her face.
‘My blessing, daughter,’ she whispered, then moved away.
Another woman took her place. ‘My blessing, granddaughter,’ she said.
The women smiled at her. Blessed her one by one.
Great granddaughter.
Great great granddaughter.
Child of my blood.
Child of my magic.
Child of my heart.
Walk in strength.
Walk in ease.
Walk in the world with your head high.
We are with you.
We are with you.
Our blood runs through you.
Our magic runs through you.
We carry your heart.
48
Veronica stood in the kitchen, coffee mug going cold in her hands as she gazed out at her daughter, watching her.
She’d done this every morning for the last week or more, trying to understand what Erin was doing. She took a sip of her coffee, grimaced, wondering how long she’d been standing at the window in her dressing gown and slippers, hair in disarray. Watching Erin go through a series of exercises – dancing steps – that she knew the sequence of by heart now.
Erin was different, Veronica was realising. And the extent of the difference astounded her. How was this her daughter? The child always with her head in the clouds, turning away and retreating into a grey fog whenever anything frightened her.
Nothing seemed to frighten Erin anymore.
Instead, Veronica thought, it was she who was frightened.
Erin was happy. In love with her boyfriend. Gloriously so. Veronica took another sip of her coffee. She’d never been in love with Vincent like that. They’d made a good team, as far as that had gone, but love?
Love like Erin felt with her Stephan?
Veronica shook her head. There had never been that.
And confidence. Erin was so much more confident. She was developing, Veronica thought, an easy grace about her that was just stunning.
It was Veronica now, who felt gauche and uncertain. They’d reversed their roles.
But every time Veronica thought about going back to her life, picking up the pieces of it, slipping its yoke back over her shoulders, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.
Her grandmother’s voice was too loud in her mind.
Oh my Vera, what’s become of you?
Veronica’s lips twisted in a pained grimace. What had become of her? She looked down at her chest and felt the same vague, puzzled surprise that it wasn’t cracked wide open like it felt it was. She pressed her hand to herself and wondered at how her body could be intact when she was walking around with a gaping hole there.
‘Mum,’ Erin said, sweeping into the room with Burdock at her heels and leaning over to kiss Veronica on the cheek. ‘Good morning – it’s a beautiful one after the rain last night.’ She opened a cupboard and brought down a mug. ‘How are you feeling? Did you sleep well?’
They were the same questions Erin asked her every morning, but suddenly Veronica opened her mouth and told the truth.
‘I don’t know what I’m doing, Erin,’ she said.
Erin put the mug down and looked at her mother. ‘I know,’ she said.
‘I don’t want to go back to your father.’ Veronica blinked. It was true, she thought. She didn’t. ‘But I don’t know what to do instead.’ She touched her chest again.
‘I know that too,’ Erin told her.
‘I can’t keep staying here though,’ Veronica said. ‘You and Stephan need your space.’
‘It’s been lovely having you here,’ Erin said. It was true as well. She and Veronica were finding their way towards each other in ways that Erin had never known or expected were possible. ‘And Stephan and I have all the time in the world. You don’t need to leave until you’re ready.’
‘I don’t know what to do,’ Veronica said.
Erin paused before answering, then smiled at her mother. ‘Clarice is holding her first dance class today – outside, just a small group, absolutely for beginners. Would you like to come with me?’
Veronica frowned. ‘Dance class?’
‘You admired my dancing out there a while back.’ Erin nodded at the garden outside the window. ‘Movement is good,’ she said. ‘It’ll help.’
‘How?’ Veronica asked. ‘How can dancing help?’
But Erin just smiled. ‘Trust me,’ she said. ‘It can. Will you come?’
‘I look a fright,’ Veronica said, touching her hair. Threads of grey were darkening the blonde. ‘I’ve got nothing to wear.’
‘We can find you something,’ Erin said. ‘I bet you have something loose and comfortable in one of your suitcases. No one is really going to be looking at you, anyway.’
Veronica opened her mouth to say no. She even went as far as to shake her head, then stopped herself. She sighed.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘What’s the harm?’
Erin smiled at her. ‘No harm at all,’ she said.
* * *
‘I feel ridiculous,’ Veronica hissed, as she walked across the village green with Erin.
‘Why?’ Erin asked, baffled. ‘You look fine.’
‘It’s not how I look,’ Veronica said, and waved a hand. ‘This is just so weird.’
‘It’ll be fun,’ Erin said, and waved to Clarice. She turned and touched her mother on the arm. ‘I’ll be back in a minute, okay?’
Her mother made a grumbling noise as Erin skipped over to Clarice. Erin ignored it and smiled.
‘Good turnout,’ she said. ‘And beautiful weather. I’m excited about this!’
Clarice shook her head. ‘I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘No,’ Erin said. ‘You’ll be fine. Just remember that everyone is here because they want to be – they want to learn what you have to teach.’
Clarice blew out a breath and was glad for once that no one could tell she was blanched pale with nerves. She pushed her sunglasses higher on her nose and sighed. ‘I guess so.’
‘It’s going to be great,’ Erin said, then shook her head. ‘And now I have no excuse except to do the art classes.’
