The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh

Author:Stephen Leigh
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: DAW
Published: 2015-02-11T16:00:00+00:00

As they walked down the grassy lane, as they reached the gate in the drystone wall outlining the yard of Maeve’s cottage, Maeve stopped suddenly. When Colin tried to stop with her, he wheeled about clumsily and had to put his hand on the gate to stop the world from whirling around him. “What’s the matter?” he asked Maeve. He could hear that he slurred the words—“Wassamattah?”—but decided against trying to repeat the words more distinctly. He blinked heavily, and glanced upward into the night sky. “Wow,” he said. Distinctly.

The night sky would have been stunning all on its own: stars dusted like multicolored salt on black velvet, and the dusty sweep of the Milky Way arcing overhead. Colin had seen night skies like this in Ireland before, in country villages far away from any city lights. But what made him gape were the curtains of light and color washing across the sky.

He’d seen the aurora borealis before. This was similar, yet very much not a common aurora. This display was too small: too localized and far too low in the sky. It was as if a miniature aurora hung over Inishcorr and especially over Maeve’s cottage and them like a glowing, rippling cloud, and the colors were intense and unusual. The auroras Colin had seen before were mostly a pale green, with occasional reddish curtains. This one . . . the colors were far more saturated, and seemed to contain flashes of every possible color. Through his smudged glasses, they shimmered with bright halos.

His grandfather’s stone, now in his pocket again, seemed to respond, or maybe that was just his inebriation. It felt cold against his thigh and he slid his hand to put his fingers around it. He gasped at the touch: it was cold, as if it had been sitting in snow. The lights in the sky seemed to be dancing for him, and coming closer.

He thought he could hear the whisper of voices in his head as he held the stone.

“Pretty,” was all he could manage in response, and he heard Maeve’s silvery laugh answer. She seemed to be looking at his hand, and he guiltily pulled it from his pocket, reluctantly letting go of the stone. The ghostly voices in his head faded.

“Aye, pretty indeed, ’tis,” she said. “Here, let’s put yeh inside so yeh can sit, and I’ll be right in behind yeh . . .” With that, Maeve took his arm, opened the gate, and escorted him to the door. She pushed it open. “G’wan in. I’ll be with yeh in just a bit. Why not start some water for tea, and have a bit of the bread and jam that Keara brought? That’d be good.” She hugged him, kissed him fleetingly, then gave him a little shove inward. “G’wan,” she said, and closed the door behind him.

He yawned and used the poker to stir the banked fire in the kitchen hearth, checked that there was water in the kettle, and put another piece of dried turf on the fire before swinging the crane over it.

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