Gossamer Axe Read Online Free Page B

moonlight.
    The Realm was everywhere, and yet nowhere. Judith could have been within the reach of her arm, but that made no difference. She was with the Sidh. She was in another world, another universe.
    Weeping, Christa looked out through her window at the full moon that was just touching the summits of the Rockies. “Goddess. Beloved Brigit. I stood in Your presence when I entered the circle of women and took the chalice from the hand of Your priestess, Aoine. My mother would not bring me. My father was allowed to by the good will of the women of my clan. You provided for your daughter then. Help me now. It’s been over two hundred years since I’ve touched her. I haven’t even seen her. O Mother of the
Cruitreacha
, guide me!”
    On the nightstand beside her, the alarm went off in shrill chirps. She started and cried out before she realized what it was, then ruefully shook her head and silenced it. Time to get up.
    Outside, the sky was turning blue, the moon fast disappearing behind the mountains as the sun rose to begin the longest day.
    Siudb wanders through the shadowy meadows, seeing by the half light that pervades the Realm. Her gown whispers across the grass and the pale flowers. The gleaming fabric makes her mortal skin look dull and muddy, but even Chairiste was not flattered by the garments of the Sidh.
    Near the center of the formal gardens, there is an alabaster bench by the side of a silent fountain. Siudb sits, face in her hands, thinking of Chairiste. There is no day here, nor really any night: merely a twilight, a continuing. Siudb finds that she cannot estimate how long she has lived among the Sidh, how long it has been since Chairiste, armed with Orfide’s best harp, pried open a gate into mortality and so escaped into a sunlit landscape that neither Gaeidil recognized.
    Siudb shudders, remembering how Chairiste reached back for her. But the harper was not strong enough. She had learned enough of the magic of the Sidh to save herself, but she could not help another. Immortal hands seized Siudb and dragged her back into the twilight, and the gateway closed on Chairiste’s agonized face.
    And is she dead then? Siudb wonders. Is Orfide certain? Or is he merely hoping?
    She does not know. She knows, however, that she cannot die in this unchanging realm, and that if Chairiste has gone ahead into the Summerland, then she must return to the mortal lands herself, die, and so find her friend.
    She looks at her hands. She has not touched a harp in a long time. Harps are forbidden her. Orfide is taking no chances.
    “I will have to steal one,” she mutters. “And if Orfide likes it not at all, then he can go to the Christians’ hell.”
    Showered and dressed, Christa descended the stairs to her studio. Outside, the garden glowed in the morning light, and she smiled at the trees and flowers as she removed the blue drape from the solitary harp.
    With the drape removed, the harp shone suddenly in a blaze of burnished wood, jeweled inlays, and golden strings.
    *day*
    “Indeed, it is day,” she said to the harp. “Midsummer. Brigit bless you, Ceis.”
    *bright*
    The harp’s remark did not seem to require an answer, and after running a hand affectionately along its shoulder, Christa went into the kitchen to make breakfast.
    *students*
    “Not yet,” she called over her shoulder. “Susan’s my first, and she won’t be here for a while.” She heated milk on the stove and added oatmeal and a little chopped leek. “I’ll eat quickly and then I need to sit with you. I’ve an idea.”
    *speak*
    She stirred the porridge and left it to simmer. She had baked bread the day before, and she cut a piece out of a woman-sized loaf and put it in the toaster, set butter and honey on the table. “I’m thinking that I might be able to work with the tree calendar.”
    **
    “Hear me. Thirteen moons, thirteen modes—counting the plagal forms—from
beth
to
ruis
.”
    *fourteen*
    “Indeed, fourteen modes, but it’s