hungry and tired, chipping a crockery bowl in the process-she’d never told her mam that, letting her think the bowl had been chipped some other time. 'Da made this? I never knew.'
Maeve nodded.
. . touch something that was once theirs, and they can speak with you, if you will it…
'Mam, may I keep this?'
Maeve smiled at her. 'It’s yours, Jenna. It was always yours.'
She did nothing until after the evening meal, when she was alone again in her room.
The sun had sunk behind the hills. The night was dark, the moon and stars hidden behind a screen of clouds. The air seemed heavy and cold. Jenna had dismissed the servant for the night and sat in a chair near the fire, feeding it peat until the blue flames rose high and the light touched the far wall of the bedroom. She took the carving of the seal from the stand by her bed and set it in her lap, staring at the fire for a time. Then she took it in her right hand.
She stared at the carving, at the marks her da’s knife had made shaping the wood, and seeing in her mind’s eyes the shavings curling away under the blade. She could almost hear the sound of the dry scraping of sharp iron against soft wood--
No. She could hear it.
She turned. Near the window, a man sat in a plain chair, holding a block of wood in one hand and a knife in the other. Shavings were piled in his lap.
She could see the wall behind through the ghostly
image. His face. . Jenna gasped, realizing that the man who sat there, hair the color of fire, was the same she'd glimpsed when she'd found the stone. 'Da?' she whispered.
He looked up. 'Who. .?' he asked. He seemed confused, looking around. 'Where am I? Everything looks so pale. . Maeve, is that you? You're dressed so strangely, like a Riocha.'
Jenna walked toward him, holding the battered, chipped seal out so he could see it. 'I'm Jenna, Da. Your daughter. Seventeen years old now.' He shook his head, wonder and fear and confusion all mingled in his gaze. His reaction was so different from that of Eilis, but then Eilis had held Lamh Shabhala when it was active and knew that the cloch contained its old Holders. When her da possessed Lamh Shabhala, it had been dead, just an ordinary stone wrapped in legend. Her da would have had no experience of the cloch's abilities.
'Wait,' Jenna said. She imagined her memories opening to him, as if they were gifts that she could hand him, letting him see within her as Eilis had, only this time she directed the sharing, choosing what she allowed him to know. She could feel his gentle touch on her memories, and as he comprehended them he gasped, the knife and seal falling from his grasp. They made no sound, vanishing before they reached the floor.
'I'm dead. A ghost.'
'Aye,' she told him softly. 'Or neither dead nor ghost, only a moment caught forever, like a painting. I don't really know, Da. But Eilis, the lady in the falls, told me that Lamh Shabhala carries its Holders. Which means you were one, too, even though the mage-lights weren't there for you. Here, do you remember?' She took the cloch out and held it so he could see the stone. He started to reach for it, then let his hand drop back.
'I remember, aye. I carried it with me, everywhere. Then, on Knobtop one day, I lost it. I was never sure how that happened. I go up there and look for it, all the time, still. Did I. .?'
'No, Da. You never found it, but I did, the night the mage-lights came.'
The wraith of Niall nodded. 'So the stone truly was Lamh Shabhala. I never knew for certain; for all I knew, it was just a colorful pebble, though I'd always been told it was a cloch, and supposedly the cloch, the Safe-keeping. But it was dead-or waiting for the mage-lights-when I had it.' He sighed. He looked at her for a long time, a slow smile touching his mouth. 'You look like her. You have Maeve's eyes, and her hair.'
'She always says I have your nose, and the shape of your face.'
He laughed. 'I remember her saying that, not long after you were born.' He was silent for long moments after that, his face somber. 'Why did you call me here, Jenna? If I’m dead, why did you rouse me? Why didn’t you leave me to rest?'
'I wanted. .' Jenna stopped. Now that she had called him, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. There was so much. 'I need to know what you know about the cloch. I need you to help me.'
He stood and came toward her, reaching out his hand. She extended her own hand for his touch. She expected to feel his skin, or perhaps a waft of chill air. She felt nothing. Her fingers went through his as if they were mist. Is that what would have happened with Eilis? She seemed so real, so whole, but she was trying to scare me… Jenna felt disappointment, and the figure of her da drew back, sighing. 'You’re a dream. Not real.'
Jenna shook her head. 'No. I’m real. It’s you who aren’t.'
He may have believed her. He made no protest.
'If this is death, why is it so… ordinary? Why don’t I remember dying? Why do I seem to be still in our house, and you standing before me like a ghost?'
'I don’t know,' Jenna answered. She looked at the carving in her hand. 'Though this wasn’t with you when you died, and it’s all I have of yours. Maybe that’s the reason. There’s so much I don’t know, Da. The stone was yours for a while-tell me why. Tell me how you came to have it. Tell me everything. Help me as you would have helped me if you were still alive.'
He clasped his hands together, staring at them as if marveling at their solidity. 'If I were still alive, I would have Lamh Shabhala,' he answered. 'Not you. I would have been on Knobtop that night.'
'But I have it now, Da. Your daughter.'
He looked at her. 'My daughter,' he said. 'I never expected to have the gift of a daughter. For that matter, I never expected to fall in love at all… '
Chapter 15: Niall’s Tale
MY mam, your great-mam, was the one who took the cloch. No, that's not quite true. Actually, it was your great-da who stole it from where it rested. .
'No, let me begin again. It's easier to start farther back. Let me tell you the story as my mam used to tell it to me…
'She was born on Imshfeirm, an island just off Inish Thuaidh. Inish-feirm's best known for the Order of Inishfeirm, with their white stone buildings set high on the peak. From what my mam said, there weren't many residents of Inishfeirm outside the Order; of those few, most were fisherfolk, her family included. They knew the Brathairs of the Order, though. Couldn't help it, since the Order dominated what social life there was on the island. They'd meet them in the streets or in the market, buying fish for their table or some of the greens that came over from the big island.
'My mam's name was Kerys Aoire. The Aoires weren't Riocha, just plain folk, but well enough off and one of the main families on the island, from what Mam told me. They were often invited by the Maister to dine at the Order Hall on the feast days. The Order was a contemplative one, devoted to the Mother-Creator. In the last decades of the Before, the Order was known for its cloudmages, but when the mage-lights failed, so did their prominence. By the time my mam was born, they were a curiosity from another age, a place to visit and hear the old tales, to see the spectac-ular scenery of Inishfeirm, with its buildings clinging like lichens to the steep cliff walls of the mountain peak that formed the isle, with the bright parapets of the Order, built five centuries before, standing proud at the summit. Once, the cells of the Brathairs were crowded; now, half of them were empty, though the Order still attracted occasional acolytes from Inish Thuaidh, young men sent to serve by wealthy families, mostly, and even a few from among the mainland Riocha, primarily from Falcarragh in Tuath Infochla.
'One of the acolytes, a boy of eighteen summers named Niall, caught my mam's eye. Aye, that's my name as well, and I'm sure that tells you some of what happened next. I don't know much about my da. Mam always claimed that she wouldn't tell me his family name because she wanted to protect him, but I'm not certain she ever knew it. I suppose it
doesn’t matter. They fell in love, or at least lust. My mam was probably your age, sixteen or seventeen, and naive. It wasn’t the first time a Brathair of the Order and a local girl had become lovers; I’m sure it wasn’t the last, either, though afterward I’ll bet the Maister watched things more closely than before.
'One of the treasures of the Order of Inishfeirm was its collection of clochs na thintri. Once, the Order’s founders had even held Lamh Shabhala, and three of the other Clochs Mor had been theirs, as well as several of the minor stones. But when the mage-lights failed, Lamh Shabhala was given away or lost, though they retained the other clochs. Over the centu-ries, they had accumulated more stones reputed to be clochs na thintri, though of
