Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! That was just what little Maureen needed to go with her tangled sexuality. Talk about sending mixed signals!
"This sterile thing, it goes for men, too?"
"Most. Brian isn't. Liam wasn't. I'm afraid my little pet Sean is, no matter how much he might be wishing that he were not. He still has his uses, though."
And Brian had the gall to talk about Liam's seeing me as a womb . . . . I'll murder that bastard! I'll stake him out on an anthill in the sun! I'll . . . . To tamper with my brain!
She needed to get away from that subject, fast. "Why are you telling me all this? How can I tell if you're lying?"
Fiona laughed again, and her voice turned dry. "Rational self-interest, love. If you know what you are, the rest of us are better off. Less disruption. There's lots of empty land in the Summer Country. We aren't that exclusive."
"Just what the hell is this Summer Country of yours? Why should I be interested in it?"
Fiona smiled a Mona Lisa enigma, seasoned with a touch of innocent malice. "Ah, the Summer Country. Alternate reality, love. It's two steps away from you, in any direction. It's what you make it be. It's where I come from, this crystal morning, and it's where I'm going back.
"Think of it as clay on the potter's wheel and you the potter. I have a house there, with gardens ever blooming in the summer afternoon. It's restful when the winter glooms too heavy." She smiled, with a gesture at the ice.
"Another of us keeps hawks and hounds and great hunting cats. For Dougal, life's a sharp thing, full of musk and blood and the threat of sudden death. The Summer Country's what you make it be, love. Sometimes we talk, we drink, we dance. Sometimes we fight. Carve out a space and build the world you want. All it takes is the Blood and Will. You've got the one. Do you have the other?"
Maureen shook her head. It all sounded like absurd escapism, and she wondered if she could believe a word this figment of schizophrenia was saying.
"Why should Ireland follow me here, find me in Maine? Shouldn't we touch the Happy Hunting Ground or whatever the local Abenaki use to take its place? Shouldn't that be the blood that matters?"
"Each people has its own world, love, its own spirit land, its place to follow the shaman's talking drum. There are hundreds of them. We only lose them when we try to follow the myths of another blood, when we lose touch with our roots. Why should the ghosts of the Sea of Galilee speak to the people of the Hebrides and Galway Bay? Why should my blood hear the voice of the Buddha? He spoke under different trees and suns and skies. He walked a different earth."
Maureen thought of voices and of lands. "I don't speak Gaelic. The most I know of Irish lore is a few children's tales and songs from my grandfather. I'd never fit in there."
Fiona laughed.
"Don't be for worrying, love," her voice went on, lilting. "The Summer Country changes as the world it touches changes. We're not Brigadoon or Shangri-La, to stay the same while centuries pass outside.
"Do you think we fight the Formorians all day long and sit around all night telling the Táin Bó Cúalnge? That you need to know every tale of the Fionn Mac Cuhal, to fit in? That you have to have the Erse? Don't be for worrying. The land translates for you. If it didn't, the Scots would nae be speaking to the Welsh and the Welsh couldn't speak to the Irish and the Bretons couldn't talk to the lot of them. Because all of us are forsaken pagans and damned to old Jehovah's Hell, the curse of Babel hasn't fallen on the Summer Country."
Brian had warned her against the Summer Country. Brian, the bastard. Brian, the rapist of her mind.
"Your brother seemed to think the Summer Country is dangerous."
"Of course it's dangerous, love. New York and L. A. are dangerous, too, but that doesn't stop a lot of people from wanting to live there." The dark woman smiled and shook her head at the follies of the world. "Life is dangerous. Are you preferring death, so to be safe?"
Fiona shrugged, and went on. "The dangers are the ones we bring with us, the ones we choose to take. Dougal chooses to tame killers to follow him on a leash, to sit on his wrist and take chicken wings from his hand. I train gardens to trap strangers, knowing they might someday trap me instead. Would you rather face a Mack truck than a dragon? At least you can kill the dragon."
Maureen sighed and shook her head. That talk of preferring the safety of death cut too close for comfort. "You never answered me, about lying. Why should I believe you? Why should I trust you?"
"I'm not trying to sell you anything, love. I'll tell you, flat out: yes, I lie. Whenever it's convenient. Why should I always tell the truth? Do I owe the truth to people who only seek it as a reason to hunt me down and kill me? No way, love!"
"That's getting a bit thick, isn't it? Kill you?"
"What did Brian do last night? He killed a man, attacking from behind. Killed without warning. Had Liam hurt you, threatened you, even touched you? Brian's the one who cast a glamour on you! All Liam did was stop you from shooting him."
The dark woman swept her hair back again, this time with an angry flip. "Beyond that, ask yourself about witches. Ask yourself about drowning, and stoning, and hanging, and burning at the stake. Ask yourself about what always happens to a woman with the Power. And remember, you are one of us! You can join us any time you want."
She turned away. Maureen blinked, and the woman was
