When the service finished, Clíodhna tried to rush her family out and away from the church, but the Abbot came straight for them. He held out his hands. “I’m so glad you took me at my word, Oisinne. I trust you enjoyed the service?”
Her husband cocked his head, as if listening to some new birdsong. His mouth twisted up at the corners with a feral twinkle in his eye. Pátraic must have taken this as assent. “Good, good. I am so glad you came back to your family. They sorely needed some firm guidance, I’m sure. With you in charge, they’ll fall back into moral habits.”
Clíodhna gritted her teeth. At that moment, she had an incredible urge to punch that smarmy smile off the Abbot’s face, shove Oisinne down a dark hole, take her children, and leave this judgmental village once and for all. As if I need a man—any man!—to tell me what to do!
Instead, she took a deep breath, gave the Abbot a polite smile, and turned away. Clíodhna didn’t trust herself to speak, but at least she could appear polite, for now. One day, though, she would make that man pay for his insults.
As they made their way back through the woods to their home, Oisinne ceased humming and stared at a gnarled oak tree. He’d stopped dead still in his tracks, and Clíodhna almost barreled into him.
“What are you doing?”
He cocked his head as he had earlier. “This tree wants to tell me something, but I can’t understand the words. They must be in some other language. Do you think that lad back there could translate for me? He speaks another language.”
She pressed her lips together while Etromma and Donn exchanged a knowing glance. “Abbot Pátraic spoke a language called Latin. It’s from his homeland in Rome, far to the south. I don’t think the tree will speak the same language, Oisinne.”
Clíodhna pulled his arm to move him along toward home, but he resisted. “The tree wants to sing to me, Clíodhna! Can’t you hear him? He’s whistling in the wind!” Oisinne collapsed on the ground, laughing so hard he could barely breathe. His eyes teared and his face turned red.
With her children’s help, she yanked him to his feet. “Oisinne! The joke is over. Come home, now.”
He leapt up and swung his fist at her face. Clíodhna ducked in time, but he aimed his next punch at Donn’s stomach. Her son wasn’t as fast, and let out a pained grunt as his father’s blow connected. Donn doubled over while Etromma grabbed her father’s arm. Clíodhna reached for the other. This time, his fist connected, punching her in the eye. Etromma ducked low from a similar blow and used her legs to sweep his own from under him. He fell into a pile, a startled look on his face. Then he giggled, a mad, freakish sound that left him in tears.
No one else laughed.
Oisinne chuckled in random spurts as his family dragged him along the path to the roundhouse.
With much effort, they got him inside and into his sleeping palette. He still giggled wildly at nothing as she poured ale for him and made him drink it. Perhaps she could convince him to sleep and give them all a rest. The sun had barely reached noon and she’d already grown exhausted with this day.
He finally closed his eyes, though he continued to mumble and toss in his slumber. Etromma and Donn sat outside with her.
With a worried glance at the door, her daughter asked, “What will we do with him? He’s lost whatever senses he had left. Do you think the Abbot could cure him?”
Clíodhna let out a sharp bark of laughter. “That man couldn’t cure a cowhide with a vat of tannin. I don’t know, though. The village healer left last moon to her sister’s town in the north. No one’s replaced her.”
Donn bit at his lower lip. “I want to ask one of the brothers. He took care of the herb garden and might have some herblore. He’d fought in some war before he became a monk, and said he dressed a lot of wounds.”
Etromma frowned at her brother. “Dressing wounds isn’t the same as healing madness, Donn.”
He threw his hands up. “I know! I know. But what else we can do?”
Clíodhna chewed on the possibilities. A well, sacred to Brighid, the goddess of healing, lay many leagues to the east. However, getting Oisinne there without disaster might not be possible. What if they made the perilous journey and couldn’t find the well? Or found the well and it didn’t work?
Could Adhna help? His Faerie magic might cure Oisinne’s madness.
She clung onto that thin thread of hope as Oisinne cried out in his sleep, a screech that cut across her nerves like a knife.
* * *
Clíodhna sat in the stone circle, despite the freezing rain. Why was it so cold in the middle of the summer? The wind whipped her hair into painful snakes, so she tied it into a knot at the base of her neck. She clenched her jaw. Facing the sky, she opened her arms and called out, “Adhna! I have need of you. Please come to me.”
After the tenth repeat of this plea, someone cleared their throat behind her. She whirled, suddenly worried Bodach had answered her call instead. But there stood Adhna, his black hair shining in the rain.
Clíodhna ran into his arms, pressing up against his chest, surprised at how grateful she was for his steady warmth and sanity. The rain died as they embraced, and the sun chased the storm clouds to the horizon.
It had been six days since she’d resolved to ask him for help, and every day had become a further trial of her patience. The storms grew worse as her command had slipped.
