The name punched her in the gut. “Like the Abbot? Does he still live here?”
“He just came back, after winters traveling around the country, yes. Uncle Donn asked Ma to name me for him. They call me Pátraic Óg, to tell us apart.”
Clíodhna chewed on that knowledge for a while before asking, “And Aileran? Does he still live near here?” Had Adhna even told Etromma or Donn about Rumann? Maybe Aileran still lived nearby.
Pátraic Óg’s shoulders drooped and he stared at the ground. “He died many winters past, Ma said. A fever took him in the night.”
Clíodhna couldn’t breathe. Her lungs wouldn’t work and her knees turned weak. She stumbled toward the log bench next to Pátraic Óg and sat upon it.
While covering her face in her hands, she tried not to give in to the tears. Not here, not before her grandson, a young man already grown. Aileran, dead. Etromma and Donn, in some far away county. In the north? Should she travel there to find them?
She looked up, her face streaked with unwanted tears. “Have you heard anything of my youngest son, Rumann? I’m not certain if Etromma knew of him.”
His face lit up. “Rumann? But of course we know of him! I didn’t realize he’s your son, though. He lives in a roundhouse near the bend of the river. He has a wife and several sons, though most are still children. Rumann works as a fisherman along the river. Would you like me to take you there?”
A tiny bubble of hope grew in her heart. She didn’t want to frighten it or burst it, so she clamped on the burgeoning joy until she met Rumann.
Pátraic Óg offered his hand. She accepted it and he drew her to her feet. He closed the door on his furnace and banked the edge of the fire before they left.
The path seemed half-familiar, but the foliage looked different. How many winters had she spent in Faerie? A dozen? More, if Rumann had grown, with a family of his own. Twenty? Perhaps that much, at least. He would never remember her. Adhna had taken him to the mortal realm before he could crawl. What would she have to do to convince him she was his mother?
As they traveled down the half-familiar path, her own home, the roundhouse and clearing in the bend of a river, came into view. Rumann lived where she had raised her family. The notion made her heart warm, and the small bubble of hope burst into something stronger, something magical and intense, despite her determination to keep it small until she knew for certain.
Two young boys played outside. The younger one, perhaps about seven winters old, looked the very image of Adhna, his dark hair tied back with a thong. Both looked up as they approached.
Pátraic Óg shouted toward the roundhouse. “Rumann! Rumann, I brought you a visitor.”
Clíodhna held her breath as a man came through the door. His dark brown hair unkempt, but his belly well-fed, he glared at both Pátraic Óg and herself. His voice querulous, he crossed his arms. “Well? Who is it?”
After swallowing her disappointment, Clíodhna stepped forward, her hands out in greeting. “Rumann, you may not recognize me, but we’ve met before. Sure, you would have been much too young to remember me, but I’m—” She caught her breath before she continued. “I’m your mother.”
Rumann continued to glare at her, but the boys, who had been watching this drama unfold, both gasped. The youngest one ran into the roundhouse, fetching several other boys and a thin woman with reddish hair. The woman looked Clíodhna up and down with a sour expression and strode to stand next to Rumann. She clutched his arm, staking her claim over her husband. “Who’s this, then?”
Clíodhna turned to Rumann’s wife, whose face seemed familiar. Had she known her before? “I’m Rumann’s mother. He’s not seen me since before he could crawl. Are these your children, then?”
Arrayed behind the couple stood three boys, ranging from the youngest brown-haired boy she’d first seen to a well-grown youth of perhaps twenty winters. They all stared at her with varying degrees of curiosity and judgment. That youngest boy, the one who looked most like Adhna, peeked out from behind his mother’s skirt, his eyes wide.
The woman narrowed her eyes. “His mother, eh? First, you’re barely older than he is. How can you be his mother? And if you are, where in God’s good name have you been all these winters? He’s not seen hide nor hair of you since he was a babe, as you say. Why should we believe you?”
This would be the hard part. How should she convince these people of her kinship? She glanced at the roundhouse. “I lived here, before Rumann came. My eldest, Etromma, married the blacksmith’s boy. Then came Donn, and sweet baby Aileran. Aileran would have been barely older than Rumann.”
Rumann let out a short bark of laughter. “He had ten winters more than me, woman. You should get your facts straight before you try to muscle your way into this family.”
Four winters? Then she remembered the time she’d spent in Faerie, the time away from Aileran, and realized her mistake. “Well, four winters is a small difference, compared to the gap between Donn and Aileran. Let’s see, when Etromma had fifteen winters, Donn had thirteen. That’s when Aileran came. I bore you five winters later, a twenty-winter span in total.”
Doubt crept across Rumann’s angry expression. He glanced at his eldest and turned back to her, his eyebrows raised. “You’re too young to have birthed such children.”
Clíodhna flashed him a wide smile and shrugged. “I married young and have been living by the sea for many winters. The ocean
