***I feel as though I'm racing the clock and I know that this will be late for Christmas, but still ... I just wanted this part to carry a little romance and a touch of magic in a Christmass-y sort of way.
I ought to mention that this is quite obviously a work of fiction - and to my knowledge, though Cu Sith as a phenomenon was known in Scotland for centuries here and there, there is no connection to the families mentioned in this, just as their slightly different way of looking at things is fictitious as well.
Finally, to avoid confusion, 'Sylvia' is not her real name - it's only something anglicized. Her name is Sile, which is an old form of Sheelah. Cale learns pretty quickly that she likes to hear that from him in a private moment.
0_o
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Cale found her back in the place where they'd slept as he came back in with Rufus and she was smiling a little smugly with the fur up to her chin, but she looked surprised when he went right on by. "Where are you going?"
"To the bathroom," he said with a bit of a shrug.
"Well I'd have thought that you'd have just done what Rufus did," she said, "You're a man. Shit, if I could suddenly pee standing up like you guys, I think I'd spend the first two days drinking gallons of tea just so I could laugh my ass off while I peed like that to write my name in the snow."
He laughed at the thought of it in his mind before he said, "I want to brush my teeth. Hey, do you want to use my toothbrush first?"
"No," she said airily, "I washed it off and used it already. Then I washed it again. You don't mind, do you? I was pretty sure that you'd be ok with it."
"That's fine," he chuckled, "I don't mind. Besides the horses, what have you got on the go today?"
"I want to go see my Gramma at the home. She gets lonely there over with my parents in Florida all winter."
"Can I come?" he asked from the top of the stairs and speaking with a toothbrush accent, "I didn't know that she was still alive. I'd love to see her."
"Sure," Sylvia said, "I wasn't going to give you a vote. There's family business to tell of. If I didn't go see her the first chance I got, I'd be looking at nothing other than quickly souring milk for the next month."
She stared at him with a sweet smile as he came back to her. "I didn't think right away," she said, "I've only just noticed that you were outside like that in just your pants and boots."
He took the clothing off and was back against her before she could see a possible downside and she fought against him laughing as he held her tightly to him, "Christ, you're as cold as a grave and you pull just as strongly."
"Sorry," he grinned as he moved away a little, but she was on him then, "I didn't tell you not to, did I? I'm used to it now."
"Not that I'm complaining," he smiled, "But it's almost daylight out there and there are these horses over the hill and I think it would be better to see to them before they figure out that you're here and hike on over to remind you."
"Yeah," she nodded, "and at least three of them are bright enough to do it, too."
"Hey, if we're going to the home, I probably ought to shave."
"No," she grinned as she rubbed his cheek a little, "I kind of like it and you're on vacation. Besides, Gramma won't mind a man looking like what he is. She's always been someone with a lust for life, and she thinks that the world would be a better place if we all just remembered what we are.
She'd be the first one to make a quiet comment under her breath about the behaviour of ... well for example, a woman who acts like a slut to excess by her actions -- but when that woman is in a quiet place with her man, she'd have even more to say if she acted as though she wasn't anything. Men are men, she'd say, and women ought to be women. In her view, there's a time and a place for being the way that we were intended to be. She'd tell you that everybody would get along a whole lot better if they got laid more."
He sighed, "You know, I've always like her. How do you think that she'll take the news about you and Paul?"
Sylvia laughed, "You might as well get used to something about us." She lowered her voice as though what she wanted to say was a big secret or something like that, "If you get us all together in a room -- Gramma, my Mom, Siobhan and me, we'll all drive you nuts. If we're having tea, and Gramma wants the cream, she'll say, "Could you please pass me the -- "
She won't finish the question because she won't need to; the rest of us will all know what she means and someone will hand it over while you're still waiting and eager to get her what she never asks for. That's our way. That's the way that all of the women in my part of the family have always been.
I'm not the only one who feels things. Oh, I'll bring it up because it's better that I do it before she does, but trust me, Cale, if I know my grandmother at all, she already knows."
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The old woman looked up from her book in a little disbelief as they walked in. "Hi Gramma," Sylvia smiled, "I've brought you a playmate."
Sylvia's grandmother laughed then, "Oh I wish that were true. What I'd want to do to a man like him -- why it just wouldn't be proper. It'd be a lot of fun, though." She was more than twice Cale's age at eighty-seven, yet her aged eyes were clear and they still shone and twinkled the way that he remembered her.
She sat up a little and held out her hand, "Well, I must say that you've turned into something remarkable, Cale Taylor. Sile told me that you were living on our land and in the old house by the stream. It does me good to know that you're there. That old place as seen a lot of living, you know. I hear that you've got it starting to look respectable again."
She nodded once, "I might decide to stick around long enough to see it come the summer."
Cale smiled, "All of the living causes me a few little problems with some decisions. The stairs are worn, but they're made of such thick wood that I doubt they'll wear out in my lifetime. All the same, they've got grooves from the passage of so many generations of feet going up and down. Part of me wants to refinish them, but in a way, I'm really rather proud of them like that, so I'll probably never do it."
"You suit yourself," she smiled, "all that I need to hear is that you're taking care of my granddaughter."
The statement caused Cale a little trouble, because he didn't know what was meant, or if it was her mind wandering. "I'm sorry," she smiled as she saw his confusion, "What I wanted to say was, are you doing what you can for her, now that her useless bag of shit husband has lost her?"
"He's doing just fine, Gramma," Sylvia said to help Cale past this, "I'm sure I'd be a wreck without Cale. He seems to know what I need, whether it's to talk or just to get out of the house."
"Well I've always liked you, young Mister Taylor, sir," the old woman grinned, "from what I see before me, you just be what she needs for her and I'm sure that you'll both be better off for it, I dare say. If I'd known what would come out of the summer that you worked for us those years ago, I'd have made a few changes, I can say. But things are the way that they needed to be, or my great-granddaughter would never have been born."
She looked up, at him, "For a young summer lover, you've made quite a mark, Cale. Now it's your time to be what you both should have been all along."
Before Cale could get his jaw to shut, she looked out of the window, "Would you mind walking me outside, Sile? I find myself wanting to have my cigarette of the afternoon, and I think there's someone else."
"Come on, Gramma," Sylvia smiled, "I'll get your coat and you can meet him."
Cale found himself wondering how Sylvia's grandmother could know the things that she obviously did, but after helping her into her coat and beginning the walk to the door, she turned to him, "Well, what the hell do you think it means to call someone a wizened old fart?"
On Sylvia's suggestion, Cale walked on ahead and by the time that old Mrs. Mac Domhnaill got her afternoon cigarette lit, he was walking over from the parking lot with Rufus.
She stared for a moment as they approached, "So there is Cù Sìth once again. In all of my life, I've seen them so often, but this is closer than I've ever been to one of the Black Dogs."
Rufus sat down then and waited, looking pleased to be out of the truck. "I don't think that he's really Cù Sìth," Sylvia said, "He's just adopted Cale, and he seems to like me as well. He can leave the land, Gramma. We've brought him to town before. He won't hurt you, so you can pet him if you want."
She held out her hand and Rufus held still, looking very happy to meet the woman whose old hands tousled his head. "Oh, he's Cù Sìth alright, or near enough" she smiled, "I can't believe that I'm touching one of the hounds. Look at his eyes, Sile. You'll see it there before anywhere else. Cù Sìth runs again, and I hope that I'm wrong, but I think it's so because he knows that he'll be needed."
She looked up at Cale as she spoke to her granddaughter, "Has it been decided between you?"
Sylvia looked a little uncomfortable as she spoke in a quiet voice, "I want it to be, Gramma, but I'd rather that it not be spoken of here with him listening and all. I'm already afraid that he'll think I'm crazy."
"Look here," the old woman said to Cale, "I think you already know that we're just a bit on the different side. I don't think that it'll change anything and it's not something big anyway."
She looked at Rufus once again as though what she saw might influence what she'd say next while her granddaughter looked uncomfortable. "Have you noticed that she seems to know things for no reason?"
Cale smiled, "You mean more than any other woman that I've ever known? Yes. Why?"
