Arian's Pool

It was all beginning to get terribly real now, and I knew that my chances of getting home to deliver was zero. I thought about my options.

In the box in front of the squashed shelter Mike had built I knew was a whole mess of stuff, including a thermal blanket and I hoped desperately his cooker and pans would be there, I was bound to need hot water after all. If not there would be matches or a lighter and I'd make the best of it.

But before I considered the long term, I had just to get over the small point that my waters had broken and I was probably five or ten minute shy of giving birth. The pain wracked me again, and as I looked across the clearing to where Benny was now patiently sat waiting at the standing rocks with the occasional wag from his tail, all I could see was grass and dust floor – neither ideal to give birth on; where to do this, where the fuck could I do...

Hot water... a water birth! Into Pwll Arianrhod, the hot water treatment to beat them all.

I felt a new calm envelope me, and as the last contraction faded, I stood without pain or second thought. I quickly slipped off my grey hoodie, pulled off my T-shirt and hung them on the branch that Mike had shaped to hang his jacket on and I stepped naked into the cold water, happy that I'd be in the comfort and reassurance of the hot springs in seconds.

I slumped into the seat of stones I knew to be there, and as it had so many times before I felt the pain and the emotion leave me in the warm comforting waters. I tipped my head back and felt another contraction but the pain was minimal compared to what I'd had previously. I thought about whether I should begin to push at the next contraction and raised my thighs like we'd been taught at the lessons. I soon found that the rock shelf had two perfectly placed stone supports just in the right place and I didn't need to hold on to my thighs.

I laid my head back, thinking 'this time Maggie,' and looked up. I had to take a second glance. The three quarter moon I'd so admired was now full. I was no astronomer but even I knew that wasn't possible and I started to feel just a little afraid.

From my left there was a gentle 'huff' from Benny, and I looked across to make sure all was well with him and saw none other than Jess in of all things a dressing gown walking between the stones and stroking Benny's head.

"Jess!" I cried out in relieved delight and she turned to me and smiled. She looked back between the stones and spoke.

"She's made it, knew she would," and she walked towards me with a cursory stroke across Benny's wide black head, "you let the others through Benny Boy," she said and slipped off her dressing gown and stepped into the pool naked. It was a view of her I'd never had before, but I was rather concentrating on other matters. Behind her was Sue, one of ladies from the village supermarket similarly attired and in a second I was looking at her as she stripped naked and she too stepped into the pool and walked towards me.

"Hello Darling Maggie," said Jess, stroking my face and wiping my sweaty hair from my eyes and kissing my cheek.

"Jess," I said, "What's happening, how did you know..."

"Ssssh Darling," she said, "You're in Ffraid's pool and it's all going to be fine, your baby will be along any time soon."

The other lady was on my other side, and holding my hand.

"Thanks Sue," I said and looked up into her beaming face; with her being naked, for the first time I saw that she was wearing a silver cross with a blue circle in the centre; I looked across at Jess she wore one as well. Somehow I knew that she always had.

Finally, I looked across and there was Myra, Dr Gethwynn's long suffering secretary and receptionist, her T-shirt hanging on the branch next to mine.

She stepped into the water and took her place between my legs and I felt her hands on my thighs.

Myra's hands on my vagina and two fingers touching me where I was splitting to allow my child into the world. "Almost there," she said, "you're about as dilated as you can get Maggie so when you're ready Darling." She smiled and nodded at Jess and Sue, "On the next contraction Maggie," said Myra, "give me a long hard push my Darling."

I felt the contraction start in my boots and started to pant and pushed down for all I was worth.

The few clouds cleared and the full moon filled the clearing and pool with perfect white light, with Jess one side and Sue the other both holding my hands and supporting me I gave it all I could and I took a deep breath as the contraction ended.

The warm water felt so soothing, and I lay back.

"Well done Maggie," said Myra, "Another big one Darling, all you can for Arian."

With the next contraction I bore down with every ounce of energy I had and felt something give down there. Myra held up a hand and reached down into the water and looked at me with a beaming grin, "Well done Maggie, you've delivered the head, now on the next one just a nice gentle push until I tell you to stop."

"OK!" I gasped, ecstatic that this could almost be over and that there were three friends here to help me. As Myra dipped down into the water I saw that she had a silver chain around her neck and as she popped up slightly I saw that it was the same silver circular blue moon pendant that I wore! Again, somehow I knew that she always had.

The next contraction came on and I pushed and I saw a gush of bloody water between my thighs and before I knew it, a small wet human being was raised out of the water and laid into my arms. I laughed and cried all at the same time, a delightful mixture of relief mixed with joy and a vast wedge of gratefulness that my three friends had all been here to help me.

"It's a boy Maggie," said my midwife Myra, "And he's perfect." And he was perfect, and I fell in love with him there and then. "Do you have a name yet?"

"Ceri," I said.

"Lovely name," she said, "Nanna Bennett would have been proud of that?"

"Diolch yn fawr Santes Ffriad" said Jess, Myra told me that Jess has whispered, "Thank you Saint Brigid."

While everyone was still crooning over my new son, Myra dipped down in to the water and removed the afterbirth and using I knew not what, cut Ceri's cord.

Myra stepped from the pool and walked across to a steep earth bank and reverentially lay the red mass down and following the briefest inspection in the moonlight, pulled leaves and moss and soil to cover it. "Dyma i chi Arian." 'This is for you Arian' I was to learn later.

Sue and Jess in the meantime, were cooing over me and checking I was OK and talking away to Ceri, in some English and some Welsh. Myra returned and stepped back into the warm water and she too cooed over the new born.

After a few minutes of this Myra spoke.

"We'd best get this girl and her darling baby back to her bed."

I was barely starting to recover from giving birth and the thought of walking forty five minutes back to my house made my shoulders drop.

"Awwww, don't worry Maggie," said Jess with a knowing grin, "We'll show you the shortcut..."

Ceri was wrapped in my hoodie and held by Jess, while Sue and Myra helped me out of the pool and into my T-shirt. They put on their T-shirts and gowns.

Instead of walking back around the pool, and following my track, they held my hands and led me between the standing stones, and after a minute's walk I found myself dead tired and in the back garden of Jess' pub and then carried upstairs by Dai into the room I'd stayed in all those months ago when I first came to see my little Welsh village for the first time. I fell into a deep sleep.

I woke to the opening of curtains the next morning, and Doctor Gethwynn's beaming smiling face.

"Good Morning Maggie," he said, "and congratulations on the birth of your son! I've just checked him over and once you've had a bit of rest, couple of days I'd say, you can go home!" He raised my duvet and quickly checked over my parts and laying an absorbent pad back over them, grinned and nodded.

"Thanks Doctor," I said, still trying to come to terms with where I was and what the fuck had happened to me last night.

I sat up and there in a cot next to me was a tiny sleeping form of the perfect boy I'd given birth to the night before in just the strangest circumstances. Jess was stood behind the Doctor holding a tray of breakfast things.

"No problem," he said, "Pop in to the surgery in a couple of days and we'll give you the paperwork to go and register your boy. I'll leave you ladies to it." He left and saw himself out.

As Jess came towards me I heard a 'huff' sound from the floor, and there was Benny, lying between the door and the crib.

"Oh shut up you silly furry bastard," she said to him and I saw him drop his head back down between his front legs, with a few brief flaps of that long tail of his.

"What happened Jess?" I said sipping the tea she'd handed me.

"I don't know lovie," she said, "None of us do." She raised the plate of fried food and put it on a sliding table across me. "We get the call, and we just sort of go into the trees and come out between the stones." She poured herself a cup of tea and sat on my bed with it. "My girls were both delivered in Ffraid's pool, I took the waters mind you." She whispered, "Me and Dai were having a bit of trouble see." She carried on, "I woke up just shy of my due date and went into my garden out there. Before I knew it, I was in the pool and bearing down on a pair of twins. Nanna Bennett delivered my girls, Myra took over. Myra's a midwife anyway so it's not such a struggle, she's already teaching us, for when she hands over."

She reached across and touched my pendant. "You're Nanna's heir see? One of Arianrhod's daughters."

"I am?"

"Oh yes," She tilted her head back, "Always five of each; you, and Myra, Lin from the school, Gwen Thomas and another I can't remember, oh the girl from the chemist..."

"Brenda?"

"Brenda!" she said triumphantly, "Brigid and Arianrhod know who're useful to them. Always three, and always two and one, never three."

She lay a flat hand on her chest absent-mindedly and touched her cross. "I'm one of Brigid's daughters see? " she held up her cross with a centred blue silver circle I'd not consciously see before, "Been chapel since I could walk. I got this from old Mrs Morris once she got too old to clamber in and out of that bloody pool!" She chuckled, "Me and Sue, Pastor Tom's wife Nancy, Dai's sister Penny and her mother in law Martha. Nanna Bennett was still getting the call up until last year, right up to when you arrived in town. She saw you in the woods Lovie, she knew you'd found the pool," she grinned at me, "Knew you were coming; told Myra so she did. Knew that an outsider was coming to join the sisters. She guessed it was you when you bought her Nanna's old place. Once Arianrhod had you and your man, Nanna knew it was just a matter of time and that she could move on."

"Move on? Where to?"

"Whatever comes next Lovie," she shrugged her shoulders, "whether you're Ffraid's or Arian's, it just the same, this life finishes and then it's whatever comes next."

"So do I have to be... well, like Nanna Bennett, do I have to..."

"You'll know lovie," Jess smiled, "same way we all do. The pool affects us all in different ways; Nanna knew you were coming, I didn't know that you were going to be a daughter until I first caught sight of Nanna's necklace there, a few weeks after you told me you were pregnant. Myra told me what Nanna had told her," she breathed a sigh, "close those two, always were. Arian's daughters always are," she pointed at my neck and I held my pendant tighter, "It's not a big responsibility though Maggie; your time will come, same as me. You'll get the call and before you know it you'll be walking down your garden in a nightshirt, then minutes later holding the hand of some scared girl that's having her first baby; it's all like so much of a dream." She lay back against the headboard with an arm around my shoulder and closed her eyes, "My girls came along 20 years ago; a year or so after I was given my cross by Mrs Morris I received the call and found myself at the pool with very little memory of how I got there."

Ceri snuffled and we both looked across to his peacefully sleeping form under his blanket that Jess and Dai had got from my place.

"How many have you delivered, how many a year is it?"

"Awwww, got so that I don't remember half of them now; some I can, like Baby Ceri there, and Sue's son Owen of course but others? Half the time I don't know whether it happened or I dreamt it, and I kind of think that's how Brigid and Arianrhod want it."

"But..."

"Don't try to understand it Darling," she said putting a finger on my lips, "I don't know how it works and I don't try to. I just know that there are hundreds, probably thousands of people that have fallen in love and as many babies making their way through the world," she closed her eyes and waved a hand through the air in pure pleasure, just as Nanna Bennett had those months ago, "because of a little bit of magic!"

Myra the midwife called around that evening with the paperwork that the Doctor had spoken of, and we sat in Jess's living room and I fed Ceri for the first time, and Arianrhod's bond was set for ever. My milk flowed and Ceri latched on with both Jess and Myra cooing over him again. They showed me how to change him, and to 'top and tail' him.

Then after breakfast on his third day, with Jess walking Mitch and Benny alongside me pushing Ceri in his buggy we walked to my house and installed Ceri into his cot in my bedroom. I made tea while Mitch and Benny ran around the paddock in Labrador insanity after three days of either guarding me or trying to steal my meals.

I will confess that I had a few fears about what was going on; secret societies of women, Christian and Pagan, five of each appearing like three witches through standing stones to a mysterious pool that sometimes wasn't there, all by magic. I could have been living in a bloody Stephen King story.

Back in my house with my woods and my bit of river in sight that led to our pool, I watched as Jess hugged and fussed over my baby and just knew that there was nothing dark about Pwll Arianrhod, unless you took it with you.

"And you promise me you'll be OK Darling?" said Jess, for the fourth time checking my fridge and freezer.

"I'll be fine Jess, honestly," I said with a tear in my eye, "you've already done so much for me, for me and Ceri, and we'll walk around tomorrow lunchtime I promise!" I pulled her into a hug, "Thanks Jess," I said, "Thanks for being there, for holding my hand through all of this."

She gulped back her own emotion,

"Aww, a pleasure Maggie," she said, "you always know where me and Dai are. Besides," she grinned, "You have Brigid and Arian on your side as well, everything will be fine Lovie." She kissed my cheek, and bent down and pecked a tiny kiss on Ceri's tiny cheek, gave me a cheeky wave and left.

And so Ceri and I spent our first night alone in our house. I was set up quite comfortably and had already contacted my employer and told them I'd had my baby and because of it my maternity pay would be rolling into the bank for the next 6 months at least.

I sat in my arm chair with Ceri in my lap quietly nursing from me and for the first time he looked up into my smiling face and I felt my tears come.

Not from sadness and baby blues but from the huge, all embracing love I felt for my Ceri.

Sensing this, Benny was sat in front of me and checking that I was alright, sniffing and snuffling around the blankets that Ceri was swaddled in. With a wagged tail thumping rhythmically on the floor he 'huffed' in that way of his and settled back on the floor content that all was well.

I thought about heading back to the pool; I knew that Ceri would need a bath soon and could think of nowhere better for him to have his first one. I would do that, thank Arian and Brigid and as Nanna had pointed out to me five months ago, heal my body and soul.

Because after all things, I still missed Mike. I had the one thing I'd wanted my whole adult life and now I wanted desperately to share it with the man that had been the other half of Arian and Brigid's work.

I'd gotten used to him not being there, but had still walked to my pool as my belly swelled and bathed away my cares and concerns with my aches and pains. I thought back on the moments we'd shared and it wasn't just as lovers, as sex partners, we were way more than that. I loved him, and would have given everything to have him back in my life with our son.

I hoped that whatever miracle had brought me my son I hoped that something similar would bring Mike back to me. As I lay there back in my bedroom, thinking of all the goings on in the last weeks and months, chances are if I waited for the full moon, as one of Arianrhod's daughters my wish might come true.

I knew that I had to tell my family about Ceri so contacted my Dad and then my sister and said that I'd come and visit in a few weeks. Theresa said she would take a couple of days off work, and I wondered whether she'd heard something in my voice that gave her a hint that I had 'news'.

So almost two weeks after his birth that spring I took Ceri back to that pool - 'Pwll Ffraid', or 'Pwll Arianrhod yn' if you were following the more pagan tradition.

The night I'd walked there two weeks ago seemed like a dream, just as Jess had described it would and this time it took the full forty minutes that it always had!

Benny was no longer trotting along and popping on and off of the path I'd beaten over the last year, but circled Ceri's buggy like an impatient German shepherd waiting for the bad guys to arrive. I giggled and stopped to pat his broad and intelligent head,

"Thank you Benny," I said, and he closed his eyes and writhed his head around just as he always did, and flapped his tail.

He walked on a bit, and stopped to look back at me; his look all but spoke, "well come on; what are you waiting for?"

I walked on and there it was, the curtain of steam dissecting it in the way it always had.

I had a quick look around and walked across to where Mike's last shelter had been; the small tree still laying across it where it fell nine months ago.

There was no sign of Mike; I'd had a feeling all the way here that I'd find him this time, naked in our pool, with a smile and that look he gave me that told me I was his girl; well, that was how I'd read it at least.

"Please Mike," I closed my eyes and held my pendant, "please come back to me." I thought I heard a shout from some distance but thought it just a cry of the one of the many hunting birds in the Welsh hills and mountains.

I stripped naked ready to bathe Ceri in those twice blessed waters happy in the knowledge that he would thrive and grow strong, and I'd say thank you to Arianrhod and Brigid, just so I wouldn't upset either of them. I didn't know why, I just had to.

With my faithful Benny standing guard over us both I stepped into the water; it was normally refreshingly cold but for some reason today it was like it was almost warm, as if it especially for this thanksgiving and Benny lapped at it appreciatively and I took that as his approval.

Benny had quickly decided that the tiny mewling monster that had arrived that night in the woods was now the new most important thing in house and his world - even over me - and would stand (well sit actually) guard next to Ceri's crib or his car seat and huff at anyone that got too close. He even gave up his commanding view of the landing and front hallway to lay across the threshold of whichever room Ceri was in. His over-watch was something that I had gotten used to and it helped me to relax. I turned my back into the warm water and felt that familiar wave of peace wash over me.