If you have ever been to Ireland, you may have felt the echoes of the past in this mystical land. For it is a land of ancient lore, of stone circles, dolmens, and chambered cairns, the legacies of our forefathers which you have only to visit to absorb the history of times long past. In the west of the land, the countryside becomes wilder, more barren, the landscape dotted with these timeless megaliths, the ruins of old castles and franciscan abbeys. And it is in the very northwest corner that my story begins, a strange tale but true nonetheless. I am smiling as I write this for I already sense your doubt - the imaginings of a fanciful woman and perhaps I am, but my spirit and soul belong here, although it is the past where they reside, a past that will never release me.....
When my husband and I had had enough of city life, we decided to begin anew in the country. Married for five years, we had as yet been unblessed with children but determined that if we did, they would reap the benefits of a healthy upbringing in the rugged countryside of rural Ireland. A baby was what I longed for for than anything in the world and a series of inconclusive medical tests had serviced only to put further strain on our marriage. As a freelance writer, the move for me was relatively painless and Conor too eventually found employment as a warden at CastleCaldwell, one of the old local estates owned by the National Trust. Everything was perfect in the beginning, in our spare time we would roam the countryside, exploring all the old sites and ruins for which I had such a passion, and by night, we would sip wine in the old cottage we were restoring, making love with reckless abandon in front of a glowing turf fire.
Conor indulged my obsession with the past and one wonderful day, we witnessed an eclipse from within the stone circle at Drumskinny. I will never forget the intense feeling of wonder as the light grew dim and not a sound could be heard, not even a bird singing or a breeze to rustle the leaves.I remember in my mind it was as if the world had simply stopped in time and a prickle crept up both our spines that something quite strange had occurred, something had shifted in the patterns of time almost as if past and present had become one, a portent of things to come...
Later, after a stiff dram of whiskey, Conor laughed at my theories and eventually he made me laugh too, although that night when we went to bed and made love, I was still uneasy about something undefinable and my mind was drawn back to another time..another place..
There is old graveyard a few miles down the road from where Conor worked called Caldragh wherein resides the little known Janus Figure. This is a pre christian stone which has been chiselled on either side to resemble a man's face. No one to this day really knows its significance whether it was a place for rituals or a sacred fertility site and although I had driven past the battered old sign which pointed to it on many occasions, I had not as yet explored. Two weeks after the eclipse I drove up to CastleCaldwell to meet my husband for lunch, enjoying the coppers and rusts of autumn which now dominated the landscape. In a moment of unmitigated madness, we took a walk and ended up making love in a secluded woody copse, laughing and pulling at each others clothes, ignoring the cold and merely enjoying the spontaneity of passion and I think I never felt as close to him as much as I did that afternoon. I drove back feeling replete but elated, enhanced by the wetness of love between my legs and feeling reckless and free.
As I drove over the bridge which links Caldragh to the mainland ,in my head began a whisper, a chant which began to grow louder and louder. The road narrowed into nothing more than a lane until it was wild and overgrown and disappeared completely and I sat alone in my car, wondering why my head felt so strange and where I had taken a wrong turn. Stepping from the car, I froze, alerted by a strange haunting sound, the sound of people singing, no singing that I recognised as anything I had heard before, a primitive sombre hum which echoed inside me, compelling me to it, beckoning me hypnotically.....back....back...back.....
"Ethlinn! Be silent girl! "
Macha, the High Priest's woman berates me in hushed but sharp tones, her narrow face, pinched and vicious in her dislike of me
"It is the way child, as it has ever been. Their blood to our Gods, their sacrifice for our strength so stop shaming your clan with this weakness! "
The holy ground is awash with a sea of we islanders today. Great trees adorn the circle of land here and in the middle is the great idol of our God, Jainesh, where the High Priest now prepares his first sacrifice. The man from across the water hides his fear well but even so I sense it ripping through him, as his hands are tied behind Jainesh and his head pulled back to expose the whiteness of his throat. The others of my clan chant the victory song in celebration of the capture of two of the bad ones from the mainland and although my lips move in pretence, I cannot hide from Macha the anguish that I feel for this man.
It has always been this way from I was a child, we are a closed community, suspicious and hostile of others. When the bad ones united their clans and rebelled against our intolerance, our men carved the statue to our deity, One side is for the killing of the bad ones and the other for the copulation of newly united couples to breed new blood to the clan.
The tears roll slowly down my face as the High Priest's sharpened flint skims expertly across the man's flesh and he slumps in his bondage, if his soul is free now to serve Jainesh, then why do I still weep? As I linger a while in my sorrow, I notice the other bad one, awaiting his fate. There is something about him which compels me to stare as he is like no other I have seen before. Where the others are dark and small, this one stands tall and proud, his long unkempt hair, yellow like the colour of corn on a summer day. His eyes are of the deepest blue and they are locked on mine with such fierce intensity that I take an involuntary step back but remain unable to tear my gaze away.
The others have melted back to the shelters now but I am still here. This man is to die tomorrow, this man that I still watch from behind the safety of one of the great trees to which he is bound. He knows I am here for he is smiling, he is so beautiful........
When I woke up it was dark and my head was aching. I was lying alone in the cold evening air before the Janus figure, its strange oval eyes regarding me steadily, timelessly. Of what had happened I was unsure save that I had had a dream or a vision of something which I could not quite remember, something almost tangible but at the same time, elusive and just out of reach.
Conor had understandably been worried sick when I did not arrive home until evening, shivering and unkempt and he insisted on calling the doctor out who consequently pronounced me fit while his eyes told me it was probably a psychiatrist I was more in need of. I was put to bed with much fussing and pampering, still a little dazed and uneasy for I had never suffered a serious illness before in my life, let alone passed out and now here I was, within the space of a few short days, a hallucinating mad woman. That night as I drifted off to sleep, I smiled lazily at the sudden feel of Conor's mouth sucking and pulling at my nipple, blazing a trail across my belly and then to my surprise, his face burrowed between my legs, hands pinning my wrists, a sensual insistent mouth lapping greedily at the soft folds of flesh. My body leaped in shock at the electric reaction caused by this sudden and quite unfamiliar domination as my Conor had ever been the gentlest of lovers. But still his tongue flicked and invaded until I climaxed against it, rubbing my sex lips at his face wantonly in need of the sweet release.
Presently I felt my wrists released and I smiled fondly, reaching down to ruffle Conor's dark unruly curls......there was no one there. Reaching beside me through the gloom of darkness, I found my husband, he was lying on his side fast asleep. It had not been him making love to me! I lay for along time during the night, frightened and confused, my lacerated emotions in turmoil in sharp contrast to my satisfied, glowing body. Eventually, as sleep eluded me and not wanting to waken Conor, I dressed warmly and slipped downstairs, grabbing a torch from the cupboard upon this insane departure. I drove the short distance to Caldragh, knowing full well that my actions were not those of a rationally thinking woman but I knew, I felt that it was all linked somehow to the Janus figure, a feeling of evil and impending doom about it which had haunted me from the first moment I had laid eyes on it.
And now there it was, partially covered in moss and lichen, weathered and smoothed with age, staring coldly at me in the torchlight through the predawn mist of the ancient cemetery. As I sat before it on the cold ground and reached out to touch it, again the fogs clouded and obscured my vision and I was drawn helplessly back to the other time, but still the same place.....the same evil place.........
It is early morning now and the mists are beginning to lift and still he is awake, as am I. They call me a changeling in the village as my hair is the colour of the sun in autumn whereas theirs is of dark copper and auburn. I have never been like them in any way. But he tells me I am beautiful and I do not feel strange with him as I have always done with my own clan. His name is Krida and I know now, I will not let him die.
His hands are unbound now and I am curiously unafraid. How can he be a bad one when he reaches out to touch my face so gently and draws me down on the soft moss before Jainesh.
