Holder of Lightning

"The next day, the shepherd, his wife, their two children, and my mam went back down to the beach. They found shattered pieces of the currach, but nothing else. Niall’s body wasn’t ever found; he drowned, most likely, and his body was dragged to the bottom by the weight of what he wore, or tossed to the shore at the foot of one of the wild cliffs nearby and never seen.

"Kerys stayed with the shepherd family, whose name was Hagan, and I was born that winter. I don’t know what tale she gave the Hagans regard-ing that night-for all I know, it may have been simply the truth. The Hagans kept to themselves, rarely going into the nearest village, and Mam said they told the villagers that she was a cousin who had come to stay with them. When the shepherd’s wife died the next spring in childbirth, my mam remained, and eventually married Conn Hagan, my stepfather. They had two other children of their own. I can say little but good about Conn Hagan-he treated me as well as he treated his own children. If it was a hard life, it was no harder for me than for his own.

"There’s not much more to tell. When I was sixteen, I felt the need to see more of Talamh an Ghlas than the few acres of our farm. When I left, Mam gave me the cloch and told me the tale about her and Niall. I set off north and came to Falcarragh, and sailed from there over to Inish Thu-aidh, and lived on the island for a few years. I even visited Inishfeirm, though I didn’t tell anyone who I was. I visited the Order, and they told me about the Before and the clochs na thintri and Lamh Shabhala, the Stone of Safekeeping.

"I played the stranger with them, saying that I’d heard the Lamh Shabhala was also there at the cloisters, but they said ’no.’ Many years ago, they told me, a cloch had been stolen from the cloisters, and though some had claimed that the stone was Lamh Shabhala, the Moister was unconcerned about the loss because the claims regarding the cloch were almost cer-tainly false. If the stone was a

cloch na thintri at all (and the Moister doubted it) it had been no more than a clochmion, a minor stone. No one knew where Lamh Shabhala was, they told me. That cloch was lost.

"But I learned a lot about the clochs na thintri from the Order of Inish-feirm and from other places, and I always wondered. Many of those I talked to spoke of the Return, the Filleadh, for they believed that the mage-lights would return soon, maybe within my lifetime. I thought that if this cloch was truly Lamh Shabhala, then I would be the First Holder. I would hold the renewed stone. I wandered more, leaving Inish Thuaidh and traveling the High Road south until I came to Ballintubber.

"And I found a new and more enduring type of enchantment in Maeve, and I stayed…"

"What happened to the cloch, Da?" Jenna asked. "How did you lose it on Knobtop?" The phantom of her father glanced up from his chair, where he seemed to have fallen into a reverie after his tale.

He shrugged.

"I lost it, or it lost me," he said. "I don't know which. I wore the necklace all the time. I walked often on Knobtop while in Ballintubber-I seemed to be drawn to the mountain, or perhaps it was the cloch that drew me there. After I married your mam, I'd take the flock up there nearly every day. One night, not a month after we married, I returned from grazing them there, and when I took off my shirt that night, I saw that the silver cage that had held the stone was empty. The wires holding the stone had moved apart enough for it to fall through.

I looked for the stone for the next year, almost every day, combing the ground while the sheep grazed. I never found it. But I know if I'd seen the mage-lights over Knobtop, I'd have come running. But from what you've said, it seems I never had the chance." He seemed distraught and upset. "I wonder," he said finally. "I wonder if the cloch did it all: brought itself to Knobtop because it knew that the mage-lights would come there, pulled itself away from me so it could stay there. Or maybe that was just all coincidence. Maybe the mage-lights would have found the cloch wherever it was. I don't know."

As her da talked, Jenna became aware of light moving against the walls, colorful, swirling bands. She glanced at the balcony door; outside, the night sky was alive with the mage-lights, sheets of brilliance flowing as if in some unseen wind, dancing above her. "Da!" she cried. "There! Can you see them? Da?" She looked behind; he was gone. The wraith had vanished.

The cloch called to her, still in her hand from when she had shown it to her father’s spirit. Jenna went out onto the balcony, into the chill night, into the blazing shower of hues and shades. She lifted the cloch to the sky, and the mage-lights coalesced like iron filings drawn by a lodestone. She could hear people in the streets below, shouting and calling and pointing to the sky and to the tower on which she stood, and behind her, her mam and Mac Ard hurried into her room.

"Jenna!" Maeve called, but Jenna didn’t turn.