Solstice

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1598

Ragged clouds chased by a bitter wind raced across the February sky, darkening winter blue to slate grey as a low pale sun was slowly shadowed by his sister moon. Agneish stood beneath the whispering trees of the Quayle Woods, her hands resting on the small of her back as she gazed up to the heavens. Something was happening. She could feel it all around her.

Thrumming in the trees and buzzing in the soil. The air was thick with anticipation. Waiting. Was it only the eclipse? A rare event indeed, but surely not rare enough to cause nature to roil and fizz with such vigour?

  “Mam? Are you all right?” Breeshey stepped out from the cottage, ducking her head a little under the lintel. Agneish felt swift pride in her daughter, her only child. Breeshey was fifteen, tall as a willow and slender as a reed.  Golden-haired and blue-eyed, she was a fair, bonny girl whose pretty face had caught the eye of the son of the local landowner, but whose sweet nature had captivated him. Agneish was unsure if she was pleased or dismayed by this turn of events. Breeshey had a role to play, a service to perform. If she married Juan Kerron it would interfere with her sacred duties to the stones. But young Kerron had land, money, and position. He could give Breeshey fine clothes and jewels, even servants. 

  “I am well, child,” Agneish told her.

  “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”

  “Not wrong, only…” Agneish faltered, the words failing her.

  “I don’t like it,” Breeshey insisted. 

  “It’s only the sun hiding. It’ll return soon.”

  “Not that,” Breeshey scoffed. “The sun is already returning. Mam, there is something more. I know you can feel it too.”

  “What can you feel?” Agneish demanded, but Breeshey couldn’t say either.  

Their home was a modest cottage here on this tiny island off the coast of Maughold Head. Hidden in the woods, overlooking the sacred sloping circle on the hillside. Low stones carved with ancient symbols and stories, a circle of power. Goddess Stones. Unlike the tall, masculine stones on the headland, these were feminine. Strong and magical.  

  Agneish, her mother, her grandmother, and a hundred generations before had all lived here. They were the wise women of the forest, eternally guarding the gateway. No permanent lover, no holy matrimony, and no husband.  When needed, the Goddess provided a man to father a girl child and ensure a new generation.  Would Juan Kerron, a relative newcomer to Maughold, and his gentle romance change the endless tradition of their ancestors? Agneish wondered if her concern for Breeshey influenced how she reacted to the eclipse.  

  In the centre of the circle, embraced by the stones, was the gateway itself, but Agneish had only tradition to tell her the bracken-fringed opening into the hillside was anything special at all. Generation after generation of Quayle women had protected this place, defending it so well nothing ever happened; the gateway hidden inside the hill never opened.  

  Agneish sometimes wondered why they were here at all. Was the gateway blocked? Was it dead? But the Goddess kept them in mystical bondage, mother after daughter after mother. Agneish was merely a link in a chain; whether the gateway was dead or not, someone had to be here, and that someone was one of her line. Always. Agneish glanced at Breeshey who was frowning at the sky, and relief warmed her tired heart. Breeshey would stay. Juan Kerron would not take her from her rightful path.

  The gateway itself was unremarkable. Forgettable. For all the world appearing as the entrance to a rabbit warren in the centre of the stones, choked with bracken and weeds, nature hiding the opening into the earth. A passage into the hillside, so low even Agneish, who had never reached a great height, had to stoop. Breeshey, who was unusually tall standing at least two hand spans above her mother, had to hunker right down, virtually on her hands and knees to enter. The passage twisted and turned under the hill for some distance, gently inclining and widening into a dusty cavern pierced with solid, natural pillars. A mystical cave that appeared to pulse with its own eerie pale light throbbing from one section of the rocky wall, seeping through stone from a thousand, million miles away. Agneish knew from long experience that sometimes the light dimmed to almost nothing and sometimes it shone so brightly her eyes would burn for hours afterwards, but the waxing and waning of the light was the only change she ever saw.

The eclipse was passing, a slender crescent of pale sun widening once more. Agneish breathed a sigh of relief; maybe her fraught emotions would calm down now. 

 “Bree, bring the kettle to boil. I need a tisane.”

  Breeshey smiled, turning towards their small home. “Of course, Mother.”

  “Good girl,” Agneish sighed. “I know-“ she began, but in the space of a heartbeat, the day shattered.  

  The ground shook beneath her feet, bringing her to her knees as light streamed from the gateway, blazing like a noon-day sun in July. The crack was so loud she clutched her ears, sure she would never hear again. Breeshey was screaming, her hands over her head as she cowered in the open door of the cottage. Agneish crawled to her daughter, the two women holding each other as the world returned to normal.  

Finally, the light dimmed and the ground stilled.  

  “M-m-mam,” Breeshey stammered, her face ashen.

  “My ears,” Agneish murmured, her hands clasping her head. “Oh Goddess, my ears, child.”

  “Look, Mam!” Breeshey cried. “Look!”

  Agneish followed her daughter’s gaze to the gateway and to the filthy, slender hands pushing up through winter bracken. Her heart stuttered in fear and awe. Terror and a sense of exquisite wonder.

  “Goddess. Oh, Goddess.”