Highland Raven

Chapter 21

It was sundown when Druanne finally emerged from the forest. She wore long, black robes and carried a vial of red liquid and a small wooden goblet. Her face looked very pale, and her eyes had a faraway look. Her arrival marked the beginning of the night’s ritual.

“Where’s Sid?” I whispered to Uald who was standing beside me. I had recovered from the vision the blood had prompted earlier that day, but Aridmis’ words and the tenor of the day left me feeling shaky and on edge. It was as if I could feel the worlds thinning between us as we moved toward midnight. What was real, what was past, what was present, all were starting to get confused. I hated the feeling.

“Gone.”

My stomach dropped, churning with worry. “Gone where?”

Uald shrugged.

We gathered at the center of the coven, standing in a circle around the star we had laid with stone, the five fires at each point, the center cauldron fire burning brightly. Druanne came to stand in the middle. Once she was in place, we began.

“Once the wheel has gone round,” Druanne called.

“Once again the year has come and gone,” Balor echoed.

“And with time, we too shall fade. And with time, we too shall die,” Epona called.

Her words chilled me. I glanced sidelong at Banquo. What did Aridmis mean that our love would result in one of our deaths? Was she right?

“But not this night,” Druanne answered.

“This night we live and bid you spirits rise,” Bride called.

“By the Morrigu, by Scotia, by the Crone, join our feast,” I called.

Banquo spoke next. “Ancient ones, cross the divide. Join us on this night.”

“In peace,” Bergen called out, striking a cord on his harp. The discordant sound carried across the night’s sky.

“In goodwill,” Ivar the bard added then began beating his drum rhythmically.

“With our thanks,” Druanne called.

“So mote it be,” Balor intoned.

“So mote it be,” we all answered.

As Ivar continued to beat his drum, Druanne began her progression. One by one, she went to each person and offered them a drink of the potion, whispering something in their ear. After, everyone stood in quiet contemplation. I saw Aridmis swoon, struggling to keep her footing. Behind Druanne, Bride followed with her basket of masks. Epona donned a mask with long silver and red horsehair, the face made from a horse’s skull. Seeing her like that made me shiver.

A moment later, Druanne stepped in front of me, blocking my view. I was surprised to see how…changed…she looked. Her eyes were very distant. Her skin was pale, the blue veins on her forehead protruding. She looked almost ethereal.

“Blood of MacAlpin,” she whispered in my ear. “Honor your ancestors,” she said, handing the potion to me. Her voice sounded hollow.

Her hand was shaking as she held out a small wood cup full of the potion. I drank the sharp liquid then handed the cup back to her. It tasted bitter; my tongue caught the taste of mushrooms, berries, and acorns. There were other sharp, herbal tastes. When the liquid hit my stomach, I almost vomited. Taking a deep breath, I held the liquid down.

With a smile, Bride handed me the raven mask. “Now, my sweet girl,” she whispered.

I pulled the mask on, again hit with that same dizzying sensation. I stared out through the slits in the eyes, and this time my vision seemed sharper. I felt like I could see from far away. I looked at Ivar who had, at some point, put on some odd mask formed from a bear’s skin. I blinked, and it seemed then truly to be a bear standing in his place.

Once everyone had drunk the potion and donned their masks, we all walked around the circle counterclockwise, meeting again at the feasting table. Epona stood at the head of the table. Silently, we all stood behind one chair at the table. Banquo stood across from me. He was wearing the stag mask, looking out at me through the sockets in the stag’s skull.

“We call you, ancestors. The walls between the worlds are thin tonight. Join us from the beyond. Dine and dance with us this night. Come amongst us. Take pleasure in these earthly things. Whisper your secrets and feel our love,” Epona called.

“Call your ancestors!” Balor ordered.

“Thomas,” Epona called.

“Aiden,” Bride called.

“Dorrit,” Uald called.

They went around until they came to me. “Emer!”

“Brighid,” Banquo called. His sister, I guessed.

Once we’d all evoked our ancestors, Balor called out, “Ancestors, you are welcome. Eat! Dance and be merry so you may remember the feel of flesh and the pleasure of life!”

With that, we all filled the plates before us, not to eat, but to serve. I never knew my mother. I had no idea what she liked to eat. I knew nothing about her. Feeling miserable, I set her plate and poured her a glass of honey mead not knowing if she would have preferred ale or wine. Behind my mask, tears streamed down my face. In the end, my mother was a stranger to me. She would never come. I felt alone in my misery.

“Come, my dear,” I heard Bride say, putting her soft hand in mine. She wore a dark mask that covered her face with black lace. She led me to the fires where the bards had pulled out their instruments and joined Ivar, who was still drumming, in making wild music. I scanned around for Banquo. He was gone. Aridmis and Epona began to dance. The place shimmered with glowing orbs of silver and while light.

I felt hot and very dizzy. The entire world spun. I looked out with the raven’s eyes and my vision doubled. The music clanged strangely. Everyone looked deformed in their masks. And suddenly, the coven seemed to be full of people. I sensed a great number of spirits lurking there with us. Intermixed in the crowd, I swore I could see the smiling faces of maidens, Priestesses and Druids who’d come before us. Their clothes, from courtly dresses to animal skins, hinted at ages past. The dead, our ancestors, had heard our call. For a glimmering moment, I saw Epona standing face to face with the shining spirit of a young, handsome man. Her wild boy. Their eyes were locked on one another. Had his name been Thomas? Was that who she’d called?

And then I felt someone very close to me. I turned to look for Banquo, but it wasn’t him. A woman had touched me gently then turned and walked away from me toward the forest. I squinted with my raven eyes and studied her. She had long, daffodil-colored hair and green robes. Emer. She turned and smiled at me, beckoning me to follow her. Like a fey thing, she floated over ferns and fallen logs deeper into the forest on feet that never touched the ground.

“Mother?” I called after her.

She turned and smiled at me but didn’t stop. She beckoned me forward, leading me deep into the forest. I moved swiftly after her. I prayed she would stop, would talk to me. I would have given anything to hear just one word from her. I desperately wanted to look at her face. My mother had come. I rushed deeper into the woods, following her. We passed through a thick stand of trees and came to a clearing. At the center of the clearing, bathed in moonlight, stood my druid.

My mother stopped at the edge of the clearing. I moved toward them, stopping as I neared my mother’s shade. My heart felt like it was shattering in half. I looked into her face, into her eyes. She shimmered. Her eyes were so green! I had never known that, that her eyes were the color of new leaves in spring. She smiled at me, raising one heavy brow at me, then smirked playfully.

“Mother?” I whispered, but she shook her head, motioning with her fingers to her lips that she could not speak. She smiled at me gently then flourished her hand toward Banquo. I turned and looked at him.

My druid. My bridegroom. My love. My husband. He was everything to me.

I took two steps toward him but turned and looked back at my mother. She nodded to me then turned and floated back into the forest. Not far away, waiting on a small knoll, was my father. My mother went to him and took his hand then the pair faded back into the ether. I turned back toward Banquo.

Behind the raven mask, my vision was still in double. The world around me glowed with the silver light of the moon. Banquo motioned for me to follow him then began walking through the trees.

“Where are we going?” I tried to ask him, but I swore that instead of my voice, I heard the caw of a raven.

Banquo looked back at me, but he was not himself. He was a stag, strong and powerful, his wide horns glimmering in the moonlight. He was no longer a man; he’d become the embodiment of the horned god. He had morphed into his true form. And as I moved, I realized that I was no longer myself either. I followed him on my raven’s wings. I too had revealed my true nature. I was the embodiment of my clan’s crest. I was Cerridwen, but I was also a MacAlpin: I was the daughter of ravens.

I followed my stag deeper into the forest. Soon we came to a giant oak tree at the center of a grove I did not recognize. The tree was immense and seemed as old as the woods itself. How was it I had never seen this tree before? I looked around me and realized that nothing looked familiar anymore. I wasn’t near the coven. I had walked…no, I had flown…between the worlds. I scanned all around. In the darkness just beyond the tree, tall Samhain fires burned. I saw silhouettes of men and women spinning fire. They held long torches, flames burning at the ends, and spun the flames, making ancient shapes appear on the canvas of night. From somewhere in the dark, I heard the beating of drums and the sound of flute music.

“Where are we?” I asked Banquo who stood before me still in the form of a stag. This time, however, I heard my voice. And moments after I spoke, I felt a shift in myself. My raven wings had gone.

Banquo turned and looked at me, morphing from a stag to a man. He took my hand. “Lost in time.”

I peered around me, trying to make out the people nearby. I saw their woad-painted faces and primal clothes. Their hair was braided in a strange fashion, and they beat on shields made of leather. They carried copper swords, and the bards amongst them played flutes made of bone. They were the Picts, the ancient blood of Alba. We had traveled back, or perhaps we had been conjured back, in time.

I stared at Banquo and then I knew the truth. Banquo had led me to one of the thin places. We had not traveled back in time: we had simply found a place where all times exist. He had taken me between the worlds, to a place stuck in the very middle.

Banquo reached toward me and pulled off my mask. Tentatively, I too reached up and removed his. With the masks off, Bride’s spells were undone. Some of the dizziness passed. Druanne’s potion, however, still had my mind reeling. Regardless, we were, once more, Cerridwen and Banquo. And in that moment, all of the chaos and noise and fire and people simply faded. The ancestors departed. The forest became still and quiet. There was no one and nothing but us and the moon. We stood alone under a tall oak tree in the forest in the dark of night.

“Marry me, my love. Here, in this old, sacred place, before the Gods and our ancestors, marry me,” Banquo said then.

I stared at him.

“Maybe our families will deny us in the end, so marry me here, as my priestess and I am your druid. Marry me here as Cerridwen. And as Cerridwen, you are my wife, my bride. Before your ancestors and mine, marry me. Before the old gods, please, Cerridwen.”

“Yes.” I knelt down on the mossy ground at the foot of the oak tree. Taking Banquo’s hand, I pulled him down to join me. My druid then pulled out his ceremonial, silver-hilted knife. I wasn’t surprise to see it was capped with a stag’s head.

“By the Father God,” he said, “Stag Lord Cernunnos of the Forest…”

“And by the Great Mother, as Maiden, Mother, and Crone…”

“I pledge my soul, my heart, and my blood to you,” Banquo said.

With a quick move, Banquo ran his hand along the top of the blade. Sharp crimson erupted from his flesh, blood pooling in his hand.

“And I pledge my soul, my heart, and my blood to you,” I told him. I took his knife and sliced my hand the same way Banquo had done. The metal bit sharply. The pain seared my palm, shooting pain all the way to my shoulder. I shuddered but accepted it. The sacrifice of blood would bind us, no matter what fate threw in our way. I was pledging myself to him, to my druid, with my blood and my soul. There was no deeper bond. This was the old way of marrying, bonding our spirits together. My guess was that this was not the first time we had performed such a ritual. No matter what, Banquo and I would always be connected. And beyond all imagining, my mother had been the one to bless my marriage.

We joined our hands together, our blood mingling. The essence of our beings mixed together. I closed my eyes. The cut throbbed. I felt the warmth of Banquo’s hand, his blood wet against my palm, my fingers.

“You are mine,” Banquo whispered. “And I am yours.”

“You are mine, and I am yours,” I replied. “Bound through time.”

“From life to life.”

We leaned in and kissed one another.

“No matter what happens, we are linked as man and wife, priest and priestess, before the gods,” Banquo whispered in my ear.

“So mote it be,” I whispered in reply.

Banquo kissed me gently then lay me back on the forest floor. Above me, I saw the tall limbs of the oak tree stretching into the night’s sky, the moon high and full above us. I kissed my husband desperately. I tasted the potion on his mouth, the sharp tang of mushroom and herbs on his lips. I smelled his skin and tasted the sweat on his neck. Though the air was cool, I pulled off his shirt. I wanted to see him. His chest was tattooed with swirling designs, old symbols that pledged his undying allegiance to the old gods. I stroked my hand across his skin, feeling the hair on his chest.

“Land and sea,” I whispered then pulled off my dress and undergarments.

Banquo undid his pants. “Forever one,” Banquo replied. He pulled me up and toward him, kissing me hard, then lay me back down on the ground. I felt the bare earth beneath me. Its energy rose from the ground and filled my spirit. Banquo kissed my face, my neck, my breasts. He opened my legs and soon I felt his wet mouth below, making me tremble. He then rose, and I reached out to stroke him.

“I’ll be easy,” he whispered in my ear, and moments later I felt his cock press into me. I felt the sting as my maidenhood tore for him. I whimpered a little, and Banquo moved easily, carefully. “I love you,” he whispered in my ear.

As he moved, the pain faded. We locked our eyes on one another. His curly hair became wet with sweat and stuck to his forehead. His eyes were soft and loving. He leaned down and kissed me again and again. I loved the feel of him inside me. I closed my eyes and stretched my arms out on the ground, feeling the leaves and earth under me. I looked up at the moon. Everything around me was alive with magic.

I wrapped my legs around Banquo and moved in tandem with him, feeling my body rising in passion. Banquo began to breathe hard. I was sweating with him. My body began to shake with pleasure, a feeling like lightning shooting from my head to my toes as I felt Banquo inside me, growing larger, moving faster, until he found release.

Exhausted, we both lay still on the ground, Banquo still inside me.

“My Priestess,” he whispered. “My bride.”

It was the last thing I heard before I fell asleep.

* * *

I woke the next morning to find the forest covered in thick fog. I could barely see an arm’s length in front of me. Banquo was gone and so were my clothes.

“Banquo?” I called in a whisper. My voice echoed in the mist. “Banquo?”

There was no answer, but I heard the sound of a small hammer striking an anvil somewhere in the distance. Uald?

I sighed. Where had Banquo gone? And how had I managed to lose my clothes? I headed toward the smithy, prepping myself for all the jokes I knew Uald would make. But I had given myself on my own terms. I had wed the man of my choice. It was done now, no matter what anyone said. Now I would be the bride of the son of Lochaber.

I moved forward in the fog, following the sound of the small hammer. I stepped carefully. I was not certain where Banquo had led me, but surely it was somewhere near the smithy. I just must not have noticed the tree before. Perhaps Balor had shown Banquo the place. Druids, after all, were oak seekers.

Soon the outline of the smithy started to clear. I walked toward it but got confused. It didn’t look quite like Uald’s smithy.

I saw the shape of someone standing near the anvil. They stopped and turned to look toward me. I took two more steps in the fog as it swirled around me. Across from me, the other person took a few steps toward me. Moments later, I was standing across from the black-haired man from my visions. He was wearing a leather smith’s apron but was shirtless underneath; sweat rolled down his neck. He was very fair. He had skin white as snow, his eyes clear and bright blue. In one hand, he held a small hammer, in the other, a shield he had been crafting. On it he had pounded the symbol of a raven.

“You!” he whispered then stepped toward me.

I opened my mouth to speak, not even sure what I would say, but all I heard was a raven’s shriek.

I sat up with a start.

“Are you all right?” Banquo whispered, sitting up beside me. “Heavy mist,” he said then, pulling me back down beside him. He covered us with his tunic. “Balor says to never sleep in the fog…too dangerous. The worlds are too thin at such times,” he said sleepily. “But you are so warm, and my head is still so heavy,” he said, snuggling close to me, “wife” he added with a chuckle. He closed his eyes and slept again, leaving me alone and shaking.