Childhood

10 march 1965

Mother was sitting beside him. He lay in her bed.

Mother had followed him to his room. All blood had been cleaned away, yet he could still smell it. His own iron gore. That distinctly lupine scent. The scene of the monsters attack played again in the forefront of his mind.

His breathing had quickened and he wanted to run. Mother had quickly removed him from the scene.

Father had been getting ready for bed, sitting down on his bed and puffing up the pillow.

Mother had put him down in the middle of the king sized bed.

Father had jolted upwards and looked down, disgusted, at him.

“He is sleeping with us” mother declared. Her tone left no room for arguments. Still father tried.

“No, Hope. He is to sleep in his own bed” father narrowed his eyes.

“He can’t sleep there after everything. He stays” mother narrowed her own eyes.

Father opened his mouth but she spoke before he could.

“If you won’t accept it, you can sleep on the couch” she challenged.

Father stormed out, slamming the door behind him.

Now here they were, fathers snores echoing from the living room. Mother looked sad. She looked down more often than not these days. He still didn’t know exactly what was going on.

Mother patted their weatherworn copy of “the tales of Beedle the bard”. The pages had yellowed with age. The cover was nearly undistinguishable. It had been passed down the generations on fathers side. He loved that book. Mother and sometimes father had read him every story. So many times he nearly knew them by heart.

He loved the stories “the fountain of fair fortune” and “the wizard and the hopping pot”. “The warlock’s hairy heart” scared him a lot. How he killed his beloved. It was sick and made his stomach twist. How he ate her heart reminded him of how the monster had eaten away at his guts.

Mother took forth a new book. It was dark green. He couldn’t make out the letters.

“Your father and i bought a new book for your birthday. We know how much you liked beedle the bard. I grew up with different storys but i do admit that i like those ones. You know that my mother is welsh but my father is irish. These are stories that i grew up with” mother smiled.

She opened the first chapter.

”A girl with skin as pale as the moon and eyes as dark as the waves was born on the otherworlds isle of promise. They called her Cliodhna. The godess of the sea. Daughter of the waters king.

She could change shape. Cause shaply was she. Soar through the wind with a sea birds beak. Weav as a wave across the still waters.

Three brightly coloured birds followed her. They fed upon an otherworldly tree. Their song could heal the ill. The tune soft and sweet.

Cliodhna of beauty and love. With waves of sea green hair. An enchanting face, the fairest of them all.

With her song she lured them in. Beautiful voice sounding over the whispering sea. On a rocky shore in the Celtic cork. The sailors fell to the bottom of the endless seas.

A man by the name of Cormac begged for her aid. She visited him in the land of dreams. Kiss the stone she whispered in his ear. Voice more beautiful than the oceans she guarded.

Cormac kissed the Blarney stone. In court all was persuaded by his eloquent words. Swayed by his now so verbose tongue. Won with the gift of gab. He placed the rock in the wall of his castle.

Cliodhna fell in love with a mortal man by the name Ciabhán. She had never previously been interested in the meagre affairs of humans yet she had to be with him.

Left the land of promise she did. A minstrel played the music. The song lured her to sleep. Ciabhán is dragged to sea by her fathers wrath. Manannán mac Lir thwarted her plans. As the king and warrior of the otherworld he dragged her down to the watery regins. She fought and she foamed yet she remains.

The ninth wave is hers. Feisty and strong. Forever goes on.

The queen of the sea. Queen of the banshees. Druidness. She goes by many names. Cliodhna the queen.” Mother finishied as his eyes closed.