Rain

Chapter 1: Wispy Ways

The clouds loomed in the sky; a beautiful purplish hew that signaled the falling twilight. She breathed in the fresh Irish air, and she wondered how she had spent the first 17 years of her life breathing in exhaust. But that was no matter, she thought.
She turned to her home, her castle; she could hardly believe she was here. If this was a dream, she knew she never wanted to wake up.
She directed her camera toward the ancient stone. It was crumbling, the ivy had eaten away at it and there was no roof, but that did not change its beauty. She could feel the history; one step on the ground, and she could feel it. Like the castle itself had been waiting for her, she felt that the castle felt happier to be lived in once again.
She could see the similarities between herself and the majestic lady standing in front of her. Like Ceridwen, she had been broken by time and the carelessness of people. And yet there she stood after 200 years, broken but with her spirit still intact. And she would fix Ceridwen, just as Ceridwen would fix her.
There was only a little while before the dark had completely fallen, and though the night was her favorite time, she had forgotten her torch in her bedroom. So she started to roam the grounds, not going too far knowing that she could get lost in the expanse of the grounds.
She felt as if spirits wandered here, and would hardly have been surprised if she had seen a ghost wandering the glen, but she could not see anyone. And she knew that the spirits were not on a plane that she could reach.
She didn’t know what direction she took, or quite frankly, how long she had been walking, but she stopped when she came upon the only patch of ancient forest left in the glen. The trees, though still, seemed to whisper at her approach. How long had it been since they had seen a living human? She did not know. But she had always felt that trees knew somehow, like they observed everything, and had feelings, but different than the way humans did.
She stepped forward and placed her hand on one of the mossy trunks. Was it just her, or did the tree really vibrate under her touch like it seemed? She closed her eyes, and rested her forehead on the ancient being. What have you seen? She wondered.
Although she never truly felt alone with trees or nature around her, a new feeling of not being alone came over her. She lifted her head from its resting place and looked around. She did not see anything, and was about to head back, when her eye caught sight of a little golden light. Like through a veil, the light shined bright yet opaque in the middle of the forest.
Weary though she should be, she was not. And normally because of her experiences with horror movies, she would say that going into the forest all by yourself in the darkness with no way to find yourself a way out, was simply a bad idea. But her brain and her feet seemed to be at an impasse.
Her feet followed on their own accord, following the light that seemed to be floating in midair. But she was not frightened. She was no stranger to mystical lights as if through a veil. She had seen them as a little girl, had played with them although she knew they were not in her world.
She knew the land had been deforested and that there weren’t many of the ancient trees left on the grounds. But you couldn’t tell that inside her little forested heaven. The trees surrounded her, some reaching out to touch her as she passed. She wanted to take pictures of the beauty around her, but she was scared that would scare the faery away. She had missed the lights and all of their insights; she sincerely wanted it to stay.
The light seemed to be further away with every step she took; the dark had fallen completely by the time it seemed to be any closer. Slowing down her steps, she followed the now still light until she came across a small clearing with a little stream running through it. For a second the light behind the veil seemed to hover over the stream, and then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone.
Ceridwen was left alone in the dark night, but she was not scared. The wispy faery had led her here for a reason; that she knew. She sat gently on the ground, closed her eyes and listened to the babbling brook. She stayed in a silent meditation for a while, listening to the sounds of nature around her. She could hear the pine martens in the trees, the foxes sneaking on the ground, and the brook taking its course to the sea. It was not until she smelled the rain and a new feeling of being watched came over her that she opened her eyes. But as she looked toward the sky, expecting it to release its rejuvenating essence onto the waiting earth below, she was surprised to see that the clouds had actually receded a bit, and the glow of the full moon was now alighting her path.
How odd, she thought, and deciding that it was time to head back, started to get up. Now in the light of the moon she could see that she had actually been sitting in a faery ring, and that it was not the only one in this clearing. But what was even more interesting, ancient stones formed a circle around the clearing. She had not seen them before because they were covered in plant foliage, but now they drew her attention like a moth to a flame. She slowly walked forward, taking care not to step on any of the mushrooms, and touched the ancient stone. She knew that no one must have been here for decades. She knew that ancient stone circles could be found all over Ireland, but she though that usually they were landmarks that were kept from being eaten by ivy.
Though bad as she knew it was, she wanted to take pictures before she disturbed anything. She walked around slowly, taking pictures of the clearing from every angle. She didn't know if she would ever find the clearing again, and she didn't want to miss capturing an inch of its beauty. Once she had gone over the clearing twice, making sure to get a different picture each time, she slowly walked over to the biggest stone and freed it from the vine’s clutches.
But what is that on it? She thought. Symbols had been carved into the stone. Symbols that almost looked like runes, but were not.
Curious to see if the others were decorated with the same etchings, she revealed the others. There were 9 in all, 1 in the center, 3 around it in a circle, and 5 surrounding them. She didn’t know how she had not seen them before, but now free from their confines, they stood out greatly from the foliage surrounding them.
She took a whole new round of pictures, but all the while the feeling of being watched never let up. Deciding to test her abilities, she decided to take a shot from the approximate place she felt the stare was coming from. She looked at the picture that she had caught, to see two eyes in the picture, only revealed by the camera’s flash. Unnerved more than she'd like to care to admit, she slowly started to make the way back to the castle, but not in a fashion that she thought would raise suspicion in the visitor. Whether human or giant beasty, she knew that being alone was not exactly wise.
She made her way through the wood, which seemed to be a lot less thick than when she had been through it before. She took pictures along the way, not only to continue to not raise suspicion, but because there were some sights that were just too beautiful to not capture.
Still, all the way through the trees, she felt those eyes, keeping pace with her. She could not hear anything, but she knew she was being followed. But she knew that if whatever it was had wanted to hurt her, it would have already happened by now.
So she made her way through the woods, which would have been faster, but she was walking at a leisurely pace to not get herself into trouble. But once she exited the outside border of the trees, the feeling became less pronounced. What was strange to her was that the smell of the rain got less intense as she got further away. But not wanting to over analyze right this second, as she was still about a ½ mile away from the castle, she carried on. Just keep moving, she thought to herself…
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Once inside, she spent a few hours with her family, not trying to freak out about her previous encounter. They talked, ate and created; but when it was time from them to go to bed, Ceridwen was left to let her mind wander.
Because this is what would have been the summer break before her final year in high school, homework was not there to take up to time. And though she was doing other things, her mind could not stop obsessing. She felt different, she could not explain it, but she felt antsy, like she was waiting for something.
She kept occupied until the point came in the night for her get ready for bed. She did her normal morning routine and was inside her covered room before sunrise.
“In before sunrise; out only after sunset. A night in the life,” she said to herself.
She turned off the light, crawled into her bed, and pulled the curtains closed around it. She was in the complete darkness now.
And though time to sleep it was, she could not. Too bad we don’t have internet yet.
Instead of going online, she opened the laptop that she shared with her family, which she has every night, and wrote down what had happened. And she didn’t know how, but she didn’t think that would be her last mystical occurrence.
Apparently she wrote for a while, because she was still writing when her sister came for the computer, but she still didn’t feel done. She saved her work and handed it off to her sister, feelings aside.
She lay there thinking for a while. She didn’t know at what point those thoughts turned into sleep, but she found herself in dreams filled with mysterious blue-green eyes and a pale hand reaching out to her through the rainy forest…