Danu's Arc

Chapter 1 of 2

Danu knelt at the black water and knew it was sick. She was the old mother, Anu, who had named the rivers before her children learned to speak. She had come to the bog to birth a new god from its deep currents, a heir to hold the land after she was gone. But the water under her palm was wrong. Something older than her was pulling at the roots, and now a second poison had struck it from above. Florence stood behind her, barefoot in the reeds, yellow dress muddied to the knee. The witch had broken her own salt circle to call for help, and her hands still shook from it. "He is at the tower," Florence said. "Something is hurting him. The water tastes like it too." Danu rose. "I feel it. The same wound in both." "Then I'll go—" "No." Danu set a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Sit. Breathe. You gave the water spirits a piece of yourself to keep him. Do not spend more tonight." Florence's mouth opened, then closed. She sat. Danu walked to the little drying shed behind the hut. Bundles of St. John's wort hung in tidy rows, gold blossoms still bright. She pulled down three bundles and crushed them between her palms. She waded into the bog to her thighs and let the crushed flowers fall. The water swallowed them. A slow pale light spread out from her legs. "Isa," she said to the dark. "Wake up. I need the low notes." Far off, in the arbor where the piano slept, a chord struck itself. The bog carried it. The pale light in the water steadied and began to clean. But the poison at the source was still bleeding in. Danu turned toward the tower rising past the trees, its telescope tilted at the sky. She found the fairy on the stone steps, wings folded, watching Hozier where he slumped against the base. He was gray as wet peat, breathing shallow. Moss clung to his jaw. "Stop," Danu said. The Leanan Sidhe looked up. "Mother. You came down for a musician." "I came down for the water you are spoiling." Danu stepped between them. "You do not drain them out of spite. Listen to me. You carry a cracked piece of our old fire. My fire. A mortal heart cannot hold a god's weight without burning to ash. That is what you do to them. That is all you have ever done." The fairy's mouth thinned. "A pretty story." "It is the true one. My children went under the hills and were forgotten and became your kind. You are what is left of us." The Leanan Sidhe stared. Then she stepped back off Hozier. The pull on the water eased. Danu felt the deep currents run clean again under her feet. Hozier coughed once and opened his eyes. "Florence," he said. "She is safe," Danu answered. "Now stand. The bog is ready to give me a child, and I need you both to witness it."