The Seven Tales of Trinket (9 page)

For the first time, my dream of becoming a teller seemed within my grasp. I had a harp. And if I was closer to becoming a bard, maybe I was also closer to finding the truth I sought.

After we bid farewell to the folks of Conelmara, Thomas asked, “Trinket, what really happened to the selkies when you played that song? Was it magic, do you suppose?”

“Well, that is a story best told as we walk.”

Every storyteller needs to practice.

THE SECOND SONG

The Selkie’s Lullaby

These are the words that came to me when I sat on the rock on the isle of the selkies with my harp. If you feel your eyes tiring and your mind drifting away during the course of this song, ’tis possible that at least a drop of selkie blood runs through your veins.

Come lay your heid,

Come lay thee down

Upon my knee

Of woolen brown.

A song I shall sing

Of salt and sea,

Of waves and foam,

Lad, come with me.

Thy flippers are tired,

Thy skin is cold.

Slumber awaits,

Thy dreams to hold.

A song I shall sing

Of salt and sea,

Of waves and foam,

Lad, dream with me.

The spray is soft,

The moon so bright,

Come lay your heid,

And rest tonight.

THE THIRD TALE

The Wee Banshee of Crossmaglin

A LOVELY LITTLE TOWN

We’d heard rumors of tellers on our travels. Bald Fergal. The Old Burned Man. Stephen of the Swift Tongue. But no word of James the Bard.

Sometimes, I feared that we would not find him, but I did not say so to Thomas. However, if I could not learn how to be a teller from my own father, then ’twould be good to hear stories told by a true bard, not just by the local folk. Mayhap one would even allow me to apprentice. So we followed the road, hoping to meet a teller.

Crossmaglin was a lovely little village, surrounded by green and rolling hills. On the top of one of these hills sat the ruins of a castle older than time itself. Only the white tower remained intact, and that was quite surprising for the stones were placed together with no mortar, looking as if even the most delicate of breezes could knock them down. But the tower did not fall. It remained tall and strong, a watchtower, perhaps, over the small village.

When Thomas saw the tower looming over the village as we approached, he was ill at ease instantly.

“No good can come of this,” he said. He reached for the map I’d been holding and pointed with his grubby finger. “Look at the map, Trinket. Says right here ’tis called the
Banshee’s
Tower.”

“So what?”

“
So what?
I’ll tell you what. I do not want to go to a town inhabited by banshees.
Banshees!
Cross, ghostly old women who moan and wail when death is near?”

“I know what a banshee is,” I said. And I did. They were the messengers of death. There were lots of legends about banshees. I’d heard bits and pieces of tales about them, how they’d once lived in clans and ruled the night.

But those were tales from long ago. No one believed such things anymore.

“I heard the banshees, you know, on the night your mum died,” Thomas said quietly.

I was silent for a moment. We did not yet talk about
her
. There was an unspoken agreement between us that we did not speak about our mothers. Thomas most likely missed his mum more than he wanted to say. As for me, the loss was still too fresh, too painful to think about. So, I tried to make light.

“Nay, ’twas only the wind that blew the night she passed. And a peaceful, gentle wind it was.” But I remembered the way it whispered through the cracks in the shutters as if it knew my secrets, then burst into the room in her last moments.

However, I did
not
believe in banshees, though I thought a good tale about one would be a nice thing for a bard to have. And a town with a Banshee’s Tower simply had to have a banshee tale.

“Are you not hungry? I’m famished,” I said, changing the subject.

“Aye, Trinket, you know I am. Never was a lad born with as fierce a beast in his belly as myself.” It had been many days since we left the village by the coast, and we had eaten all of our supplies. The few folks we met along the road could spare a crust or two, but no tales. And since Thomas hungered for food, and I hungered for stories, did it not make sense to venture to Crossmaglin? It would have both, I was certain.

“Looks like a place that should be at the bottom of a lake where kelpies lie in wait to steal your soul … until a priest throws holy water on the lot of them and they get burned to a crisp.”

I had not expected Thomas to be so superstitious.

“Thomas, I don’t think—”

“Would you rather be carried away by a kelpie or burned to a crisp, do you think?” he interrupted.

“Neither. Come on, Thomas, I think I smell chickens roasting over a fire.” I sniffed the air dramatically.

’Tis the truth when they say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. Thomas begrudgingly agreed to come with me. “But do not say that I didn’t warn you.”

We raced to the village, my lovely harp jostling gently against my side as I ran. I was glad it fit inside my bag, for I did not want anyone with thieving intentions to see it. We followed our noses to the most heavenly scent we could imagine: roasted fowl, rich stewed vegetables, and fresh bread and butter.

We peeked through the window of the public house to see a white-haired woman serving plates of deliciousness to the folks sitting at the tables. Thomas and I exchanged a look, messed up our hair even more than it already was, and tried to look as pathetic as possible. We entered as two pitiful waifs in search of a meal. The pub mistress rolled her eyes and sighed, then directed us to two stools over by the fire.

“Just because I feed you today doesn’t mean I’ll feed you every day,” she said as she placed small plates of meat and bread before us. “Folks earn their keep here in Crossmaglin. That goes for food as well.” Had I nothing else but bread and butter for the rest of my days, I would be happy, so long as the bread was as crusty and tender as the bread of Crossmaglin. I gave Thomas my share of chicken, so I could fill my belly with more bread. The only thing that could have made the meal better was a story.

“Is there a teller here?” I asked the pub mistress between bites. “We heard that perhaps there might be one—”

“Nay,” said a man at a nearby table between slurps of soup. “But one might come next month.” I tried to hide my disappointment.

The man who spoke to us was named Mister Quinn. His voice was gruff and his manner as well, but he was not unkind. He offered a place for Thomas and me to stay, in his barn with the animals, so long as we helped to care for them. Thomas was thrilled, of course. I was not. Goats chew on too many things, including fingers, not to mention they smell. However, the only way to get myself inside a nice warm house for a night’s rest, like a
real
bard, was to trade a story for the comforts of a bed. And I was not ready to do so. Yet.

So, in the barn at night, after the animals had dozed off and Thomas had doused the lantern, I practiced my harp and my singing. Softly, of course. It would not be bragging, though, to say that I was truly getting better.

I was singing the second song I had created, a song of loss and death, for bards must be known for their tragedies as well as their tales of good fortune, when it happened.

By
it
, I mean the fierce storm that whipped up from nowhere. The air felt heavy, like before a rain, yet there was no lightning, no thunder. Only wind. Rough wind, the kind that howls and moans and causes the hairs on the back of your neck to stand on end. The kind of wind that does not go around you, but through you.

STORM

“What
is
that?” cried Thomas as the door to the barn was ripped open, waking all the goats and the various other animals.

“I don’t know!” I yelled, trying to be heard over the howling.

“Storm?”

I shrugged. It most certainly seemed like a storm. And the animals were certainly agitated enough.

“Oof,” Thomas groaned, as a goat kicked him.

It was difficult to see in the barn with the lantern out, and too dangerous to remain there amidst wild beasts, so Thomas and I decided to brave the wind. We battled the door, attempting to get through the opening without getting thrashed. The door scraped against the side of my face and whacked Thomas on the knee, but we managed to escape the dangerous building.

The gusts became harder and harder, nearly blowing us over. We held hands and proceeded, heads ducked down, across the road and to a nearby house. With the whitewashed wall acting as a windbreak, we paused to catch our breath.

“Thomas!” I called out tentatively over the sound of the wind.

“I know, Trinket, I am scared, too,” he yelled, still clutching my hand. I could feel my nails digging into his flesh, but I could not make myself loosen my grasp. The howling became screaming, then shrieking. Goose bumps spread across my body and probably through my hand to Thomas’s grubby palm and up his spine as well.

Then, as suddenly as it began, the storm ceased. One moment the noise was so loud there was no room in our brains for even the smallest of thoughts. The next moment, ’twas silent.

The air was still. I brushed the hair from my eyes and looked at Thomas.

We were too afraid to speak and still breathing hard from fright. We expected to hear stirrings throughout the village, the noises of people trying to get themselves back to sleep, perhaps the sounds of babes crying or dogs barking. But the silence continued. We walked, hand in hand, down the streets of the village, searching for, well, we were not quite certain what. I wanted to call out,
Hark, is anyone awake?
but Thomas put his finger against his lips and looked hard at me.

We were followed only by the sound of our own feet crunching against the gravel as we made our way back to the barn. Thomas tried to pull the heavy door open, but it was stuck standing slightly ajar. Something was wrong with the top hinge, as if it had been stretched and bent. Thomas pulled again, but it would not budge, so we squeezed between the door and the wall.

I could hold my tongue no longer. “’Tis strange, Thomas. Very, very strange.”

Thomas only nodded and walked over to the pile of straw he’d fashioned into a bed.

“How can you sleep?” I whispered fiercely.

Thomas simply shrugged and closed his eyes. “I am tired, Trinket. We walked quite far. And ’tis only wind after all.”

But I heard him moving restlessly in the straw. He could pretend to be brave all he wanted, but I knew he was scared, too.

THE BROKEN DOOR

Early in the morning, Thomas and I examined the barn door, but it was still stuck. Deciding to leave well enough alone, we squeezed out of the barn and went up to the house of Mister Quinn. We found him coming down the gravel path, and he divided up the tasks for the day. I was given the chore of milking the goats and Thomas had to muck out the sheep pens outside the barn. I was not certain which of us had the more unpleasant job. I’d only watched milking in the past and had been in no hurry to learn how, but the sooner I started my chore, the sooner I could talk to someone about the events of the night before.

“Quite a storm last night,” I said.

Mister Quinn grunted. He handed me a pail and a stool. We approached the stuck barn door; then he paused, taking in its awkward angle.

“I had never heard wind so fierce. It nearly blew the barn door off,” I explained.

“Are ye telling me ye broke the door?” he grumbled as he pulled on the handle with no luck. The door did not move.

“Nay. I’m telling you that the wind near blew the door off.”

“Ye’ll have to pay for the repair if the hinges are shot.” He touched the rusty metal of the pin of the hinge and shook his head.

“But we didn’t break the door. The wind did. ’Twas most fierce!”

He didn’t look at me but managed to shimmy his spare form in between the door and the wall and gave a huge shove. The hinge fell with a clink to the ground, warped and twisted, as the now-lopsided door swung open wildly.

“Coin for the hinge,” he muttered.

I stood with my hands on my hips and gaped at him. He did not notice, or chose not to look. How could he expect us to pay when we’d done nothing wrong? Nothing at all! However, he was a grown man, and we were but children. It would not do for us to be thought of as vandals. Who would invite a bard who destroyed things to their town?

So, the hinge would have to be paid for. I supposed I could sell the small silver mirror in my sack, but ’twould be better if we found another way.

And I would not sell the harp.