The Hidden World

Chapter 5

At last Maeve's voice trailed away. A little silence fell before Padraig spoke again. He shook his great shaggy head, like a dog coming out of the water, and smiled a little unsteadily at Maeve. Cordelia got up and moved closer to him, and he took her small hand in his great, rough, hairy one.

"Well," he said, "this could all be a tall tale that you are telling, trying to get a bit of attention for yourself—and heaven knows you tell it well enough that a priest would be convinced—but—"

"What are you saying?" Maeve demanded. "Why would I lie to you? I am from Ontario; I flew here just a day ago. I've never been in Newfoundland before."

"You ... flew," he repeated, with an odd pause between the two words, and slowly shook his head again.

Maeve sprang up. "Look," she said desperately, "could you just explain something to me? What is this place and why are you all acting so funny?"

"Well," he said, looking at the ground and hesitating as if he did not know how to begin. "Well, we told you this village is called Connemara. You are on the eastern coast of Avalon, about a day's journey south of Temair—"

"Temair!" Maeve had a curious sensation, like vertigo, as if the ground had suddenly lurched up beneath her feet.

"Aye." He was looking full into her eyes now, his blue gaze open and direct. "Temair, the seat of the kings in ancient times. Avalon's other royal city, far to the south of here, is -- "

"Gwynedd." She finished the sentence for him, almost whispering.

"You do know of our land, then?" he asked.

"I read ... in a book ..." The dizzy sensation had gone, but she sat down suddenly on the wooden bench.

"No one has come into Avalon from ... the other side ... for many a year." His rumbling voice softened. He was gazing off into the distance now. "There were never many... berry- pickers who wandered too far on the barrens, and hunters who got lost in the woods. The forest folk and the people of the ice ..." His words drifted into silence and he turned back to her. "But not for some time now. We had thought that perhaps all the doors were closed, that there would be no more. No travellers from the Shadow to enter our world."

"The Shadow . . ." She faltered. "You mentioned that before. What is the Shadow?"

"Our name for your world. Beyond our own world of Annwn, it is said, lies another—and it is to Annwn as a shadow is to the object that casts it. Like, and not like; similar, yet strange."

Annwn. This could not be happening; it couldn't be real. A feeling akin to panic seized her. She leaped up again, then staggered as the earth once more seemed to shift beneath her; she slowly fell forward as the sunlight was replaced by a seething greyness.

She never felt the ground come up to hit her.

When she came back to herself, she was once more lying on the straw pallet in the crude, unfurnished bedroom. Branwen knelt at her side, holding a cold, damp cloth to Maeve's forehead. The sun shone in the doorway, but whether hours or minutes had passed she could not tell.

Branwen smiled down at her. "Eh, then, you're back with us! That is what comes of not breaking your fast—and naught but bread and cheese for supper, either! Little wonder it is that you fainted, child. No"—as Maeve tried to speak—"first you must eat, and then you may talk. Here, I have prepared a bite for you."

It was more of that wonderful bread, this time spread with honey, thick and sweet and the colour of sunlight, oozing through the bubbles in the bread as if through the cells of a honeycomb. With it there was milk, thick and creamy, in an earthenware mug. Maeve sat up and ate, her head clearing as the honey restored her blood sugar and eased the shock. When she had finished, she sat quietly. Now that she was free to talk, she felt disinclined to. It was Branwen who spoke.