Excerpt: Time is the Echo (take two)

This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.

--Philip Larkin

A thousand years, a thousand more,
A thousand times a million doors to eternity
I may have lived a thousand lives, a thousand times
An endless turning stairway climbs
To a tower of souls
If it takes another thousand years, a thousand wars,
The towers rise to numberless floors in space
I could shed another million tears, a million breaths,
A million names but only one truth to face....

I still love you.

--Sting

Now:

“Why do you two always pick the worst moments to do this to me? I don’t have time for this!” The stiletto heels of my Luana Vallesi black suede boots clicked threateningly against the polished floor of the posh Chicago gallery as the two men tried to keep up with me. I wasn't quite five and a half feet tall, while they were both well over six feet, and my stubby little legs were outdistancing them—in stilettos no less—you would think they would be smart enough to back off. But no.

Nicholas’s voice was maddeningly soothing, the voice he reserved for difficult juries and truculent girlfriends. “Kierra, we just want you to make a decision.”

Sawyer chimed in. “A or B. Black or white. Me or Him. Easy.”

I skidded to a halt and turned to glare at them both. The bastards had the gall to grin at each other. Over Sawyer’s shoulder I saw two of the gallery workers carefully lifting one of my paintings onto the far wall, straining with the weight and size of it. Oh, damn.

“Arturo! No, usted! That painting doesn’t belong there. It’s later in the cycle; it should be over on that wall. Can you look on the back of the frame? They should be numbered,” I called to the man in charge. The two men set the large canvas back down on the floor and Arturo peered at the back of the framework, scratching his head.

“Donde es?” he said, shaking his head. “There are no numbers, Miss Kierra, I’m sorry.”

I sighed. Why was every opening like this? My head was beginning to pound, and I still had to decide what to wear tonight. Oh, and apparently my boyfriends wanted me to decide which of them I was to spend the rest of my life with, and which of them I could do without. I pressed two fingers to my temple. “Would you two go home? Please?”

Their eyes widened in perfect sync.

“She said please,” Nicholas said, clearly impressed.

Sawyer looked around wildly, trying to suppress a grin as his hands patted down his arms and chest. “And yet….the world hasn’t ended. We’re still here!”

“Oh, shut up, the both of you!” My hand came down and smacked the closest one of them, which happened to be Sawyer.

Nicholas snorted.

“Theeerrre’s the girl we love!” Sawyer wrapped me against him before I could hit him again. Even with the three inch heels my face barely cleared his shoulder. He gave me a quick kiss on the forehead as his hands slid down my back and found that special place only he seemed to know, the place where, when he pressed and rubbed like he was doing now—even for only just a moment—all my tension and stress seemed to slide down my legs and out of my body like water. I made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a moan as his hands left me and he stepped back, my body playing traitor to my still angry mind.

“Can’t we talk about this later?” I asked them. “I—oh, Arturo, no! just wait a minute, please!” I took a step toward the workers, then turned to look back at the two men.

Nicholas caught Sawyer’s eye and jerked his head toward my studio, located at the back of the gallery. “Come, my friend. Let’s away to our lady’s chamber to await her return there.”

"No, you will not ‘away’ to my chamber. Just go home. I’ll see you there, later.” Much, much later.

Nicholas looked at his watch. “It’s not even noon yet, and by the looks of things you’ll be stuck here for a good while yet,” he said in a rational, even voice that grated on my every nerve. That voice was part of what made him the most successful trial lawyer in Chicago, but it made me want to scream. “When you finally do get home, you’ll tell us you have to concentrate on being calm for the opening, and that we need to leave this for another time. Like you always do. No, I think we’ll wait,” he said coolly, turning away from me and strolling toward the studio with his elegant hands thrust deep into his black wool Etro trousers. I could hear him whistling the main theme of Haydn’s Surprise Symphony as he sauntered away, the jaunty notes bouncing off the polished floors and bare walls that surrounded him.

My eyes slid from Nicholas’s retreating back to an abstract metal sculpture displayed on a marble plinth a few feet away. The sculpture was about a foot tall and weighed maybe three pounds, the work of an up and coming artist from New York City. I reached for it, but Sawyer caught my wrist in his hand, divining my purpose.

“Uh-uh,” he said. “You don’t have the arm for it.”

I made a face at him. “I could make it. Easy.”

He shook his head. “If I were sure you’d make him, I’d let you. But it wouldn’t be worth” he glanced at the discreet price tag located on the stand and let out a low whistle, “that much money if you missed. Besides, you’d be destroying art.” He raised an eyebrow at me.

I laughed against my will. Sawyer was not a fan of modern sculpture. “As if you of all people would consider this art.”

He slid his thumb over my wrist intimately, then let go of my hand so he could strike a pose of deep pondering as he studied the work. After a moment he shrugged. “Sorry…it looks like the crankshaft of my GTO stood on end. In fact, I’m sure that's what it is.”

"Heathen."

"And yet, you still love me. I must have some qualities that make up for my Neanderthal taste." He stepped closer and slid his arms around me again. "God, you're tense. Why don't we slip out of here for an hour, go home, and I'll run you a quick bath while I make us both some lunch, and then we can practice that tantric pose we couldn't quite get a handle on last week." He slid his forehead against mine, his longish brown hair soft against my cheek, a hopeful smile playing easily around his mouth. I reached up and brushed his hair back. I loved Sawyer's hair, which was glossy, almost to his shoulders, and light brown. Nicholas and I were both dark-headed, although in my case my nearly black shoulder length hair was matched with pale porcelain skin and green eyes that announced to everyone that at least one of my parents had to be Irish, while Nicholas was obviously descended from much more Mediterranean stock, with his olive skin and brown eyes.

I leaned into Sawyer for a moment in response, then glanced back over at Arturo and the other worker, who were still waiting for me and who were now watching Sawyer and me with interest, and stepped regretfully out of his arms. I shook my head. “Too much to do."

Sawyer sighed. "Somehow I knew you were going to say that." He ran his hand through his hair, a habitual gesture of his I adored, that always told me when he was bothered and trying to hide it. I wondered just how serious the two of them were about this choice they wanted me to make. It wasn't the first time they had brought the subject up, but we had always managed to find a way around whatever was causing them to decide the status quo wasn't working. Surely this would be the same. Still, I cringed a bit as Sawyer added, "I'll just go join Nicholas in your studio, then. Any message?"

I looked at my watch. "Tell Mr. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” that I’ll be at least two hours, and to cool his jets. Maybe he’ll get tired and go home.” A woman had to hold on to hope.

“You know he won’t. He’s more stubborn than you, as impossible as that may seem in a mere mortal.”

I propped my fists on my hips, annoyed—not for the first time—at their strange kinship. “Why can’t you be normal rivals and hate each other?”

“Why can’t you be a normal woman and love one man at a time?”

Hmm. He had me there.

******

Exactly two hours later all twenty-four paintings had been sorted, tagged, and hung in their proper order. I stood in the middle of the main gallery sipping at a bottle of water, studying what amounted to five years of my life. Five years of my life carved out in small chunks, while still working on the paintings that had made me my name, the ones that had made me rich, the ones that had allowed me to buy a half share in this high end Chicago gallery.

I screwed and unscrewed the water bottle repeatedly, a nervous gesture that kept my hands busy now that the work was done. I was known in the art world for neo-realism, for oil paintings that celebrated the beauty of the Earth as it truly was. No pretty seascapes or rolling hills for me, no sir. Sometimes those things found their way into my work, but usually they were in some kind of distress.

I was the closest thing the art world had to a photo journalist. I painted floods, snowstorms, what was left after a hurricane flattened an island. The first few years of my career I struggled with my subject matter, struggled with people understanding why I painted what I did. It was still something that was hard to explain, my attraction to destruction, even to myself. I didn't know what drew me there, but I thought it was finding the spark of hope in the hopelessness. At least I hoped that was it; I didn't want to think about what it said about me otherwise.

Then came the painting that changed everything: the Hayman fire near Denver. I hiked in a few weeks afterward with my camera and sketchbooks to find places where the dirt itself had burnt away, so intense was the heat. Weeks later, and the ground was still unnaturally warm. Even so, life goes on, the earth tries to heal, and that’s what my camera captured that day, and what I painted later on when I got back to my studio: the brown charred earth, the blackened trees standing like dead sentries at a forgotten post, the mist-shrouded grey mountains stretching beyond, and in the foreground, his wings spread wide, a Cooper’s Hawk angling in for a landing onto a tree branch. Prints of Hayman’s Hawk, as the painting was known, became a popular symbol of renewal with the ecology-minded, and my path—and career—was set.

I turned around slowly, looking at each painting in order. And now I was going to show the world this set of paintings, this completely, totally, wholly, world’s apart different group of paintings. What was I thinking?

“Doubting yourself again?” Nicholas’s voice came from just over my right shoulder. I sighed and leaned back into him, He wrapped his arms loosely around my sides, and I was surrounded by the light woodsy smell of his cologne and the warmth emanating from his body.

“I hate it when you read my mind,” I said, without venom.

“You love it.” He dipped his head forward and brushed his lips against the side of my throat. I growled softly.

“Where’s Sawyer?”

“And I hate it when I kiss you and you ask where he is,” Nicholas responded, also without venom, although I knew it was true nonetheless. “Work called. He’s up on the roof yelling at some poor mid-level clerk.” Sawyer was the CFO of a foundation that delivered humanitarian aid to children in war-torn areas of the world.

“Sawyer never yells,” I said. “You’re confusing him with you again.”

“I hate it when I do that.” He kissed my neck a second time, his fingers pressing into my ribs. “No mentioning him this time.”

I rolled my head toward the other shoulder to give him more access and suppressed a smile. “No mentioning who? Sawyer?”

His teeth sank into my neck, warning me. I reached up and yanked at his short, dark hair. “Ah-ah-ah. No bite marks on the night of my opening.”

His teeth raked the sensitive skin of my neck for a moment longer, but then he let go and stepped back. “Spoilsport. Fine. Then come here and spill the reason for all this self-doubt.” He took my hand and led me to a leather couch against a glass block wall. We sat down, our thighs touching, and he waited with typical Nicholas-like patience. I swear he could out-wait God if he put his mind to it. It annoyed and awed me equally in turns.

I thought about how to explain the thoughts jumbling around in my mind. Finally I said, “You know who Andrew Wyeth is.”

“Mmm….Christina’s World. And you have that painting in your hallway of the dog on the bed .”

I took a sip of my water. “He was probably my earliest influence. I remember being fascinated by Christina’s World as a little girl. I would stare at the woman in the painting for hours and just will her to turn around because I wanted to see her face so badly. Was she happy or sad? And why was she in that field by herself? Was there someone in the house on the hill waiting for her? Did she love them? It seemed to me that there must be, and that she must love them desperately, but that something had gone terribly wrong….” my voice faltered, then continued. “I was a teenager when the Helga paintings came out.” I glanced at him. “Do you know about the Helga paintings?”

Nicholas shook his head. “I’m afraid I wasn’t much of an art watcher during those years,” he said mildly, but his dark eyes were momentarily shuttered.

I shifted on the couch and stroked my fingers down the arm of his suit-coat gently, the slight roughness stubbling against my fingertips.

“I’m sorry,” I said, simply. Nicholas was so cultured, so urbane, that I sometimes forgot how rough a childhood he had lived through. Alcoholic father that ignored the family for his bottle. Angry, abusive step-mother who felt saddled with someone else’s kid and used beating that child as therapy for her anger issues. Several bad years as a runaway. When I remembered all he had gone through it made me want to go back in time so I could kill every single person who had ever hurt him.

He caught my hand in his and kissed my fingertips. “Don’t. You know I hate sympathy.” Then he chuckled. “But I’ve got to say, the avenging angel look you get sometimes is a turn on.”

I glowered at him. “Be careful or it’ll be you I run through with my sword.”

He blinked slowly. “I think I’m the one equipped to do the sticking, sweetheart.”

I pulled my hand from his, gently. “What an extremely crude thing to say.”

“Yes, well, they say blood will tell. Now, tell me about the Olga paintings.”

“Helga paintings,” I corrected him.

“Oh, yes, the Helga paintings.” He slid his jacket sleeve up and looked at his watch. “And then maybe you can tell me how that connects to your feelings of self-doubt about these masterpieces before we’re interrupted by Skippy and have to move on to bigger decisions. I really need to get back to the firm for an hour or two before this shindig of yours tonight.”

I stiffened and slid away from him, my back against the arm of the couch. “You’re not really going to force that issue today, are you?” I could feel my stomach starting to churn.

“All things in due time, my dear, all things in due time. Helga first.”

There was no way to derail Nicholas once he set his mind to something, so I picked up my commentary, while squaring myself internally for the fight that was surely coming.

“Okay. After years of doing these quiet, still, somber paintings, Wyeth released the Helga paintings in 1986. I still remember it....Time magazine used it as a cover story: ‘Andrew Wyeth’s Stunning Secret.’ He’d spent over a decade doing over two hundred studies of this one woman, Helga Testorf, a neighbor of his, while concealing the works from the rest of the world.

“No one knew?”

“Nobody.”

Nicholas' face remained detachedly interested. “May I assume that Testorf was a Mrs. and not a Miss?”

I smiled. Nicholas was going into lawyer mode. “You may.”

“And may I also assume that some of these ‘studies’ Mr. Wyeth produced at this time included nude paintings of Mrs. Testorf?”

“You make it sound so sordid.”

He smiled. “That’s my job. Proceed.”

“Yes, solicitor, there were some nudes included, and those got a great deal of press. The paintings were—are—amazing. They caught this woman so completely that in looking at them, you began to feel you knew her to the depths of her soul, that you could reach out and wrap your finger around a tendril of her joy, her sadness, her love emanating from the canvas before you. They were his masterwork, and showed just to what levels he could imbue his paintings with that magical spark of life that separates true art from just another pretty picture. He poured himself into the process of creating, opened himself up to another level of expression, and he was rewarded by the deep visceral reaction people have to those works, not just because of the scandal that surrounded them, though I think that helped bring them to the public eye, but because they’re just so damn good. He took a chance, risked his career really, and in the end produced many of the paintings that he will be remembered for.”

"And how does this relate to this showing of yours?"

I took a deep breath and looked down at my hands, gripping the water bottle. "These paintings aren't Hayman's Hawk."

I didn’t realize I had begun to cry until Nicholas reached out and wiped a tear away. His voice was steady and sure. “No, they're not. These are better. This show of paintings are your masterwork, Kierra. This is what you'll be remembered for.”

I let out a half-laugh, half cry, frustrated--as I always was--by how quickly my emotions could get away from me, and tried to keep them under control. I was sitting forward on the couch now, my arms resting on my knees. Nicholas rubbed my back in slow, even circles. My eyes lifted to each one of my paintings in turn, drinking them in.

No landscapes here. These were my dreams come to life. Each canvas showed a complex fairy-world, a world where a dark fay Queen searched every corner of her universe for the lost Sphere of Moeneskinn, which would restore goodness and light to her kingdom. The paintings were large—seven feet across and five high—and complex. The story evolved from frame to frame, and there was symbolism hidden in the painting that even I—the artist, the creator—still didn’t understand completely. I had painted most of them in a sort of fugue state that all creative artists know...those moments that come when the part of you that is so replete with yourself, so aware of the world, of the everyday moment, of the feelings swirling around inside of you, of the doubts and the questions, so aware of the act of creation, when all of that disappears, and suddenly you are inside the creating. You are the painting, the story, the music. It's as if every molecule of your body has finally found that one perfect harmonic and is resonating to it and you forget everything else, including yourself. Time has no meaning, and hours go by without a moment's notice. When someone finally does break through, you look up to find you've been working all day long, and suddenly your back hurts, your arms ache, your eyes are dry and you have to pee, but until the spell is broken, none of that matters.

"What if they hate them?" I asked in a voice only Nicholas or Sawyer would detect the fear in.

"They won't."

I sat back against the back of the couch, leaning into Nicholas's side, his arm around my shoulders. We sat like that for long minutes, silent, both studying the paintings before us, lost in our own thoughts. Nicholas was so good at giving me support, saying what needed to be said, and then giving me the space to make my own decisions--and yes, sometimes my own mistakes--without ever making me feel weak for needing his help. How could I live without him? How could I think to live without either of them?

"Don't make me choose. I can't," I said quietly, my eyes focused on a painting in the middle of the cycle. A large oak tree spread its gnarled branches from one side of the canvas to the other, dipping all the way to the ground in some places. Fairies danced in and out of the complex green lacework of its boughs and hid inside its mammoth trunk, which mawed open like a sideways mouth. Behind the tree a meadow stretched away in lazy undulating waves that seemed to suddenly stop at some unseen but quite immediate point, as if the land just dropped away. Over it all hung a moon that defied belief, large and luminous, limning the scene below in shades of silver and blue. I had walked under that tree a thousand times in my dreams, had climbed it, laughed in its branches, wept underneath it. But I had never once walked beyond the tree through the meadow to see what was beyond. It was as if my imagination was afraid of what lay there.

What a strange place, the mind.

I remembered back to when I was finishing this particular canvas. My "serious" paintings were done here, in my studio at the gallery, but the entire Fairy cycle had been done in my private studios located in my residences, where ever those might have been over the years. The tree was begun right after I bought my loft apartment in the River West neighborhood of Chicago, immediately after I met my neighbors whose balconies adjoined mine on either side: the boyish blue-eyed humanitarian, Sawyer Wilson, and the charismatic, precise, often maddening attorney now sitting beside me.

******

I had never been in love before. I wasn't a virgin, certainly. I'd had a variety of short term affairs over the years, but my focus had always been my work. Love affairs were more about needs of the body and a need for companionship than anything to do with the heart. I became quite used to puzzled lovers commenting on how strange it was that such a passionate woman could be so cold when it came to love. So it was a shock to realize that within mere weeks of moving into my new loft I had fallen completely in love, not with one, but with both of my neighbors. And more shocking that I knew without a doubt that the feelings were returned on both counts.

Our lofts were cut from the third floor of an old denim factory. Our balconies were supposed to have privacy walls between them, but these had obviously been removed by the previous owners, who must have been friendly. My loft had remained empty for so long, given the poor real estate market at the time and the high price of the property--and since my unit was on the corner and blocked their view to each other--neither Nicholas or Sawyer had ever bothered to reinstall the barriers. Their body clocks seemed to be set to natural opposites--Nicholas preferred to get up early and retire early, while Sawyer had to be dragged from bed but would often stay up until two or three in the morning--so they had done no more than nod and say hello to each other while collecting mail in the main lobby in the six months since Sawyer had moved in.

I had started leaving the french doors to my balcony thrown open wide when I wanted their company. Both men became adept at climbing over the rail between their own balcony and mine, and I became used to looking up to find one or the other knocking at the open door. I can only assume they both were circumspect enough to climb back over to their balcony if the other was already with me; either that or they never happened to visit at the same time. Those first few weeks were a heady mix of flirting while dealing with a strong sense of deja vu, as if I had known both of them forever.

That fateful Sunday in May when I was putting the last strokes of burnt umber, raw sienna, and viridian to the canvas, I was so intent on the painting I completely forgot the door was open. It was a beautiful day, the first of the season to remind Chicagoans that summer was more than just a distant memory and that the world could be a warm and wonderful place. I had opened up the doors and pulled out the canvas and my paints. I put on my favorite painting jeans and a sleeveless cotton t-shirt, loaded my cd player to the gills, turned the music up as loud as I dared, and padded barefoot to the easel. Within minutes I was lost in that other world and in my work, a freshening breeze playing against the pale skin of my neck.

I have no idea how long I painted, only that I was physically sore when I signed my name with a flourish to the bottom corner, as was my tradition. As I stepped back from the canvas to survey the painting with that heavy yet elated feeling that always came when a work was complete, I suddenly realized I wasn't alone.

Nicholas had made himself at home on my couch. His left leg was crossed casually over his right, his arm thrown across the back of the sofa, a half-consumed beer of my private store in his hand. He was staring at the canvas with a slightly bemused expression, rubbing his jaw slowly.

Sawyer had taken one of the chairs from my two top dining set and was straddling it backwards, his chin resting on his crossed arms. His eyes looked sleepy...not bored, but as if he were deeply entranced. He, too, was staring at the image behind me.

"It's the damnedest thing," Sawyer said, before I could ask them how long they had been watching me. There was a strange note in his voice I couldn't quite place. It sounded something akin to awe.

"Mmmm," Nicholas murmured. I wasn't sure if that was agreement or not.

Sawyer pushed off from the chair in one lithe movement and came toward me. He looked completely awake now. He reached for me, his hands moving over my dark hair in concert, smoothing it down and gathering it into a thick mass at my neck before sliding the ends through his fingertips. His blue eyes bored into mine.

"Just amazing," he whispered intently, as his fingers grazed a sensitive spot on my neck. I felt suddenly confused. Was he referring to me or the painting, now? I swayed slightly toward him.

"Kierra." Nicholas's voice broke through the electricity arcing between Sawyer's gaze and mine. Slowly, I tore my eyes from blue to settle on deep brown. I felt my soul twist as it was suddenly pulled in two directions: toward the dark eyes that now held mine from across the room like an invisible vise, and toward the arms settling me suddenly against a completely different and wholly necessary warm body.

My eyes were still on Nicholas, and his gaze brooked no release. "Kierra, where did you see that tree? Where is it from?"

My brain felt nearly as thick as my tongue as I shook my head stupidly. I felt Sawyer's arms tighten around me, his large hand sliding across my stomach, where the pad of one finger made contact with the band of bare skin between the bottom of my shirt and the top of my jeans, and for a moment it was if my body forgot how to breathe.

"From my dreams," I heard Sawyer answer.

My surprised intake of breath was lost as Nicholas released me from his gaze to shift his glance to Sawyer. "I meant," he said evenly, speaking as though to someone a bit dim-witted, "where had she seen the tree in reality. What is it based upon."

"But it's not," I said.

"It must be," he said, still with that ultra-reasonable tone of voice. He shifted to the couch edge, his hand gripping the beer tightly, knuckles white.

I twisted slightly to look back at Sawyer. "As long as I can remember, I've dreamt about this tree. Ever since I was a little girl."

"Me, too," he said softly. "Well, since I was a little boy." he amended, with a smile. I smiled back, entranced.

"Charming," Nicholas interjected testily, "but not at all the point. Where did you grow up, Kierra?"

"Hmmm?" I was still feeling a bit slow, and entirely confused. "Maine. Near Portland."

"Skippy?"

"It's Sawyer," Sawyer replied mildly, though his arms tightened around me a fraction.

"Whatever. Where did you grow up?"

"Chicago boy, born and bred, I'm afraid."

"Ever visit Maine as a child?"

"Never." Sawyer shook his head.

Nicholas looked at me. "And I suppose you never came near the Midwest."

"Not until I was in my late teens, and I was dreaming about the tree long before that. I have examples of it in sketchbooks dating back to middle school."

"A television show then, or a movie," Nicholas tried.

I shook my head. "I wasn't allowed. My parents were ex-hippies that thought television would rot my brain."

Nicholas stood up and walked to the door of the balcony. He was deeply agitated, though how I knew this I wasn't sure; outwardly he looked perfectly calm. "A picture in a book then. Certainly your parents allowed you books. That's got to be it." This last was muttered, almost to himself.

I slid a hand up over the arm holding me and squeezed once, apologetically, smiling up at its owner as I pulled away slowly. Sawyer let me go, reluctantly, but only after first pulling me to him and lowering his head to mine for a slow, sweet kiss, our first.

I went to stand next to Nicholas in the doorway, close to him, but not touching him, though I could feel my hands vibrating with the need to do so. "Nicholas?"

His eyes were on the far side of the river, unfocused, unseeing. He looked as if he were a million miles away. He suddenly ran both hands over his face as if trying to wake up on a particularly groggy morning, gave a soft shuddering sigh, lifted his eyes to the sky for a moment, and turned to face me. He managed to looked resigned, rebellious, and amused all at once.

"Tell me, sweetheart. If you had painted that tree from the exact opposite point of view from where you did, what would you see about ten feet up on the left hand side of the main trunk, right past a knot that looks like a bird's face?"

My eyes widened "How did you know--"

"Just answer the question, please."

But all I could do was gape at him, open mouthed with shock. When the answer came, it came from Sawyer, not me. "A large branch that's been broken and burnt away as if by lightning."

Nicholas and I both turned to stare at him. "That's right," I said after a long, strained moment.

"Shit," Nicholas said.

I sat down on the edge of the couch, hugging myself. I didn't know what to say.

"And where did you grow up, Nicholas?" Sawyer finally asked.

Nicholas gave a small chuckle and leaned back against the door frame, one leg crossed over the other and his arms relaxed at his sides, the picture of a casualness I knew he was nowhere close to feeling. "Burbank, California. Now would someone please explain to me why the hell we've all been dreaming about the same tree since childhood?"

******

"Don't make me choose," I repeated.

"We can't go on this way indefinitely, sweetheart." Nicholas said, turning to look at me. His face was shuttered, nearly expressionless. I looked back at him, my heartbeat accelerating in alarm. This was Nicholas' courtroom face, a face he had perfected during a childhood when showing emotion was a weakness that could not be indulged in, especially at times when emotions were running high. I had learned over the years the less Nicholas showed on his face, the more turmoil he was dealing with behind the calm facade. Obviously this was serious.

I stood up and walked a few steps away, anger the shield against my fear. "And just who the hell are you to make this decision? There are three people involved here. One person is not in charge of us all."

Nicholas stood and approached me, smiling in a way I'd come to associate with danger. "I couldn't agree more with that, Kierra. One person is not in charge of us all."

Never, eeeever date a lawyer. It's just not wise. "You are not going to turn my words on me this time, you bastard."

He smiled again, that tight, acerbic smile. "It's a good thing I know you love me."

I screamed in frustration and stomped away toward my studio. He followed at a leisurely pace, like a hunter sure that his prey was cornered and unable to escape. I muttered a number of obscenities under my breath. We passed Moira, the gallery manager, who wisely avoided eye contact as she headed toward the front entry of the gallery with a list of things still to be done before tonight. Moira was one of my best friends, and she knew better than to get between Nicholas and me when we were fighting. That was kind of like being caught between two hungry lions at feeding time.

"You didn't truly think we'd go on forever like this, did you? Skippy and I are patient men, sweetheart, but we're not saints," Nicholas called from several steps behind me.

"You seem rather comfortable speaking for Sawyer these days. I haven't heard him complain about things. The only person I've heard pressing for change is you." I slammed open my studio door and went immediately to rifling through the top drawer of my desk, looking for my Excedrin. The bottle was underneath a few stray pieces of paperwork, empty except for the little stay-dry capsule. This was not my day. Goddammit.

From the corner of my eye I saw my straggler enter the room, and in a fit of frustration I let loose the empty bottle of painkillers. I looked up in time to register Sawyer's surprised face as the bottle hit him squarely in the forehead and bounced to the floor with a clatter, and Nicholas's amused look as he entered directly behind him.

Sawyer rubbed his temple. "I was wrong; you do have the arm. Remind me to recruit you for the company softball league next year."

My face burned with embarrassment. "Oh Sawyer, I'm so sorry...I thought you were Nicholas!"

"That explains it," Sawyer said, glancing down at his hand. "Am I bleeding?"

"Big baby," Nicholas scoffed as he draped himself across the chair nearest the window.

"Oh, just shut up. This is all your fault!" I paced around the desk and settled Sawyer into the other chair, then started probing at his forehead like a worried den-mother.

"My fault? May I point out that I am not the one with two beaus?"

"No," I raged, "You're just the one who wants me to decide which of you I can live without!"

Sawyer cleared his throat and moved under my ministrations. "Actually, that's not entirely accurate."

My hands stilled on his skin. "What?"

"This was my idea, Kay." His blue eyes were sad but unapologetic as they met mine.

"Your idea?" I couldn't keep the shock and hurt from my voice. I started to move away but he was too quick for me, and his hands closed around my wrists like cuffs, though he was careful not to squeeze too hard. Sawyer was always gentle with me, always so in tune and aware of what I needed that he never harmed me.

Or so I had thought until now.

My thoughts must have shown on my face, because Nicholas said, "Betrayal is so much harder to stomach when it comes from a boyscout instead of a bastard, isn't it?" His tone was light, but I sensed the seriousness behind it. I looked over at him, shaking my head with the smallest of movements.

"You could have told me."

Nicholas shrugged. "It's not my style to be a tattle-tell."

"You didn't truly think we'd go on forever like this, did you?" Sawyer asked me, echoing exactly Nicholas's statement from moments earlier. He pulled my wrists downward, forcing me to lean forward and look at him, still gentle, but determined. "I want to marry you, Kay. I want to have a family with you. I want to go to sleep with you curled against me every night and wake with you having stolen all the covers every morning. I want to almost finish the crossword puzzle with you every Sunday. I want to eat pancakes in bed and laugh with you when we get syrup on the sheets. I want to hear you yelling at me to pick up my dirty clothes and to hang up my wet towels. I want to watch old movies with you until four a.m. and order Chinese food for breakfast and watch the sun come up, and I want to sit and watch you turn a blank piece of canvas into something that can breathe, because that's the most damned amazing thing I've ever seen in my life. I want to build a life with you, Kay. You and me." He turned to look at Nicholas, and though neither of them even blinked I suddenly had the feeling of an agreement being made and set in stone.

Sawyer turned back to me. "Just you and me."

This time I did jerk away from him. My entire body felt stiff, as if I were made of something unyielding like marble. I glared at Sawyer for several long moments before shifting my gaze to Nicholas.

"And I suppose you want the same thing." My voice was accusing.

Nicholas tented his hands in front of him, fingertips barely touching. He was a picture of casualness. "Well, I could do without the syrup on the sheets and the dirty clothes on the floor, and you are a cover-hog, Kierra. But yes, I want to build a life with you, if that's what you're asking. But then you already knew that."

The question pressed on my heart like a weight. "And whomever I don't choose?"

It was Sawyer who spoke. "Nicholas and I have agreed that the person you don't choose will pack up, sell out, and move away."

"Away....where?"

"Anywhere not here," Nicholas said.

I laughed, but there was no humor in the sound. "And what makes you think I would possibly agree to such a hare-brained scheme?"

"Because if you don't, we'll both leave," Nicholas said evenly.

For just a moment my heart stopped beating. Then I walked stiffly around my desk to my chair and sat, carefully. It was suddenly very important to move cautiously. The stone had turned to spun glass; one false move and I would shatter into a million pieces.

"Kierra--" Sawyer's voice begged me to understand. I held up one hand, signaling for silence. My eyes roamed around the studio, lighting on random objects, avoiding the men entirely.

The moments ticked by. My brain refused to digest this information, refused to come up with any type of response. Then suddenly, as if it was the answer to everything, I said, "We've been through issues like this before. Surely, we can find another solution." I looked at Sawyer.

He shook his head sadly. "Not this time, Kay."

Desperate now, I turned toward Nicholas. "I thought you were friends."

"If we weren't friends, there's no way we could have survived the last few years without killing each other," Nicholas said.

"If we weren't friends, there's no way I could even think of the possibility of leaving you with him," Sawyer added.

"Would you be able to leave me?" I asked him softly. "If I chose Nicholas, I mean?" Sawyer had always talked about us being together forever, and I had believed him.

He ran a hand through his brown hair and shifted his body deeper into his seat. He wouldn't look at me.

"Sawyer?" I prodded.

"I have his word," Nicholas said. "When he came to me with this idea, I made him promise me he'd see it through before I'd commit to it. And I'm committed to it one hundred percent now, Kierra."

It was as good a declaration of war as ever given. Sawyer's word was his bond--he wouldn't go back on it--and Nicholas, once set to a path, wouldn't swerve.

I was, in a word, screwed.

******

The men were gone. I wandered around my studio cleaning spotless brushes and rearranging paints that had already been in the order I liked them. The roiling madness inside of me refused to coalesce into anything that would begin to make sense to me. I became increasingly agitated until finally, as a last resort, I called Moira at the front desk and told her not to let anyone disturb me, especially the two pains in the ass that had just left, and locked my studio door. I had too much to do, needed to be getting ready for the opening tonight, but I had to do something to settle these crazy emotions.

I struggled out of my suede boots first and kicked them under my desk. Next off was the retro mini dress, which I draped over my chair. I padded over to my closet and pulled out jeans and a t-shirt, then braided my hair and tucked the ends under so it would be out of the way.

I loaded a new canvas onto my easel and stared at it for long moments before slashing across it with strokes of black and red. I worked furiously, waiting for the moment when something would begin to make sense on the canvas, but instead the images only became increasingly muddled. I gritted my teeth and stabbed at the work in frustration, tears rolling down my cheeks.

They were tearing me apart. How could I choose between them? It was like trying to decide if I could better live without blood or a heart to pump it with. Would you like lungs, or air to breathe? You can't be so selfish as to expect to have both.

I knew our situation wasn't the norm. Hadn't I seen it on the faces of everyone who knew us? Women I barely knew sidled up to me at parties and started asking detailed questions about my sex life, and they all seemed to think it was some kind of nonstop orgy. Others were openly jealous, making catty remarks about low morals, warped values, and an under-developed sense of self-worth. And men? Well, men just assumed I was a slut.

The idea of love never seemed to enter any of their minds.

I collapsed in front of the painting, my palette skittering across the floor noisily. I was weeping openly now, trying to breathe, my eyes slits in a face warped by emotion.

I wrapped my arms around myself and rocked back and forth, my face to the ceiling. "God, oh God....." I cried. "God, help me!"

The dizziness hit quickly, and threatened to bring up what little I'd eaten that day. I bent forward and buried my face in my lap, hoping it would pass. The room continued to spin as if in a centrifuge, but began to slow almost immediately. I kept my head down and wept into my thighs. God, what was I going to do?

"Good question."

My head snapped up at the strange voice. My studio was gone. A blond man smiled benevolently at me from a La-z-boy recliner a few feet away. He turned a bit to look back at the wide screen television and the fourth quarter football game in front of him as a whistle sounded, but then turned his gaze to me once more with a nod, as he seemed to agree with the ref's call.

"Who are you?"

"You should know. You called for me. I'm God, Kierra. But you can call me Howie."

Divine Intervention, Part One:

"They never call out for my help," came a petulant voice from behind me. I turned quickly, still on my knees. In the doorway, his dancer's body leaned casually against the door-frame, was the most gorgeous black man I'd ever seen. His dark skin nearly glowed against the white of the t-shirt stretched tight across his chest, and when he smiled the equally white teeth behind his full lips were just crooked enough to keep them from looking fake.

"No," the man in the chair responded, "but they do try to send a lot of people to visit you."

The black man rolled his eyes. "Very funny." He pushed off from the wall and walked toward me, a lithe rolling walk that only enhanced my first impression of someone totally at home in their skin. "Honey, we have got to get you off your knees. It's just way too Joan of Arc for you."

I scrambled away from his offered hand and stood, shaking, staring at him. "Wh-who are you?"

"Is that only the question she knows? You can call me Dev, honey, and you've already met Howie. Now why don't we get you settled into a nice, comfy seat and we'll talk about this little problem of yours."

He took a step toward me. I backed away again, eyes darting from the man to the unfamiliar room around me, looking for a way of escape.

An evil grin spread over Dev's face. "Oooh, look at her getting ready to bolt. I'm not going to bite you, honey. I hardly ever do that these days. Well, at least not to guests...."

"Dev. Leave her alone for a while," Howie said, a warning note in his voice, though his eyes never wavered from the television. "She doesn't know how she got here, or why. Give her a chance to calm down, and then we'll talk."

Dev eyed me once more, sighed dramatically, and walked away. I was left standing in the middle of the room, reminded suddenly of a time when I was a little girl and my parents had decided I could have a pet. The kitten had been disoriented and scared when we lifted it from the carrier once we returned home, and my father had told me to go close off all the doors to the rooms beyond the kitchen, den and hallway, and then said I should give the little fluffy ball of fur time to investigate its new home without interruption, said that if I could do that, the kitten would feel more relaxed and at home, and would be more inclined to pay attention to me when I played with it. I had loved that kitten with the fierceness only a seven year old girl can muster for a cat, and I had been crushed when months later we discovered it had feline leukemia and had to be destroyed. Its name had been.....something for the shape of the white patch on its neck....Starburst.....or Stardust.....

"Starfire," Howie chimed in, though I hadn't said a thing out loud.

I jumped, startled. "How in the hell--"

"Hell is Dev's territory, not mine. Look, Kierra, they're in the last quarter here and the Pats are down by three, so why don't you just wander around for a few minutes and relax, and when this is done, we'll talk, okay?" He waved a hand in the general direction of a doorway on the far side of the room. "Dev's probably baking a flan or something, if you want to chat. He's really quite harmless. So just go on and......." His voice faded away as his attention was caught again by the game.

I'm hallucinating. That's got to be it. Nicholas and Sawyer pushed me too far, and I'm on the floor of my studio foaming at the mouth at this very moment. That was the only explanation. This is all going on in my head. I let out a long breath, feeling suddenly better for knowing that I was probably only temporarily insane.

The entire place (hallucination, I repeated to myself) looked like a cross between an upscale contemporary Park Avenue apartment and a frat house. Howie sank into his beat up La-z-boy recliner as if the chair had been molded around him. Next to the chair sat a Salvation Army side table littered with empty drinks and chip bags. Beneath the chair a muted area rug in tones of taupe and beige stretched at a jaunty angle under a chrome and glass coffee table to a fabulous ebony leather two-cushioned theatre sofa, over which a Herb Ritts print was centered. The television took up most of one wall, the largest plasma tv I had ever seen in my entire life. Sawyer would kill to have a set like that, I thought.

I walked cautiously behind Howie's chair and toward the far end of the room. Here a long dining table stretched out, ready to easily seat twelve people. There was more art on the walls....a strange mix of modern prints and old masters, with a full size copy of Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" centered alone along on one wall. I stood before it for long minutes, studying the three panels. I was idly proud of my brain for remembering so many of the details of a painting I hadn't seen since art history class back in college, and I leaned closer to inspect some of the finer details, running my finger over the surface, marvelling at the detail of my delusion. I would swear this was the real thing, other than the fact this painting looked brand new, and the real Bosch work was over half a millennium old and locked tight in the Prado.

"Actually, the one in the Prado was the second one he painted. This is the original," Dev said from behind me, making me squeal in surprise.

"Would you both stop doing that!" I said when I finally got my heart back out of my throat.

"Ooohh.....watch your tone, Miss Bossy. I am not one of your boyfriends to be talked to like that." He glared at me, a hand on one hip.

"This is the original?"

"Of course. Hieronymous painted it as a gift for me." He peered closely at the figure sitting on the throne in the Hell panel that was casually shoving a man down its throat. "I think he really caught my eyes there, don't you?"

I backed away and turned my back on him, muttering, "Wake up, wake up, wake UP!" This was lunacy. And not the type I was used to or enjoyed in my life. It was time for me to retake control of my brain.

I strode back to the living room. Howie was sitting forward in the chair, muttering to himself as he watched the last minute of the game. I grabbed the remote off the table next to him and clicked off the television just as Chad Jackson managed to grab the ball with ballet-like grace and closed in on the end-zone. The screen became a slightly curved obsidian mirror reflecting Howie's expression of shock. He swallowed hard and looked up at me, his lips forming words his throat refused to give sound to.

A pleased laugh sounded behind me. "Oh, that had to hurt," Dev chortled as he sauntered our way.

Howie finally found his voice. "There were only thirty-three seconds left and the Pats had the ball....."

Dev made himself comfortable on the sofa behind me. "Sometimes I miss the old days, when they were afraid of us, don't you? I mean really afraid of us." He gestured grandly at the blank screen. "Back when you were a fire and brimstone God, there's no way she would have had the chutzpah to turn off your television that way."

"Maybe because there was no television back then," Howie said, eying me with displeasure.

Dev pursed his lips. "You know what I mean."

"I want to wake up now," I said to no one in particular. "I've had enough of this. I have way too much to deal with today to be having a mental breakdown." I closed my eyes and concentrated, hoping the dizzy feeling that had started this whole episode might return and whisk me back to reality.

Moments passed, and then Dev's voice came in dramatic whisper, "Is she trying to contact the Psychic Friends Network?"

I opened my eyes and whirled on him, my frustration and fear bubbling out in one concentrated stream. "Just who do you think you are, you--you--J. Alexander wanna-be!"

His eyes grew wide as he leaned back on the sofa, his hands raised, and said in a too solicitous voice, "Oh, that hurt. And I'm sorry, I thought we had done introductions already. But no, okay, let's do them again...." He gestured to the the blond man. "This is Howie, otherwise known as God, the King of Kings. You may have heard him called Yahweh or Jehovah or Lord."

Now a glint came into his eye and he leaned forward, his voice picking up a dangerous edge as his hand settled on his chest. "My name is Dev. I am also known as the Devil or Satan. Sometimes people call me Lucifer, or Beelzebub, the Antichrist, the Prince of Darkness, Mephistopheles, Apollyon, or how about Diabolus....Diablo....Ash-Shaytan--"

"That's enough, Dev," Howie interjected, but the other man ignored him.

"And we all know who you are," Dev continued as he stood and stalked toward me. I took a step backward, stumbling and almost falling as I tried to keep my eyes on him. "Miss Kierra Parker Dean, lately of Chicago, artiste extraordinaire. Can't make her mind up between Mr. Goody-Two-Shoes Gorgeous Blue Eyes and Mr. Mmm-mmm Light-My-Fire Hotshot Attorney. Your other names include--to name but a few--Caoimhe, Sadira, Annice, Marilena, and Selene. Oh, and don't forget bitch."

I opened my mouth to shoot off the sharp reply dancing on my tongue as his last words began to sink into my brain. I shook my head, confused, and turned toward Howie. My stomach felt odd. "What does he mean....my other names?

The Beginning:

Near Calais, France

June, 7491 b.c.e.

(pronunciation guide.....Caoimhe=KEE-vah, Aodhan=AY-dun, Cathaoir=KA-heer)

Caoimhe's breath came in short gasps as she ran across the meadow, looking around her for any evidence of pursuit. Her bare feet flew across the undulating hills, the grass parting for her like a green sea for a bowsprit, the heavy blades of grass whispering against her thighs as she passed. I should come back and look for herbs later, she thought with a knife's edge of guilt. It was, after all, why she was supposed to be in the meadow in the first place. But at this very moment, it was more important to get to the tree first.

She reached the base of the large oak and collapsed, laughing. She had made it. She stretched out under the canopy of arching boughs, resting her head on her crossed arms, letting the dappled sunlight splash across her upturned face. She smiled smugly, a sense of warm victory washing through her. It felt so good to know she had finally, finally gotten here first, after all these years of being bested. She sighed softly and let her eyes drift shut, her ears attuned to the sounds of the wind and the bird calls, her nose catching the sharp scent of salt from the marshes far below. Aodhan and Cathaoir would be so envious when they arrived.

A strange rustling in the branches above her made her open her eyes. She shielded her face from the glare of the sun and squinted up into the tree. Far above, looking down through the verdant thickness, a face watched her with unrestrained glee. She bolted upright.

"Aodhan! Come down!" Frustration rippled through her even as his laughter sprang free. She watched as he leisurely swung from branch to branch, making his way down like an acrobat. She was on her feet again by the time he reached the ground, her hands shaped into tight fists by her sides. He noted this with another gleeful laugh.

"Oh, did you think you were here first?" he said casually, walking past her and away toward the far end of the meadow.

She stamped her foot against the soft grass and followed him out from under the sheltering canopy of branches. "You know I did." She jogged to catch up to him and they walked side by side through the waving stalks, her head barely reaching the top of his shoulder. "Why did you not speak when you saw me approach?"

He smiled sheepishly. "Your temper is like the summer rains, Caoimhe: strong, and unpredictable, and exciting."

"You wanted me angry?" she said with surprise.

He shrugged. "I did not say that." He reached out and tugged softly at the end of one of the braids hanging down her back. She jerked her head away in annoyance.

"You are a fool, Aodhan, if you purposely provoke my anger, " she said hotly, though in the next moment she regretted her words, as she so often did. Caoimhe's mother was forever telling her to think first and speak after, but her heart controlled her mouth, not her brain. Still, one did not call the future tribe leader a fool, no matter how close one was to him. And yet it was Aodhan who caught the brunt of her tongue more than anyone else. It sometimes felt like he was purposely provoking her, and yet whenever she looked back on whatever episode had caused her to speak harshly, she could never find fault with his actions, only her own. It was maddening. She broke a long stem of grass beside her, and focused her attention on slowly stripping away the outer layer of its tough stalk, anything to keep from looking at Aodhan again.

Aodhan watched her, his mouth a straight line in an unreadable face. He did not speak. Finally, he nodded toward the end of the meadow where Caoimhe had approached from a few minutes before. "There is my brother."

She lifted her head. Cathaoir was climbing over the edge of the chalk cliff into the meadow. "At least I beat him this time," she said, her voice suddenly lighter, and she was off, her feet barely touching the ground. She launched herself into Cathaoir's arms, who caught her and spun her around like a child, her face pressed against his neck. By the time Aodhan had joined them she was teasing Cathaoir mercilessly for being last to their meeting place.

Cathaoir placed her back on her feet and pulled gently on her intricately braided hair. She pulled away, but not quite as quickly as she had when Aodhan had done the same thing. "But were you first, little one?"

Aodhan laughed. "Would she be wasting time teasing you for being last if she had been first? Hello, brother."

Cathaoir grinned down at a now squirming Caoimhe. "I doubt she would, at that." He waved toward the tree. The two men fell into step together, Caoimhe staying ahead and out of their reach, pretending to ignore them as they both watched her fondly, enjoying--as they always did--her discomfiture. They walked through the long grass across the meadow, back toward the large oak that was their destination. It sat alone at the very apex of the gentle grass slope that retreated back from the cliff face, a mammoth example of its kind. Several other trees of various species dotted the grassland at far intervals, but none came close to the size or breadth of the ancient behemoth.

"What kept you?" Aodhan asked. He saw Caoimhe's head turn a fraction of a degree back toward them, her chin still set higher than was her norm. The edge of his mouth twitched; he did so enjoy vexing her.

"Father." Cathaoir's voice was grim.

Caoimhe turned quickly, walking backwards on the balls of her feet. "He's not still planning on sending you away, is he?"

"He is."

Her eyes flashed. "But Cathaoir....he can't."

Aodhan's tone was bitter. "He is the leader of the tribe, Caoimhe. He can do what he wants."

"Even the leader of the tribe cannot split the brothers of legend apart. His will is not greater than that of the Gods."

Neither man had a response, and so they walked the rest of the way to the tree in silence. When they reached it, Aodhan helped Caoimhe climb its rough mawing trunk. She paused, as she always did, to run her fingers over the knot that resembled a bird's face, marveling at its symmetry, before climbing ever higher. Finally all three were sequestered in their favorite spot, a place where the branches of the old tree crossed and created a sort of natural hammock, just large enough to squeeze into and stare out over the green land and the blue sky beyond. Of course, now that they were sixteen and grown, it was much more difficult for the three of them to fit there than when they were five.

Normally Caoimhe sat looking out at the view, but today she studied the faces of her companions, a furrow of worry between her dark brows. She chewed absently on her bottom lip as her eyes moved from one face to the other.

"You'll end up looking like old Eoghan if you keep that up," Aodhan teased, naming a man from their tribe who had lost half his bottom lip in a freak fishing accident years ago, during one of the treks to the Great Sea. Caoimhe smiled momentarily at his joking, but immediately went back to her brooding.

"What do you see, when you look at us, little one?" Cathaoir asked suddenly, his eyes sharp.

Caoimhe looked puzzled. "I see Aodhan and Cathaoir," she replied, her eyes lighting on their faces in turn.

"You are the only person who can tell us apart, besides your mother." Aodhan said, knowing this was what his brother had meant by his question. Even their own father sometimes had difficulty in telling them apart. He turned and studied the man sitting near him as his brother turned to study him.

In a time before mirrors allowed for vanity or self consciousness, when reflections were imperfect images caught on still water or on sheets of ice, the brothers knew their appearance down to the smallest detail, for they saw themselves perfectly in the other, one of the advantages of having an identical twin. Dark hair that bordered on being pure black, which they both in summer wore tied back in a short queue. Broad foreheads with well shaped brows over dark almond eyes set deep. Flat planed cheeks and hawkish noses inherited from their father, who was as ruthless as his looks professed him to be. Square, strong jaws. Well formed mouths with slightly fuller bottom lips which, they understood, they had inherited from their mother, though they had no memory of her. As one, they turned back to Caoimhe.

"Come tell us the story," Aodhan said softly.

"Yes," said his brother, holding out his hand, moving slightly to make room for her to sit between them on the branches. "Tell us the story like your mother has told you."

Now she did smile. "Don't you ever get tired of this?" But she came and sat down between them, her feet sure upon the branches, and settled herself with her head upon Cathaoir's shoulder and with her legs across Aodhan's thighs. She sighed, contented, felt their breathing changing to match her own, feeling their heartbeats slowing. "Ready?" They both nodded, and she took a deep breath, preparing herself to tell the story she had heard a thousand times and told a thousand times more.

"There was once a chieftain, and his mate was great with child. It was winter, and the winds howled round the huts like evil spirits, ripped at the hides and sneaked under the pegs. A storm came, and the snow fell for three days without ceasing.

"On the third night, the Gods decided it was time, and the women of the tribe made the chieftain's mate ready for the delivery of her child. The snow ceased, the sky cleared, and a full moon shown down. The medicine woman of the village was summoned, and all seemed to go well. Soon a baby boy was born--"

"That was me." Aodhan whispered.

Caoimhe dug her heel into his thigh. "Don't interrupt."

Cathaoir snorted "Yes, don't interrupt," at his brother, which earned him an elbow in his side. "Shhhh.....okay, okay." he said over Caoimhe's head, dropping a kiss on the top of it. "Go on."

"--soon a baby boy was born, and they would in time name him Aodhan. But the medicine woman found there was yet another baby, and the chieftain's mate was tired. The medicine woman prayed to the Gods to allow her to bring forth this second child, for she believed that the signs were right for a special birth, for the birth of the brothers that had been foretold by her grandmother's grandmother and her grandmother before that, that would change the destiny of the tribe forever. She lay the chieftain's mate down on her furs and had the women of the tribe hold her down, and she climbed upon her and pushed with her hands upon her stomach until she forced the remaining babe out of the womb, then she reached in and helped the baby follow his brother into the world...."

Caoimhe's voice faltered slightly in her storytelling, as it always did at this point in the retelling. She pressed her cheek more firmly into Cathaoir's shoulder, knowing how guilt rode him for the facts of his birth. She knew it hurt him to hear this part. "The chieftain's mate cried out when her second babe was taken from her, for it hurt her to have him taken from her in so rough a manner. The Gods decided both children could live, but not without a cost, and so with one look at her sons, the chieftain's mate died."

Beside her, Cathaoir stiffened slightly. She turned her head and rubbed her face against his arm. Don't be sad, she thought. If she hadn't died, we wouldn't have you, and what would Aodhan and I do then? She felt his cheek press against her hair in response, even as she felt Aodhan reach over to squeeze his brother's shoulder. She turned, surprised to see Aodhan's face hovering a few inches from her own, his eyes gazing deeply into hers. She felt a strange leap inside and felt momentarily disoriented. Why was Aodhan's presence disturbing her lately? She turned her eyes toward the meadow and looked for the thread of her story. She took a deep breath and began again.

"Now there was in the village another woman, named Bronagh, who had just given birth to a baby girl the week before. The chieftain called this woman to him. 'I have two babes and no woman to suckle them' he said. 'They will die without milk.' 'I will try,' said the woman. And so she took the babies to her breasts, and fed them, and there was food for her own child and for both boys, and they all lived. And so it was, that for many months until the babies could be weaned, this woman would often lie upon a fur bed with all three upon her chest, for it was more important than anything else that the boys should live. And when the boys were weaned, the chieftain said 'I have no woman still, so will you continue to feed my sons? It is important they live.' By this time the woman loved the boys as her own, and so she said 'I will try,' and happily fed the boys. The chieftain made sure they had an extra share of every kill, and so Bronagh and her mate were content with the arrangement. Every day the boys came to be fed and to play with Bronagh's daughter, and every night they went back to live with their father, Dhurban, the chieftain."

Caoimhe closed her eyes, focusing on the feel of the two bodies that surrounded hers. They were as familiar to her as her own, having literally grown up always together. Aodhan and Cathaoir's father had found a new mate the year after they were weaned, but the woman was young and quickly with child, and found it easier to allow Caoimhe's mother to continue to foster the rambunctious twins. Then when they were five, Caoimhe's father was killed in a reindeer hunt. Bronagh, who in the first days after her mate's body had been returned to the village had been wild with grief and unable to do anything but weep, then seemed even more determined to keep the boys close to her and Caoimhe. And though Cathaoir had always been the child closest to her heart, with his soft eyes and pleasing ways, in the years after her mate's death, it was Aodhan that she seemed to grow more and more fond of.

A sudden strong gust of wind set the branches into motion. Caoimhe scrambled away from the men with a delighted laugh, moving quickly toward one of the outer limbs. She held on tightly as the wind moved her wildly on her perch.

"You're too far out." Aodhan's voice was sharp with command and, underneath, concern. "That branch is too slender to hold you in such high wind."

"It's fine," she called back. She lifted her chin to the breeze, felt it teasing strands from the braids about her head. How she wished for her hair to be free in this moment, streaming out in the wind. She wrapped her thighs more firmly around the branch, let loose her grasp and reached back for the leather thongs that held her hair, slipped them free, felt the wind pulling it into immediate wild disarray like a thousand fingers working against her scalp. Below her the grasses of the meadow danced, and beyond the edge of the cliff, far away, she could see the sun glinting off the far deep water beyond the marshes that surrounded their village. Farther still, at the other end of her world, she could just barely make out the startling white of the cliff face that stood sentry over the other side of the deep water reflecting the bright daylight.

Caoimhe wondered if it were true, if long ago the two lands had been one. The old stories told of a time when there was no deep water, no marshes, no villages tucked among the reedy banks. Once there had been only one vast and verdant plain separated by a beautiful river that had supplied fresh water and fish and reeds for baskets. The plains had been so full of animals to hunt, the skies so filled with birds whose eggs could be gathered for food and whose feathers could be used for decoration, that a huntsman only had to walk a few steps from his own hearth to make a kill. The Gods had been happy with Men in those days, and life had been easy. The warm season was long, and the cold season barely lasted a single cycle of the moon. With so much plenty, all men lived in harmony together, and there were no skirmishes among villages, as sometimes occurred now, especially in bad hunting years when food was scarce and people argued over who had the right to hunt what parts of the land. Everything was perfect with the world. This went on for many seasons, until no one alive could think back to a time when they had ever known hunger or want.

But then two great leaders, Fionn and Tiernon--twin brothers--began to think that Man no longer needed the Gods. They wanted Man to be think for himself--and look only to his tribal leaders for guidance. They convinced their tribes that the seasons of plenty and the eons of peace were the work of men, not deities, and there was no reason anymore to burn incense, or give sacrifice of each beast killed. Fionn and Tiernon ordered the people break or bury their stone carvings of the Gods, smother the fires that were meant for sacrifices, and stop giving thanks at the end of successful hunts, or after good harvests. Because the two brothers together were so powerful, and because their followers had never known the pain of true hunger or cold, the people agreed.

The Gods were understandably outraged at the brothers' scandalous behavior. They began to argue amongst themselves what they should do about this horrible insult. But Gods are not like humans, who only have a few years in this world. Gods have forever, and when they fall to arguing, seasons can pass like a day without any notice. And so it would have been with the issue of Fionn and Tiernon, if not for the young Goddess Ailbhe, the goddess of the New Moon, who one day soon after the sacrilegious events saw the brothers standing on opposite sides of the river which divided the plains, each with many of his own people, and with the impetuousity of youth reached down with her white hands and pried the land apart, separating the brothers forever. Where she pushed apart the ground it turned white like the skin of her hands.

When the other Gods saw what she had done, they were angry she had acted on her own, but in the end agreed she had been right to separate the troublemakers. The Gods then decreed the tribes should remain separated until Man had proved he had learned his lesson and learned it well. That time--many, many years hence--would be presaged by the birth of twin brothers who would in time become leaders of the tribes, brothers who would lead with a wisdom and discipline that would make up for the lack of both qualities shown by their ancestors.

"Caoimhe, would you listen to me!" Aodhan's voice cut through her daydreaming. Her eyes snapped back into focus as she pulled them away from the far coast and brought herself back to the present. She looked back over her shoulder. Aodhan was balanced on the branch behind her as far out as he dared to go, his hand stretched out to her. "Come to me," he said. "Now."

The wind had picked up even more, and the branch to which she clung bucked wildly under her. She looked down. If she fell now, it would be a fifteen foot fall to the hard ground below, which would most certainly mean a broken leg or some other serious and painful injury. Her heart skipped and thumped in her chest. The prudent thing would be to take Aodhan's hand and retreat from the branch. She leaned toward him, her hand outstretched.

He leaned forward toward her. "You are such a child, sometimes, Caoimhe," Aodhan sighed.

The superior disdain in his voice cut her, and she snatched her hand back from his before their fingertips could even touch, her eyes blazing. She looked past him to Cathaoir, who was kneeling on a huge branch near the main trunk of the old oak, watching them both with amused resignation. Cathaoir glanced at his brother, then held his arms out to her, gave her a winning smile and gestured with his head, asking her silently to please come in from the branch. Her eyes softened for a moment, ready to give in to Cathaoir's more gentle approach, but then she shifted her gaze back to Aodhan, who was now glaring at her.

"Give me your hand," Aodhan spat through gritted teeth.

Her face grew haughty. "No."

"Give me your hand, or I will drag you from that branch, and then I will beat you like the willful child you are."

With exaggerated movements Caoimhe turned away from Aodhan and, gripping the branch as firmly as she could with her legs, released her hand-grasp on the tree. Foolish, foolish, her heart seemed to beat against her chest, but still she lifted her arms upward like birds' wings, tilting her head back until the sun seemed almost a weight against her forehead. She ignored the yells from behind her and concentrated herself fully on keeping her body balanced on the bouncing limb.

The tree moved her up, down, sideways. She shifted her weight with each change in direction. Her legs, well muscled and strong from years of running across the meadows and climbing the cliffs, started to feel heavy and sore, and she noticed a slow tremor building in her right thigh. Her shoulders began to ache. But she refused to put her hands down. She would not let Aodhan win. Not this time. She looked down her tilted nose through the sparse screen of leaves and focused her eyes on a distant glint off the deep water, and renewed her legs' death-grip on the branch.

Suddenly out of the corner of her eye she discerned movement larger than that of a windblown branch. She gasped and turned her head in surprise, to find that Aodhan had made his way out on another nearby limb, and was now reaching across a gap in the outer branches toward her outstretched hand. He made a grab for it just as she snatched it back toward her body. At the same moment, a large gust of wind caught her perch, shaking it with renewed vigor. With her attention diverted toward Aodhan, she wasn't prepared for it, and when the branch bucked heavily beneath her, her tired legs finally gave up. She felt herself slipping, slipping. She screamed once, and then she was falling toward the earth, staring wide eyed up at Aodhan's outstretched but still empty hand.

(More here....Cathaoir has positioned himself at the base of the tree...catches her. Aodhan climbs down, reads her the riot act. She responds that it was because of him that she fell, and if he had just left her alone, she would've been fine. Big fight ensues. Have to see some evidence of how much Aodhan loves her, but it needs to be tightly controlled still, to show just how he can stay in control even when he's frightened/angry, to contrast with the next scene. )

****

"You cannot keep running off like a child, Caoimhe," Bronagh scolded her later that evening. Caoimhe sat before their hearth fire, using a flint knife to scrape at the foreleg of a reindeer. She was carving deep intricate designs into the bone, a task that set her mind at ease and kept her from having to meet her mother's eyes. "You know there is much work to be done every day."

"I know, Mother."

Her mother sat near her on a woven mat made from grasses pulled from the marsh. She watched her daughter intently. "Were you alone?"

Caoimhe's eyes flicked up to meet the other woman's for a moment, her mouth curling slightly at the edges. "No."

She thought she saw a gleam of satisfaction creep into her mother's look. Then, "You were with Aodhan."

Caoimhe nodded, thinking back to the afternoon, and all that had transpired.

"And Cathaoir? Was he with you, too?"

She looked up at her mother again, puzzled. Where two were, there were always three. "Of course."

Bronagh made a disgusted noise and stood up. She moved around the small space, straightening things with jerky movements and banging the wooden bowls they had used to hold their dinner stew angrily together.

Caoimhe puzzled over her mother's change in demeanor. It was always the three of them together. Why would this be so upsetting to Bronagh, when it was as it always had been?

Bronagh suddenly turned and came to kneel before her daughter, gripping her shoulders tightly. Caoimhe dropped the flint knife in surprise, cringed as she heard it miss her rush mat and hit the hard clay of the floor, causing the brittle flint to crack. She stared up into her mother's usually calm face, alarmed and somewhat frightened by the intensity of the older woman's gaze.

"You know that Dhurban is going to send Cathaoir to live with the village of Dhurban's mother's people.....the village by the Great Sea where we sometimes trek in summer to collect salt. He is going to be sent away."

"Dhurban cannot do that! He cannot go against the gods will and split the brothers of legend!" Caoimhe pushed against her mother's grasp. "Let me go!"

"Listen to me, Caoimhe. He will. He must."

Caoimhe twisted her shoulders under her mother's hands. "What Dhurban must do is remember the prophecies that have been handed down for generations. How can he think to make this happen?"

"It will happen. You must accept it! It is for the best, I promise you. Cathaoir cannot remain here!" Bronagh was struggling to keep her grip on her daughter now.

"He cannot!" Caoimhe said again. "This is Cathaoir's home, he cannot leave here. This is where he belongs. What would Aodhan do without him? What would I do--"

"You! I did this for you!" Bronagh cried.

Caoimhe went dead still, staring at her mother, her eyes wide. The older woman stared back, her eyes wide with shock, too. It seemed she had said more than she had meant to.

"What do you mean? What you did...." Caoimhe's voice was harsh. Bronagh let go of her shoulders and began to move about the small area, straightening bone implements and woven baskets, anything to avoid her daughter's fierce gaze. "Mother. What do you mean?"

Bronagh dropped her face to her hands, a tired gesture. She stood still, her back to Caoimhe, quiet for long moments. Just when Caoimhe began to think she would never answer, Bronagh began to speak in a quiet voice that gained resolve as she got deeper into her explanation.

"You were just a child. Your father had just died, and I knew that I needed to secure your future while I still had the chance. So I went to Dhurban immediately after your father had been given back to the earth, and I reminded him that without my help his two sons would have died long ago. I argued that, as a warrior can earn the chieftainship by saving the village in battle, so I had earned a right to partial leadership by saving its future."

"You asked to be made co-leader?" Caoimhe asked, her surprise plain. Joint leadership was rare, but not unheard of. There was a time when the village by the sea had been led by a woman alone, the mate--and co-leader--of a chieftain who had died many years before.

Bronagh turned to look at her daughter. "No, Caoimhe. I made it so you will become co-leader when the time comes. You and Aodhan will have control, equally. You will rule this village together." She shook her head, her sorrow finally plain in her eyes. "Now do you see why Cathaoir must go away? If he stayed--"

Caoimhe's head was spinning, and the rest of what her mother was saying was lost to her confusion. Rule the village? Her? She couldn't go an hour without losing her temper...how could anyone think to make her leader? Rule with Aodhan? they would kill each other in no time, with his penchant for making her angry, especially with no Cathaoir to smooth the way between them. Her heart twisted. Her mother had stolen Cathaoir's birthright from him and given it to her with this plan. Oh, what if when he found out about this, he believed she had done this of her own desire? She bit her lip so hard with the thought that she drew blood. Cathaoir couldn't leave the village. He belonged here. He belonged with his brother.

She interrupted her mother, who was still explaining. "No, Mother. This is wrong. I won't be a part of it."

"Oh, you stupid, stubborn girl! This is the only way to protect you!" Bronagh grabbed Caoimhe and lifted her to her feet roughly. "Men die, Caoimhe! They die in hunts, and in fishing accidents, and in falls off the cliffs! There aren't enough men to go around. And so when your mate dies you are left with children to raise and you are at the mercy of the village's good fellowship to feed you, or you starve." She shook her daughter until Caoimhe felt her teeth clack together painfully. "Don't be foolish! I don't want you to ever have to go through what I've gone through. I won't have you go through it!"

"I won't do it!"

"You will! You're growing into a woman, Caoimhe! Look at you! I was a mother already at your age. Surely you've given some thought to who you would mate, someday. Who else would it be, besides Aodhan or Cathaoir? What other boys from the villages have you ever even looked at?"

Her mother's words stopped her. Truth be told, she never had given thought to who she would mate. It was always just something that would happen someday, but a someday that was far away, not connected to now.

Who else would it be, besides Aodhan or Cathaoir? The words echoed in her mind, and she knew her mother was right: she would have in her own time decided that mating one of the brothers was the right thing for her. She loved them both, and always had, and eventually she would have had to make a choice between them.

She stared angrily at Bronagh. But now that choice had been taken from her before she even realized she had a choice to make. She thought of Cathaoir, of his kind smile and how his arms always opened in time to catch her when she ran to him, how he always rescued her from harm. She thought of that afternoon and the feel of his arms around her, tight with fear for her, his eyes filled with relief, and the feel of his lips pressed against her forehead. Some little corner of her heart cracked.

"What about Cathaoir?"

Bronagh met Caoimhe's gaze with her own chin raised, her shoulders tense. "I have Dhurban's word. Cathaoir will be gone by summer's end. You will become Aodhan's mate, and when the time comes for Dhurban to be called back to the Earth, you will rule by Aodhan's side. It has been decided, and it will not be undone."

Caoimhe backed away from her mother, staring at her like she had never seen her before.

"You do not know what you have done." the younger woman said, her voice trembling with something beyond anger. She turned and ran, her mother's voice following her out into the darkness.

*******

The tree was draped in silver moonlight. Caoimhe had never seen it after nightfall, having always stuck close to the village after dark. She stared. The tree looked magical with its sterling leaves dancing in the light breeze, but the shadows cast by the full moon were threatening, as if thousands of unknown hungry beasts were watching her from their depths. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end as she battled with the sense of being watched.

The climb up the chalk cliff had been more difficult in the moonlight as well. The quality of light made hand holds seem deeper than they were, and several times Caoimhe had slipped, surprising her. In the daytime she scaled the steep paths up the chalk face as easily as she ran across the meadows. Of course, the difficulty of the climb might have also been caused by the tears that kept blurring her vision.

She approached the tree slowly, her ears alert for any unusual sounds. But there was just the sloughing of the wind through the leaves, the soft creaking of the branches, and everywhere the sound of crickets, thousands of crickets. She suddenly realized the crickets chorus was proof there was no predator waiting to attack; the small insects were attuned to such things and always silenced before any kind of battle.

Caoimhe released a breath she hadn't realized she had been holding and stepped under the curtain of leaves. Almost immediately she needed the breath again as she tried to scream as an arm came around her and pulled her forward, pressing her against a warm, hard body.

"Shhhh, it's okay, it's okay...I didn't mean to startle you."

Caoimhe was beyond her breaking point. She started to flail with her arms, hitting the man anywhere she could connect with his body. "Why can't...you or....your brother....announce when....you've...gotten to the tree.....first.....instead of scaring me.....half...to....death!" she grunted between blows. Cathaoir blocked her as much as possible, backing away from her. She advanced, and when he tripped, she fell on top of him, using her legs to pin him down, still venting her anger and frustration in random blows.

"I didn't want anyone to know I was here, and I thought you were looking for me--Caoimhe, stop!" He seized her wrists carefully. "Stop," he said again, his voice as gentle as his grasp.

She struggled violently against his grip. Then in an instant she was crying. True to form, Cathaoir didn't ask a single question, just rolled into a sitting position and settled his back against the trunk of the tree, deftly settling Caoimhe into his lap, her head against his shoulder, her arms around his neck, and let her cry. He rubbed her back for long minutes, not speaking, letting the silence stretch on long after her weeping had quieted. She lay against him, loose and exhausted, her head pressed into his shoulder, not caring about anything beyond her own misery.

Finally Caoimhe lifted her head to peer at him through the darkness. "Why are you here?" she asked, her tone edged with suspicion.

He stared back at her, his eyes searching hers, his expression grim. "Why are you?"

"Bronagh.....she....."

Cathaoir sighed. His head dropped back against the tree. "I know already. I overheard Father telling Aodhan tonight. He wants to have a binding ceremony to let the entire village know that you two are to be mated." He shuddered softly beneath her. "It's so unfair."

Caoimhe scrubbed at her face with the back of her fist. "Oh, Cathaoir, you know I never wanted this, don't you? I never asked Mother to do this. If anyone should be co-leader with Aodhan, it should be you, not me. How can they think to go against the will of the Gods? You are the brothers of legend; you must rule together. I told her I wouldn't do it, and I won't!"

His deep, rumbling laughter caught her by surprise. "Oh, little one. I don't care about the leadership. Aodhan is the leader by order of birth and by the nature of his spirit. And you....you're like Mother Earth incarnate....you'll be a fine leader, much better than I'd ever be. No, they got that part right." He sighed, and settled her more comfortably against his shoulder, one hand reaching up to stroke her hair. "I don't know that I ever believed we were the brothers foretold in the myths, at any rate. I never felt I was destined to be anything special. All I've ever wanted was--" She felt his hand pause on her hair, and even in the pale moonlight there was no missing the intensity of his gaze or the sudden seriousness of his tone. "--well, it doesn't matter now. But tell me, little one, do you love Aodhan?"

She answered without thinking. "Yes, of course I do."

He stared down at her for a long moment, unsmiling, then looked past her, through the draping tree branches and out across the moonlit meadow. "Then joy be yours for many seasons," he said huskily, avoiding her gaze.

She thought of how her heart had ached just minutes before when she realized the choice she would never be allowed now to make as she studied the hurt and resignation he was trying to hide. Her heart suffered for him. This was heartbreak, but there was joy too--great white wings of joy--that such a splendid man as this should love her. That he did, she didn't doubt. It was written now in the unhappy curve of his mouth, and the sadness in his eyes, and it had been written--she realized now--in a thousand different looks and touches and moments over the years of their youth. Though she knew it would come to no good, she couldn't bear to allow him to continue to think those feelings were in vain. The words slipped from her before she could stop them. "But Cathaoir, I love you, too."

She reached out one hesitant hand and stroked it down the planes of his face. He was still beneath her touch, but when her finger slid across the corner of his mouth he groaned and turned to her, catching the fleshy pad of her of her thumb between his teeth, biting gently. She felt his hands turning her, pressing her body more firmly against his, and it was like climbing the cliff face in the moonlight all over again: everything that should be so familiar to her that she would have no reason to doubt her full knowledge of it suddenly seemed alien, strange, a little dangerous. But she molded herself even more completely to his body as he pulled her mouth down to his, and there was no fear in her when he slipped her shirt from her shoulders and began to touch her in new ways. The pain, when it came, was inconsequential, because by then they had both had lost themselves to the joys of reaching across the boundaries of being separate in their quest toward becoming one.

In the quiet moments after, lying entwined looking up through the branches of the oak tree at all the thousands of glittering stars, lost in their own thoughts, they both chose to look back instead of forward, and for a while, they both pretended that everything was all right. Caoimhe lay in the crook of Cathaoir's arm, her hand resting on his naked chest, his tunic thrown over them to ward off the night's chill. He lay on his back, one arm behind his head, a sheepish grin lighting his face.

Caoimhe propped herself up on an elbow, smiling. "What?"

"I was thinking of all those times as children when we slept like naked pups in a pile."

"Yes?"

Cathaoir laughed. "Your breasts have grown a bit since then."

Caoimhe glared at him in mock indignation and prodded him with her foot. "Parts of you have grown a bit, too."

He laughed and reached up to nip at her shoulder. "And will continue to grow as long as I have this soft skin near me." His mouth slid lower, and she shuddered.

She captured his head and pulled him up, kissing him demandingly. She stretched against him and rested her head on her hand, taking deep pleasure in studying him in as much detail as the dim light would allow. "When did you know?" she asked. "That you loved me, I mean." She moved her other hand down over his ribs and stomach, delighting in how the slightest change in direction of her fingers could make his breathing speed up.

He groaned as her hand once again swooped back toward his chest without reaching the destination he had hoped it was heading to. He stared up through the branches of the tree above them, concentrating on the feel of her touch. "I don't remember a time I didn't love you." She changed direction again, and every muscle in his body tensed, waiting to see what that hand would do next. Lower, lower still, and then, oh the feeling of her touch, nothing like his own hands on his skin, but softer and smoother and somehow the hesitant quality of her exploring touch only inflamed him more, made him want to thrust against that soft white palm, but he forced himself to remain still, gritting his teeth as her fingers moved downward and then....

"Oh god, you're killing me," he managed to get out, and then he lost even that limited ability to speak, because she had crawled astride him, and the vision of her naked body arching and bucking above him with the pale moonlight bathing her skin with luminescence while she took him into the warm core of herself robbed him of all words. Her head was thrown back, her dark hair loose and streaming down her back, and Cathaoir thought he would never see another sight so wild, so breathtakingly beautiful if he lived another thousand years.

Just then Caoimhe looked straight into his eyes, and he gasped. Tenderness, desire, pleasure, lust.....this and so much more showed nakedly in her gaze. She arched again, and he felt her body change somehow, like the tension in a bowstring just before the arrow was loosed. He fitted his hands on the smooth curves of her hips, helped her moved. She was calling to him, his name spilling from her mouth in short gasps. "Cathaoir....Cathaoir....I love you." And he watched as her world exploded. It was too much for him, and he tumbled over the edge of oblivion right behind her.

Cathaoir snuggled her against his chest and murmured against her hair, "I love you, Caoimhe. We'll find a way to make them see. I promise we will." But between emotional turmoil and revelations, sexual satisfaction and the warmth of musky skin against hers, her body and mind had reached their limit and she had fallen into an exhausted sleep atop him. Cathaoir wrapped his tunic more closely around them, kissed her gently, and followed her into slumber, sure in the knowledge that she loved him and they would be able to solve all obstacles put before them as long as they were together. True, she had said she loved Aodhan too, but he pushed that away. With all that had happened this night, he was sure she was his now, and his alone. There was no doubting that. Aodhan would understand that too. He would have to. And it wasn't as if he had meant for this to happen...it just had. His brother would see that. They had never discussed how they both felt about Caoimhe, but it had always been there, an unspoken agreement between them that the other would step back graciously when she finally made her choice. His arms tightened protectively around the girl atop him. If the last few hours weren't enough evidence of a choice made, he didn't know what was.

*******

The chill night air on her bare skin and the sudden rough removal from Cathaoir's warm body were Caoimhe's first two shocks upon waking suddenly a few hours later. She landed on her back in the grass, tangled up with the sleeves of Cathaoir's tunic, trying dazedly to make sense of the two figures struggling in the moonlight several feet away. The sound of their battle was clear in the dimness: rough grunts, blunt punches, the sudden crack of knuckles meeting jaw, but that was the only thing clear to her sleep addled brain in those first moments. She stared at the two men, and for the first time in her life she at first could not discern at a glance which was which, until she realized that Cathaoir was still naked. But this could not be Aodhan--calm, controlled, self-possessed Aodhan who never argued with anyone except her--fiercely attacking his brother, circling and advancing, driving the other man backwards with the ferocity of his assault. Her mind just couldn't make sense of it.

Behind the two fighters dawn was just beginning to peek over the edge of the world. The reddish quality of the morning light only added to the sense of unreality. She watched as Aodhan stumbled back and Cathaoir advanced for a moment, his fists pummeling. She wanted to tell them to stop, yell at them that they were being stupid, but she seemed to have become mute. Caoimhe wondered if she might only be having a nightmare, the kind where one is unable to move or speak even as some monster comes and rips apart the entire world. The men broke apart, circled each other again, both glaring, both looking for an opening. Aodhan's mouth was bleeding. Cathaoir had a bruise already starting to show below one eye. They were both laboring for breath.

"She's made her decision. Why can't you accept that?" Cathaoir panted.

"Because it's the wrong choice," his brother answered. He jumped suddenly forward, his leg sweeping out to catch Cathaoir behind the knees as he passed. Cathaoir rolled as he hit the ground, but Aodhan was too fast, and he was on top of him before he could get enough leverage for a good attack position.

Caoimhe watched as Aodhan began to vent his rage in earnest now that his opponent was down, well placed blows raining down with frightening precision. Cathaoir could do little more than try to block the worst of them. He was being beaten, beaten badly. And it was all because of her.

"Stop." she said into the wind, but Aodhan couldn't hear her over his own grunts of effort and Cathaoir's groans.

She stood, anger flooding her, and ran to them. "Stop! I said stop it, Aodhan!"

Both men looked up at her, identical looks of surprise on their identical faces, as if they had both forgotten she was even there.

"You're acting like fools," she spat.

Aodhan didn't move for a long minute, only stared at her, his eyes flicking from her face downward over her body and back up again, his eyes darkening the longer he looked at her. She felt her face heat up. She had forgotten that she, like Cathaoir, was naked, but now with Aodhan's gaze on her, she refused to act as if it bothered her. Her chin inched up.

Aodhan climbed off his brother and reached down toward something on the grass. He walked over to her and thrust her shirt into her hands, his eyes steadily on her eyes, his face impassive. "Get dressed," he said coldly before walking away.

She slid the garment over her shoulders and fastened the ties. "Are you all right?" She knelt beside Cathaoir and gently took his face between her two hands, inspecting the damage that had been done. Both eyes would turn black, his lip was split, his nose was bleeding, and he was going to be bruised all around his shoulders and ribs, but nothing appeared to be broken.

"I'll heal." He placed a hand over hers, pressing it gently into his cheek even as he winced. Even his knuckles were bleeding. Her eyes felt hot as she leaned forward and kissed the scrapes on his hands. To think he had been put through this because of her. It was too much.

"What a touching scene." Aodhan's voice was cold. She turned to find him leaning against the base of the oak tree. She opened her mouth to let loose her scathing opinion of his actions, but he cut her off. "Not as touching as what I first found, mind you. Bronagh came and said you had run off and hadn't come back all night. She thought you had enough sense to stay in the village, but when she couldn't find you, she came to me and told me what had happened. I knew just where you would have gone. Being out here alone in the dark can be dangerous." His gaze shifted, and he studied Cathaoir coldly for a moment, then continued. "Your mother was worried for you, and so was I. So I climbed the cliffs and came looking for you, thinking we could talk about what had upset you, about what was being planned for our future--" he stressed the word our, "and perhaps assuage some of your fears. But then when I got here...." here he stopped for a long moment, and again Caoimhe hardly recognized him with his features twisting so as he fought his emotions. "I found you, both of you. Tell me, are you as exhausted after rutting with my brother as you seemed to be when I found you curled against him like an animal seeking warmth?"

Caoimhe stood and made a sound of protest, only to be cut off again by Aodhan's rancor.

"--or have you found your second wind in your adoration now? Did you enjoy it, Caoimhe?"

"That's enough, Aodhan," Cathaoir said, the warning tone clear in his normally placid voice.

"Don't tell me what's enough, brother." He spat the last word. "You knew she was to be bound to me, and yet you do this? How can I ever look at you again? Either of you?"

Cathaoir looked up at his brother. "She was not bound to you yet, and it was her choice to make."

(finish up scene....Aodhan let's slip that he always believed Caoimhe would choose him, and he believes that Cathaoir has used underhanded means to get his way because that would be the only way Cathaoir would ever be able to win Caoimhe. The fight between the brothers escalates again. Aodhan still believes that Caoimhe should be his (and is willing in the end to forgive her because he blames Cathaoir not Caoimhe), Cathaoir believes that Caoimhe has already made her choice and it is him. Caoimhe, meanwhile, is still reeling from even knowing she HAD a choice to make at all, which she thought had been made for her when she walked into Cathaoir's arms, and now she realizes Cathaoir expects her to completely reverse and choose him (which is not what she was doing when they made love...she tends to leap and do, and think about the consequences later.) The brothers turn to her and ask her point blank to make a decision. At this point the wind picks up and they realize that something is....strange. They rush to the cliff, look down, and find their valley is being flooded.....more along the lines of a tidal wave. This is the tail end of a tidal wave, actually, triggered by an earthquake off the coast of France, and just enough push to throw a 5 foot wall of water down the then mostly-dry English Channel. Everything they know, everyone they love, is being washed away as they watch. Aodhan and Cathaoir rush down the cliff to try and save people. Caoimhe stands frozen for a minute...watching....and then starts down (and then she has to die somehow...not sure how yet.)

Divine Intervention, Part 2 (and possibly part 3/4):
Return back to scene with Dev, Howie and Kierra: This is where we get the full set up for the story. (finally!) 1.Souls have 10,000 years on Earth during which they are 'recycled' through many lifetimes. Then they are retired to another plane of existence (will Howie and Dev try to explain this to Kierra? maybe....) 2. Souls have soulmates. This was actually something thought up by gods as a form of entertainment...because people do some really screwed up things in the name of love. 3. In Kierra/Nicholas/Sawyer's first life there was a bit of a problem, in that Nicholas and Sawyer were identical twins. Identical twins have the bond they do because they are really one soul split between two bodies, which is then reunited in the next lifetime. This wouldn't have been such a huge issue except that because of the fight between Aodhan (Nicholas) and Sawyer (Cathaoir) over Kierra (Caoimhe) and the immediate death of all three, the mens' soul was forever split in two, at least until such time as Kierra can make a decision which one she really wants to be with. 4. We find out that Dev and Howie have been trying to get Kierra to make a decision all along, but each time they've pulled her in for a "consultation" things have gone badly. (she's gone insane, she's commited suicide, etc etc.) 5. There is only one God in the universe. Dev and Howie embody whatever God Kierra expects to see, according to her current belief system. For example, if she had gone to see them when she was Caoimhe, she would have seen them as multiple gods, including the Moon Goddess Ailbhe. Within the Christian construct, Dev and Howie continue to change according to what the 'average' person's subconscious makes them out to be. For example, in the middle ages, Dev was a horned firebreathing monster with a taste for eating children, and Howie was a middle aged white haired man. In the 21st century, Howie is much more laid back because that's what most people want God to be. Dev is a gay black man because in the deep dark secret places no one talks about, a homosexual black guy in a seat of power is the most terrifying thing most people can imagine. He will say to Kierra at some point when she scoffs at this "Don't believe me? Imagine me as your Congressman....no wait, even better...imagine me as your kid's elementary school Principal." 6. Time is running out for Kierra to make a decision. They were first born in 7507 bce. That means their 10,000 years is up in 2493. If Kierra doesn't make a decision very soon (in the next 2-3 lifetimes) Nicholas and Sawyer will simply cease to exist. They cannot move on to the next level of things without a resolution.
Time, finally, is running out.

Multiple scenes here....

Western England

December, 1536

The hill called to her. She had lost count of how many times already this morning she had looked out the one small paned window in the front wall of the little house--patterned now with frost made by her breath--and she was tired of the battle going on inside of her as she tried to keep herself from looking out yet again. She did not have time to go out today, and that was that. Besides, there was nothing waiting for her there but cold wind and disappointment.

"Marilena," came the tired voice from the chair settled close to the fire that snapped and crackled cheerily away in the grate.

She carefully placed her piece work on the bench and stood, shooing the cat away from her yarn impatiently. "Not this time, Muba. Go." She walked quickly across the small room, knowing her approach would be noted and mapped no matter how quietly she moved. When she had first taken over the care of the blind woman, she had made extra noise in all that she did, thinking in that way not to startle her charge. Finally Catherine had asked her son--Marilena's husband--what made the girl so unnaturally clumsy. Stephen--who had for weeks been watching Marilena's actions with a hidden smile and not a single word of advice--responded soberly that he was positive--given time--Marilena would become more sure and adept at her tasks, and to have patience with her.

"Yes, mother Catherine? What do you need?" Marilena retrieved a pitcher of ale and refilled the small pewter tankard on the table beside the woman, stoked the fire, and settled the blanket more firmly around Catherine's legs. Even only a few feet away from the fire, the older woman still caught a chill in winter without an additional cover. The chair Stephen had built her helped, the only chair in the house: a tall, straight backed thing made from heavy golden oak and padded with leather tanned from a hide Marilena had brought with her in her dowry. The tall back and sides of the chair helped ward off drafts and keep the heat longer. Stephen had been promising to build another one for a year now, so Marilena could give up her perch on the bench by the window. Then, she thought, she wouldn't always be looking out at that damned hill. But so far Stephen hadn't found the time for building furniture between taking care of their land and dealing with his responsibilities as a deputy to the local sheriff. It was probably too much to want for anyway; fine furniture was for the wealthy, and they were but simple middle class folk. There was no reason to fill a three room thatched cottage that forever smelled of smoke, cooked food and damp with anything but simple utilitarian pieces. Besides, stools and benches looked much more at home on the rush strewn floor than oak and leather chairs ever would.

Marilena touched Catherine's arm in an absently fond gesture, and the other woman reached up to take her hand in response. Catherine's hand felt like dry paper as it closed around hers. "Marilena, I've been thinking....how many days is it now until Christmas?"

"Christmas is next week."

Catherine's face brightened like a child's. "Oh, that's lovely, just lovely. Michael always loves Christmastime." Michael was Catherine's husband, long dead, but lately she had begun to forget this fact from time to time, and Marilena found it difficult to remind her. She had never met her husband's father, though she had heard more than enough stories of him in three years of sitting day after day with Catherine to feel as if she had known him. She knew how much Catherine had loved her spouse, how she had relied on him when her sight had begun to fade, and how that difficulty had only drawn them closer together. She knew just how her mother-in-law had grieved when Michael had dropped dead one cold spring morning while ploughing the fields around their small cottage home near Ashbourne, only a few short months after Marilena and Stephen had married, and how the older woman had hated to leave the house and home she had shared with her husband for thirty years to come live with her son and his wife in Bakewell, no matter how much she might need the help. Marilena could only hope to one day love her husband so completely and without reservation. It was because she knew these things about her mother-in-law that Marilena could only manage to reply "Yes, mother Catherine, he does love Christmas," and leave it at that.

"Well, now. Well." She squeezed Marilena's hand once, and then let go, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. "We need to make plans, don't we? There's food to prepare. And decorations. Oh!" She clapped her hands. "Holly and ivy, and...mistletoe...we'll need mistletoe." She sat forward.

Marilena pushed her back gently. "Yes, yes. But not until next week. We have time for all this. Plenty of time."

Catherine's face became mulish, and she lifted her blind eyes to Marilena's face. "But we have to start now! Do you even know where to find those plants round here?"

Marilena had lived in Bakewell her entire life, had climbed the hills and run the fields more than her parents would have liked. "I think I can manage."

Catherine rubbed fingers over her dry lips, thinking. "Honey for the wassail....and pig's feet for the souse...." She began muttering to herself.

Marilena watched her for a few more moments. Best leave her to her own thoughts. Usually with a bit of time she would remember how things really were. Perhaps these journeys into the past were comfort for her. Marilena went back to her bench and picked up her knitting. She found herself staring out the window once again, her hands tightening on the soft wool in her hand as she stared up at the peak of the hill just visible through the crystalline patterns ringing the small panes of glass. At least Catherine had the reason of senility for her slips into the past; Marilena had no such excuse.

"I'm going to get more wood for the fire." She had to get out of the house if only for a moment.

Outside in the cold, crisp air, Marilena stood in the center of the bare yard, wrapped in her heavy cloak. She breathed deeply, trying to settle the feeling of suffocation that had been creeping up on her all morning. She stamped her feet against the cold earth and looked down the lane that ran along the base of the hill past their home. She had packed dinner in a pail for Stephen this morning; he would eat in town, so she wouldn't see him until nearly sundown. Soon she would cut a few trenchers of bread for herself and Catherine and heat up some leftover pottage from last night's supper for their dinner. Then Catherine would lie down for an afternoon nap. The cow had been milked this morning, and she was still waiting for the cream to separate out so she could make butter. There were the chickens still to feed, and eggs to gather. She had pulled turnips and carrots from the root cellar this morning; that with a bit of barley and the leftover ham bone would make a nice stew for supper. She would need to make bread again tomorrow morning. The rushes on the floor were starting to get stale and needed changing out, too; she had noticed Muba catching far too many mice of late. The bed ticking could do with some fresh straw as well. Hopefully Catherine would cooperate; when she needed Marilena's full attention it made everything else so much more difficult.

She turned and stared at the outside of her home. She had once loved this little cottage, and had great hopes for improving it. She still loved it; it was her home. It was typical of the area: one story, with a half-hipped thatched roof over a narrow attic area. The timber frame was filled in with wattle and daub and then whitewashed, and Marilena was proud they could afford to have pretty glass windows instead of linen soaked in linseed oil. But she couldn't help but notice all the things she and Stephen had planned on doing which had never been gotten around to, all the dreams that had been put on hold for the last three years. There were no pretty window boxes full of flowers under her windows like she had dreamed of having. In places the whitewash had flaked away, giving the house a spotted cow appearance. The yard was just a swept dirt square where the chickens scratched during the day, with no bushes, nothing but a ugly, scraggly old linden tree near the path to the barn, no grass, no gardens beyond the vegetable plots. And then there was the general quietness of the whole place.

Marilena ran a hand absently over her flat stomach. There was no explaining why, after three years, they were still childless. Stephen said it was because God knew she had all she could handle with taking care of Catherine and running the household, but that only made the passing years more bitter for her. She loved Catherine but she had always dreamed of having a child, and to think that God might be denying her one because of the other was too much to bear sometimes, especially when taking care of her mother-in-law wasn't something she had chosen but instead had been thrust upon her by dint of her loyalty to her husband. Her arms ached to be filled with a child of her own. It seemed like every time she went into the village for supplies or visited St. Marys on one of the saints days, one girl or another she had grown up with would have yet another baby to show off. She couldn't help or hide the hungry way she stared at the children, and she was weary of the curious, pitying looks she received in return.

As if pulled by some unseen force, her head turned and she looked again to the top of the hill. The thought came unbidden and full formed, the whispers that had been making her edgy all morning suddenly a full booming voice in her head. His voice. You could've had a different life, Marilena. You could've been with me. No blind woman to cater to every day, no working from sun up to sundown, me in your bed every night and a baby in your arms, your baby, our baby. The voice turned bitter. But you couldn't wait. You couldn't be patient, no not you, not you. Always jumping, but never looking where you're jumping to. And so now you regret where you've landed? Well, don't expect me to weep with you, my dear. You've picked your bed.

"It wasn't like that," she mumbled toward the hill, and then stopped. She pressed a cold palm to her forehead. Voices in her head? Talking out loud to them? She was ready for the madhouse. It had been four years since she had exchanged a real word with Adrian, and still these conversations persisted in her mind. He was as sharp-tongued, as drily succinct, and as maddenly sure in her imagination as he had ever been in reality. She had believed the thoughts of him would fade with the passage of time, but these internal discourses had remained with her, someplace her mind wandered to as she went about her daily chores no matter how much time had passed. As disturbing as they could be with the strength of his personality remaining so true, she had always considered them nothing more than daydreams. She had known him so wholly, so completely, it was only natural she would have a good idea of his opinions. Besides that, she felt sure it was only her mind giving voice to the guilt and regret that remained in her. Using the voice of the man that guilt and regret centered around was fitting, wasn't it? But this talking out loud was going way too far.

*****

Once upon a time she thought Adrian would be her only love. They had grown up together in quite close proximity, what with Marilena's father acting as head steward on Adrian's uncle's estate. Adrian had been his uncle's ward in those days, sent to live with his mother's brother, John Wigley, after both his parents were killed from a fever. The orphaned boy--barely ten, withdrawn, slightly clumsy, and totally unsure of himself in those first days--seemed a perfect target for his elder cousins, Robert and William, who were tired of terrorizing the little hellcat child she had been, and were eager for a fresh victim for their cruel games.

At first, Marilena had only been grateful for the break in the teasing from the older, larger bo