The encounter had shaken me. To risk discovery thus, on the very day of my brothers’ return, had been foolish in the extreme. I vowed never to come that way again, however great my need to see humankind, however painful my isolation. No word must make its way back to my village, and thence to the lady Oonagh. For she would come for me if she found me, I was in no doubt of that. Besides, I had wasted precious time. Already midsummer, and the first shirt barely begun. At this rate I would be here for many moons. I hastened home through the forest, eager for nightfall.

To speak truth, I scarcely doubted that first time that they would return as she had told me. And so I prepared for them, washing myself, dragging a comb through my disheveled curls, making my simple home as orderly as I could. I left the fire alight, though damped down, and I walked to the lakeshore well before sunset. There I performed the ritual alone and in silence. I was careful to leave nothing out. In turn I greeted the spirits of Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. I did not ask any favors. Instead I opened my mind to what would come. Told them that I accepted it, whatever it was. Asked them to accept me for my part in the great web of life, and to use me as they would. When I had finished I took up my staff of oak that had been Father Brien’s, and I cast the circle on the white sand around me. I sat cross-legged at its very center and waited, with the wide, empty waters of the lake before me. Gradually the sounds of the forest began to make their way back into my consciousness. Trees rustled, birds called and answered high above. I could do no more.

The sky deepened to rose and violet and a dusky gray. An owl flew overhead unseen, her mournful cry floating in the evening air. Not long. Not long now. Linn had been quiet, crouched in the grass, watching me carefully. Now she crept closer, growling softly. And they were there, out on the water, drifting together, white ghosts on the darkening ripples. My heart leaped, but I sat still and waited. Thunder rolled far away to the west, and the air clung damply to the skin.

The last trace of sunlight was extinguished; night stretched her hand over the forest. As dusk became dark, there was a movement in the water, and they came to shore, one by one. The moment of changing was veiled from me by the night, for the moon had yet to show herself through gathering clouds. I saw dimly the shape of a great wing, the bending of a strong, arching neck. And then they were here, my brothers, my dear ones, on the sand before me, dazed and wet, half clothed in the selfsame garments they had worn before, and then, best balm for the spirit, came the silent greeting of mind to mind, stumbling and incoherent at first, but filling my heart with the deepest joy.