Willow nodded. There was no telling what she thought of this ending for her tale. “And you, young man?” she asked, looking at Coll.

“One day the druid left the gate open,” Coll said, instantly taking up the challenge. “Maybe by mistake, maybe not. When he remembered and went outside to chain it up again, Wolf-child was gone. And whether the wolf pack took him back as one of their own, or whether they turned him away because he’d been among humankind for too long, nobody ever found out. But sometimes, at dead of night, when the wolves howl at the moon, folk in those parts say they hear another sound mingling with the wolfish voices—the cry of a man whose heart craves what he can never have.”

A stunned silence fell over us. I eyed my young cousin with new respect. I knew he loved stories, but I had never heard him tell one before. This had been a strong ending. I looked over at Cathal, wondering what he had thought of it, but he wasn’t there. At some point after Willow had cut off her narration so abruptly he had left the hall.

“And you, Clodagh?”

I started in surprise as the old woman addressed me. One for a lady. She expected me to provide the third version. The ending that sprang to my mind was even darker than Coll’s, and I would not tell it. “The others were very good,” I said, playing for time. “I cannot better them.”

“Better?” Willow queried with a smile. “There is no better or worse with stories, only different. What would you make of this? How would you resolve it? With sorrow, with gladness, with learning?” That look was in her eyes again, the same I had seen when she told the clurichaun story. It was a look that challenged me to understand, to take from the story some kind of learning that was not obvious. I was unable to grasp what she meant by it. My mind went back to Cathal’s stricken face, his haunted, lonely eyes. He’d been upset beyond anything the tale might have conjured. Why?