Dragon's Keep by Janet Lee Carey Page A

chest.
    "You'll have Prince
Henry. Only the best will wed my Rosie." Then booting Crispin, he raced along the shore, the reeds swaying as
he passed, like slender pilgrims bowing to their lord.
    The breeze picked up as we skirted Lake Ailleann where the water shone blue as a giant's tear, with God's Eye in the middle.
God's Eye seemed a somber place to me, it being the last vestige of what Wilde Island had once been six hundred years ago when Merlin took a year of silence there.
    I'd wondered when I was
small if my destiny to restore Wilde Island 's place under the sun, as Merlin predicted, meant
to return it to its magic days, and I'd asked Marn about it. "Ah, poppet,
you're a dreamer," she said to me. "It's sure the isle is swathed with
a great many healing herbs from its magic days. But now it's trodden down with all manner of men. The wild beasts
will not speak to us as they did in Saint Columba's time. Nor will the water
sprites or fairies come out. They've all run skitter-tail from us. And it's not
likely they'll return."

I slowed Rollo to a trot. Above us the sky
was pearled with small white clouds. The newly risen sun beamed over the earth,
and as I looked to the water, it seemed the magic was not gone but dozing like a sleepy child that would one day
leap up, as a tot does from her slumber, and greet the world again. I
dreamed of this as I rode behind Father, the larks high in the alders calling
down to us as we rounded the lake.
    Lake Ailleann lapped lazy as a dog's tongue on the shore as we
wandered to the place where the yarrow moths were waking. We watched them break
apart their waxen tombs one by one and struggle out. All the while Father
stroked his beard and said, "Look ye, Rosie. Out of
death to life." And I crossed myself as I watched a moth creep from
her shroud, unfurl her yellow wings, and flit skyward.
    Father traipsed through the rushes and picked
up a stone. "Come closer by the
water," he called, "and make a wish, my girl."
    I followed to the
water's edge, chose a round rock the small of a sparrow's lay, and looked out to Lake Ailleann where the ripples whispered one to
another. I knew if I could have my wish, I'd bring Marn back from her drowning
death, rescue Kit from the nunnery, and go herbing in the woods with them
forever. Marn would stoop in the cool shade calling, "Ah, here's a rue
plant, dears. Sniff the leaves and your head will clear in love matters."
    I turned the stone over in my glove.
    "You think too long," said Father.
"Make a wish," he said, closing his eyes. "Toss the rock."
He tossed his. "And be done."
    I closed my eyes, tossed the stone, and saw
neither Marn nor Kit behind my eyelids, but the image of a lover with his arms

about me. In that vision my hand was fully healed, my
finger shone pink as a rose petal. And I
saw my gloves fall away like torn cocoons the yarrow moths had left
behind.
    We left Lake Ailleann, skirted the woods, and
rode up Twisters Hill. There on the windy cliffs Father pulled Crispin to a
halt and strained forward.
    "A ship," he called through the
swirling wind. And as soon as he said the
words, the chapel bells rang out six times across the valley.
    "Something is wrong," said Father.
"See how the ship is listing to the left?"
    I held my gloved hand to my eyes to shield
out the sun and saw the ship tilting to the side, its sails fluttering small as
moth wings.
    "She may sink!" said Father. Off we
rode to Dentsmore. Father galloped past the cottages, calling all the boatmen
out. None had been to fish that day, it being Sunday and what some womenfolk
called "my good man's day-o'-slumber."
    I waited on shore with the other women whilst
Father and the fishermen leaped to their boats. Many were still clad in their
nightshirts, Father having called them from their beds.
    As the boats pulled away
the women crowded on the docks to call, "Not too far out! It be a Sunday!" And,
"Heed the warning waves, my dear!"
    Sheb Kottle stumbled out of The Pig and
Thistle, late to