under elms


"Guess."

Findabair Pane cast a lopsided grin and leaned her willowy frame against an elm trunk in the green henge shade as a million leaves wept to the sly gab of yodeling magpies.

Popinjay eyes brimmed as freckles stormed under her shock of maple red hair. A dark pine cotton cutty sark fluttered open at the waist of black linen longstockings pulled high over ribs clutching like clarsachs. Kicking rough bark with the big bighty heels of clunky black wooden klompen, Findabair gazed at another tall, bony girl clad alikely in ash and grey, her cheeks a watchet glow behind chin length straw blond thatch.

"Thou made'st a bee streak for the Farlings'."

Wind blew hair across their faces. Neither shoved it back.

"Thou wast the fit little helper all after, stitchin' brownies with Fethnaid 'n Faith for Harvest home since they take four nights to brew and thou smellst like one."

"Thorpe cabbage!" Findabair threw back with a wraithen smile.

"Tell me when I swoon."

"Hold on a tick, ok? How's Devon?"

A blond eyebrow hovered. From side pocket came a prism, a sheer, sparkling gore splaying a wan rainbow on Gormglaith's hand. Findabair leaned in for a closer look.

"...Dinky!"

Findabair raised her chin, tongue flicking blithely. Mouths latched as they pulled close in fad and fumble beneath flapping cutty sarks. A wide grin peeked from behind windblown straw thatch.

"Dost thou think my hues are true, Gormglaith?"

"Rather."

Findabair drew a breath.

"Ever since Gweneth ran off to Blairie, I've been thinking. I mean we both know swans like us should be scootin' onto the lake of life. We need to put our heads together, plight, bone up and get a cool flat in Kin Dails... like maybe something on Coo rood, off Yew lane near all the lekker lass haunts..."

Thatch tilted.

"Thou didstn't."

Findabair made a dimpled grin.

"Fuck! Thou didst! Ok, let me guess. Fethnaid told thee, 'Th'art clueless. Now, let's show thee how we skive the cane.'"

"Gasping, Gormglaith..."

"Thou ranst the same dodgy scam on me last week when we made chocolate blizzard shortbread!"

"Aye 'n it spun di'nit."

"Not! Anyway I guess there's no need to keep on about it."

"Uhm, maybe there is."

"...What am I missing here?"

"What's left of the tale. I mean, I know I'm no Gillian Goblyn or anything, so I thought they didn't give a luzz, handed Faith the cane jar and dropped the gab like a hot potato. Then later, as I was leaving, Fethnaid let slip we all might be rather keen about getting the nod from our kynn to even talk about it, this being such a stern little thorpe and the twins being so too themselves... stern, that is. I was gobsmacked, but like they say," Findabair put with a nod, "sometimes, all tha hast to do is ask."

Gormglaith gaped with a chary stare.

"...Findabair Pane if thou thinkst I'm going to get stark with the Farling twins and thee under the elms of Elmhenge in front of kynn 'n kin and a gooey clutch to plight my life away in the most wanton setup..."

"I knew thou'dst see the dreamy side, Gormglaith."

Findabair shrugged in her fazy way. Gormglaith gazed at freckled face and loopy smile as the magpies gossiped high in soaring wych elms rushing on the wind.

"Ok, I'll think about it."

"Thou wilt?" asked Findabair, so startled she stumbled.

"I'll think about it..." echoed Gormglaith, big black wooden klompen rooted flat on the ground.

"...Maybe."

"Seal it with a kiss."

"No."

"Huh?!"

"Steal it with a kiss, thou meanst! No way!"

"No pog," said Findabair, nodding steadfastly, arms loose at her sides.

Gormglaith answered with searing eyes.

"Twixies!"

Findabair's hair flew as her head popped up with shining popinjay eyes and a wraithen smile.

"Twixies!"

Gormglaith looked off as Findabair put dry hands on a waist sharply bladed by hip bones floating over buoyant thews in grey linen. Her eyes flit open when Gormglaith pogged back and tongues twined, pelvises rubbing to a keen beat whilst beyond the elms flaxen fields surged against misty hills and a waxing moon rose amid white puffy clouds hurrying across a sky deepening to starry cobalt.

Gormglaith made an odd face and dashed off on the elm boughed path, open cutty sark flying by the breeze. At about fifty yards she stopped hard, spun about and with hand over head, waved at Findabair who waved back and shouted,

"Midnight! Lea Cairn!"

Gormglaith nodded, twirled and ran as Findabair wandered along the grass path, whistling with magpies in a cool gathering dusk.

A dozen furlongs later Gormglaith came to an airy house of weathered chalk limestone near a bend in the sled lane amid uncut, windswept mead grass and leafy elms. She strode through the doors of Bryn larach, tousled the white haired head of her naked and casperish little sister Gobnait who was in busy gab with a hovering goblin toonishly cast like a big, yellow and black striped honeybee, then yelled,

"I'm home!"

"Hi Gormglaith!" came a chirpy greeting from the kitchen.

"Hi Giorsal. Where's Geileis?"

"They're here somewhere... I think!"

"They?"

"Here I am!"

By a narrow doorway Geileis Grendel Hafgan Halsen stood swathed in dark shadows, pumpkin-red sunset flooding behind her. Six feet tall with a lanky frame bearing wrinkled grey longstockings pulled up to her bare flat chest and wearing big yellow Frisian wooden klompen Geileis seemed about twenty, after which one looks elsewhere for clues. She greeted Gormglaith with canny blue lake eyes, shoving back a tangled thatch of neck length straw hair and smiling chalkenly as kynn are wont to do when a clannin daughter comes home for supper.

"Look," said Gormglaith, holding the gore out straight armed. "Devon gave it to me."

Geileis grinned at her twin daughter.

"That's neat!"

"Ripping, Gormglaith!" answered someone else.

"Shenn Grainne Grendel!"

"Gormglaith Grendel Hafgan Halsen!" said a shorter girl with long yellow hair and sunken eyes, hands on hips in black longstockings, platinum edged klompen to match (and among the few hints she was nudging a hundred and ninety).

They hugged and kissed and spun.

As the sun's last beams blew rafters of ruddy pumpkin light through wefted windows the three of them stood and played with the gore, splitting a wide band of true red onto the chalky stone wall. Seeing a bright rainbow of light streaking from her sister's hand Gobnait forgot the bee and ran over to wrap an arm each about Geileis and Gormglaith's thighs.

"That is a Nichneven..." said the moppet, tugging at their legs whilst shrewdly following it with a deft stereo stare.

They scrunched and kneeled on an embroidered rug to split more light but Gobnait soon wandered off with a weary sigh. Gormglaith went cross legged, Geileis and Grainne with knees drawn to chins, glittering gore at their klompened feet.

"We were having sunflower butter and strawberry jam butties," said Gormglaith, "reading Lundin sundering and she set it on the board. She says it's for Harvest home, since I got another Tales of the knotty kindel book for my birthday and Yule is moons off. She's had it for over 225 years and says it was old when she got it."

"Yule or Harvest home," Geileis sighed, "it's the canny token."

"I saw Findabair..." said Gormglaith, leveling a smile.

"...She wants to plight."

Twin daughter and kynn held likened looks as Grainne cast Geileis a sharpening glance.

"...Oh!" said Geileis, shaking her head. "What'dst thou say? Who's the lucky third?"

Gormglaith leaned back and grinned.

"I told her I'd think about it."

"Gurfling..." came a silvery tongue as the front doors opened.

"...to a dodgy end." said a lower one.

Gormglaith sprang up like a spindly apple snatcher robot.

Enid Hafgan Halsen was of shorter than middling height, a faaish grass witch with sly hazel eyes and sandy hair falling lankily in two thin braids, long bangs sweeping forward over hidden cheeks and a hint of overbite which by most tellings some girls found weird and fetching. At her side was Aine of Knockaine, pillywigginish and lithe yet hardy with a pushed up, squish nose and blue black, pumpkin streaked hair in big thick braids hanging to her waist. They were both in the abiding grey longstockings, handy cutty sarks and thrash wooden klompen worn so wontedly by thralls in the West meads.

"Looky!"

"Gasping, Gormglaith," said Enid, nudging her bangs. "Cracking gore... ash ice, looks like a Nichneven... this thing'll split starlight. Where'dst tha get it?"

"Devon Rand."

"...Lapped two thousand years ago, at least," Enid said as Geileis entwined her like a gangly cat, "and looky here... oy!"

Geileis had slapped her bottom, pulling away with a tight grin.

"Hi Grainne," said Enid, handing the gore back to Gormglaith and casting an unflappable gaze, bangs slipping over her long face.

"Hi Aine!" blurted Geileis, grinning wide, "...how's Ailis?"

"Hey Geileis. Oh, she's fettle... fatter."

Everyone laughed.

"Tell her I'll come by tomorrow and feaze her!"

"Ok Geileis," answered Aine, braids quivering.

"Oh, Aine'll eat with us tonight," said Enid. "A reaper scrozzled on the slope by the larch grove, gurfling like a window washer down a well."

"Fy."

"Yeah, both shims... anyway she's going to help Giorsal and me make the swap after supper."

"By the way y'all..." Geileis said clanninishly.

"...Giorsal gathered pumpkins!"

"Lilies!" answered Enid, wrapping herself in reedy arms and swaying with eyes closed. "I'm craven!"

Giorsal came from the kitchen with hip length, milky ponytails swooshing.

"Hey Aine," she said, "dost tha recall that gingerbread spell...?"

Words tumbled as Geileis spun Gormglaith by the shoulders.

"...And thou 'glaithen girl might get to nest ...tidy and bright for supper tonight!"

Geileis smacked Gormglaith's bottom as she ran off with clunchy flashes of teeth and blue lake eyes under a lop of straw thatch, cast a wave at Giorsal and loped down the hall.

Coming to a tidy nest Gormglaith put the sheer gore in a deep window sill, glanced about then stopped short, gazing down with knitted brow. On the low, wide, sleekly slatted elmwood sleeping staddle, snug in a dimple it had made on folded cotton heaps lay a book, an Eachdraidh nan fylgjic, this one the cloth kind with leaves gathered in an ash grey linen binding bedecked with pink runes. The open sheaf was thrown right, to a song.

In a dale of tales so thrillin'
Plait kin by flaxen linen
Nigh pumpkins on pine needles
Pulling moon to light what's sown...

She stared outside as the waxing moon lofted higher, dark clouds rimmed with their last dusky broken pumpkin hues and elms swayed, ruffling in the wind.

Gormglaith wandered into a bath with cool, swatched walls of scrubbed bluestone, the smell of natron soap over freshly laundered cotton towels. She hooked thumbs under the wide, folded wrap below her chest and yanked grey linen down the chalkenly sheer, blue green veined skin of belly, thighs, knees and big feet, then sat on her heels. A sprinkling in the water below wafted a fallain hint of leaf and root as she stared hard into grainy folds of feldspar and quartz.

She stood, nudged a swab snugly between her thighs and tapped the pink goblin on the floor with a bare foot. A puff of white hit the whirlpool like a shattered blossom. She went to the sink and gazed at herself, short straw blond thatch falling over an eye, glowing in dusk light. She sucked in her breath, frowned, splashed water on her face, opened a wall cupboard, put on white longstockings (keeping them so rimpled behind the knees), dipped her feet into bright yellow wooden klompen with cheerfully drawn daisies, glanced at bare chest and face in the looking glass and spun out the door.