Page 7 of Fence

4

Ciera

“This has to be it.”I glanced down at the thick, heavy textbook I’d been lugging around in my backpack all day long, comparing the hundred-fifty-year-old photos to what I saw in front of me.

I could’ve brought photocopies of the pictures, and I would have if, I hadn’t lost them. My shoulders and lower back would’ve cursed me out if they could’ve. I’d be spending the evening looking around the apothecary shops for a heating pad.

None of that mattered when I confirmed that I was in the right place. My body hummed so hard with excitement, it was a wonder my hair wasn’t standing on end.

I ran a self-conscious hand over the top of my head just to be sure it wasn’t.

The same mountain, shaped like an arrowhead, with five pointed rocks arranged in a semi-circle, roughly a hundred yards in front of the carved opening at the base. Behind the mountain was a chain of smaller peaks, nearly hidden.

I checked this against the grainy, black-and-white version of the same scene in my textbook. After a century-and-a-half, the rocks were a little rounder, the edges softer, thanks to the elements.

Thick clusters of trees grew everywhere, which was part of the reason for the trouble I had in finding the location. Even though that arrowhead stood out against the dark clouds which had started to gather, way up above the treetops, it was nearly impossible to figure out the best way to get to the mountain.

Just when I was sure I was on the right path, I’d find myself getting hopelessly turned around. Just my horrible sense of direction, right up there with clumsiness and a penchant for losing things.

I’d been out here for hours—most of the day, in fact. I checked my phone with a sigh. Nearly four o’clock. No wonder I was exhausted, not to mention starving. Still, none of that mattered as much as finding the cave.

“I knew it,” I whispered.

The wind carried my words away. There was nobody here to hear them, anyway. Nobody but me. That was enough. I had always known I was right, that the ancient cave was real and that it would still exist somewhere.

“Grandma, I knew it. You were right, too.” My heart ached, and I wished she was with me.

All the stories were true.

Saighead Uaine.

Loosely translated as Green Arrow. Very green. Almost supernaturally so. Green enough to nearly hurt my eyes, but I couldn’t stop staring. I had imagined it so many times, over the course of so many late-night bedtime stories.

Seanmhair, as my grandmother had taught me to call her, should’ve been a writer. She had a way of weaving a story that was even more skillful than the beautiful knitting and embroidery she used to work on while she spoke in her low, soothing voice, setting my imagination on fire. Stories about ancient clans and curses and enchantments. And dragons.

So, this was how it felt, finally finding something after searching for years. Telling myself it existed. Refusing to listen to those who dismissed me and told me to focus my graduate research on something a little more concrete, a little less fairytale. I didn’t know if I wanted to laugh or cry or strip naked and dance in the center of the upright stones.

The first splashes of raindrops, on the top of my head, made the decision for me. I looked up at the ominous clouds and caught a fat raindrop right in the eye for it.

I had wanted to explore the inside of the cave, anyway. Looked like this was as good a time as any. I held the book tight to my chest, the way I’d hold a baby to protect it, and made a dash for the cave mouth. I managed to make it inside just before the rain started falling in sheets.

It seemed like a good idea to lose the pack for a little while, and my shoulders nearly screamed in relief when I let the straps slide over them and down my arms.

I pulled out a protein bar before sliding the textbook inside, and sat cross-legged on the cave floor while eating and drinking from one of my water bottles. It was so strange, actually being in here, where so much had happened, according to legend.

You don’t really believe that, do you?

Even my inner voice seemed to be on a quest to piss me off and remind me how naïve I could be. Legends weren’t real—otherwise, they’d be called reality. And there was no way of knowing how much was legend and how much was added on over centuries of retelling.

I was certain the dragon aspect of the stories was embellishment. Or, hell, they could’ve been part of the original stories, since people believed in that sort of thing back then. Before science, before the printed word. A thousand years into the past. Dragons and fairies and such—they were how people explained natural phenomena back then.

Though I wasn’t sure how a dragon could provide an explanation for anything. And there were multiple civilizations whose members had produced drawings and paintings of what could’ve been dragons, civilizations who’d never been in contact with each other. Before ocean travel even was a thing. The drawings had to come from somewhere, and I didn’t believe in group consciousness. Not when the group was spread out over hundreds of years and thousands of miles in what were basically the Dark Ages—and before.

When I was finished eating, I stood up and wiped the dirt from the seat of my cargo pants. It was still raining, though that initial burst of violence had turned to a softer, gentler rain which seemed to swirl around in a cloud. The sort of rain I was more accustomed to seeing in that part of the world.

I’d only lived here for four months while studying at the University of Edinburgh, but it already felt like home. Maybe because Seanmhair was the closest thing to home I’d ever experienced—while I was in her birthplace, it was like having her all around me. Like she was with me again.

I shook my head, like that would be enough to remind me my grandmother was dead and would be dead no matter where I went or how many mystical caves I explored. No matter what I found on my travels through the highlands, it wouldn’t bring her back. I knew it in my head, in the part of me that had helped me graduate summa cum laude from Columbia before pursuing my Master’s in Edinburgh. I was a frigging intellectual, for God’s sake. I should’ve known better.

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