Alisaura
Blue Crack Supplier
My goodness, where has the year gone... When was it, February I started posting this? 
Standard Disclaimer: I cannot emphasise enough how very untrue this story is. Don't know the band, barely set foot in Wales, etc etc. Any and all slings and arrows may be directed squarely at me.
(Kids, don't do drugs. Even if spirits tell you to. ESPECIALLY if spirits tell you to.)
Without further ado...
end of chapter 38:
--------
"Something's not right. Where are you?" He was starting to sound really concerned.
"Glen... Do you trust me?"
An ominous pause. "Yes, Lisa, I told you I trust you. And I do. But that doesn't stop me from worrying..."
"Then trust me, love. This will be over soon."
Shite. I'd meant to say I'd be home soon, but my arm was already hanging up the phone. I thought of calling back to clarify, but I didn't want to give Glen the chance to weasel the details out of me, because that really would worry him. I imagined I would have a lot of voicemail messages from him when I got back into range of a mobile phone tower.
The sun was sinking towards the western horizon. Something told me it was time I headed out to the circle. I would have to build a fire, after all, before it got dark.
-----------
Chapter 39:
-----------
I left my car at the bottom of the hill, and walked up to confront the ring of standing stones again. It looked just the same as it had on my last trip there, but now I saw it through completely different eyes. Both Mag and myself had changed a lot since I'd seen these stones last. There, Mag had been killed. And there Ewain had allowed himself to be consumed by the fire that he had essentially created. Moryn, Ortral and Raele had given their lives for these stones too, along with all the villagers who had sickened and died as the Earth spirits had been overwhelmed, subdued. I hoped they had not been utterly destroyed, because if that was so, this whole ritual would be a complete waste of time.
I walked around the circle, thinking these things, before the setting sun prompted me to pick up several armloads of firewood from the back of my four-wheel-drive. I hesitated before stepping inside the stones – now would not be a good time to get lost in the dream world. I stepped over, and luckily remained myself. This time I did feel my hair stand up, though. Something was in the air, or the earth. A lot of something.
I built the fire in the middle of the circle, and sat on the altar stone to wait. I didn't know when Ed would show up, but I knew he would come here. Another thing I didn't know was exactly what I would say and do. But I was hoping that would sort itself out.
It was full dark long before I heard another car approaching, and I watched as a set of headlights bumped slowly up the valley, found my car, and pulled up next to it. The engine died, and there was a minute or so of silence before doors opened and closed, and I heard male voices and stomping feet. The headlights disappeared, and I waited. Stars burned brilliantly overhead, but dark clouds had been massing to the south during the day, and that part of the sky was black and empty.
The air inside the circle, at least, seemed to thicken with tension. The fire still burned strongly.
"Aaah, shite, me leg's still asleep..." came a voice. It was definitely Irish, and definitely familiar.
"Ssshh." One of Ed's companions shushed him, or maybe that was Ed himself.
The four of them came into view, lit by the fire, and stopped short of the stones. The shadows flickered over them.
I was immediately struck by a strong impression that these four people formed some sort of irreducible unit, bound tightly together by many years, through good times and bad. Seeing them now, I was no longer surprised that they had come out here for Ed's sake. I could see some tension there, but the solidarity between them was more than strong enough to overcome it.
Ed gave me a small smile – he looked about as bad as he had the last time I'd seen him, tired and worn out. He was sporting almost a full growth of salt-and-pepper beard (I wished he wasn't – it just made me think of Ewain), and the eternal beanie was firmly in place. He was dressed about the same way, too; tattered jeans, sneakers, worn-in jacket. There was some sort of abstract design on his t-shirt.
Two of the others were looking at me, and the third stranger was staring up and around, taking in the whole scene; the stones, the stars, the fire, the ground, the atmosphere. "Wow," I heard him breathe. "This is extraordinary."
I walked out to meet them, since they didn't seem inclined to cross the boundary just yet. I couldn't blame them; I'd had the same reaction when I'd first come here.
"Lisa," Ed said, stepping forward. He was caught between two conflicting gestures for a moment, then settled on grasping my hand and shaking it. "It's good to see you."
"You, too," I said.
One of Ed's friends whipped his head around. He had one of those classically chiselled faces, and spiked hair that could have been either light brown or dark blond. It was hard to tell in the firelight. He was wearing a dark leather jacket, jeans, and boots, and had been pacing around, shoulders hunched and fists jammed into his jacket pockets. He looked like he would rather be anywhere but there, scowling and sceptical. "Hi," he said after staring at me for a moment. Which was fair enough, since I'd been staring at him. He was of Earth, too.
"Hi," I replied. "I'm Lisa."
His obvious discomfort seemed to intensify for a moment. "Lawrence," he said, extending his hand to me. We shook briefly before Lawrence shoved his hand back into a pocket. He cleared his throat. "I owe you an apology," he said, and I finally recognised the voice. "I shouldn't've called you up and said those things, I was wrong. I'm sorry."
I met his eyes for a moment. "Accepted," I said. "I'm sorry, too. I seem to recall I was rather harsh myself."
"You had reason."
"You were looking out for your friend," I replied.
He gave a curt nod, and resumed his pacing.
"Definitely Earth," I said quietly. Not quietly enough – Lawrence shot me an unreadable look, and Ed nodded in agreement.
The silver-haired gent (who, on second glance, was probably no older than the others) had been observing all this with a very English-looking, upside-down sort of smile. His voice matched my expectations, and I guessed this was the same man who had initially answered the phone when I'd first called Ed at his work.
"Nice to finally meet you, Lisa," he said, offering his hand as well. "I'm Adam." He projected an air of unhurried calm, it was rather soothing in the current circumstances. He looked as though he'd just strolled out of his front door to collect the paper. Casual slacks, t-shirt, jacket, in neutral tones.
"You're of Water," I said, and shook the offered hand. One of his eyebrows quirked upwards.
"That's what he said," Adam replied. He and Ed shared a look.
"Which leaves..." Lawrence had heard the exchange, and looked over to the third man, who was completing a circuit around the outside of the stones. "Why am I not surprised," Lawrence muttered.
"You would be Fire, then," I said to the third man as he walked up. (I noticed with detached amusement that I was the tallest person there.) The fire made shadows slide over the planes of a squarish face as he kept looking around him. Bold nose, straight jaw, and a substantial crop of long stubble. His hair was short, probably brown, and couldn't make up its mind which direction to point in. He almost seemed familiar, but I dismissed the feeling. The air was charged with... something, after all. Just my imagination.
He looked at me curiously. The firelight made it hard to tell, but his eyes looked blue. "That is interesting," he said, and I noticed his Irish accent was a little less pronounced than Lawrence's. There was a particular intensity to him that reminded me uncomfortably of Ewain; but I sensed that this man had channelled that burning energy into a very different life than Ewain's had been. I wondered how much that difference had depended on the other three men present.
"Is it an instinctive thing?" he was asking. "Or is it on a first come, first served basis?"
"No, it doesn't matter who was here first," I said, glancing at Ed. He obviously hadn't discussed this in enormous amounts of detail with his friends. "You'd be Fire no matter when you got here. That's my impression, anyway. I might be wrong."
Ed was nodding again, saying I was right; but now that the time had come, I was nervous again. I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets – the April night was not warm, and the evening breeze had picked up to a strong, gusty wind. The stars overhead were being swallowed by blackness, and I imagined the clouds racing across the sky.
"Look," I said, and suddenly all four of them were watching me. "I don't really know if this is going to work, or how it might work, or anything. I've never done anything like this before... hell, the last time I was here, I was doing very logical, scientific things, mapping the geology. I tried as hard as I could to convince myself that these were just rocks," I gestured to the standing stones behind me, "and that Ed and I were having hallucinations, but I can't do that any more. I know it sounds crazy, but it's a crazy situation, and maybe it needs a crazy answer. So here we are."
Silence, except for the wind blasting up the hill, howling around the stones, making the fire flare and dance. Ed looked upwards, eyebrows raised. The stars were gone, and a few cold raindrops were blown down onto us.
An entirely new thought occurred to me at that moment. "Even if there are any spirits, I don't even know what language the people spoke back then. They're not going to understand anything I say. Do you speak Welsh?" I asked Ed, slightly panicky.
"Not really," he began, but the blue-eyed, unnamed man interrupted.
"I don't think it matters," he said, but then I interrupted him in turn.
"You're right, they didn't speak Welsh then, either. It was probably something like ancient olde proto-proto-Welsh."
"I don't think it matters," he said again patiently, "because language is just the shape we've learned to push our thoughts and feelings into." I blinked at him, but he went on. "A thought without shape is a feeling, and feelings are stronger than thoughts; they haven't been bent and compressed and warped by the constraints of language and all the cultural preconceptions that go along with it. The feeling behind the words is what these spirits will understand."
Bloody hell. "Did you go to the same philosophy school as Ed?" I asked him. He chuckled, a warm sound against the cold wind.
I thought about what he'd said. I didn't know if he was humouring Ed and I, but at this point it hardly mattered. And he did make a certain sort of sense. My resolve solidified.
"All right, shapeless thoughts. Makes sense. These ought to help, then." I pulled the few mushrooms I'd found in the forest out of my pocket.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Ed asked, having to raise his voice over the wind. He obviously recognised them.
"If I'm going to do this, I want to do it properly," I said, meeting his eyes. He seemed apprehensive. "I can't put myself in the same mindset that Mag was in, because I can't believe it as completely as she did, even when she wasn't using these things." I looked at the seemingly-innocuous little fungi. "And if this can work, I need to be able to think like she did. And I need to get out of my own headspace to do that." I took a breath, and ate the mushrooms.
----------------
Standard Disclaimer: I cannot emphasise enough how very untrue this story is. Don't know the band, barely set foot in Wales, etc etc. Any and all slings and arrows may be directed squarely at me.
(Kids, don't do drugs. Even if spirits tell you to. ESPECIALLY if spirits tell you to.)
Without further ado...
end of chapter 38:
--------
"Something's not right. Where are you?" He was starting to sound really concerned.
"Glen... Do you trust me?"
An ominous pause. "Yes, Lisa, I told you I trust you. And I do. But that doesn't stop me from worrying..."
"Then trust me, love. This will be over soon."
Shite. I'd meant to say I'd be home soon, but my arm was already hanging up the phone. I thought of calling back to clarify, but I didn't want to give Glen the chance to weasel the details out of me, because that really would worry him. I imagined I would have a lot of voicemail messages from him when I got back into range of a mobile phone tower.
The sun was sinking towards the western horizon. Something told me it was time I headed out to the circle. I would have to build a fire, after all, before it got dark.
-----------
Chapter 39:
-----------
I left my car at the bottom of the hill, and walked up to confront the ring of standing stones again. It looked just the same as it had on my last trip there, but now I saw it through completely different eyes. Both Mag and myself had changed a lot since I'd seen these stones last. There, Mag had been killed. And there Ewain had allowed himself to be consumed by the fire that he had essentially created. Moryn, Ortral and Raele had given their lives for these stones too, along with all the villagers who had sickened and died as the Earth spirits had been overwhelmed, subdued. I hoped they had not been utterly destroyed, because if that was so, this whole ritual would be a complete waste of time.
I walked around the circle, thinking these things, before the setting sun prompted me to pick up several armloads of firewood from the back of my four-wheel-drive. I hesitated before stepping inside the stones – now would not be a good time to get lost in the dream world. I stepped over, and luckily remained myself. This time I did feel my hair stand up, though. Something was in the air, or the earth. A lot of something.
I built the fire in the middle of the circle, and sat on the altar stone to wait. I didn't know when Ed would show up, but I knew he would come here. Another thing I didn't know was exactly what I would say and do. But I was hoping that would sort itself out.
It was full dark long before I heard another car approaching, and I watched as a set of headlights bumped slowly up the valley, found my car, and pulled up next to it. The engine died, and there was a minute or so of silence before doors opened and closed, and I heard male voices and stomping feet. The headlights disappeared, and I waited. Stars burned brilliantly overhead, but dark clouds had been massing to the south during the day, and that part of the sky was black and empty.
The air inside the circle, at least, seemed to thicken with tension. The fire still burned strongly.
"Aaah, shite, me leg's still asleep..." came a voice. It was definitely Irish, and definitely familiar.
"Ssshh." One of Ed's companions shushed him, or maybe that was Ed himself.
The four of them came into view, lit by the fire, and stopped short of the stones. The shadows flickered over them.
I was immediately struck by a strong impression that these four people formed some sort of irreducible unit, bound tightly together by many years, through good times and bad. Seeing them now, I was no longer surprised that they had come out here for Ed's sake. I could see some tension there, but the solidarity between them was more than strong enough to overcome it.
Ed gave me a small smile – he looked about as bad as he had the last time I'd seen him, tired and worn out. He was sporting almost a full growth of salt-and-pepper beard (I wished he wasn't – it just made me think of Ewain), and the eternal beanie was firmly in place. He was dressed about the same way, too; tattered jeans, sneakers, worn-in jacket. There was some sort of abstract design on his t-shirt.
Two of the others were looking at me, and the third stranger was staring up and around, taking in the whole scene; the stones, the stars, the fire, the ground, the atmosphere. "Wow," I heard him breathe. "This is extraordinary."
I walked out to meet them, since they didn't seem inclined to cross the boundary just yet. I couldn't blame them; I'd had the same reaction when I'd first come here.
"Lisa," Ed said, stepping forward. He was caught between two conflicting gestures for a moment, then settled on grasping my hand and shaking it. "It's good to see you."
"You, too," I said.
One of Ed's friends whipped his head around. He had one of those classically chiselled faces, and spiked hair that could have been either light brown or dark blond. It was hard to tell in the firelight. He was wearing a dark leather jacket, jeans, and boots, and had been pacing around, shoulders hunched and fists jammed into his jacket pockets. He looked like he would rather be anywhere but there, scowling and sceptical. "Hi," he said after staring at me for a moment. Which was fair enough, since I'd been staring at him. He was of Earth, too.
"Hi," I replied. "I'm Lisa."
His obvious discomfort seemed to intensify for a moment. "Lawrence," he said, extending his hand to me. We shook briefly before Lawrence shoved his hand back into a pocket. He cleared his throat. "I owe you an apology," he said, and I finally recognised the voice. "I shouldn't've called you up and said those things, I was wrong. I'm sorry."
I met his eyes for a moment. "Accepted," I said. "I'm sorry, too. I seem to recall I was rather harsh myself."
"You had reason."
"You were looking out for your friend," I replied.
He gave a curt nod, and resumed his pacing.
"Definitely Earth," I said quietly. Not quietly enough – Lawrence shot me an unreadable look, and Ed nodded in agreement.
The silver-haired gent (who, on second glance, was probably no older than the others) had been observing all this with a very English-looking, upside-down sort of smile. His voice matched my expectations, and I guessed this was the same man who had initially answered the phone when I'd first called Ed at his work.
"Nice to finally meet you, Lisa," he said, offering his hand as well. "I'm Adam." He projected an air of unhurried calm, it was rather soothing in the current circumstances. He looked as though he'd just strolled out of his front door to collect the paper. Casual slacks, t-shirt, jacket, in neutral tones.
"You're of Water," I said, and shook the offered hand. One of his eyebrows quirked upwards.
"That's what he said," Adam replied. He and Ed shared a look.
"Which leaves..." Lawrence had heard the exchange, and looked over to the third man, who was completing a circuit around the outside of the stones. "Why am I not surprised," Lawrence muttered.
"You would be Fire, then," I said to the third man as he walked up. (I noticed with detached amusement that I was the tallest person there.) The fire made shadows slide over the planes of a squarish face as he kept looking around him. Bold nose, straight jaw, and a substantial crop of long stubble. His hair was short, probably brown, and couldn't make up its mind which direction to point in. He almost seemed familiar, but I dismissed the feeling. The air was charged with... something, after all. Just my imagination.
He looked at me curiously. The firelight made it hard to tell, but his eyes looked blue. "That is interesting," he said, and I noticed his Irish accent was a little less pronounced than Lawrence's. There was a particular intensity to him that reminded me uncomfortably of Ewain; but I sensed that this man had channelled that burning energy into a very different life than Ewain's had been. I wondered how much that difference had depended on the other three men present.
"Is it an instinctive thing?" he was asking. "Or is it on a first come, first served basis?"
"No, it doesn't matter who was here first," I said, glancing at Ed. He obviously hadn't discussed this in enormous amounts of detail with his friends. "You'd be Fire no matter when you got here. That's my impression, anyway. I might be wrong."
Ed was nodding again, saying I was right; but now that the time had come, I was nervous again. I stuck my hands in my jacket pockets – the April night was not warm, and the evening breeze had picked up to a strong, gusty wind. The stars overhead were being swallowed by blackness, and I imagined the clouds racing across the sky.
"Look," I said, and suddenly all four of them were watching me. "I don't really know if this is going to work, or how it might work, or anything. I've never done anything like this before... hell, the last time I was here, I was doing very logical, scientific things, mapping the geology. I tried as hard as I could to convince myself that these were just rocks," I gestured to the standing stones behind me, "and that Ed and I were having hallucinations, but I can't do that any more. I know it sounds crazy, but it's a crazy situation, and maybe it needs a crazy answer. So here we are."
Silence, except for the wind blasting up the hill, howling around the stones, making the fire flare and dance. Ed looked upwards, eyebrows raised. The stars were gone, and a few cold raindrops were blown down onto us.
An entirely new thought occurred to me at that moment. "Even if there are any spirits, I don't even know what language the people spoke back then. They're not going to understand anything I say. Do you speak Welsh?" I asked Ed, slightly panicky.
"Not really," he began, but the blue-eyed, unnamed man interrupted.
"I don't think it matters," he said, but then I interrupted him in turn.
"You're right, they didn't speak Welsh then, either. It was probably something like ancient olde proto-proto-Welsh."
"I don't think it matters," he said again patiently, "because language is just the shape we've learned to push our thoughts and feelings into." I blinked at him, but he went on. "A thought without shape is a feeling, and feelings are stronger than thoughts; they haven't been bent and compressed and warped by the constraints of language and all the cultural preconceptions that go along with it. The feeling behind the words is what these spirits will understand."
Bloody hell. "Did you go to the same philosophy school as Ed?" I asked him. He chuckled, a warm sound against the cold wind.
I thought about what he'd said. I didn't know if he was humouring Ed and I, but at this point it hardly mattered. And he did make a certain sort of sense. My resolve solidified.
"All right, shapeless thoughts. Makes sense. These ought to help, then." I pulled the few mushrooms I'd found in the forest out of my pocket.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Ed asked, having to raise his voice over the wind. He obviously recognised them.
"If I'm going to do this, I want to do it properly," I said, meeting his eyes. He seemed apprehensive. "I can't put myself in the same mindset that Mag was in, because I can't believe it as completely as she did, even when she wasn't using these things." I looked at the seemingly-innocuous little fungi. "And if this can work, I need to be able to think like she did. And I need to get out of my own headspace to do that." I took a breath, and ate the mushrooms.
----------------
I can has more now pls? 
She didn't even know Bono? 
lolling over the bad pun!
"slings and arrows"
I'd love to see Bono on mushrooms.... seeing as how he's hyperactive and has great imagination, that'll be a LOT of fun! 
but that's to be said about most things in life.. you can die of an overdosis of water...
And you had all the guys there too! I could think of a few things to do with the guys other then eating mushrooms! 
