Gormglaith | Page 3

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 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 out the prism 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 very 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 orange through wefted windows the three of them stood and played with the prism, 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 on an embroidered rug with the prism. Gobnait soon wandered off with a weary sigh. Gormglaith stayed cross legged, Geileis and Grainne with knees drawn to chins, glittering prism 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 quite the 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, orange 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 prism... ash ice, looks like a Nichneven... this thing'll split starlight. Where'dst tha get it?"
"Devon Fayrbirn."
"...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 prism 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 prism 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