Gormglaith | Page 5

thumb and forefinger, "seems rather stirred enough."
Gormglaith gaped, speechless. She scanned faces about the board, then gave Enid a beseeching look.
"Truth be told," the witch put with a wink, "I think Geileis wants to have a talk with thee after supper."
The hard packed strawberry ice cream with Shenn Buffy's Sandy Shortbread was fun but they were all more hushed than wonted.
Enid Elm Hafgan Halsen's kin had haunted the hills and dales of West Meads by the Running Alps for at least six thousand years. The eldest of four sisters and brought in neuchadjin, braiding all four of her kynn, she was fifteen when talk of ash at the bone board enthralled her to the tides, growth and craft of grasses. At nineteen she left Elmthorpe for Kin Dails pailtfylgjic, first living in its nest mazes, later a sprawling, wafered house of flats by Coo gardens where at a rooftop flurt one chill and blustery Saetereve in early Aerra Geola 5471 Giorsal and Geileis Grendel first laid eyes on her, hanging onto three weary eyed yodelers in a noisy flock.
They clannined in the Coo gardens flat and on a snowy winter midnight thirteen moons later met Flann Raine-Blairie, a deft and waifish shee reading spells and freayll, spending long nights in the same web lair Giorsal haunted. She somehow pulled them even closer together, to play, banter, shriek and laugh, cast sidelong glances and do whatever else girls do when they get stirred up, the whole notion of a fourth, blown in by the gales. The storm was dished when their ghosts were shown in the Kin Dails zine Mead Grass. Snapped at Beltane Bannal (a faddish make out den at the time) a witchy Giorsal loiters with Enid as Flann walks breezily by.
Seven nights after Midsummer's Eve, 28 Aerra Litha 5477 in a nest at Bryn Larach, Gormglaith Grendel Hafgan Halsen tumbled head first in a birth fettle to the hard squeeze through Geileis' hips. She stared wide eyed at the air witch, then wouldn't breathe. The witch took her by the feet, smacked her bottom and Gormglaith gasped ("Suckin' air like a hearth flue on windy nights," as Giorsal put it), then wailed for ten minutes whilst Geileis held her twin daughter with a bleary kynnish smile.
"Come on Gormglaith," Geileis put cannily, clannily, as everyone got up to leave the board, "let's go for a walk."
In the fall night air with a lofted harvest moon waxing high in the sky, their klompen clopping on slate, Gormglaith took Geileis' arm.
"I was going to tell thee something this afternoon when thou came'st in... but with the prism from Devon and thy talk about Findabair and then, Enid and Aine showing up, I didn't have time."
"It's something big, isn't it?"
"I haven't a clue."
The slate stoep was on an edge of the hilltop where Bryn Larach stood looking upon the fields, woods and far hills of Halsen Downs, lights sparkling here and there, some blinking and shifting. As moppets, Gormglaith, Findabair and Gweneth had haunted these slabs, playing make believe in a tangle lair from where they watched the craft of their own kynn clannin. More lately as maedchen they'd sat on the low garden wall in midnights, watching bats come and go, swapping kisses under the stars.
Lit by a moonbeam Geileis faced her twin daughter and standing but half an inch taller, took her hands and said,
"In a dale of tales so thrillin', plait kin by flaxen linen."
"Geileis...!?"
"Someone else wants to plight."
"Rhiain and Rhiam! I knew it!"
"Likely so, but I was talking about the Sparkenbanes."
Gormglaith stared back open mouthed.
"...What am I missing here?"
Geileis sucked a long breath.
"Back when Giorsal and I were in our second year at Kin Dails we went to one of those crushy Samhain Eve flurts at the Ben chee inn and whom should we run into but the sunken eyed henge twins themselves, Morfyd and Morigan Sparkenbane with their rune stern, plighted sister Rathyen, all lately of Fen Glioon pailtfylgjic. Within an hour the lot of us were up in a hilltop flat where we reeled and kissed with towards and gabbish shees 'till morning light smote us down... the lane!"
"Night came soon enough and it was stark and starry. We were still living with our kynn on Pine rood. Rathyen and Morfyd showed up at the door like wraiths, grinning scythes, asking us out for walkies by Linden lane henge but we wound up back at the Ben chee inn where they put it straight. Giorsal and I had already let slip we'd only plight together... not too much of a hitch since teach clannin plight eight rather than the wonted three or four. Anyway we all ran off to Glas Knoll croft at Blairie north of Kin Dails for flirty flurts, gabs and oddly, hands of