Chapter 2 - Dealing

Maeve sat on her bed, Thom's letter in her hands. Part of her urged her hands to break the wax seal right away, read what was inside, and settle her doubts.

The other side was lost in memory and thought. Thom in the fields outside Connemara, speaking of Shakespeare. Thom's sister Cordelia playing with her doll. Speaking with Morgana at Dun Temair. The tapestry in Temair's throne room, seeing her own fingers softly touch the figure that was surely her grandmother, gone to Annwn before her.

Maeve put the letter aside and lay down. Images played on her closed eyelids. The sea. Apple trees. A laughing Padraig.. Emain Ablach. Ynys Afallon. The Island of The Apple Trees. Her head filled with the foreign words, Welsh, Irish, and Beothuk. An da shealladh. Mamooset...

She pressed her fingertips against her eyelids, and concentrated on breathing. Breathe in, breathe out, that's the way.

Why did she feel so afraid at the idea of a letter from Annwn? The weeks after returning to the Shadow, she had treated Annwn as a wound. She cleaned it, let it heal, and fade as a scar on her mind. The letter had the ability to rip her apart all over again. How much more than I'm ripped apart now? she wondered.

The faint smell of cooking food wafted into the room was, or so it seemed to her, a good excuse to go downstairs and forget about the letter for the time being.