"They say Mother Earth is breathing
With each wave that finds the shore
Her soul rises in the evening
For to open Twilight's door."
- Garth Brooks, 'Ireland'
The guardian of the gateway lay sleeping. Twilight's Door - a circle of white monoliths on the hillside - lay quiet and undisturbed in the sunshine. Below it lay the village, and beyond that, the sea stretched to the horizon. From the heights of the Door you could see everything, spy on the people in their houses down below, looking like ants so far away. The guardian played at that, sometimes.
But at the moment she lay sleeping, little pale head resting on her pillowed arms beneath the stones. Her freckles rose and fell with her breath, as she dreamed. The guardian dreamt of many strange things - birds that carried people on their broad backs, a wizard sat in front of a mirror that pictured the whole world, magical toys that let you speak to someone even when you couldn't see them. But she could tell they weren't real, even as she dreamed them.
Real was the sweet milky scent of her mother, and the smoky hearth-fires of home. It was driving the geese to the pond and back and climbing in the apple trees. The guardian wished, as she often did, that she could go back and play those games again and see her family, but she knew she couldn't. She had an important job to do here; guarding the Door.
Sometimes the guardian needed to wake, and close or open Twilight's Door to protect the village. Silly creatures gathered around her at such times, gabbling and twittering to be let through. But she shook them away and never let even one come past her. She was a very good guardian.
But she hadn't needed to wake for a very long time now, and so she lay slumbering peacefully in the sunlight, the Door above and around her.
That is, until she was woken by a hound licking at her face, tickling and prodding. The guardian pushed him away, laughing. She heard other laughter and looked up to see who made it. It was a boy, with red hair and freckles like her own, who smiled and tried to hold onto the hound by the scruff of its neck.
"Get down, Badger!" he shouted, adding, "I'm sorry, he's not very well trained yet."
The guardian smiled too, stretching her white freckled arms, and gave a yawn. "That's a funny name for a hound. Won't he get confused and dream he'd the wrong animal?"
The boy looked a little puzzled. "Um, it hasn't happened yet," he said.
"You should be careful," she said seriously. "Names have a lot of power."
"What's your name, then?" the boy asked. "Mine's Tom."
"... Do you know, I've forgotten my old one!" This realisation made the guardian feel a little sad. "But I have a new one now, anyway. I'm the Guardian of Twilight's Door." She made an expansive gesture toward the stones behind her, expecting the boy to be impressed. Instead, he just seemed bemused.
"What kind of name's 'the Guardian'? Is that like the newspaper?" he asked, grinning. "And why are you pointing round here for a door? There aren't any doors around here, you need a house for a door, silly!"
The guardian burst into tears. "You don't know anything!" she shouted, and ran behind one of the stones, still crying angrily.
After a while, the boy came looking for her. "I'm sorry," he said, patting her shoulder awkwardly. "Don't cry. It's a pretty name, really it is. And you can't help what your parents called you."
"Wasn't my parents," sniffed the guardian, tears drying now, "Was the Men of the Door. The priests, they gave me a new name. You must know this. Doesn't everyone?" Privately, she was beginning to think he wasn't quite right in the head. He obviously didn't mean to be rude.
"I guess I don't. Maybe you could explain it to me? Please?"
"Well ... all right." She paused, frowning. How did you explain something as big as this? "The Door is the stones behind you. Well, it's in the middle of them. They ... contain it? It's tricky to talk about. I can't believe you don't know this!" she added.
"Honestly, I don't. So that stone circle is a door? What's it the door to, then? Can you go through it?"
The guardian ran into the middle of the stones. "Well, it only opens sometimes. When it does, there's a Door right here." She twirled on the spot. "It happens at twilight, usually. That's why it's called Twilight's Door. And it opens to somewhere, a different place altogether. I've never been through though, I don't think it's safe for people, specially people who aren't Guardians. I might be all right, but I don't think you could."
"So what does the guardian do, then? Stop it opening?"
She laughed. "No, of course not! I open and close it depending on what wants to come through. The lords of the Sidhe use it sometimes, and I can let them in, as long as they promise not to hurt the villagers. And other things use it too." The guardian paused. "But I haven't had to open the Door in ages and ages though, so mostly I just play."
"What do you play?"
"I like to look down on the village and pretend I'm a bird flying above it. Look - " she pointed out to him, "You can see all the little people hanging out their washing and walking in the streets."
The boy squinted down at his village. "Oh yeah! I can even see my Dad mowing our lawn. He looks tiny!"
The guardian smiled proudly. "It's a good game, isn't it? I invented it myself. You can keep it up for hours, watching the people and making up stories about them." Then a thought struck her. "Hey, there are two of us. Want to play a chasing game? Catch as catch can!" She thumped him on the shoulder, then raced off.
"Hey, no fair!" The boy raced after her and tagged her back.
The two children and the dog Badger played around the white stones until evening started to fall over the little fishing village. Then Tom realised he'd better get back before dark. "My Mum's going to kill me!" he exclaimed.
"Really? Why?"
"No, she isn't reallygoing to kill me! It's just something you say. But she'll be angry if I don't get back soon. I expect you have to get home, too."
"No, I live here. The Door has to be guarded all the time, you know," replied the guardian.
"Oh. But don't you get lonely?"
"Sometimes. It was nice playing with you today. Will you come back?" she asked hopefully.
"Sure! As soon as I can. It's been good. Well, I really have to go now. See you soon!"
"Goodbye!" The guardian waved at him until he was out of sight.
***
Tom's mum was furious.
"You gave me such a scare! I was about to call the police. Honestly, I send you off to walk the dog in the morning and you don't get back 'til sunset! What do you have to say for yourself?" she demanded.
"Sorry, mum. I met this girl at the top of the hill, and we got to playing and stuff. I didn't mean to be so late."
"What girl? Does she live in the village?"
"No, she lives up there, by herself. She's the guardian of the door - "
"By herself! What nonsense. No-one lives up on that hill, let alone a little girl on her own. Are you making her up? Is this another of your imaginary friends?"
"Mum, I'm too old for that! Really and truly, she does live up there. She's the guardian of the twilight door." And Tom told his mum all about the girl. As he spoke, it did seem strange that she lived up there all by herself, and said all those funny things. For some reason, he hadn't questioned it at the time. She just seemed so natural and honest, it hadn't occurred to him to doubt her.
After his mum had absorbed it all, she began telling him off again, adding in something extra about 'telling fibs' and 'over-active imagination'.
But Tom's Dad calmed her down. " Kids will be kids, Annie. Just let the boy alone, eh? A bit of imagination is healthy in a child. Shows they're not a vegetable."
"Oh, all right. But Tom, you're to go straight to your room after supper, no TV for you tonight. Let that be a bit of a lesson to you."
"OK." Tom slunk off, annoyed at the unnecessary punishment.
He never saw the girl again.
Tom looked and looked, going back up the hill every day. Then every other day. Then just whenever he happened to walk the dog up there. Pretty soon, he began to think of her as a childish fantasy, since everyone else did, and eventually he forgot her altogether. But some part of him still hoped she'd managed to find some company. It was a hard thing for a little girl to be all alone.
***
One day, the guardian was dozing in the sunshine as usual, when she felt the door begin to open. The guardian stood in the proper place to ask who was coming through. She almost couldn't remember the right words, it had been so long.
"Who knocks at the door? You shall not pass unless your business is honourable."
A friendly female voice answered. "I'm Death. I'm here to see you, Aithne."
The guardian felt a shock at hearing her own true name spoken after so many years. How could she have forgotten it? Aithne, little fire, my fierce little fire, her mother used to sing to her. What she had told the boy was true. Names had power. She opened the Door.
A pale and graceful woman in black walked through, smiling. "Aithne, I found you at last! It's time to go now. You don't need to guard this place any longer, the country it leads to is dead now. That skerry was cut off from the Dreaming."
"I can really go?" She could hardly believe it, but she could feel the truth of it in the Doorway. It was dead, had been dying for quite a while. "But where can I go? Is my family still in the village? Can I come back to them now?"
The woman looked sad for a moment. "Aithne, I'm sorry, but they're already gone. You could find them again though, if you wanted. You go where you choose, now. Take my hand."
Aithne reached up shyly and took hold of the woman's hand. It was warmer than she'd expected.
She found herself melting away, vanishing, like smoke on the wind. Her tie to the Door was abruptly severed, and an image of her mother's face came into her mind, clearer than a dream, as she drifted into the Other World. "Thank you," Aithne whispered to the woman, before vanishing altogether.