Lasrua falls

All outside sounds were drowned by the wind, and the windows were curtained by pleats of rain. The world behind the walls had been erased, leaving Lasrua alone in a bubble of air and bright fire.

Eithne was enough of a friend to her to allow her this, but not enough, it seemed, to offer Lasrua her old room. The days drifted by, and Eithne’s husband of one night had still not returned. Her passive refusal to leave the big bed was beginning to seem a tragical farce to Lasrua.

Nevertheless, Lasrua was enough of a friend to allow her this. Perhaps the time would come when she would need Eithne to teach her how to hope in spite of evidence and to love in spite of abandonment.

Meanwhile she could steal upstairs to bask before the fire as luckier maidens might slip away to be with their lovers.

With its warmth the fire caressed every part of her it could reach: everything she turned to it, face and wrists and feet, except what was still modestly hid beneath her gown. Its flames licked her fingers when she reached shyly out to it, and its liquid shadows tongued her curves, teasing her with coolness upon heat.

When at last the fire grew bold enough to leap up and touch her, she spread her ankles and pulled the hem of her dress taut between them.

At first the spark only smoldered within the fabric, sullen and unwilling. It was the way of fire to be slow at the start.

All while pretending to sulk, however, it slyly worked open a tiny hole, and once it could no longer be hidden, the spark flared into flame and wrenched the edges apart until they gaped like a wound, rimmed with red light and char.

So would it undress her from ankles to knees, from knees to hips, from hips across belly to breasts. The smoke would knock her down and the flames roll over her, leaving her gasping or leaving her still. It was the way of fire.

Her legs began to shake, but her body’s fear did not frighten her. She told herself it was only the fruit’s fear of falling – the same for every maiden. She was ready, breathless and waiting for the spreading fire to come lick its way up her legs.

Eithne had taught her some practical Gaelic, but above all Lasrua had wanted to learn the vocabularies of fire and love. To Lasrua they were one. She understood nothing of her friend’s shriek except the last word: “burning!”

Lasrua looked up as Eithne came tumbling down upon her, lifting to her both the dreamy smile of her face and the keen, fire-​​seeking gaze of her soul.

Her smile was fixed in place by a spasm of agony, but her soul was simply engulfed. She was caught up and spun away like a speck of foam, whipped backwards in a crash of storm and flood, sucked away in a chorus of wind unblowing, and showered into a growing calm. Gradually she dissolved into the spume, and at last into pure, dark water.

There was only water. There was no earth, no heaven, and all the lights of the sky had unshone. Fire had not yet been. There was only a world of water, formless and void, and over it a gliding shadow.