the thing


Splashing in the sunken dunk pool they beseeched Gormglaith to float on her back and she was soon giddily numb from wet kisses in sixes. They came giggling and gabbing into the gather hall where Morfyd and Lairlaith were at the board, fingers reeling with hovering goblins.

As the others swapped linens, many of which were being topped with brightly hand crafted wraps, Gormglaith sat whistly naked, chalken and brooding on the sprawling staddle's very edge, bound Eachdraidh open beside her. She watched through the tall, puzzled windows as a gust of wind slammed into a clump of heather, then nodded once and pulled on the right leg of lately laundered longstockings.

"Dost thou have any bedecked wraps?" she asked Raoghnailt, who leveled a gaze back at her.

"Three. One's by Tarian of Tangy loch! Here, look..." she said, reaching into a hidden wall cupboard for a wide, crisply folded wrap with spright, sparkly swirls in orange yellow saffron and purplish blue periwinkle.

"...I got this from the old knot at Blairie last Yule! I've already worn it for two flurts, Ostara and Midsummer's eve."

Gormglaith's eyes darted as Blodwen deftly slipped another glittery wrap back into the cupboard.

"How wouldst thou feel about putting a bit of freayll to Tarian's weal and not wearing one this after?"

Raoghnailt gaped, then grinned.

"Merry flurt, Gormglaith!" said Morfyd, hugging her so tight the air squeezed out. "I have something for thee..."

Taking up a glowing, flurtsome cutty sark embroidered in deeply hued knots, she warded it with a wry smile, eyes alit.

"...It goes back more than two thousand years... bits at least!"

Gormglaith blinked, looking over at Maevis who with narrowed eyes and jaw set, tautly mouthed the unmistakable words, wear it...

She quickly spun back to Morfyd and nodded.

"Ta!"

"Thou see'st," said the henge twin, helping the banshee into long sleeves, "the threads are woven with something like four million prism gratings."

Along with its gold, platinum and greenish copper stitching, the cutty sark fluoresced wanly as if in upper purple light.

"Cracking!" said Morfyd.

Birch nest left in a noisy flock down the wide, tapestried greywacke hall leading to the lobby.

"Raoghnailt," whispered Gormglaith. "I have to know. What'dst thou do when it happened to thee?"

"I don't know if I want to tell thee now," she said, looking forward with a smirk.

"Raoghnailt?!"

Gormglaith raised her hands, glancing about to see if she'd gotten any looks.

"Tell...!"

"I laughed."

"Thou laughed."

"Only clannin bats weep," said Raoghnailt, splaying her hands, "...wontedly."

"Hmph!" put Gormglaith from behind a lock of straw thatch.

"Ok. All the teaches I've ever heard of are snowed under in endless blizzards of gossip 'n any moppet growin' up in one for seventeen years is like, bound to overhear the odd snatch now and then. Meanwhile most bats are still gripless and fluttering when their new nesties get to them. Sorry I couldn't warn thee," Raoghnailt said through a simper.

"That's cool... and I know y'all are uhm, a bit fast to the quick or whatever but weren't they a little hard on Njorthrbiartr?"

"Huh? Gormglaith they're kerfuffle for Njorthrbiartr!"

"Thrushes let Njorthrbiartr suck the froth from their coffee," said Blodwen.

Gormglaith frowned, then glanced back at Njorthrbiartr who was walking with a shyly chuffed grin and knit eyebrows, hand in hand betwixt beaming Maevis and Paestin.

"I mean," said Raoghnailt, "scollies do boards in flattery and sway so here, girls who like each other'll trade bait. They told us all about it in root. With lots of maegden living together up close, coorsyn matched and all, it's a way to seal trust. Maybe not quite Tales of the knotty kindel but that's clanninthorpe and besides, Njorthrbiartr has a snare with dash and we're trying to help her with that."

"Didst thou get thy nose ring pulled?" asked Gormglaith.

"A little..." she answered, holding up thumb and forefinger.

"...Look," said Raoghnailt, "thou canst be heedless as pye with me. I don't care. I think it's fetching."

"Ok, I botched."

"Th'art in the shade now," said Raoghnailt, grinning like a moppet.

"So what about Blodwen? She's a clannin girl. What did she do?"

Raoghnailt leaned forward as they walked, smirking at Blodwen.

"She said she groked the witch's words at last."

"What words?" asked Gormglaith as they neared the lobby's threshold and the echoes of much talk.

"Thou knowst... after Blodwen clued her in on the four-bop. 'How thrilling for thee, my bat,'" Raoghnailt put in Rathyen's birdish lilt. "'Thou'st scribbled the rune of a swot scollagyn!'"

Giggling, they strolled into the lobby where two dozen girls gabbed whilst others were already walking off through the brightly blossomed garden close towards the thorpe lane and nearby Grasp. Gormglaith's mirthy smile brought a burst of shrieks and clapping. Abashed, she held hand over mouth and gawked by a hanging lock of thatch.

Sheeish spider witches mingled near shallow stairs below the dens. Birch nest's loose flock was greeted by a set of twins with crinkly heather eyes, wide faces, big teeth and shoulder length, strawish red hair (one had purple streaks, the other pink).

"Lairlaith 'n I have like, something to go over with Margaid and Morisaid beforehand," sighed Morfyd, starting to climb with them, "so... see you in the thorpe!"

"Hey Raoghnailt, Blodwen..." Gormglaith called out breezily, "y'all wanna come with?"

Morfyd cast Gormglaith a startled look as the lobby went hush. Lairlaith, her face a rune of sheeish grip, whispered in Morfyd's ear, pink brindled Morisaid doing likewise through the other whilst Raoghnailt and Blodwen gaped at each other.

"Now Gormglaith," said Morfyd as spider and freayller pulled away, "there's no need to bother Raoghnailt and Blodwen about this. Margaid and Morisaid can help clue thee in..."

"...There's no bother!" said Raoghnailt. "She asked me at Cluain house."

Morfyd gazed at them and shrugged.

"'k!"

Girls gasped, Gormglaith grinned and her nose ring gleamed. Straw blond thatch flew as she swung about to Bairrfhionn's lopsided, toothy grin and asked,

"Dost thou mind yet?"

Bairrfhionn closed her eyes and nodded.

"Hey Gormglaith!"

Gillian threw her scythish smirk, hands on hip bones. Gormglaith yanked the banshee's wrist, tugging them both into a maegdenish kiss. Gillian answered by feeling her up with nippy heed.

"Hey sis!" Gormglaith blurted forth in a knotty kindelish tumble. "I mean, I swooned out when thou dropped in for tea yesterday and still can't get a grip, it's all so too like, chills 'n spills on blue barrow hills, tha knowst?" she carried on, throwing up her hands and smiling chalkenly. "Anyway a windy night's no time to fix thy thatch!"

Gillian jerked Gormglaith close again by the waist to whisper snoggishly in her ear.

"Thanks little sister. What a kick! Thou only botched it a smidge! I'll shirk. Gasps, th'art a duck!"

Gormglaith stumbled back as Gillian flashed a wicked blue knotty kindel smile and shyly stalked up the broad stairs. Gormglaith, Raoghnailt and Blodwen lagged behind in a close huddle.

"If anyone asks," said Gormglaith, shoving back her thatch, "say little and fidget less, 'k?"

Blodwen flicked a pillywiggin shoulder.

"Like the barrow..." said Raoghnailt, "...but I've heard these bloody things can go thunk in a heartbeat."

"...So have I."

The thing den was walled in sundry white stone tiles with scattered geayney green inlays and the same looming corundum windows as most of Haethwyck, these looking on a swatch of the flowery outer garden close framed by hills of windswept heather to the north, moors and misty meads to the west with blue sea beyond under billowing banks of clouds sulking in off the Minch. A two-yard board inlaid with ash, apple and cherry wood, ringed by eight wide, matching chairs, their short backs made up of narrow slats, was lit by sundry beams from a keenly shining, low hanging wafered light.

Margaid shepherded Raoghnailt and Blodwen to likened longboards and chairs along the walls where sundry witches were spindly settling in whispers. Meanwhile seating about the middle board was a tale of plights, Morigan Rathyen Morfyd Tegan Bairrfhionn Gillian and Gwenhwyfer then Gormglaith next to Morigan who looked so scollagyn in the Wrath teach's white longstockings, cutty sark and blond klompen, hair windblown from having been been outside. With the henge twins together side by side, Morfyd's sharpness and Morigan's somehow leaner frame showed starkly.

"It's our first thing with Gormglatih!" began Rathyen, singing airily. "Raoghnailt and Blodwen have dropped by too! Now you two take all the time you want. Ask stuff if you like!"

She leaned back, flatly fixed to stay that way until they were gone.

"They're here for the thing," said Morfyd, not bothering to look up.

Rathyen answered with a puzzled smile.

"I'd say it's up to Gormglaith," put Bairrfhionn. "They're her friends and we both know the pinks would've flipped fits when they walked in, if it wasn't stern."

"Some help they are," said Rathyen. "Gormglaith how canst thou reckon this? Thou'st not even started teach, much less pailtfylgjic, after all."

"Truth is," said Tegan, "this mid-day I got word from Fen Glioon pailtfylgjic. With her latest split, Gormglaith's a witch... of tongues. There's more but I guess that's drift enough for now."

Gasps and whispers filled the thing den as Rathyen latched eyes with Tegan and Gormglaith stared open mouthed.

"The last I heard, plighted sister," said Rathyen, "thou wast a witch I don't know how many ways though we all know thou dost the splits like some pledges gather tulips on the mead or reel in the haunt and ever still," she put singsong, "thou tangle'st with spider witches."

Tegan tossed back a steady gaze.

"I looked it up," said Gormglaith. "Aoibheann Faaie did things with scollagyn for three dozen moons."

"That was neach," put Rathyen, waving her hand.

"I'm neach."

"Art thou?"

"You knew what you were getting more or less. If y'all didn't want me as I am you shouldn't have plighted me."

A few witches sighed as Rathyen stonily scanned the den.

"I must say," she said wistfully, "thy bent for worrying does bring to mind both Geileis Grendel and Devon Rand."

This stirred smatters of laughter which Gormglaith answered with a nettled look.

"So anyone wanna speak up on this or what," asked Rathyen with a needling glance back at her.

Nobody did. Gormglaith swung about to Morigan, who eyed her from behind a lank lock of hair. Gwenhwyfer giggled, trying to put down a grin.

Gillian stared off afar and Bairrfhionn had eyes down, smirking, long red hair cascading upon reedy, black sleeved arms. Morfyd gauntly shrugged and slouched whilst Tegan read a yellow goblin.

"Ok," Rathyen sighed with another wave of a wan hand.

As they began talking anew, about a sunflower patch on the southern reaches of Wrath ness or something, Morigan leaned close to Gormglaith and whispered, "Lilies, 'lil sis. Thou mightst think about shirking off a bit for now."

Ta! Gormglaith mouthed back.

She glanced over her shoulder as Raoghnailt jammed her a whist thumbs up.

"So what's the wyrd on durham grian?" Rathyen asked a few minutes later.

"Flat, " said Bairrfhionn. "Those who still give us any heed at least."

"I'll have another bash..." put Rathyen.

"...Morfyd?" she sang.

"Sorry..." said Morfyd, looking up from a skeinish goblin. "Taithleach called at noon. She said, 'Hi Morfyd. That rag'll be fit then, 'k? Bye.'"

"Taithleach said all that?!" asked Bairrfhionn, bemused.

"Rather," put Morfyd. "Anyway it's but a wee quickening i'nit."

"I'd say sliver's the word," said Rathyen, raising an eyebrow.

"Yep," said Morfyd.

Bairrfhionn put out a hand palm up and opened her mouth to speak but froze with a sharp start as she beheld the glowing orange goblin hovering before her eyes.

"I'm not thrilled about this, Morfyd..."

Bairrfhionn's upwarded palm jiggled once to a beat.

...

"...Ok. Slashin' henbane, I'll brew with the hag."

"I'll clutch," said Tegan as she glanced out at a stand of orange tulips swayed over by a gale off the Keayn sheear.

"I'll shirk this one, thanks..." said Gillian, twirling her eyes.

"As if," said Gwenhwyfer, sulking, "this was even up my gwli."

Morigan wistfully nodded her head towards Gormglaith, right hand on the deeply inlaid board, a long and knobby forefinger flicking at the middle.

"...Erm, yeah!" said Gormglaith.

The twin winked and slouched like a yodeler. Gormglaith knitted her brow.

So the thing ended. Gwenhwyfer, with eyes crinkled and balled hands waggling, smunched Gormglaith on the cheek.

"A spinning plop into the pond!" said Rathyen, smooching her on the other. "I'd be thrilled, Gormglaith, if thou, Raoghnailt and Blodwen would walk me to the thorpe."

"Ok..."

"In an hour then!" the witch answered, eyes flashing.

She fluttered off and Gormglaith was swarmed by bright eyed spider witches. A few were smirksomely snotty, others craven, even wantonly flicking their tongue dabs. Meanwhile she watched after Morfyd, drifting out alone.

Back in birch nest Blodwen leapt onto the tidy staddle and curled up in a ball near a glimmering window. Gormglaith and Raoghnailt folded up with her and after muffled giggles tried to nap. Later Gormglaith was nudged from a light sleep, Blodwen grinning over her. They woke Raoghnailt, ran noisily to the lobby and found Rathyen gabbing with Flocklaith whose white, orange freaked hair was pulled, braided and ribboned as ever but a puffy, reddened stare belied she'd been weeping again.

"I hope we're not late...!" Gormglaith said breathlessly as they flocked about the witch.

"Late? Are they late?" asked Rathyen, whirling to Flocklaith with wide eyes.

"We were early," she answered with a sniffle.

"Oh yes, we had a chat about Harvest home but now there's a walk to walk! Come on then girls, let's not faffle!"

In her wonted black linens, open cutty sark and bighty wooden walking klompen, by short edgy steps Rathyen glid over the threshold and through the fog. With long blue black hair lasering straight to narrow hips and skin like moondust in the shimmering gloom her scaanish cast runed an early scan from the Eachdraidh.

"See thee!" said Rathyen, fluttering a hand at Flocklaith.

"Now I've put some thought into this," she began. "Here Blodwen, walk between Gormglaith and me? Thou dostn't talk much my bat and we don't want to lose track of thee! Raoghnailt... on my left? There! How thrilling! The westerlies off the Keayn sheear are so chilling!"

"So Blodwen," she said as they walked towards the thorpe between thick, low chalky walls overbrimming with green peat, "I spent an hour gabbing with weather pinks and watching earth casts the evening Gormglaith got henged, fixing a gloomy, overcast and fog drenched after for her flurt and a Monandaeg's so fitting, dostn't thou think?"

Blodwen's windblown sandy hair hid her face as she glanced up at the witch. They took the air, grey clouds and breezy haze.

"A moon's too long," sighed Rathyen. "I might get out more often, say every half moon?"

Gormglaith grinned.

"Anyway when the three of you walked into the thing only Tegan needed any jeen. She can be such a cold and willful hag... fetching girl."

Rathyen looked straight into the whist fog with a smirk.

"Thou rattled Gillian with thy cleverness. She was set to swoon when you two kissed but shirked at being drawn into a game at which she has no match, at least not in this clannin. Thy play with her was nonetheless bewitching for showing a wrinkle in any wyrd. It's not always needful, or even wholesome, to win."

Rathyen winched an eyebrow.

"Meanwhile we have a walk, and gossip seeps like the mist."

"Oh Rathyen...!" said Raoghnailt. "I hope thou'rt walking with us for fun, too!"

"Am I?! Ta!"

"It's funny how teach clannin still wontedly plight henge maedchen," said Rathyen, "when lately we seem to've gotten wrapped up in so much freayll. Thou saidst it thyself. We knew what we were getting, forget the splits... still a bit grainy but elbows do shine, rubbing as they will on the Wrath's bone boards and such a duck."

"I got what I wanted," Gormglaith put cannily, "and rough elbows or not I'm willing to tangle with spider witches."

"Those rag hags?! I happen to know a few who lap each other off to sleep at night in craft rings among broods of hoppers and goblins and munging pinks and they remind us of the webs they weave, I can tell thee. Meanwhile most of them haven't even read the Eachdraidh. Oh, they're weird enough I guess for boundal spells and reckoning... so long as it's to do with toasters or driving off norns but thou knewst that, or guessed at something like it."

"I mean, yeah, I know there's a snare..."

"What kind of snare didst thou have in mind, Gormglaith?"

"I'm glarking, ok? For starters all this odd freayll like with Skeinbanden's wonky wabbits never mind those dodgy grain plaits which I don't grok but I do know what the Eachdraidh has to say about stuff like that."

"What does the Eachdraidh say?"

"It's to do with tongues then i'nit."

"Gasping, Gormglaith."

A grey billed, black winged twite with a bright pink rump flittered onto the low chalkstone wall quite nearby and sang to them as Gormglaith loudly drew her breath.

"Hello!" she called. "Art thou getting ready for winter? I think thou art! How fat thou lookst!"

Raoghnailt and Blodwen grinned when Rathyen stared at the banshee's maedchen bottom sheathed in white longstockings as she leaned in to reach out with upended hands and the bird hopped onto them. Rising, Gormglaith held the thickly feathered, quivering little bundle before her face and beamed brightly by wind ruffled thatch.

"Girls handle them," said Rathyen, "and feed them flaxseeds, which some say they shouldn't do..."

Gormglaith flashed a smirk at Rathyen and smoothly put the twite back on the wall, from which it twittered at her then lit off towards the heather.

"What nettles me," said Gormglaith as they carried on with their walk, "is this kind of thing takes time to crop up. So something's been stopping you from doing anything about it. The snare wouldn't be for lack of tongue witches though. Devon once said there were maybe only a hundred girls in the bound, sly as me or whatever at old English. 'k then, flip it. You had them all to haunt whilst I was still trying to grok Gayolyn's gabs."

"I'd like to have seen that... thee gabbing away on Geileis' hip!"

Here another lane swooped in from the right where three black sleds had stopped in a trundling fog, lights blinking within pumpkin hued halos. A dozen girls with as many daughters, each alikely clad in aspen grey linens, black cutty sarks and raw, wan ash wood klompen stood in a close, tall and reedy clump, watching whist with baleful sunken eyes.

"Some edgy pink," sighed Rathyen, "has told their sleds to wait. Say hello, Gormglaith!" she put, fluttering a wave. "They're clanniners from Tongue. Fellstone barrows, east across the ness!"

"Hi!" said Gormglaith as they walked by.

"Hi!" a few called back.

"Rathyen says you come from Tongue!"

"Aye!" answered one with ash hair. "Art thou Gormglaith?"

"I guess I am!"

The Fellstones faced each other in hushed gabs.

"Merry flurt, Gormglaith!" the girl yelled.

"Thanks for coming! Hey! I'm sorry about the sleds!?"

"They told us!"

"So Rathyen," she said, waving as they left the crossway, "what does Hanalin Grimm have to say about all this... codswallop?"

"Ah, Hanalin! A tongue witch like thee! We had crushes years ago. Wretchedly, some of our notions about things clashed and we had to break it off. I don't think she ever got over it. Neither did her shenn Grainne Grendel who fixed a reeling Samhain flurt for us at the Kin Dails Ben chee inn, seeing to it Giorsal and Geileis Grendel would be there. So was Seosaimhthin Fen but I was telling thee about clever Hanalin! Sometime later she took to spidering and spun her way north to Follym downs, a sleepily wanton little seaside thorpe back then, plighted Grimms and inside of thirteen moons, with her nimble hands on the loom things veered stern and to our bane or so it seems. Meanwhile Hanalin's a needle with two jabbers... and rather the brat! Tens of thousands snuggle to her hush fad, along with her notions of how to let the hex crash and trigger a new gweeping sewn by Hanalin the Clanniner. What's that lass yodel by the Gumm Bats? Nila nah ydnah? So birr!"

They skirted a shallow bend in the peat to low rumbles of thunder.