Lady of the Moon Read Excerpt

Chapter 1

        Sirona’s heartbeat quickened as she and the two other young women followed the three Drui into the darkened forest.  The wind murmuring through the high branches of the huge oak and beech trees seemed to whisper of ominous secrets and the faintly sweet scent rising up from the soft ground beneath her feet bore the odor of death.  She told herself she shouldn’t feel so apprehensive.  This should be a night of celebration for her, marking her passage from childhood to womanhood.  But she couldn’t seem to banish the gnawing anxiety in her stomach.

        In the bright moonlight, she began to recognize familiar landmarks:  The copse where she’d gathered beechnuts the previous fall.  An old gnarled oak, the top blackened by a lightning three sunseasons ago.  A thicket of blackthorn, the berries just barely beginning to form.  All at once, she knew where they were going.  They were headed straight for the Lake of the Dead.

        It wasn’t much of a lake anymore.  Shallow.  Half stagnant. More marsh than open water.   Yet she’d heard it was once deep and clear, teeming with fish.  She’d also heard more than a few chilling tales about the fens and the malevolent spirits that dwelled there, the lingering essences of those poor unfortunates who’d died badly and hadn’t been able to cross over to the Other Side. 

        She and her fellow students of the grove, Cruthin and Bryn, scoffing at the stories, had come here several times over the past few sunseasons.  But it was always during the day, when the moist air was clouded with insects and bright copper butterflies fluttered among the bulrushes and water dock.  It was different at night, when the mist floated along the ground and everything was reduced to shadows and shapes.  Again, Sirona felt a chill of foreboding trace along her spine.

        The Drui halted in an open area among the maze of weeds and bushes, close to a pool of water that reflected the glowing silver disc of the moon. Fiach, the head Drui, motioned for the three young women to come forward.  With his long arms and tall upright form, he reminded Sirona of a bird of prey.  He spoke in his sonorous voice: “We come here this night to welcome Enat, Cailin and Sirona to their new lives as women.  We ask the gods to protect them, to make them fertile and to give them long lives.  We ask this in the name of Rhiannon, Cerridwen and Arianhrod, protectors of women and givers of life.” 

       He made a graceful motion with his hand, then gestured to Cailin. “Give me the thing you have brought to sacrifice.” 

       Cailin handed him a silver brooch shaped like a deer and Fiach intoned, “She offers this gift that the gods might be pleased and know her as a devoted and faithful woman, one who gives proper reverence to the gods of three realms:  the underworld of the deep, the realm of the sky and the realm of this earth."  He motioned to indicate the three domains, then threw the brooch into the water where it landed with a splash. 

        Fiach repeated the ceremony with Enat, whose offering was an enamel necklace.  Then it was Sirona’s turn.  She took off the gold torc, which had come from the chest holding her mother’s things at the back of the hut she shared with her grandmother Nesta.  The torc was fashioned of intertwined snakes, their eyes set with glowing red garnets.  It had an eerie, seductive beauty and a part of Sirona didn’t want to give up.  But she quickly quelled the blasphemous thought and handed the piece to Fiach.  He cast it into the water and repeated the ceremonial words. 

        Sirona thought they were finished, but then she looked at Fiach and realized he held a small, curved knife in his hand.  He grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to the water. “Sirona, daughter of Banon,” he said.  “You will die this night.” 

        Her breathing quickened, even though she told herself she was being ridiculous.  Fiach wasn’t going to kill her. 

       The head Drui continued, “As a child, you will die this night…to be reborn as a woman.”   He took the knife and carefully nicked her wrist, making a few drops of blood well up.  Then he shook her arm so the blood fell into the dark water.  “Sirona the child is gone, consigned to the depths of this pool.  In her place arises Sirona, the woman.”  He took a strip of cloth from Cuill and rapidly bound up her wrist.          

        Fiach repeated the blood-letting with Cailin and Enat, then said to the three of them, "I want each of you to go off by yourself and pray to the gods, asking them for the things you wish for in your life as a woman.  Think carefully on what you ask for.  This night you are in the shadowland between two worlds and the gods are close.  They will listen and remember.”

       Sirona dutifully started walking in the direction Fiach had indicated.  Her heart was pounding even faster now, but she told herself not to be such a coward. As a student of the grove, she knew the importance of this part of the ritual.  She and the other women were being tested, just as the young men of the tribe were tested when they spent night alone in the forest during their man-making.