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tethered the horses just inside the thickening growth and went the remainder of the journey on foot. It was surrounded by bog and marsh, and one had to traverse hidden pathways to arrive safely at Avalon’s high and dry center. As the tide receded, platforms and passageways of stone materialized from under several yards of water. Only Bertram, my father, and I knew the way. Of course, my mother had known Avalon’s secrets as well—it was also where she was buried.
    We arrived a little before noon. That didn’t give us a lot of time—the interval between high and low tide was only six hours.
    Bertram wandered off in search of interesting tidbits of flora and fauna to collect, and I continued on to the heart of the matter. The island was heavily wooded, with a small clearing in the middle, marked by a solitary megalithic stone. That was where I was headed. I needed to speak with my mother.
    For a moment, I stood and stared at the mottled gray surface of the stone, afraid I would glimpse an image of the beautiful woman buried in the dirt beneath my feet. No vision came, and I knelt in the soft grass. Reaching into my satchel, I withdrew my last apple. I placed the offering at the base of the stone to appease any restless members of the Otherworld and waited. The energy of the clearing shifted: a nod in acceptance of my gift. A token given in earnest was rarely rejected, and Avalon—the name itself meaning apple—was rife with apple trees. I felt the offering was fitting.
    I removed my sword and knife and leaned them against a large ash tree. Implements of violence were not permitted within the ritual space.
    I circled the grave, pouring powdered chalk from a small pouch, and then crossed the circle twice, dividing it into four quarters. I sat in the center.
    I rested my forehead on the cold stone and took several deep breaths. I smelled the dampness of the earth, the fetid decay of death, and the sharp resin of rebirth that surrounded me in the swamp. The drizzle had stopped, and hazy rays of sunlight broke through the gray miasma hovering over the land. I could feel the sun’s distant warmth spilling over my cloak.
    With my finger, I traced the Ogham symbols carved into the smooth stone. I missed my mother with an ache that left me feeling segmented. She would have talked reason into my father, would have made him soften with her tenderness.
    Out beyond the dense trees and boundless marsh lay the fury of the ocean that had brought my mother and father together. She had been traveling by ship from Ireland to Wales as a political pawn in an arranged marriage. She never told us the reasons for the arrangement or what benefit this marriage was to bestow upon her people, but in the end that contract was never fulfilled. A ferocious storm ravaged the seas, pitting the small boat against monstrous waves, pelting them with shocking gales and torrential rain. Many on board were lost, dragged down into the ocean’s icy depths. In addition to Bertram and my mother, only a handful of warriors and a few servants survived, and the light of day found them marooned off the coast of England, stuck deep in thick mud when the tide withdrew.
    My father, hunting with several of his men, was also caught off guard by the storm. Rather than return home, they were forced to wait out the storm inland. When morning broke, they rode out to the shore to see what damage the storm had caused. Great was their surprise when they saw a ship stranded without water and a beautiful woman standing on the bow.
    So enamored was my father that he ordered his men to cut down a hundred trees and split them into planks so he could walk across the silt. Once he reached the ship, he dropped to one knee and begged for her hand in marriage. Besotted at once, she didn’t hesitate. They were inseparable until the day she died.
    Was it so hard to see why I wanted that kind of love too? I thought my father understood. Why was he pushing me