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night.” If nobody came, we would be dead of cold before morning.
    I shut my eyes and summoned the deep calm that must enter the body before one may attempt to open the eye of the mind. I set aside the perishing chill of the ledge, the dark, the restless sea. I ignored the pain in elbow, knee, hip. Water and stone had tested us hard as we performed our unlikely struggle up from the cove. Never mind that. The quiet groves of Sevenwaters were far away, but in my mind I could be there, under the great oaks, walking in dappled light. The realms of the spirit were many and wondrous. At the last point of exhaustion, one could always find a deeper strength. In time of greatest trouble, one could feel the gentle touch of peace. So I had learned. Quiet your mind. Breathe in slowly; breathe out still more slowly. Feel the earth beneath you. You are part of the earth, she sustains and supports you. Breathe. Now let the grove open around you.
    It had never been so difficult to take the time I needed for this practice, with a man perhaps dying in my arms and my body simply refusing to be still, but shaking and trembling like a leaf in an autumn wind. Eventually I detached my mind, swam into the place where I might call and bent all my will on Cathal. I pictured him seated in the dining hall, next to Clodagh, talking about the shipwreck; I imagined him running a long-fingered hand through his black hair, then gesturing as he explained something to his wife. I called him. Cathal! We are here. I tried to show him the path along the narrow neck of land, the precipitous way down. I made an image of the fallen sailor. I showed myself in this place without any of the things I needed such as a lantern or a blanket.
    A spattering on the rocks around us; it was starting to rain. My concentration was gone. There were tears on my face, tears of sheer exhaustion. The roaring of the waves seemed menacing, as if Mac Dara himself was stirring, stirring, reaching out to suck us down. The water was right up to the ledge. From time to time a wavelet splashed over, teasing, as if it could not quite make up its mind whether to drown us. Thus far the sea had not reached the place where we were huddled. The rain grew heavier.
    “It’s all right,” I said, more to myself than to the man pressed close to me, who likely knew no Irish. “You’ll be safe. Help is coming. This can’t be for nothing. I won’t believe it.” If I had been a different sort of person, I might have killed for a dry cloak.
    He rolled over, surprising me. His arm came around me and tightened. He said something in that foreign tongue, perhaps Thank you . Or maybe Don’t cry . I pressed my cheek against the fabric of his tunic—wet through, a tear or two would make no difference—and shut my eyes. In time of trial, there is one weapon a druid always has, and that is the lore.
    “How about a story?” I murmured. “I know plenty.” There in the growing dark, with the hungry sea washing in and out and our bodies sharing their last warmth, I told a tale of heroes and monsters, and a tale of a boy who accidentally tasted from the cauldron of knowledge, and then I related part of our own family story, for in our past there were brothers turned into swans, and a wicked sorceress whose son was now my beloved teacher, Ciarán. Since this stranger in whose arms I lay probably did not understand a word I was saying, it hardly mattered whether any part of that story might be considered too private to tell.
    “But in the end, he turned it all to the good,” I said eventually. “And he taught me everything I know. Almost everything. When I go back I will make my final commitment to being a druid, and then I’ll live in the nemetons all the time, and only see my family on ritual days.”
    “ Druide ,” said the man, showing that he had not only been listening, but might even have understood a word or two. Then we both tensed, for over the washing of the waves and the screaming of the