PART THREE

In the garden the Dolman groaned another time, the lid lifted and for the first time there was a gap, it stayed floating above the body of the thing, the symbols all the same now. It moved slightly and twisted in the air, resting over the edges, a faint hiss as air rushed in and fine dust left and floated away.

All around the parish that day, strange things would happen, dogs would howl and people would look at each other, pensively talking of the events. Occasionally folk would see the fine golden dust, an old lady crossed herself and repeat the rhyme for faeries near.

The dust would disperse. The Dolman was open.

Maerre arrived later that morning. Her old green Morris 1000 chugged into James' drive and rocked to sleep with a pre-ignition that James knew could be fixed if the poor old car was ever given an opportunity to be tuned.

They made morning tea, both showered and dressed and glowing. James loved the way neither of these women seemed to mind that he made a mess when he prepared it.

Remembering the cloths in the bedroom, strewn on and left on the floor, the bathroom with two puddles of water and a promise to clean it later, more so the bed left with love intertwined in the blankets and able to be revisited. God, he had forgotten how wonderful it was to live a mess and then once every day or two clean it up. He had forgotten how much fun it was to clean up the mess made.

They spoke with Maerre who was relaxed and dressed in a dark red coat. He remembered what Susan was saying about the faeries last night, that the trooping fairies wear green jackets, the solitary ones, red.

He felt a certainty that this jacket had a significance but left it at that.

"There is no doubt children..." Maerre said to them both, Susan had since explained that the term was that of Druid teacher to pupils. Well obviously there was an old speak word, but children was as close as was needed "...that this is a faery site, perhaps a rath of past times. Something must have happened to have caused them to leave and it must have been immediate because they would never have left this thing otherwise."

"Mind you..." Maerre pointed for emphasis "...it may be that the one left it in trust may have been a red jacket, perhaps something happened to him and it has been left here undisturbed for all this time."

Susan nodded and poured more tea.

"Is it?" Susan started to ask

"I'm more than sure it holds the mantle, Susan..." Maerre cut her off "...we will have to be careful about what we do with this."

James seemed incredulous "But we are talking of mythology many thousands of years old."

Maerre just smiled "James, time has no value in these matters, it is safe to say that the time it happened can be 2500 years ago, it could yet to happen, it may have just, and anything in between. Magic has no bounds that time can contain."

With little further ado they went to the hole; to show Maerre the thing.

The lid had turned so that it was about 30 degrees off plumb. It was open either side, dark inside.

"Christ, it's open." James said.

Susan stood beside James and grabbed his arm in surprise. Maerre beside them both nodding.

"I thought it would."

James turned to her. "You knew it would open?"

"Yes, it was in the riddle. It seemed it was doomed to be closed until two with love bound souls were to touch it and take the task as their own."

Maerre asked James to help her down into the hole, which he did. He was surprise at the sprightly gate of this octogenarian. Susan came down beside them and took James' arm again. They stood back from the Dolmen; the lid appeared 10cms thick, solid stone.

"So what is in it?" James asked, peering into the black void, seeing nothing but the way the place drank the day and gave nothing back.

"Magic James, it is hard to say. Perhaps nothing we can see. Perhaps whatever you believe you should see. It is not that important." Maerre replied "Bottom line is that there is a lot of what ever it is, perhaps a lot of nothing."

"One thing is for sure..." the old lady said "...it will be the answer to the troubles of the Lady Fand."

"So what do we do now?" James asked.

Susan looked at Maerre and turned back to James saying, "It is done James, now we wait and see."

They went back to the house and sat and talked. Maerre told James and Susan both of the spell.

The box had been sealed and stored to keep the mantle intact. She explained that a lot of the words took on concrete terms but were not so. Of course there was no cloak you could touch. It was not so, but what it was was too hard to describe so mythology, using a word James had introduced with a smile, tended to take care of these anomalies by surrounding the concepts with concrete things.

"It was deemed that only lovers with a love as true as those cloaked would have the ability to open and break the spell." She told them

"The box sensed you both and allowed you to fulfill the parameters. It was not to know that you were not at that stage but it could be argued that its presumption was a spark to your souls. I have no doubt your first time was because of the magic. Now your times are the magic. Each time you have made love it has lessened the lock on the thing."

Maerre smiled for a moment. "You must be wonderful together to have had the effect you have had."

"What about the thing?" James asked.

"I think you will find there is no thing James..." Maerre continued "...it will be gone soon, leaving you a hole to fill."

They laughed at that and the talk went on to other things.

"James?" Maerre said "What about you and Susan? What do you plan?"

James knew that this question would need to be answered. It was obvious it would have to be so. So he did.

"Maerre I want you to witness what I am about to say." He turned to Susan, just the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, made more so now by the shining of her soul.

"I want to be with you forever Sue. We are and have always been. I am sure of that."

Susan smiled and fell into his arms, Maerre clapped her hands together.

Maerre interrupted "James, that is wonderful, I am so happy".

The phone rang and the mood was broken.

As Maerre has suggested, and much to James' continued amazement, the thing had gone by the early afternoon. He was not sure whether it was a gradual disappearance or a poof or what. But, as sure as eggs, it was not there. Now he understood why both Maerre and Susan were not that fussed about doing anything scientific with it, they both knew it would not last.

The day weaved its web around things. Maerre left, James a little amazed at the attitude that they would just have to see what happens, he wasn't sure he knew what he expected. But he knew he expected something. Susan spent the afternoon with James. They talked, walked by the green, James not really worrying about too much of much at all.

He held her close, and just kept doing so. They fitted like a puzzle, and its solution so logical both just wondered at the simplicity of it all. That evening they made love. This time in the lounge on the couch, James holding Susan, no urgency, no time, just that there and then. She below him, and just lost in the love for him she felt. Their afterglow together, nude, attached, words, whispers in the dark room.

They slept together in the bed, not made from the morning and as comfortable as any James remembered. Sunday came, the time was just lazily moving. In the morning Susan made breakfast and they ate it watching the Sunday Magazine. Talk was not of anything except the now.

James understood why and he was engineering his thoughts so he could turn out the end result. It was obvious. To be with Susan would cost him his current life. She had NEVER asked anything. He pondered his preparedness to acquiesce. He knew he should, could and would, he just felt that complete reliance one feels on things that have been for 20 years.

The afternoon was spent back to Susan's flat. James would need his car for school in the morning and they decided that they would spend the Wednesday together given James' pre-term exams over the Monday and Tuesday. He was not sure he could be without her for longer than he had known her and to make sure the memory would stay strong for both of them they made love once more.

She turned to him afterwards, the softness of her face a beacon to James in a sea of time lost past, and he knew then that he was lost to her and would honour his words exactly. That evening as he lay in his bed alone, as the early hours fed that day, his eyes heavy, he felt for Susan in his bed and sighed at the emptiness there, they way it had been for so many years.

The cottage was made of rocks fitted with a patience could only be found in eternity. Its roof thatched with heather and it was a gray highlight against a gray land.

James floated towards the building that had held his thoughts, the smoke sitting heavy on the ground, full of the aromatic peat used to fuel it. The door opened and the black man stood in the doorway beckoning.

James moved towards it and felt a need undeniable to be there. He heard the man, the words were a language of such beauty and music it sounded like a choir of angels. Then the thoughts filled with the meaning of the sounds being heard.

"Come, friend, come. I have been waiting"

James next found himself inside the hut, it was filled with plants and roots drying and hanging, flasks and bottles and all manner of containers. A bed of timber and white linen in the corner and by the hearth a wooden bench and table, cooking utensils and food stuffs located away and above most other things.

The black man was tall, strong and handsome. His hair dark with eyes of piercing blue, this man was a warrior, a fighter, but with gentleness James could feel. He knew his friendship was absolute, eternal.

James now found he had form in this world and the tall man smiled. James noted he was his height, he extended his arm and as James went to shake, the other man seized his forearm and shook it vigorously.

"Sit, my friend there are things you must know. Things I have spent for ever wishing I had and did."

James sat and the man poured a honey-coloured liquid onto two wooden mugs. It was mead, James had tasted it at an Olde English Village near Sheffield last year.

"My friend, you have given me back my life, my love." He smiled to James who must have appeared dumbfounded because his new friend smiled knowingly.

"I am sorry, I have not introduced myself. He stood and announced, I am Cu Chulainn leader of my people, warrior lord and protector of Fend."

James remembered, the story of Fend, of course, the spell, the thing ...no it was no longer a thing, the Dolman...

"But it is ..." James started

"Friend... James, there is much you do not keen, but will. Legend you were going to say, well legend is always there and thus it is. Its being is its body. I am here, you are here and you have allowed me to remember. I have not for so long and now I do."

"James, the spell could only be changed. Not lifted. It is locked away and the Fey have taken it to hide it again. You see, you have given much to free me and my love. For this I am forever in your debt."

James didn't really understand but imagined he did so he supposed, given that he could reason that this was a dream and with the enlightenment of the past few days, that it was so.

"There is nothing I can give you to repay you. But there is one thing I can arrange."

With that the man moved to a box over the hearth, black wood and engraved with symbols that were reminiscent of some he had seen at Maerre's.

He took from the box a charm on a leather thong. It was a Crescent Moon.

"James, the charm stands for the divine feminine principle of fertility. It is the strongest magic I can offer to afford you your memory of all of this." The man handed it to James. "I am sure the mantle is covering you as we speak, you must fight for your time my friend."

The next morning James awoke and remembered hazy instances of the occurrence. Feeling like he was still in a dream he needed to reconcile events. After breakfast he walked to the hole, now empty; absurd in its emptiness.

He turned to walk away, a strange feeling of foreboding filling his soul, knowing that something was missing; a gap bigger than the hole behind. As his head turned something caught his eye. In the corner of the hole something was shining. James turned back and jumped down, feeling in the wet clay for the offending article. He pulled it gently from the mud and the Crescent Moon was in his hands.

His head span, images and feelings, sensual feelings flooding, a voice, the man, "...you must fight for your time..." and then he realized that he had forgotten about Susan, completely. Now her image was before him, his mind's eye completely focused on his angel, princess; lover. Christ she had gone, completely. Holding the charm James climbed out of the hole. He turned quickly, sure he had heard music coming from the woods over the creek. Sweet, soft music, as loving as any he had heard, then it was gone.

The man in his dreams, the prisoner he had freed had returned in kind, and ten fold, the gift. To think he had almost lost the truest love he had ever felt. The magic now accepted for what it was. James decided there and then to go to Susan and take her as his, damn the consequences of it all.

He tried Susan's flat but it was empty. At the university her office was locked with a note to the effect that she would be gone for a week during the end of terms. James was distraught. She had to have had no memory of him. It had to be that way for she would never have gone without telling him. No, she would not have done so. He was sure.

His world was pressing in on him. Compressing him to the size of an ant. His heart felt like lead and the feeling went to his balls, pressing them like a vice. "God no..." he thought "...no... not Susan, not now!"

She must be at Maerre's, had to be. James drove far too quickly and arrived at the cottage in the early afternoon. As he pulled up he realized he had completely forgotten about his classes and the exams, but he thought damn it all. This was a quest Parcival would have considered greater than the Grail.

He was dedicated to all in front now. Like nothing else in his life. The cottage was locked up tight. The old Morris was in the shed with the doors held closed with a chain that may have held the Queen Mary to dock if needed.

James just hunched to his knees and rocked. "For fuck's sake... no... I am not giving up without a fight you bastards..." he yelled out load "...not by a long shot..."

Where the bloody hell would they be. He was sure that Maerre and Susan were together. Had to be. Surely Maerre would know about the spell. It's attachment power. Christ, he felt like a sin-eater. Damn the "Thing" to hell then his frustration allowed reason. Without it there would be no Susan.

"Think, James, will you" he said to himself. He walked back to his car looking down in a pose that may have looked dejected, but it was his way of concentrating, looking at his feet.

Maerre's garden was full of herbs and plants of strange extraction. Its border was terra-cotta shapes arranged in a pattern that James was sure meant something. He was not looking at them in particular, just looking down. He almost missed the ring-in. In the centre of the border to his left was one tile that didn't run in the pattern. It was larger than the others and was burning a hole in his mind. The Crescent Moon shape was in relief, almost a perfect copy of the charm he now held loosely in his left hand.

A quick scan of the rest of the borders showed that no other tiles of this kind existed. He kneeled and studied it. Touching it, it moved, and James could see it was loose. He lifted it and was surprised at its weight. Putting it to one side he noticed there was a silver charm the same as the one he held in his hand and a piece of paper. It was parchment, not modern paper and it had one word written on it.

Salisbury.

"Damn, this will be all right." He said to no one in particular, smiling as he did.