“Why is Morgana so drunk?” Ceri demanded.  She ducked into the dim, smoky hut and squinted at her sister.

Ana lolled at the foot of her cot.  A wineskin hung limply from her fingertips.

“My lover left me,” Brighid said.  She sat beside her own cot, weaving a bolt of silk.  Strands of blue, violent, and red glimmered in the firelight.

Ceri set down her scythe.  “If it’s your lover who’s gone, why are her tattoos so watery and weak?”

Brighid spared a glance at Ana.  The blood tattoos of Ana’s magical weapons indeed were runny on her skin.  “Alcohol thins the blood.”  Brighid threw the shuttle.  Her hands worked in a rhythm. 

“Ana decided to help me in my grief by getting drunk enough for the both of us.”
Ceri said, “Typical.”  She knelt and unloaded the harvest of leeks.  She often made leek soup.  Ana couldn’t cook, and Brighid didn’t like to.  “Why do you mourn your lover so?  He was but a mortal.”

Brighid threw the shuttle.  Blue, violet, and red glimmered in the firelight.

“That doesn’t mean I did not love him.”

Brighid had met him on Beltane.  He was sixteen and newly declared a man among his people.  Brighid glimpsed him through the trees with the other young men as they sought the village girls.  He had flawless olive skin, and his new green tattoos – marks of the adult hunter – danced with the smooth flow of his muscles.  High, branching stag horns were nestled in his curly hair, and his mask covered all but his pink mouth.  If Brighid had been any other woman, she would have thought him the Horned One himself.  Sometimes she descended from the Grove to mingle with the mortals, usually on sacred festivals.  She liked to watch the mortals live, watch them be happy or sad.  As soon as a boy caught a girl, Brighid was polite enough to turn away and leave them to the sacredness of their act.  But she liked listening to the laughter, to the youth sneaking ineffectually through the forest.  Brighid laughed softly to herself and was making a garland of flowers when an arm slid around her waist and she was being kissed.  The boy grinned wickedly, vanished into the trees, and left Brighid breathless.  Brighid had spent the night lost in wonder, and dared to leave the Grove the next day to roam the forest to see him again.

Without his mask he was just as handsome.  His smile was innocent, and with the energy of the festival gone his kisses were shy.  Brighid spent three years teaching him how to love, how to be a man, and he showed her how to be a mortal.  Brighid met him in the forest whenever she could, but she did not follow him into the village; someone would recognize her.  She explained as best as she could who she was, but he was blinded by his love of her, and she let him stay in the dark.  It was intoxicating, to be loved as a woman and nothing more.

But he was an adult, and had duties.  As a hunter he had to provide food for the village, and as a man he had to provide for a woman.  He understood that Brighid would never come to the village and he could never go to hers, and the time had come for him to take a wife.  Brighid told him that he could stay with her in the forest, if he chose, but he did not.  She could have given him the kiss of the fae and sent him to the Wild World where only she could reach him, but she did not.  She could have had him reborn as a lesser god to be by her side always, but she did not.  She simply kissed him goodbye and walked back to the grove.

“If you’re the one who let him go, you have no cause to whine,” Ceri said.  “I don’t know why Ana’s being sympathetic.”

“It’s a dry spell between wars.  She just wanted an excuse to get drunk.”  Brighid worked.

“Why didn’t you keep him, anyway?”  Ceri set about cleaning and chopping the leeks.  “You know I would’ve lent you my cauldron for the rebirthing.”

Brighid’s hands moved the shuttle back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, blue, violet, and red.  “I know.  But I learnt something as a mortal.  If you love someone, you must let him go.  If he does not return, he was not meant to be yours.”

Ceri tossed a handful of glittering rune stones onto the surface of the loom.

“Then see if he’ll come back to you.  If the answer is yes, kidnap him before the handfasting.”

“I think not.”  Brighid ignored the rune stones, and they returned to their place.

“I’m with Ceri.”  Ana flicked tarot cards at Brighid one by one, as if they were flying daggers.  “Just see the future.”

Brighid stacked the cards with one hand; the other threw the shuttle.  “I thought you were enjoying the chance to get drunk.”

Ana swilled the last of the wine.  She pushed herself to her feet.  “See?  Done drinking.”  She swayed.  “Now act like a goddess, for goddess’ sake!”

Ceri paused in her chopping.  “Hey!”

“No.  I’m weaving.  Leave me be.”
Ana and Ceri exchanged glances; they knew that tone of voice.

Brighid still ventured into the forest occasionally.  The other two knew that she had not taken to wandering again, as she claimed, but she sought her mortal lover.  Brighid glimpsed him through the trees.  He had grown strong, and was a fine hunter.  The other men in the clan respected him, and he became a worthy leader.

Ana grudgingly learned to cook, and her leek soup wasn’t half bad.  Ceri took to calling the giant tree outside the hut Yggdrasil, and learned to make a fantastic pie from its shiny red fruit.  Wars broke out in the north, and Ana departed with her army of fierce black birds, leaving Brighid and Ceri to amuse themselves in her absence.  Brighid learned to bake the apple pie, and Ceri became a decent weaver.

Down in the mortal forest, Brighid watched her lover from afar.  He had a pair of beautiful daughters and a strapping son, and raised all three to be honorable and strong.  Ceri told her to stop going back; she was only hurting herself that way.  Ana recommended vengeance upon a mortal who had spurned a goddess, and was forever offering up tortures she had seen in distant lands.  Brighid merely smiled and said she still loved him.

Ana was ecstatic when war broke out in the green lands, and spent three days in a drunken frenzy.  Ceri cleaned her cauldron, ready to bring brave warriors into the heavens, or to happier new lives.  Brighid went into the forest and listened to the mortal men revel.  They beat drums, drank wine, rattled their weapons and shields.  When her lover’s wife – a woman with red hair to rival Ana’s – entered into the forest, supplicating the goddess to protect her husband, Brighid made the charms herself and laid them at the woman’s feet.  The woman was a good woman, and Brighid could not deny that she deserved such a worthy husband.  Brighid, like the man’s wife, spend the days of the battle weaving and worrying.

Ana returned from the battle drenched in blood, drunk on the lusty scent of death.  Many brave warriors climbed out of Ceri’s cauldron, but Brighid’s lover was not among them; her charms had served well.

Brighid lived with her sisters and watched the first strands of silver weave themselves into her lover’s hair.  She celebrated when his children became adults, when they had children of their own.  Ceri traveled to the east and returned with a six-spoke wheel to accompany the reincarnations provided by her cauldron.  Brighid attempted divination with the I-Ching, but it was too rigid, and she disliked the texture of dry bones; Ana used them to pick her teeth.  Ana traveled to the east, and insisted upon calling the great old tree Sephiroth.  Ceri challenged that name and insisted that Sephiroth was a god-like warrior with silver hair, eyes the color of the sky and sword forged in Ana’s blood, and that Ana should marry such a man; Brighid laughed.

The three sisters lived contentedly in their little hut, eternal friends.  Sometimes, though not as often as in years past, Brighid wandered down in the forests of the mortals.

“It has been many years to the mortals, but not to us,” Ana said.  “Are you satisfied that he isn’t coming back?”

“I don’t think he knows he can anymore,” Ceri said.  “I think you are foolish to keep pining.”

“I agree you are foolish,” Ana said.

Brighid stared at her loom – now with blue, green, and gold – and smiled.  “In that you are always my sisters.”

“Why don’t you just find yourself another lover?  Mortal men handsome enough for a goddess are born by the score.”  Ana traced a new tattoo into her leg with fresh blood.

“Brighid is not you, Ana, for whom the only things that matter are sex and death,” Ceri said.

“All mortals are children to you, with your cauldron and burning wheel,” Ana replied.

“Forgive me if the only mortal I love is this one,” Brighid said.

Ana and Ceri exchanged looks.  They knew that the hunter had once roamed the forest as well, seeking his former love, but he had ceased doing so years ago.

Ana visited Brighid’s lover one night with a terrible sickness.  His wife, whose red hair was still bright, wailed that she had seen the Bhane Sidhe washing his death shroud in the river.  Not even Ana, goddess of war, sex, and death, could stand the look in Brighid’s eyes when she found out.

Disguised as a mortal, she sped to the village.  The entire clan clustered around their king’s house.  His wife and children knelt at his bedside, weeping.  His wife bowed her head and prayed to the goddess, begging her to spare the man’s life.  He lay on the bed, chest heaving in a struggle for breath, weak and unseeing.  Brighid heard the woman’s words and began pushing through the crowd, hands weaving a charm out of the air.

A hand caught her wrist.

“No,” Ana said fiercely.  She was disguised as a human as well.

“Let me go,” Brighid said.

“No.  You will not undo my work.”

Brighid struggled and cast a desperate glance over her shoulder.  Ceri, also in guise as a mortal stood off to the side, watching.  The villagers began to notice the commotion and turned.  Mutters ran through the crowd.  Three strange women – one garbed as a warrior, a cook carrying a cauldron, a weaver with gnarled hands – stood at the edge of the crowd, the warrior and the weaver engaged in a fierce, hissing argument.

The king’s family noticed.  His son rose.  He saw the warrior woman and his hand went to the hilt of his sword, but his mother shook her head.  She rose to her feet, tall and imperious, still a queen.

“What is the meaning of this?  Have you no respect for our king?”

“No,” the warrior said.  She shook the weaver.  “Come away from here.”

The weaver struggled.  “Let me be!  I must see him!”

“The king?”  The queen pushed through the crowd.  “Who are you?”

The king stirred at the noise, but his daughters stilled him.

The queen glanced at her husband.  Beside him, the wise woman shook her head grimly; he didn’t have much longer.

“I must see the king,” the weaver pleaded.

Anger lit in the warrior woman’s eyes.  “You are being foolish.  Come away at once!”

“Who are you?” the queen repeated.

The weaver said, “I love him.”
The crowd fell silent.

The queen stared at her; she was a weaver, old, homely, with crooked hands.  “Love him, do you?  Do you even know him?”  The queen turned and addressed the crowd.  “Does anyone know this woman?”

They all shook their heads.

“Be gone from this village,” the queen said.  “If you love him, let him die in peace.”

The king stirred again and tried to push himself up.  “What’s going on?”

The weaver looked pained at the sound of his voice.

“Who’s there?”

“We’re here, Da, your children,” one of his daughters said.  “Ma’s here as well.”

The king groped blindly at the empty air in front of him.  “Fiona?”

The queen hurried to his side.  “I’m here, love.  Lie down.  Don’t strain yourself.”

The cook had been ignored in the struggle, and neither of the two strangers noticed when she kindled a tiny spark and dropped it into her cauldron.

The king pushed himself up again.  “I heard – a familiar voice – ”
The queen tried to subdue him, but he was stubborn.  He sat up, and the villagers knelt.  Over their bowed heads, the weaver stared.  The king gasped, coughed, and light crept into his eyes.  Recognition blossomed on his face.  He tried to speak, but he could not breathe.

The warrior cast the cook a glare.  She drew a knife and reached out to the weaver.  Around the weaver’s waist was fastened a silken sash of blue, violet, and red.  The warrior slashed it viciously, and many villagers were sad to see it fall.  The queen let out a wail, for her husband had died.

Immediately the strangers were forgotten as the mourning began.

The weaver shook the warrior off.

“Go.  I’ll catch up.”

The warrior looked angry, but she beckoned to the cook, and they departed.

The wise woman had declared the king dead, and she shuffled out of the crowd.  The weaver woman stood along, watching.  There was something about the woman that was not quite canny.  She didn’t spoil milk and send babes to her death when she banged on her cauldron, but she could be trouble.

Perhaps she had caused some trouble in her lifetime, but right now she was a mourner, same as all the others.

The wise woman shuffled close and placed a hand on the weaver’s arm.  “You should not linger, lass.”

The woman nodded, but did not look away from the king.  The wise woman shook the weaver’s shoulder.

“Lass, go.”

The weaver didn’t move.

The wise woman looked down and saw that the weaver had one hand clenched in a fist.  As if she felt the wise woman’s gaze, the weaver opened her hand.  The wise woman gasped.

“Take it.”  The weaver thrust the small circlet of leaves at the old woman and turned away.  She was gone quickly, leaving the wise woman to examine the treasure.  It was a life charm of the greatest power.  Only a powerful sorceress could have crafted the likes of it.  The wise woman had only seen a charm of this magnitude once before.  The queen had prayed for one to protect her husband years ago in the great war; she said the goddess had granted it.

The wise woman looked at the king’s body.  As powerful a charm as it was, it was of no use now.  She tucked the charm away for another day, and shuffled back to her hut.  She had to prepare for the funeral.

None of the villagers noticed the raven winging its way from the village.

Three days and three nights Brighid wove.  Her sisters hovered around the hut in silent anxiety, occasionally slipping away to carry out their duties.  Brighid was always there, weaving, when they returned.  Ana and Ceri pretended not to watch Brighid cry when smoke from the funeral pyre curled through the air.  The fourth day dawned, and all three sisters shivered in the wake of the sun.  Brighid rose from the loom and folded the finished silk.  She paid no heed when her sisters slipped out of hut; she slipped out of the hut and painted her face with ashes.

She squinted in the sun.  The front door had to face east, didn’t it?

“Where are you off to, then?” Ana asked.  She sat on a boulder and sharpened a spear.

Brighid folded the silk into a basket.  “This is fit for a king.”

Ana tested the spearhead’s sharpness on her tongue, spat out some blood.  “Sure it’s fit for a king.  Your weaving is fit for a god.  Why waste it on a dead king?”

This time Ana was unaffected by the fury in Brighid’s eyes.

“I wouldn’t go down to that village if I were you,” Ana said.

“You’re not me, are you?”  Brighid started for the gate that lay in the northeast corner of the grove, then stopped.

Ceri came through the trees, hauling her cauldron.

Brighid stared at her.  “Why do you do this?  There has been no war.”

Ceri set the cauldron down on the threshold of the grove.  A large black bird fluttered up out of it and perched on Ana’s shoulder.  Ana selected a new weapon from among her tattoos; they all needed sharpening.

“A warrior has died well,” Ceri said.

He rose up out of the cauldron, and the basket tumbled from Brighid’s hands.  He looked just as she remembered from Beltane.  High branching antlers sprouted from his dark curls, but no longer as part of the mask and crown.  Hints of green – somehow not tattoos – shimmered in his olive skin.

“Brighid?” he asked.  “Did I really see you just before I died?”

Ceri blushed and looked away when her sister tackled the youth and kissed him breathless.

He stilled her with his hands.  “Brighid, are you well?”

She was laughing and crying all at once.  He washed the ash from her forehead and cheeks.

“All this over me?  Brighid…”

“Like I said, your weaving is fit for a god.”  Ana tossed her blood-knife, testing its weight.  “For goddess’ sake, the poor lad’s starkers.”
Brighid scooped up the fallen silk and wrapped him in it.

He smiled, helping her trembling hands.  “You weren’t just talking, then, when you said you lived here.”
Brighid shook her head, still crying and laughing.

“I always did say I’d meet your sisters,” he said, and he kissed her.

Brighid turned to Ceri.  “When?  How?”

Ceri smiled.  “We reckoned if you wouldn’t read your future, we’d read it for you, as it were.”
Ana grunted.  “It’s a cause worth celebrating.  Where’s the wine?”
All three sisters laughed, and a young voice joined them.