Shadowmagic - Sons of Macha by John Lenahan

make sure no harm befalls him,’ Macha said, still smiling but not as much.
    â€˜Let’s,’ Gerard said. ‘More wine?’
    â€˜No,’ she said, placing her hand over the top of her glass. ‘I have been long away from your wine for too long. Like your company, too much of it would be overly intoxicating, but thank you.’ She handed me her empty glass and walked away.
    â€˜So you two have met?’ I asked Gerard.
    â€˜Oh yes,’ he replied. ‘We have met.’

    Tuan offered to fly Mom home. She must have still felt pretty banged up ’cause she accepted. Oracle guy was given something that put him into a coma, and then stuffed in the barrel that just yesterday had held Graysea’s saltwater bath. For good measure he also had a paralysing pin stuck in his neck. I wanted to feel sorry for him but I once had travelled on a wagon in a barrel and I’m sure that it was much more comfortable to do it unconscious. Still I made sure he had a few pillows in there with him.
    As Gerard hammered the barrel lid closed I said, ‘Well, Lugh is lugh-ed up tight.’
    â€˜What did you say?’ Dad asked, and I also noticed that everyone else had stopped in their tracks.
    â€˜It was a joke. You know, locked up tight?’
    â€˜But what did you call him?’
    â€˜Lugh, the Brownies said Oracle guy’s name is Lugh.’
    Gerard stepped back like the barrel was about to bite him. All eyes shot to Macha.
    â€˜Is this true?’ Dad asked.
    She looked surprised. ‘I thought you knew.’
    Nieve stepped up to Macha. She had a look on her face I’m pretty sure I had never seen before. She looked – frightened. ‘Are you saying that the one who had kept you prisoner for all of these years is Lugh of the Samildanack?’
    â€˜Yes,’ Macha replied.
    Gerard actually stumbled into me when he heard this. I steadied him and said, ‘What does this mean?’
    â€˜It means,’ he said, looking at the mallet in his hand, ‘that in that barrel, I have just sealed – a god.’

Chapter Eight
Lugh

    M acha rode in front on the way home. Not because she was a queen, but because we quickly figured out that if she wasn’t in front then all of the horses would keep trying to look around to see where she was. Dahy rode with her and the two of them chatted the entire time like teenagers on the telephone. Dad and Nieve rode wordlessly behind. If Macha had any guilt in leaving them motherless for so long, she showed no sign of now trying to make up for it. I couldn’t see their faces but their body language in the saddle made them look like unhappy children forced to ride a pony at a birthday party.
    I was behind them with Araf – tantamount to riding alone – and behind me rode my girls, Essa and Graysea. I didn’t hear them share even one syllable and I wasn’t about to turn around to see if they were OK. The tension permeated the entire group to the point where Gerard, riding in the cart at the rear, was singing dirges as opposed to his usual ditties.
    It wasn’t just the imminent outbreak of a cat fight that was upsetting the group, it was like the whole party was spooked. And the thing that was spooking everybody was the guy locked in the barrel on Gerard’s cart. I needed more details on this ‘Lugh being a god’ thing but Mom and Nieve were not in a talkative mood and Gerard didn’t like talking to me when Essa was around, in case she thought he was taking sides. (Even a father can be afraid of a child like Essa.) And I could never get Dahy away from Macha.
    At night I tried to entice Grandma into talking about Lugh and her imprisonment but she said that it was far too horrid to speak of. She went to bed early every night with a horse standing guard outside her tent.
    I was reduced to spending my days staring at the scenery – not a bad thing. Spring had fully sprung and summer was once again