Until We See Each Other Again

The small copse of trees and brush smelled of leaves, dirt and rain. Connor could barely fit into the space between the branches where he used to play as a child. The hidden place was still there, open and bare of any undergrowth, appearing almost exactly as it had twenty years before when he last visited the spot. He remembered the day when his family moved away to Chicago, and how angry and afraid he was to leave her behind. He was eleven years old at the time and had just met Fiadh, a beautiful red haired girl with freckles, who said she lived across the woods from him, through an old ring of flowers beside the pond. Connor had been playing in these woods all his life and knew them like the back of his hand, but for the life of him he had no idea what she meant by that or where it was.

Connor and Fiadh had spent the day together, their only day together, exploring the nature reserve behind his home. He remembered it as if it had been yesterday, the two of them looking for hidden secrets in the woods or buried in the caves beneath the hills. She had possessed a life and a vibrancy that no one else he knew possessed. She virtually glowed with a rosy blush of life and moved with a spring in her step that was wild and untamed. He had not felt anything like this before and would never have that feeling again. The loss, the feeling of betrayal in his soul that he felt after having to leave her behind, had haunted him ever since. 

Thinking back now, as he sat down on the bare earth of the copse, he remembered meeting Fiadh that morning. The dew still clung to the long blades of reed grass and a gentle breeze stirred in the air. He had been walking down an old animal path by a pond just past the ravine when he saw her, crouching by the water. He was stunned at the site of her, kneeling at the edge wearing a sleeveless blouse, brown stitched pants and no shoes.  He guessed she was maybe his age or a little older and her long red hair, slightly curling down her back, was pushed away from her face by a band across her forehead that had small flowers interlaced in its weave. It was a wonder that she wasn’t freezing in the cool morning air.

He watched her for a few moments, absorbed in her beauty and fascinated by her presence. She was dipping her hands into the water and rubbing something vigorously as though cleaning it of dirt. He couldn’t quite tell what it was and so he took a few steps closer to get a better look. As he approached, she suddenly stiffened and sprang up to face him with a determined look. She held a small, short blade in her right hand and a cloth and braided rope in her left.

“Cé a théann ann?”, she said in a sharp almost-whisper. Then her eyes opened in surprise and she took a step back, seemingly ready to run at a moment’s notice.

Connor raised his hands as a show of surrender and said, “I’m sorry to startle you, I just… I didn’t expect to see anyone down here this early in the morning.”

She glanced between him and the woods to her left and seemed to consider flight for another moment before standing upright and dropping her hands to her waist. She slipped the cloth and braid into a small pouch on her belt and gripped the knife, looking him up and down.

“Who are you?” she asked, clearly annoyed by the disturbance. Her voice lilted with an Irish brogue.

“I’m Connor”, he said, “I just live a mile or so over that way, past the Caldwell ravine.” He pointed over his shoulder.

She tilted her head to the side and gave him a terse look. “Well Connor, I’d say it’s nice to meet you, but you shouldn’t be sneaking up on people and surprising them. It’s not polite.” With that, she seemed to relax a bit, slipping the knife under her belt as well.

Connor apologized awkwardly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to… What was it you said a moment ago? I didn’t understand the words,” he asked.

“I was asking who was there, since I didn’t expect to find someone behind me, nor did I expect that you would be able to…” she hesitated to finish. “Anyway, what are you doing here? Why are you out from your home so early in the morning? Don’t your people usually do work or school or something?”

That was a very odd question, he thought, since doesn’t everyone go to work or school in the morning? Or at least most people do if they aren’t on summer break or the weekend. She was acting very strange, and asking stranger questions, but it only seemed to increase her allure.

“I like to take walks in the morning, especially through these woods. It’s so beautiful right after sunrise,” he said.

She nodded her head in agreement, smiling. “There is a great magic in the sunrise. I like you more already.” She paused a moment. “Would you like to come with me? I’m looking for something and maybe you can help me find it. Let’s look together. Who knows, maybe we’ve found it already!” She held out her hand to him and he took it, baffled again by her words, and they walked into the woods.

#

And so, the day began. He and Fiadh spent the day wandering through the park looking for flowers and small pieces of stone and earth for her collection. She told him she would explain as they went, that it was important she gather the right materials while she was here. What he thought he knew about the park behind his home only scratched the surface of what his new friend understood about the nature of things. She showed him how to identify certain types of plants and flowers that grew around the pond, how to find mushrooms in the woods, and which ones not to eat. She showed him how to track small animals using their droppings and the disturbances they left in the foliage, as well as which birds were native to the area and how to tell them apart by their calls. 

Of course, he forgot all of this almost as soon as she was done instructing him. However, the pleasure of just listening to her voice and the feeling of her hand on his was still enough to make his heart race. Just the thought of it made him feel like crying out in longing for her to still be with him today, but she was gone long ago. He had promised himself to come back to see her, before he left for good, but his parents hadn’t allowed it and he had been forced to leave without saying goodbye. How he wished he had been given just a few more moments with her.

He remembered that she had taken him to a small cave behind some bushes along the ravine that, after a decade of exploring the woods, he hadn’t known was there. They had pressed themselves through a narrow crack in the rock and into the small space beyond. Standing on the wet earth inside, Fiadh had pulled out a small candle stub and lit it with the flick of her blade on flint. The act of lighting it this way seemed both impossible to him as well as magical in its unintended grace. It seemed that the small spark should not have lit the candle, but it had. Almost as if she had willed it to life, the spark had wrapped around the wick and burst into light. Little things like that made him wonder if it hadn’t just been a dream.

Fiadh led him to the back of the small cave where it dropped down three feet into a wide flat space. The ceiling here was just low enough that they need to crouch to move across the room. Beyond that, the floor sloped downward a couple of feet and soon they were able to stand again. The cave opened into a large grotto with high ceilings and rocks the size of stools arranged around the floor. The rocks were like shaped like small pedestals and cairns and were positioned carefully in a pattern that Connor didn’t understand. The light from Fiadh’s candle shone on a small pool at the back of the room. Water glistened on the roof and walls where it seemed to seep through from the earth around. The pool was calm, clear and extremely cold.

“This place is sacred to my family”, she whispered, dropping down onto one knee to touch the surface of the pool with her palm. “My sister, Eimear, once came here to pray before going on a long journey. Another time, my father came here to sit for many years. That was after my mother died…”

Connor didn’t know what to say, he didn’t know what Fiadh meant by this. Why would her family come here? What was so special about this place? 

Fiadh took a small amethyst crystal and placed the tip in the water. As the water rippled from the touch, it seemed like the light refracting from the candle on the water had created a stir of images, the reflection seeming to no longer show this small room but another place entirely. Another girl was sitting at the pool with them, long hair like Fiadh’s but darker. Her eyes were older but only a little and she was wearing a blue dress with silver embroidery around the neck. She seemed to look at Fiadh and Fiadh at her. “Until we see each other again”, Fiadh whispered. She smiled… then the image was gone. The water became still and Fiadh stood up and turned to him. “It’s time to go now, there is one more place I want to show you.”

They left the cave and Connor realized that the sun had dropped towards the horizon, he would need to get home soon for dinner and finish getting ready for the move his parents had planned. Fiadh led them back to the pond and from there to a small copse of trees littered with brush, the same copse he lay in now. They pushed their way through the tangle to the center where they sat down on the bare earth. 

Fiadh put the small rocks, clumps of earth and plants she had collected out in front of her and looked them over. She nodded, pleased with herself and what she had gathered, then quickly returned it all to her pouches. She leaned towards Connor and put her hand on his face, closed her eyes and sang to him in a quiet voice. He couldn’t understand the words, but they made him feel loved and surrounded by peace and joy. He closed his eyes and let her breath and song flow over him. The last thing he could recall were her whispered words, “Until we see each other again”.

#

He couldn’t remember how he had arrived home from the copse in the wood, only that he hadn’t been allowed to go back. His parents were already packed for the trip and after dinner they started the long journey to the airport in the city. From there it was a plane ride across the country to their new home and the end of his time in Caldwell. The years following had felt like a silent movie in which he was just an extra in the background. Everything was going on around him but there was no music, no sound, no life for him to join in. He felt disconnected and apart from everyone around him. Always the memory of Fiadh in the back of his mind. Always that day replayed in his dreams. He had gone through the motions at school and ended up working at a local bar as a bartender after dropping out of college. He had never had any long term relationships and struggled with depression and loss. 

After he turned thirty years old, he decided enough was enough. He needed to return to his childhood home and see if he could find her again. Maybe she would still remember him. He had spent the next year saving as much money as he could from tips and overtime and finally, once he had saved enough for the trip, he took a few weeks off to return to Caldwell. He had spent days looking for her around town, asking if anyone knew or remembered the beautiful young red haired girl he remembered from his youth. No one seemed to know who she was or remember anyone matching her description. Even the few people he had known from that time with whom he had kept in contact remembered her.

At the end of his wits and with only one day left he had decided to find the grotto where she had shown him the pool. Maybe there was a clue there that would lead him to her. He spent hours wandering the woods, searching for the cave entrance. Beyond the nostalgia of returning to his childhood playground, he was not able to locate the cave from that day. He had finally decided to give up when he came upon the pond again and saw the copse of trees. He decided he had time to go sit there for a few moments before giving up the search. 

As he sat there on the ground in the copse where he had last seen Fiadh, remembering the memories of that day, he closed his eyes and wept. Long, deep breaths of anguish washed over him and through him as he let out the pain he had been holding onto for so long. The rain began to fall gently on the leaves around him and he could hear the pitter patter of the drops through the protection of the brush. He wiped his eyes with his sleeve and took a long sigh. He closed his eyes, thought about Fiadh for the last time and said his goodbye.

As he did so, he could remember the song she sang, the words he didn’t understand but which seemed as clear to him now as the day she sang them to him. They washed through him and over him and he felt better for the first time in many years. Not quite ready to open his eyes and dispel the memory of the song he sat quietly, listening. A hand touched his face and he heard her say, “Until we see each other again”. He opened his eyes. 

“Fiadh”