Brida

"I don't know if the Equinox festival is just for witches, but it will be a very important day for me."

"A party is a party."

"Then I would like to invite you."

He made a gesture as if wanting to change the subject. He must have been thinking the same thing she was: how hard it was to leave your Soul Mate once you'd found them. She imagined him going home alone, wondering when she would come back. She would come back, because her heart was telling her to, but the solitude of forests is harder to bear than the solitude of towns.

"I don't know if love appears suddenly," Brida went on, "but I know that I'm open to love, ready for love."

The taxi came. Brida looked again at the Magus and felt that he had grown many years younger.

"I'm ready for love, too," he said.

The sunlight poured into the spacious kitchen through the sparkling clean windows.

"Did you sleep well, love?"

Her mother put a mug of tea down on the table, along with some toast. Then she went back to the cooker, where she was frying eggs and bacon.

"Yes, I did, thanks. By the way, is my dress ready? I need it for the party the day after tomorrow."

Her mother brought her the eggs and bacon and sat down. She knew that something odd was going on with her daughter, but she could do nothing about it. She would like to talk to her today as she never had before, but she would achieve little if she did. There was a new world out there, a world she didn't know.

She was afraid for her daughter because she loved her and because Brida was alone in that new world.

"My dress will be ready, won't it, Mum?"

"Yes, by lunchtime," her mother replied. And that made her happy. At least some things in the world hadn't changed. There were certain problems that mothers continued to solve for their daughters.

She hesitated, then asked:

"How's Lorens?"

"Fine. He's coming to pick me up tomorrow evening."

She felt simultaneously relieved and sad. Problems of the heart always bruised the soul, and she thanked God that her daughter had no such problems. On the other hand, that was perhaps the one area on which she could advise her, love having changed little over the centuries.

They set off for a walk around the little village where Brida had spent her childhood. The houses had remained unchanged, and people were still doing the same things they always had. Her daughter met a few old school friends, who now worked either at the village's one bank or at the stationer's. They said hello and stopped to chat. Some said how Brida had grown, others how pretty she looked. Around ten o'clock they dropped in at the cafe her mother used to go to on Saturdays, before she met her husband, in the days when she was still hoping to meet someone and be swept up in some whirlwind romance that would put a stop to the endless identical days.

She looked at her daughter again as she told her the latest news about the various people in the village. Brida was still interested, and this pleased her.

"I really do have to have the dress today," Brida said. She seemed worried, but that couldn't be the reason. She knew that her mother would never let her down.

Her mother decided to take a risk and ask the kind of question children always hate, because they're independent, free, and capable of solving their own problems.

"Is anything worrying you?"

"Have you ever been in love with two men at once, Mum?" There was a defiant note in her voice, as if life had set its traps only for her.

Her mother took a bite of her cake. A distant look came into her eyes, as she went off in search of a time that was almost lost.

"Yes, I have."

Brida stared at her in amazement.

Her mother smiled and invited her to continue their walk.

"Your father was my first and greatest love," she said, once they'd left the cafe. "And I'm still very happy with him. When I was younger than you are now, I had everything I could have dreamed of. At the time, my friends and I believed that love was the only reason for living. If you failed to find someone, then you could never claim to have realized your dreams."