The Ceilidh

"Ian!" His father's voice held the same note of irritation it always did when preparing for a family gathering. Something about Highland dress brought out the strictness of his Scottish forebears. "We're leaving! Get down here now!"

"I'll be right there!"

Sheesh, thought Ian Douglass. It's not like the whole family's ever on time for this thing. He pushed his leather hairband down to his nose, then back up underneath his shaggy bangs so they were lifted up away from his eyes. So far he'd successfully resisted his mother's demands for a back-to-school haircut. With any luck he always would. And these days he had plenty of luck ― as long as he used it wisely.

"♪!"

He looked down at the little plant spirit that had followed him home from the woods a week ago. The leaflike appendages on its head flapped as it bounced up and down on his bed. "Sorry, Pookie. I can't bring you today."

"♪! ♪?"

"It's just that Granaidh will be there. She... well, she sees more than other people. I'm pretty sure she's gonna notice something about me, and I'm not sure how she'll take it. If you were with me too she might freak."

"♫."

"You're right. She might not. But I don't wanna take the chance. She's an old lady. If she gets upset she might hurt herself."

"♪..."

"I'm sorry. Here, I'll leave the window open for you. And how about some juice?"

"♫!"

"Cool. You want orange or apple?"

"♪... ♫."

"OK." Ian picked out an apple juice box from the stash he kept in his dresser, unwrapped it, and put the straw in. "There. Try not to let any foxes in while I'm gone, or anything like that."

There was no reply, as Pookie was happily sipping at his treat. Ian closed the door behind him and ran down the stairs to join his parents in the minivan. It was going to be an hour's drive to the First Presbyterian Church where every year the Douglasses rented the church hall for a gathering of their considerable extended family.

---

"Ian! 'Sup, dude? What's with the pants?"

"Hey, Rob!" Ian greeted his cousin with a complex handshake. He wore a ghille shirt, same as the other boy, but plain black Dockers took the place of the most distinctive male Highland garment. "The kilt was small on me, and no one noticed until yesterday."

"What, you got too fat?"

Rob wasn't fast enough to dodge Ian's punch to his shoulder. "No, you dillweed. Too tall. I didn't give a fuck, but Mom practically had a cow about  minikilts."

"It's cause you always go regimental. They fear your junk, man."

"You might as well, then. Nothin' to be afraid of there."

This time it was Ian's turn to get punched. "Shut up!" But Rob laughed as he said it.

"Hi, guys!"

"Jackie!"

She hugged both her younger cousins in turn. "Ian, wow. Lookin' good, even out of costume. Rob, you should grow your hair out too."

Rob rolled his eyes. "God, here we go. Makeover time."

"You've had that same buzzcut since you were five. Some guys aren't afraid to change."

"Do me a favor and say something to my mom, huh?" said Ian. "She keeps telling me I look like a hippie."

"She's stuck in the '70s. I bet she still discos."

Their laughter was cut short by feedback whining from the loudspeakers. Uncle Andy was at the mic.

"Fàiltean, all, to this year's Douglass family end-of-summer ceilidh! We'll get the festivities started right off, but first I want to catch us all up on what's been going on this year. For anyone who hasn't heard, Bill and Annie had their baby―"

The speech wasn't half as long as the teens felt it to be, but it still droned on  too long for their attention, so even before Uncle Andy finished saying, "Sláinte! And let's get this ceilidh started!" Ian had grabbed Jackie by the hand.

"Let's go!"

"Where?"

"Dancing!"

"Since when do you like to dance?"

"Since last week. C'mon," he pleaded. "Don't make me go with Aunt Dotty."

Rob and Jackie turned to follow Ian's line of sight. That formidable personage was even then bearing down on the three, on her annual mission of wallflower eradication.

Jackie laughed, and she and Ian joined the nearest set, leaving Rob to Aunt Dotty's mercy. Ian danced with energy she could hardly match, and a grace and agility that left her breathless. Two reels, one "Strip the Willow" and a two-step later she called for a break.

"Ohmigod, Ian. You been practicing or something?"

"Not since last year." Ian showed no signs of fatigue.

"You been doing something though." She threw herself into a chair and started rearranging her plaid, which had gotten knocked askew after a particularly vigorous turn. "So what have you been up to?"

"Oh, same old."

"I don't think so." She looked him over with a critical eye while he eased himself into the seat next to her. "You know that my best friend Heather is Mike from your last year science class' stepsister, right?"

Ian shook his head. "Huh?"

"Anyway, I asked her about you, and she asked Mike, and he told her you've been acting weird all summer. No one's hardly even seen you."

"You could've texted me."

"I did. You didn't answer. And then it started saying your mailbox was full."

"Oh. I guess I forgot to turn my phone on."

"Since May?"

"Hmm. Come to think of it, I'm not too sure where it is."

Jackie chuckled. "What do you think of Mike, anyway?"

Ian shrugged. "We used to hang out. He's pretty cool, I guess."

"Not that. He's hot, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he's cute. I'd do him."

Jackie looked around, but the music was loud and no one was close enough to have overheard. "Ssh! Look, just so you know," she whispered, "I don't care if you're gay, but lots of others probably do. Maybe you want to be keep it quiet."

"Or maybe I don't anymore."

"Really. Tell your folks yet?"

"Nah. I will when it comes up. It won't be a big deal. They already think I'm weird. This'll be just one more thing. How'd you know?"

"It wasn't hard. I mean, whenever I see you in public you're perving on every hot guy around... aaand here come your folks now."

Ian's parents approached, a little breathless from their own dancing. "Come along, Ian," said his mother. "It's high time we paid our respects to Granaidh."

Ian cocked an eyebrow. "She's not dead yet. Can't I just say hello to her?"

"Don't give your mother any lip," snapped his father. "I don't know what's gotten into you lately, but if this keeps up we're going to have a talk."

A private glance toward Jackie showed her just how much Ian feared that, but he got up and followed them across the hall. "Rest up!" he called behind him. "There's more dancing!"

Jackie replied with a weary wave and leaned back with a sigh.

---

In the lounge off the main hall, Ian's great-grandmother held court from a tall wing-back chair. She was, like her progeny, dressed in festive Highland garb, but there was little festivity about her person. Not a speck of makeup touched her face, where many lines attested to the harshness of more than a few of her nearly one hundred years. Her hands might have trembled a little, but she sat tall and straight, her mouth set in an expression that could not properly be called a frown but was certainly not a smile. Her gnarled wooden stick leaned against the side table. With a piercing eye she watched a group of her descendants approach.

"Latha math dhuibh, Seanmhair," began Ian's father, but he was cut off before he could get any further.

"Aye, aye, aye," replied the old woman. Despite many decades in the United States, the Highland lilt from the speech of her younger days was almost unaltered. "Good to see all of you again. Now step out please. Not you, lad. Everyone else."

"But... but Granaidh..." began Ian's father.

"We'll talk more later, but there's an urgent thing I must discuss with the lad. In private."

He looked to his wife for support, but she merely shrugged and herded him out of the room. The door closed behind them.

"Ian," the old woman said, and beckoned with a crooked finger. "Come closer."

Ian did. A dreamy grin was on his face, as if his attention was somewhere else, somewhere very pleasant. He stood still and let his great-grandmother look him over.

"You've been touched. I don't know how or what it's done to you, but you've had dealings with the Fair Folk."

He nodded. "I kinda thought you'd notice."

She raised her hand and slammed it down on the arm of her chair. "You fool! After all I've taught you! Even when you were a new babe I saw their mark on you. That's why the books, that's why the stories, that's why the wise poets! You let them at you anyway. And now what's to come of you?"

"Nothing too bad, I think."

"You're in no place to judge! Careless, careless lad. Do you even still have your soul?"

"Yes. I'm more myself than I've ever been. There's no more fear, Granaidh. About anything."

"Och!" She shook her head and looked away for a while. "You might as well tell me what happened, then."

He told her then of his strange, restless summer, of the dreams, and the running half-naked through field and wood in search of a thing he could never quite grasp.

"Ah ha! Calling you, they were! And I'll wager you listened." Granaidh seized her cane. She creaked to her feet, and in her agitation barely noticed the pains in hip and knee as she hobbled back and forth in front of her chair.

"Yeah. It was a couple of weeks ago. I came to a place I'd never found before, and haven't found again since. A great ring of trees. Like a temple, almost."

"You went in to it, did you?" The question was itself an accusation.

"What else was there to do? And then... I guess I might have been careless. Or maybe I knew perfectly well what I was doing. I'm not so sure myself. And the door opened, and he came through, and granted me a boon."

The old woman stopped pacing to stand before Ian. She clutched the head of her cane with a death-grip, her knuckles white with tension. "What then?" she whispered.

"He gave me the choice." He held out a suntanned hand to her pale cheek, almost but not quite touching. She could feel his young body's heat radiating from it. "The door was still open. I was this close to it. It was all warm and green and golden and light. Three times he invited me."

She stood stock-still, hardly daring to breathe. "And?"

"Three times I refused. I did not enter the Summerland. I did not choose to live among the Fair Folk as one of them." Then, and only then, did his grin falter, and the beginning of a tear leaped to his eye.

At the sight of that tear Granaidh let out a long shuddering sigh. Her hands relaxed, and she sank back into her chair. "Màthair Mòr. You did not. It was not all in vain. You're still human."

"Yeah. I'm still here. Still me." His grin returned, no longer dreamy but as a sign of a real inner joy. "He did something else instead."

She stiffened again, alarmed. "Tell me."

"He had his way with me. Or I had mine with him. It was all the same."

"He―?" She rolled her eyes and gave a small, disapproving grunt. "Och. Never mind that. 'Tis the least of it. He did something more to you besides. They never give mere bodily pleasure alone."

Ian nodded. "He did say the, um..." Bold as he now was, he still balked at talking about the details of this part in front of his great-grandmother. He reddened a little beneath his tan and fidgeted in place. "...er, love. That it was only the means of giving me what I asked for."

She sighed. "There's no good putting it off any further. Give me your hand."

Ian held out his right hand. She took it between both of hers and closed her eyes. For a moment she was perfectly still.

Her eyes flew open. She gasped.

"Dè air thalamh? That... that's...!" Her mouth gaped, but no words came out.

"Granaidh?" Ian was genuinely concerned. "Granaidh, please!" He knelt down to see her face more clearly.

At last her speech returned to her. "No. No, it's well," she said, but her voice was so shaky that Ian didn't fully believe her. "What was that? That music?"

"It's what he gave me."

"I've not heard that since..." She released his hand and leaned back against her chair. "I was but a lass, about your age I suppose, at home in the Highlands. I too heard the call of the Fair Folk one bright, warm summer. And once upon a time I too heeded it.

"I've always had the Sight, although I learned not to show it lest folk treat me strangely. And so when I came to the standing stones that night, I saw them at their own ceilidh. That was when I heard that music, and that's when I saw them dance. Oh, how they danced! Like no human ever danced, with such grace did they do it. And the tune they played pierced me to the quick.

"I thought to keep myself hid, but they spotted me right enough. I remember his bright eye, his shining hair, his artful smile when he beckoned me. Thrice he importuned me to join them. But I... Och, I was so wise! So clever! I knew that dance was no place for me. Like you, I thrice refused.

"But I asked no favor. I was granted no boon. I received no gift. And when the gray morning came I was all alone, and there was nothing but to go home to my chores and my regrets. There were chickens to feed, and water to fetch, and a cow to milk, and nothing was different but that it was more drab and dreary than before."

The old woman's face was too sunken in old griefs to make a great show of new ones, but from behind her closed eyes tears ran in a stream down her withered cheek.

"Ian. My dear child. Won't you give me your hand again?" Once more she took it between both of hers. "Ah, 'tis so faint. But better than to not have it at all."

"It's not there, " said Ian. "It's here." And he took her hand and held it over his heart.

He wanted as much as he'd ever wanted anything for her to hear the music as clearly as he did, but it was all so new he didn't know how. He only knew how to open his heart.

"I love you Granaidh."

And then with fiddle, pipe, whistle and harp, and bodhran and dulcimer and every other instrument of merriment, the Faerie music sounded out to her ear as if the immortal players themselves were in the same room. Granaidh took in a deep breath, and then, for the first time Ian could ever remember, she smiled. And with that smile, many lines etched upon her cheek by the cold, unfeeling years vanished away, never to return.

She sprang to her feet with ease, never even thinking of her cane. "Listen to that would you? In the hall! 'Tis 'Gay Gordons!' I did so love that step as a lass!"

Ian smiled his own boyish smile, stepped back, and bowed. "Miss? May I have this dance?"

Granaidh laughed. "Aye, I do think I have room on my card!"

He put out his arm. She took it, and they made for the hall.

When the two of them entered every couple came to a halt mid-step and  every eye in the place fixed them with a stare of amazement. Even to the oldest Douglass, it was a memory of the dim past that Granaidh should step out for a dance. It took a moment longer for the band to realize what had happened before it squeaked to silence. Uncle Andy approached the two of them, ducking his head.

"Granaidh! We are―"

Her voice rang out across the room. "What is all this? Is this or is this not a ceilidh? There should be music and dance, not some fool flapping his mouth like a fish on land!"

Andy backtracked, frantically waving at the band to continue. They began again, tentative at first, but soon taking up the rhythm. The line re-formed around the perimeter of the hall, and after some faltering from a few couples all were back with the beat.

Then Ian with his faerie grace and tireless feet took his great-grandmother through the steps of every dance she desired, and he alone of all her descendants could have kept up with her. It was as if many harsh, weary years had dropped away, and she was once more a fair human lass invited by the Fair Folk to partake of their secret ceilidh. Each vigorous step was an assent and a surrender to a bright, wholesome magic long denied, and a forgotten joy. All but Ian himself wondered at the change in her.