Midnight Mass
©1998 Matt Duncan

     My knees hurt.

     I've been kneeling here for two hours, trying to remember why I want to be here, why I do this every year. But when I feel the memory well up, I say another prayer.

     Pater Noster, qui est in caelis, sanctificatur nomen tuum...

     It helps a little. Remembering the catechism pushes me away from the memories of Mother, and home.

     Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name...

     Our Father.

     Father.

     It's eleven twenty. I can hear the first few cars pulling up outside. The boys in the white robes are lighting the candles on the altar, and the organist has been fidgeting with sheets of music for five minutes.

     I think of father, and his insistence that I learn...that I go to Church. He could never abandon his sense of home. He was small when he was taken, but he always felt the tie to Eire. Took me back a few times, to church. It was worse than sitting in court all day, the pomp and circumstance replaced with dirges on organs, none of the people able to agree on a key in which to sing. But for him, I would learn. For him, I would wear my eyes to red rims studying the catechism by candlelight, just to receive the acquiescent nod for memorizing the Apostles' Creed, or the Beatitudes.

     I think of his face on that Solstice night, so long ago, pale and drained of blood, eyes wide, mouth torn...

     I close my eyes and pray again.

     Ave Maria, gracia plena, Dominus tecum...
     Sancta Maria, Mater Dei...

     Holy Mary, mother of God...

     Mother.

     I see her long ebony hair, splashing like black water across her shoulders, woven with crimson silk ribbons, tied in braids, held back from her creamy forehead by a silver clasp. Her lashes were like butterfly's legs, long and wispy, and her eyes the calmest jeweled violet. Her lips were always burgundy, and I would watch them dance as she sang me to sleep. She was the jewel, and our castle the ring which bore her. From my fourth decade til that Solstice night, I stood proudly at her side, behind her throne, to guard and watch over them both. Until that night.

     The people are filtering in, and I feel the eyes on me, the children staring at my hair as it hangs down my back. I hear the mothers chastising them, hear the fathers muttering about kids nowadays with no respect, and I wish I could laugh at their hypocrisy. I can feel my calves growing numb, and I rise, and head to the back of the church.

     The Solstice is the longest night of the year, the day with least light. The Saturnalia celebrates the waxing of the days that is to come, as each day after gets longer and longer. The fey and satyrs always had the most riotous party, and I never took part, preferring to stay, instead, with Mother and Father. But this one time, at the cajoling of Leanhaun, unseelie though she was, I went. Mother kissed me, told me it would be fine, and that I needed a party to relax. I thanked her, and very nearly skipped off, excited.

     Leanhuan told me that night about wanting to be born. Being true faerie, she had no parents, only dreams to keep her alive. She envied me the father I had, changeling that he was. She grew quiet then, having reminded me that we were different, she and I, that I crossed both worlds, having parents who were both sidhe and man. I thought her silence was awkwardness, embarrassment for her words. We danced and drank each other in the still of the long night.

     But the longest night brings forth the darkness, and unseelie sluagh-sidhe assassins made passage through the standing stones, slew the guards, and pillaged the castle, leaving my parents dead. When, still hung over, I found them next morning, I very nearly threw myself upon my sword. Instead, I went to find Leanhaun, seeking vengeance and justice.

     Next to the basin of holy water, and near the poor box and a statue of St. John the Baptist, the patron of this church, rows and rows of candles flicker in the gloom. The organist has begun the first chords of "Adeste Fidelis" and I cringe to hear the congregation singing--

     "Oh come, all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant..."

     I take a long stick, and catch an ember from a candle, and hold the flame up to my face. The song plays through, and the procession marches up the aisle, to the altar. The priest stands to the side, and waits as the choir makes its way up the aisle as well. I find an unlit candle, and touch the tongue of flame to the virgin wick, and watch the light grow, and think of father.

     The music stops, and a young man in his teens stands at the back of the church with a snare drum. The congregation shuffles and rustles in their winter coats, a baby girl makes a quizzical sound, and they all turn their attention to this boy. He swallows, licks his lips, closes his eyes, and begins to play, marching slowly up the aisle.

     >RAT RATtaTAT TAT RATtaTAT TAT<

     At the front of the church, a young woman begins to sing. Her skirt is red plaid, in an echo of a Robertson tartan, and her sweater woolly grey, a holly sprig pinned to her bosom, wearing dark tights and black flats. Her hair is tied back in a bun save the two curled tendrils framing her cheeks, and her lips dance, red as holly berries, against her snowy face.

     "Come they told me,
      Our new born King to see,
      Our finest gifts we bring,
      To lay before the King
      Pa rum pa pum pum"

     I turn back to the candles and watch the dancing flames. A family rushes in, late, from the cold. The bells have tolled a full ten minutes past, and the mother holds her fingers to her lips and pulls the youngest after her, then lifts the girl into her arms, and carries her into the church, softly excusing herself as she passes the stragglers standing in the back. I smile at the little girl, and she grins, and buries her face in her mother's neck.

     The snare drum echoes through the church.

     "Baby Jesu,
      I am a poor boy too.
      I have no gift to bring
      That's fit to give a King.
      Shall I play for you,
      On my drum?"

     The song ends, and I watch another young woman make her way to the altar. She carries a guitar. I hate that I cannot applaud, and rush to the young people, and shake their hands and hug them, and tell them they are beautiful.

     The new lass sits on a tall chair near the altar. Her skirt is long and willowy, her hair straight blonde hanging past her shoulders. She wears no jewelry, and I cannot see her feet, covered by her long skirt. A simple, dark pullover covers her frail shoulders and arms. There is a familiarity to her. Her fingers trace the neck of the guitar a few times, and then, once the crowd has quieted once more, she plays.

     The chords strike true, and ring from the vaulted ceilings. I remember Spaniards playing this song, as I sat in a snow-bound church, and I close my eyes, awaiting the flowing Castillian accents...

     Her voice is not right. But in her breathy whispering English, I see the image just the same. Clearer, perhaps.

     "Silent Night, Holy Night
      All is calm, All is bright
      'Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child..."

     I turn back to the candles, and my tear fuzzes the lights to a bright glowing blanket. I touch another candle to life, and hug my arms, thinking of my Mother.

     The girl's voice draws me back. I turn to watch her sing. She is young, still in high school if I had to guess. She reminds me of someone, her blonde hair almost white, her long flowing skirt, the tenderness with which she touches the guitar. She closes her eyes for a moment, and tilts her head back, opening her mouth wider to sing...

     "Christ the Savior is born"

     Born.

     Leanhaun.

     I shudder, and think of my wrath, think of the betrayal. I grip the back of the pew, to hold myself up, and blink back the sting in my eyes. I watch my iron blade fall upon her breast. I see my mother's lips singing me to sleep, then silenced, by Leanhaun's treachery. I look up at the altar, at the men standing, heads bowed, in long robes. I look above them, beyond them, to that which they honor.

     The crucifix is fully twelve feet tall, and the image of the carpenter lifesize. The entire piece is suspended by chains from the ceiling, to hang over the tabernacle. A light set in the ceiling casts an eerie, painful shadow on the wall behind the altar, the man hanging with elongated arms, emaciated by the light. I look at his westernized face, his long hair hanging in his eyes...

     As the girl who looks so much like Leanhaun ends the song, I feel the Dichetal do Chennaib, the blinding light of her inspiration. The glow of the imbas, a fire in my head, nearly drives me to my knees, and I see the crackling green and red arcing from her fingers, to her throat, and all across us. The boy with his drum, and the girl who sang with him, they too pour forth streams--silver, burning like magnesium, amplifying the guitar chords. I see the little girl whose family came in late perk up, and watch her reach out and hold her imaginary friend's hand, the faerie whispering in the child's ear about Santa and elves, and I can see the points of her ears and the lavender of her eyes--she is kin, left here in exchange for one like my father, a stolen changeling child. I soak in the music, and the power, and let go of the sting in my eyes, feeling the tears wet my cheeks.

     When I open my eyes, I am looking up again at the carpenter on the cross. Sprouting all around his wounds--holly and mistletoe, alive with his blood. And at his temples, pushing through his hair and set above his eyes, the Stag's horns sweep outward, new and fresh, covered in velvet.

     In death, Cernunnous lives, to be reborn again in spring. All gods become the one god when the world is born anew. I see no Israelite child in a cave, surrounded by animals, brought to a city far from home by a pagan emperor's decree. I see Herne the Hunter, sacrificed and sleeping, awaiting Spring to call the hunt anew. I see Pan, beckoning with his dance, hooves wet with dew, come climbing from the tomb to kiss and tickle Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene.

     I close my eyes, and turn. I surge with the imbas, and rush out, leaping from the stairs, falling in the snow, wind catching in my hair, and run from the church, the stars bright in the crisp, clear sky.