A segment from the second Beara book, Beara: Cry of the Banshee
Although this sequel to Beara: Dark Legends is still very far from even a first draft, I was doing some work on it last weekend.
This is a quiet scene between two of Mosâ co-characters: âkind-ofâ partner, Ailbhe/Olva (Hungarian magician and acrobat) and good friend BrĂłna (West Corkâs most industrious hacker). In the first book, both women took an instinctive dislike to each other which was fun to write and play out.
In the second book however, enough time has elapsed that their enmity has softened, to the point they can even have conversation on topics as arcane as âconnection to placeâ.
In this scene, theyâre standing together on Bearaâs south coast, considering the view over Cuan Baoi.
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Ailbhe stared at her, at the grey rock, the cold sea and back to her again.
âI donât know if I could live here. The weatherâs ⊠sad. The landscape has a bleakness to it I âŠâ Unable to find the words she wanted, she stopped trying and settled for a shrug.
BrĂłna nodded. âThatâs only because you read the landscape differently to people living here.â
âWhat do you mean?â
BrĂłna mused on that for a moment.
âLandscapes are like a book. If you donât have the necessary vocabulary – the placenames, the local history, the contextual terms of reference ⊠then itâs hard to make sense of it. Thereâs no relationship, no emotional connection with it.â
Ailbhe smiled at that. âYou need an emotional connection to the land?â
âYou do. It helps when times are hard.â
âI donât understand.â
âWhat do you see when you look around?â
Reluctantly, Ailbhe did another slow sweep of the surroundings.
âGrey rocks. A grey sea. Gorse. A lighthouse in the distance.â
âSure. You see the physical topography of the land. Yet, when I look around, my personal history in this region means Iâll see layers that mean nothing to someone whoâs never lived here. I see Cnoc Daod the hill thatâs dominated our familyâs view for several generations. I see Parc an Tobar – the field with a hidden well behind the fern bushes. I see An TrĂĄthĂn where one of my brotherâs fell and broke his leg. I see a buachalan bush that the sidhe were said to fly away on, fuchsia bushes that will heal a sore throat. I see the mass rock where people gathered in secret during penal times, I see an trĂĄ bĂĄn – the beach where I collected shells as a child and where, as you can see, my own son is now doing so.â
She paused and pointed to a nearby rock coated with moss. âOver there by that big tree, about fifteen years ago, I lost my virginity to one of the Harringtons.â
Ailbhe stared at her, then gave one a rare, deep, and very hoarse, laugh.
BrĂłna grinned.
âI guess what Iâm saying is that our roots run deep here. Our personal history is fundamentally linked to the place, physically through the bones of our ancestors and, metaphorically, through the stories and emotion weâve shared here. Itâs always there – a constant fixture and reference point. My father saw this view every day, so did his father and so do I. For that reason, it represents a continuity of landscape relationships, of memories connected to places that have been shaped by our ancestors. That emotional connection means we donât see the land as existing uniquely in the present.â She shrugged. âWhich, of course, triggers a whole different interpretation of what we do see.â
There was a long silence when she finished. It went on to stretch far longer than either expected.
âDid you really lose your virginity under that tree?â Ailbhe asked at last.
âLetâs just say that if youâre ever looking for a spot thatâs private and dry and doesnât have nettles, thatâs one Iâd highly recommend.â