HER

Ego forces history to repeat.

Bias and lies tell the tales.

Propaganda becomes weaponry.

An author becomes a soldier.

Imagine a world where we learned our lessons.

Remembered learning them.

Faced our demons head on.

Fought the right enemy.

What it is to be human other than to be wildly flawed?

When those who wrote our history erased HER, the silence was deafening. Healer was witch. Power was evil. She would return. Again and again. Until we knew HER. Until we respected HER. Until we properly wrote HER story.

~

Jara’s story began like many whose stories would not be written in history books, born out of passion, rather than tradition. Her father Paul left before her first birthday. He had his own demons to chase. Her mother Jean worked hard and raised her well. They didn’t have the luxuries that others enjoyed, but Jara wanted for nothing. An average baby, she hit all her milestones. She would eventually be a ‘blessing to have in class’ to the teachers she was invisible to. Not an overachiever, but never earned attention as a troublemaker. Perpetually plain and easily forgotten. Until she began to remember.

It started subtly. “Bri!” Jara called out as a baby watching a movie about faeries and leprechauns. As her vocabulary expanded, so did the story.

“They hurt my other daddy.” The three-year-old said when Jean was watching a documentary about Vikings. She loved her, but sometimes she scared her. Jean would wake up hearing Jara laughing and talking to the ‘lady on fire’ in a dark corner of the room. As a young child, she never played with dolls as if they were children. She was busy making mud pie medicine and healing her broken dolls with touch.

After speaking with a pediatrician, Jean began to make notes about all the strange things Jara talked about. She hid all her drawings in a shoebox and hoped that Jara would forget as she aged. By her sixth birthday, Jara could barely remember one last dream about a forest. Soon the memories faded like a love letter dropped in a puddle, words melting away to nothing.

Jara ended her freshman year as a very typical teen. Decent grades, but nothing exceptional. She was quiet and shy. Her smudged glasses and acne complimented her big genuine smile. Slowly but surely, the path to her unwritable future was laid out in front of her. Everything changed the summer she turned fourteen. Jean had married a hiker named Thomas and he planned a summer vacation in the mountains. As the tires hit the mountain road, deja vu began. Jara had never been to this area, but there was something eerily familiar about it.

“Did you see that sign?” Jean knew Thomas missed it based on the attention skills he flexed playing I spy. “They have a solstice party where we’re staying. Jara, did you see it? That will be fun!”

“Ok.” Jara sighed. She was intrigued, but could never admit it. She didn’t know what the solstice was and just hoped there would be a cute boy there to fall in love with. “How much further?”

“Next road on the right.” Thomas sang his update to the melody of his sea shantys. When they pulled up to their run-down cabin, Jara’s eyes lit up and her braces shimmered in the sun. She was focused on the group of teenage boys playing catch next door. When her eyes panned over to the cabin, the momentary bliss faded immediately. The roof dipped in the middle of the screened-in porch. The green paint on the window sills had cracked and faded so much that she couldn’t tell if it was moss or paint.

“Let’s get all the bags into the cabin then we can walk down to the lake.” Jean wanted to see the lake before all the bugs came out. After a day of driving, they all needed to stretch their legs.

Jara walked back to the car to get her bag. She leaned into the trunk and reached for her bag. A voice cracked behind her.

“Hi.” The boy with blue eyes and red hair cleared his throat and started again an octave lower. “Our ball rolled under your car.” The rest of his group still stood in the distance giggling.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Jara said as if she caused the ball to be lost underneath the car. She watched as the boy slithered on the ground to reach his tennis ball.

“Why are you sorry?” The boy laughed. “It’s my brother’s fault for losing the rest of them in the lake. I’m Johnny. We’re in the cabin next door. Are you guys here for solstice?”

“Oh definitely!” Jara was a terrible liar. She was glad her mom saw the sign so she had at least heard the word. “I’m Jara. My family wasn’t into it, but I didn’t want to miss it. They’re my favorite band.” She blushed immediately realizing she got it very wrong.

Johnny smiled as the rest of his group laughed. “Don’t mind them, they didn’t know what it was either. It’s a celebration for the longest day of the year. Definitely not a band, but there is music. We’ll be down by the lake all day tomorrow. If you stop by I’ll tell you all about it.”

“Ok!” Jara melted watching him toss the tennis ball hand to hand. She tried not to show how giddy she was walking into the cabin. “See you tomorrow Johnny!”

Jara convinced Jean to let her spend the next day at the lake. Now obsessed with her new favorite day, she knew Johnny would be there to tell her all about it. While his brothers swam and played chicken in the water, Johnny sat with Jara on the beach and told her everything he knew about the solstice. He showed her a few books he brought with him.

For the cutest boy she had ever seen, Jara thought Johnny was kind of a dork. Who brought history books to the lake? Enthralled by the sound of his voice, it didn’t feel like the first time she’d heard about it. She finished his sentences as if she knew the stories and lore. Her teenage mind assumed they were soulmates, but maybe they talked about it in a history class.

She wanted Johnny to know she was as serious as him about the topic. Jara begged Jean to take her to a mountain store she saw on the way in. Jara needed a cool outfit. Jean loved a dark blue dress they found, but Jara fell in love with a long embroidered yellow dress. Jean knew it was all for a boy, but she was excited that Jara was putting herself in the spotlight for once rather than being shy.

As Jara walked out of the dressing room, Jean gasped.

“It’s stupid” Jara looked at the floor, surprised by her mother’s reaction

“It looks amazing.” Jean composed herself. “I just swear you drew a picture of yourself in this exact outfit when you were younger. Little deja vu there.” She laughed trying to convince herself she hadn’t seen a crayon version of this exact dress before.

“Don’t be weird mom.” Jara twirled the long dress and smiled in the mirror. Confident for the first time, she knew the beautiful young woman staring back was her. “I love it.”

The morning of the solstice, Jara woke up before her alarm, already in her hiking outfit. The birds chirped to start their day, but it was still pitch dark outside. She threw on her sweatshirt and ran to her parent’s room to wake them.

“You’re more excited than you’ve been on Christmas morning.” Thomas groaned. This was not the relaxing vacation he had looked forward to. He loved the outdoors, but hiking up to an overlook before sunrise was not his idea of a good morning.

“Is Johnny going to be there?” Jean teased, half wishing she could pawn the early bird off on their neighbor’s family.

Jara huffed and walked out of the room calling back, “Let’s go! Daylights a’wasting.” She knew using Thomas’ own words against him would speed things up. Her family met a few other early risers out on the trail to the overlook. While the first morning light began to fill their path, Jara stared dreamily at Johnny leading the charge. Hiking along behind him, she felt distracted. She saw movement in the woods from the corner of her eyes. Assuming it was the early hour, she shook it off. It was as if each tree they passed wanted to tell her a story. Each bush begged for her attention. She began to notice each flower along the trail. Each tree root she stepped over seemed to pulse. As they reached the overlook, her entire body was covered in goosebumps.

Jara sat down near the edge next to Johnny who began to ramble on about the sunrise. She didn’t hear a word he said, just stared at the horizon. She was mesmerized by the pink color of the sky and drifted off into a daydream. She saw herself in a long yellow dress watching a sunrise. Her long, wavy brown hair flowed freely, not in her usual too-tight top bun. Her face was the same, but she was missing her braces, glasses, and acne. Suddenly she remembered. The familiar face staring back was HER. Not Jara, but the HER she was before. The HER she remembered as a child. The HER that Jean had tried to bury. Gazing at the rising sun on the summer solstice, Jara remembered being Tailte.

~

Tailte’s story began like many whose stories would not be written in history books. Born out of passion and violence, she never knew her Finnghall father. She was a hard-earned blessing for her mother Aoife, a descendant of the once-ruling O’Connor clan. After being invaded by the heathens from the north, Aoife ran away from her home in Dun Gaillimhe, the Fort at the River Galway. Settling in the small village outside Tuam, Aoife worked as a maid inside the local parish. She raised Tailte as a good Catholic, but sometimes sang lullabies about faeries and folklore. As a young woman, Tailte daydreamed about living in the nearby woods with the fae, rather than living a life of scrubbing soiled sheets with her mother. She often mixed herbs for teas and always knew the perfect combination for her and her mother’s ailments. Aoife loved her kind and compassionate daughter dearly.

Walking through the village, Tailte was invisible. Her long, wavy brown hair was always hidden under her shawl. Her beautiful green eyes looked down at the ground. She moved like a ghost, invisible to everyone, especially the young men. Aoife never spoke of her one love, Tailte’s father. She never spoke of anything but the safety of blending in. Tailte would daydream about the brave man who fell in love with her beautiful mother the second he laid his eyes upon her long curly red hair and big green eyes. She imagined that he would have held Tailte as a child and would have loved her even more. Unfortunately, this was only a dream. At fourteen, she just wished that at least one of the young men could see her.

“Hello there.” The voice snapped Tailte back from her dreaming. Behind her, a young man was walking with the largest black dog she had ever seen.

“Hello.” She replied shyly, hiding her smile. She tried to look down at the ground but couldn’t stop herself from staring at this stranger. His thick curly red hair flopped off his head like weeds. His green sweater made him look like one of the wee folk the other maids were always warning her about.

“I’m Brian.” He smiled and pointed to his travel partner, happily smelling the scents from the nearby tavern. “This is Holdfast. We’re looking for a bean leighis. Do you have a healer in this village?”

Tailte knew who the healer was, but her mother forbade her from visiting. “She’s a cailleach.” Aoife would always say, believing the woman was a witch. Tailte dreamed of learning more from her. If only she could help Tailte get her sleeping tea recipe just right.

“I can take you to her.” Tailte smiled. She was curious to walk with this stranger. And excited to meet the woman her mother feared so much. Little did she know how this meeting would change her life. How quickly she would go from invisible to feared. Brian told stories as he and Tailte walked through the village. He told her about his traveling and about the different people he met along the way. She laughed when he told her that he had met the fae. “Sure you did,” she said in disbelief.

“It’s true.” Brian defended his story like he was defending his honor. “ I met a faery at a fire for Grianstad an tSamhraidh.” Tailte was astonished that someone would even utter those words in public. The summer solstice was an ancient festival seen as evil incarnate by the church.

With eyes towards the ground, Tailte scolded Brian. “There are ears everywhere. You can’t speak like that.”

“That’s why I need to find the healer. And quick.” Brian was confident. Something about him intrigued and frightened Tailte. Something seemed familiar even. They walked together quietly the rest of the way to the home of the healer. As they approached the small thatch roof cottage at the edge of the woods, she could see a small fire deep in the trees. The sun was due to set soon, but Tailte didn’t understand why they wouldn’t keep the fire in their stove. She began to walk to the door of the cottage, and Brian pointed to the fire in the woods “There’s our healer.”

The pair walked through the trees, unsure of what she got herself into. She saw movement in the woods from the corner of her eyes. It was as if each tree they passed wanted to tell her a story. Each bush begged for her attention. She began to notice each flower along the trail. Each tree root she stepped over seemed to pulse. As they reached the fire, her entire body was covered in goosebumps.

“We’ve been waiting for you.” A voice from the other side of the flames called out. The old woman walked towards Tailte, handing her a long yellow dress. “It’s time for you to be the healer.”

Confused but calm, Tailte took the dress in her hands. It all seemed so familiar. The fire, the trees, the celebration. Suddenly she remembered. She remembered HER. Not Jara, but the HER she was before. The HER that Aoife had tried to bury. Gazing at the fire on the summer solstice, Tailte remembered being Ingrid.

~

Ingrid’s story began like many whose stories would not be written in history books…