The Janus Figure

If you have ever been to Ireland, you may have felt the echoes of the past in this mystical land. For it is a land of ancient lore, of stone circles, dolmens, and chambered cairns, the legacies of our forefathers which you have only to visit to absorb the history of times long past. In the west of the land, the countryside becomes wilder, more barren, the landscape dotted with these timeless megaliths, the ruins of old castles and franciscan abbeys. And it is in the very northwest corner that my story begins, a strange tale but true nonetheless. I am smiling as I write this for I already sense your doubt - the imaginings of a fanciful woman and perhaps I am, but my spirit and soul belong here, although it is the past where they reside, a past that will never release me.....

When my husband and I had had enough of city life, we decided to begin anew in the country. Married for five years, we had as yet been unblessed with children but determined that if we did, they would reap the benefits of a healthy upbringing in the rugged countryside of rural Ireland. A baby was what I longed for for than anything in the world and a series of inconclusive medical tests had serviced only to put further strain on our marriage. As a freelance writer, the move for me was relatively painless and Conor too eventually found employment as a warden at CastleCaldwell, one of the old local estates owned by the National Trust. Everything was perfect in the beginning, in our spare time we would roam the countryside, exploring all the old sites and ruins for which I had such a passion, and by night, we would sip wine in the old cottage we were restoring, making love with reckless abandon in front of a glowing turf fire.

Conor indulged my obsession with the past and one wonderful day, we witnessed an eclipse from within the stone circle at Drumskinny. I will never forget the intense feeling of wonder as the light grew dim and not a sound could be heard, not even a bird singing or a breeze to rustle the leaves.I remember in my mind it was as if the world had simply stopped in time and a prickle crept up both our spines that something quite strange had occurred, something had shifted in the patterns of time almost as if past and present had become one, a portent of things to come...

Later, after a stiff dram of whiskey, Conor laughed at my theories and eventually he made me laugh too, although that night when we went to bed and made love, I was still uneasy about something undefinable and my mind was drawn back to another time..another place..

There is old graveyard a few miles down the road from where Conor worked called Caldragh wherein resides the little known Janus Figure. This is a pre christian stone which has been chiselled on either side to resemble a man's face. No one to this day really knows its significance whether it was a place for rituals or a sacred fertility site and although I had driven past the battered old sign which pointed to it on many occasions, I had not as yet explored. Two weeks after the eclipse I drove up to CastleCaldwell to meet my husband for lunch, enjoying the coppers and rusts of autumn which now dominated the landscape. In a moment of unmitigated madness, we took a walk and ended up making love in a secluded woody copse, laughing and pulling at each others clothes, ignoring the cold and merely enjoying the spontaneity of passion and I think I never felt as close to him as much as I did that afternoon. I drove back feeling replete but elated, enhanced by the wetness of love between my legs and feeling reckless and free.

As I drove over the bridge which links Caldragh to the mainland ,in my head began a whisper, a chant which began to grow louder and louder. The road narrowed into nothing more than a lane until it was wild and overgrown and disappeared completely and I sat alone in my car, wondering why my head felt so strange and where I had taken a wrong turn. Stepping from the car, I froze, alerted by a strange haunting sound, the sound of people singing, no singing that I recognised as anything I had heard before, a primitive sombre hum which echoed inside me, compelling me to it, beckoning me hypnotically.....back....back...back.....

"Ethlinn! Be silent girl! "

Macha, the High Priest's woman berates me in hushed but sharp tones, her narrow face, pinched and vicious in her dislike of me

"It is the way child, as it has ever been. Their blood to our Gods, their sacrifice for our strength so stop shaming your clan with this weakness! "

The holy ground is awash with a sea of we islanders today. Great trees adorn the circle of land here and in the middle is the great idol of our God, Jainesh, where the High Priest now prepares his first sacrifice. The man from across the water hides his fear well but even so I sense it ripping through him, as his hands are tied behind Jainesh and his head pulled back to expose the whiteness of his throat. The others of my clan chant the victory song in celebration of the capture of two of the bad ones from the mainland and although my lips move in pretence, I cannot hide from Macha the anguish that I feel for this man.

It has always been this way from I was a child, we are a closed community, suspicious and hostile of others. When the bad ones united their clans and rebelled against our intolerance, our men carved the statue to our deity, One side is for the killing of the bad ones and the other for the copulation of newly united couples to breed new blood to the clan.

The tears roll slowly down my face as the High Priest's sharpened flint skims expertly across the man's flesh and he slumps in his bondage, if his soul is free now to serve Jainesh, then why do I still weep? As I linger a while in my sorrow, I notice the other bad one, awaiting his fate. There is something about him which compels me to stare as he is like no other I have seen before. Where the others are dark and small, this one stands tall and proud, his long unkempt hair, yellow like the colour of corn on a summer day. His eyes are of the deepest blue and they are locked on mine with such fierce intensity that I take an involuntary step back but remain unable to tear my gaze away.

The others have melted back to the shelters now but I am still here. This man is to die tomorrow, this man that I still watch from behind the safety of one of the great trees to which he is bound. He knows I am here for he is smiling, he is so beautiful........

When I woke up it was dark and my head was aching. I was lying alone in the cold evening air before the Janus figure, its strange oval eyes regarding me steadily, timelessly. Of what had happened I was unsure save that I had had a dream or a vision of something which I could not quite remember, something almost tangible but at the same time, elusive and just out of reach.

Conor had understandably been worried sick when I did not arrive home until evening, shivering and unkempt and he insisted on calling the doctor out who consequently pronounced me fit while his eyes told me it was probably a psychiatrist I was more in need of. I was put to bed with much fussing and pampering, still a little dazed and uneasy for I had never suffered a serious illness before in my life, let alone passed out and now here I was, within the space of a few short days, a hallucinating mad woman. That night as I drifted off to sleep, I smiled lazily at the sudden feel of Conor's mouth sucking and pulling at my nipple, blazing a trail across my belly and then to my surprise, his face burrowed between my legs, hands pinning my wrists, a sensual insistent mouth lapping greedily at the soft folds of flesh. My body leaped in shock at the electric reaction caused by this sudden and quite unfamiliar domination as my Conor had ever been the gentlest of lovers. But still his tongue flicked and invaded until I climaxed against it, rubbing my sex lips at his face wantonly in need of the sweet release.

Presently I felt my wrists released and I smiled fondly, reaching down to ruffle Conor's dark unruly curls......there was no one there. Reaching beside me through the gloom of darkness, I found my husband, he was lying on his side fast asleep. It had not been him making love to me! I lay for along time during the night, frightened and confused, my lacerated emotions in turmoil in sharp contrast to my satisfied, glowing body. Eventually, as sleep eluded me and not wanting to waken Conor, I dressed warmly and slipped downstairs, grabbing a torch from the cupboard upon this insane departure. I drove the short distance to Caldragh, knowing full well that my actions were not those of a rationally thinking woman but I knew, I felt that it was all linked somehow to the Janus figure, a feeling of evil and impending doom about it which had haunted me from the first moment I had laid eyes on it.

And now there it was, partially covered in moss and lichen, weathered and smoothed with age, staring coldly at me in the torchlight through the predawn mist of the ancient cemetery. As I sat before it on the cold ground and reached out to touch it, again the fogs clouded and obscured my vision and I was drawn helplessly back to the other time, but still the same place.....the same evil place.........

It is early morning now and the mists are beginning to lift and still he is awake, as am I. They call me a changeling in the village as my hair is the colour of the sun in autumn whereas theirs is of dark copper and auburn. I have never been like them in any way. But he tells me I am beautiful and I do not feel strange with him as I have always done with my own clan. His name is Krida and I know now, I will not let him die.

His hands are unbound now and I am curiously unafraid. How can he be a bad one when he reaches out to touch my face so gently and draws me down on the soft moss before Jainesh.

"Ethlinn..." he croons my name as his big hands expose my breasts and suckle at them, pushing them down between my willing legs and conjuring up the wildest, wickest feelings inside. Even the first stab of pain as he pushes his manhood into my innocent body is welcomed. I am finally coming into my own, no longer the strange outcast. I am his......I belong.

What madness is this that we leave the island together? Krida's face is drawn in lines of grim determination but his eyes are soft and warm when they settle on me. The small coracle I have found serves its purpose in taking us to the mainland, it is unsteady in the water but we finally reach the welcome embrace of the thick forest on land. I know they will not miss me immediately as I often wander but when the sun reaches its zenith, they will find the sacrifice gone and the hunt will begin......

Conor found me later on that afternoon. I was still unconscious and when I came round could only remember snippets of a dream, which, as normality continued as best it could, became more and more real as my own disturbed life dwindled increasingly to a dreamlike state during the waking hours. How could I possibly tell my husband that sometimes in the night, a man came to me while he slept by my side with eyes that blazed with passion and a strength which dominated and excited my body, sendy it into a spiral of exquisite ecstacy. If I had been a sensual woman before, now I had become obsessed and insatiable, but not however for Conor. He was hurt by the unwitting distance I had placed between us but all I could think about was this large man with straggly blonde hair who would visit my dreams and pin my wrists down, driving himself into me fiercely and unremittingly, so primitive and carnal.

Several weeks later I broke the news to Conor that I was pregnant. Instead of being overjoyed, he was quiet and withdrawn, almost taciturn in response to the the one thing we had prayed for so fervently these last five years and so instead of talking, we drifted, Conor spending more time at work or in the local pub, and I, living increasingly inside my own head.

I had stayed deliberately away from Caldragh, but now in my second trimester, lonely and unhappy, one day I drove there during daylight hours, led there instinctively by another force, a parallel of myself where I felt only panic and fear and an overwhelming sense of claustrophobia and so like a moth to the flame, I went there again and staggering from the car, I slumped behind the Janus figure, clinging to it miserably, enveloped in the mists of time, floating back........

We are hunted in the forest like animals. By day, we rest, concealed in the dense undergrowth and at night, when it is safer, we forage for berries and roots by the light of the moon. Sometimes Krida traps a small animal which we must devour in its raw form as fire will alert them and they look for us still, oh yes, they look for us still. We have nowhere to run and nowhere is safe.

Krida is so good to me despite the constant fear and hardship. We neither of us regret the vow we made to each other and when he covers me in the twilight hours on wakening, he is tender and mindful of the babe that grows in my belly. It grows stronger now and I feel sure I will give him a fine son......but always they draw closer, trapping us withing an ever decreasing circle. Why do they not leave us be? Why now is the fear so strong within me that our time is up and that I only have a short while left with my beloved and our unborn child.

Conor shook me roughly awake this time, knowing full well where I would be. He was angry at my erratic behaviour but I refused to leave the Janus figure, hissing and spitting at him like a madwoman until he stormed back to his RangeRover without a backward glance. I had to know what happened to them, I was so close to them now, I knew his name was Krida and that mine was Ethlinn.

Crouching against the grotesque stone, I huddled sobbing and whimpering as the waves of time washed over me once more and carried me back.........

"Krida? "

"Yes my love "

"I am frightened. "

"Do not be so Ethlinn, it will be over soon and we three will all be together again. "

Our necks and wrists are bound by thick ropes and we are truused to the same tree where I first found my Krida. Macha sits watchfully for this time they take no chance with the prize, her hooded dark eyes accusing and judgmental. I have betrayed my people, the evidence clear by my swollen belly and am to be given over to Jainesh. No amount of imploring or beseeching for the sake of my child has been to any avail.

We are to die.

They lead me first to Jainesh where the High Priest forces me to kneel and reties my wrists painfully behind the deity. My head is pulled back over the top of the stone and just before the flint draws blood, my last image is of a beautiful tortured man with anguished eyes, standing in in an ancient ground where the moon passes before the sun and the world fades at last to darkness...........

Conor and I agreed to separate shortly before our son was born. It was in the end a mutual agreement made conclusive by the revelation that he was unable to father children due to an inherited genetic condition. He had never told me and I could never bring myself to tell him that I had never been unfaithful to him and so it was easier to confess to having a lover and braving the sneers and sneaky glances of neighbours and supposed friends.

My son is eighteen now, a handsome boy with cobalt blue eyes and hair the colour of corn on a summer day. He has many of his fathers features although he takes after me in his love of our ancient past and heritage. Kyron will study archaeology next year at university, a vocation which was shaped by a local dig on a place called Boa Island, beside Caldragh cemetery where some years back, two bodies were found preserved in a peat bog. They were intertwined as though they had died and been buried together. The fragility of their condition rendering them inseparable, even in death. Their throats had been cut back to the vertebrae and during the resulting media frenzy, I remained quiet, as I have always done.

He comes to me still at night as I know he always will, sometimes so gentle when he thinks of the babe but often fierce and demanding, his feelings tortured and raw. And each time he takes me and makes me cry out, our eyes lock together as our bodies have been these thousands of years, in the knowledge that I belong to him just as his soul will always be mine.