Circle of Life...

"Is that a tattoo?" He asked tracing the small red lips on her shoulder.

She laughed. He would never be able to get enough of that laugh. It was like the bubbles in champagne. The promise of nectar. He smiled, she was turning him into a romantic.

"No, it's not a tattoo."

"Really? It's so perfectly shaped. Is it a birthmark?"

"A scar. I've had it since I was a toddler."

"That's an amazing shape for a scar. A perfect kiss on your shoulder."

She laughed again, "Something like that."

He drifted off to sleep. She watched him breathing, running her finger over the raised ridge on her shoulder. A kiss, she shook her head and smiled to herself.

....

She had been three years old when her mother took her to Ireland to meet her great grandmother. Gram was too old and too stubborn to fly. That is what she had overheard her grandmother tell her mother. At three she was not sure why being stubborn meant you couldn't fly. She was very stubborn, so everyone said, but she was going to fly.  Her grandmother was not going to go with them. She was also too stubborn. It seemed to be a family trait. They had green eyes, pale skin, and a stubborn streak as deep as the red of their hair.

Her great grandmother had not cared for her. She spoke no Gaelic. She didn't even have a trace of an accent. She was American through and through. When she would talk to her great grandmother a fleeting look of disappointment would cross her face before she could control it. She overheard her mother and Gram talking.

"She's precocious. Very smart for a three year old. But she doesn't know who she is."

"This is who she is, Gram. When Ma left for America she never looked back. We were raised to be American first, not Irish-American, she worked very hard to make sure we had no trace of her accent, nothing to hold us back or mark us as different. But I want something more for her. I want her to understand where she comes from. Where her family came from. It's not her fault she doesn't know. It's not my fault I didn't know how to tell her."

"How did hiding your accent work? Did it change who you were? Did it change who she is? Foolish woman. Wanting to hide who she is with a different way of talking."

"That's why I'm here, Gram. Please, don't take it out on your great granddaughter. I found the letters begging Ma to bring me when I was born. How it was important. I know you are still angry that she didn't. But I'm here now. We are here now. Look at her, she's yours too."

...

"So you're Irish?"

She had gotten used to the question. Her great grandmother had been right, there was no hiding it. She had dark red hair, bright green eyes and the palest skin. Sometimes people would guess Scottish just to be different, but mostly it was assumed she was Irish. She didn't go out on Saint Patrick's Day because people would stop her and ask for pictures, like she was Irish just for their prop. But, yes, she was Irish.

She was also incredibly lucky. The wits in her life told her she must be half leprechaun. She would smile and tell them leprechauns weren't really lucky. They were greedy. People assumed they were lucky because of the story about the pot of gold, but in the story it's who ever finds the leprechaun that was lucky, not the leprechaun. She usually left off the warning that finding a leprechaun and stealing its gold was never a good idea anyway. Leprechauns would do anything to protect that gold. Greedy. Not lucky. Greedy.

But she was not half leprechaun and did have amazing luck. She led an interesting life. Things happened for her. And when they weren't happening she made them happen. When she was in middle school she wanted to go to California. She wanted to see the Pacific Ocean. It became a driving force for her. All she wanted. Every birthday, every Christmas she would ask for a trip. Her parents let her know that that was not going to happen. They couldn't afford to take the whole family across the country like that. So she decided to go on her own. If they couldn't make it happen she would.

The next day in school a contest had been announced. An essay contest where the first place prize was a trip for four to Disneyland. She really needed a trip for six but she would figure that out later. It never crossed her mind that she wouldn't win. Afterall she had decided that she would handle it on her own and this came to her the next day. Obviously this was how she was going to handle it.

When she won the trip she was featured on the local news. She smiled her biggest smile then frowned just a touch. Enough that it was noticeable but not enough to look planned. "Are you okay?" The news lady had asked her, "Oh, yes! I'm so excited, but..." she had trailed off. "But?" The woman was starting to get teary eyed herself just watching her young face start to fall. "Oh it's just that I have three brothers and sisters for a trip for four doesn't work for us. I will have to turn it down." The local car dealership that advertised heavily in the morning news show paid to send two more of her family on the trip and even gave them a ride to the airport.

She had great luck.

...

When they first met, long before he asked about the scar on her shoulder, his friends warned him not to lose his head. "You're already planning vacations with this woman and you don't even know her last name!"

"I'm not planning vacations with her, I just said that I bet she would love Hawaii."

"Why would you say that to someone you just met?"

"Because it's true. I swear her hair smells like the beach. She smells like sunshine and salt water. How is that even possible?"

His best friend shook his head, "It's not. Because she is clearly wearing a perfume that smells like cinnamon bread."

His best friend's wife said, "You are both insane. She is wearing lilac."

None of them realized she smelled like their favorite things.

She was lucky like that.

...

Gram had taken her out for a picnic. They had talked about the land. About how much Gram loved her hills. Loved the things that grew. Loved the greens of the grass and the trees and the moss. She had listened to it all. Getting very sleepy as Gram talked. Gram told her it was okay to take a nap if she wanted to. She rested her eyes for just a moment and Gram started to sing. So pretty. She drifted off to sweet music with words she could not understand.

After she fell asleep her great grandmother had taken a few steps away and watched. She thought at first that it was too late. That the bond had broken when her daughter had refused to bring her granddaughter home. But then the first white top popped from the ground, then another, then four more in quick succession. Within just a few minutes her granddaughter was surrounded by a circle of mushrooms. She had called them to her. It was not too late. She had made a faerie circle.

Gram turned and found her granddaughter staring. "What...what..."

"This is why you needed to come home. This is what your mother kept from you. Watch her."

She slept. Deeply. And as she slept she dreamt of things she had read about in stories. There was a giant golden dragon who let her climb on his back and slide down his tail. He held vines in his mouth so she could use them as a swing. There was a greedy little leprechaun watching her from the shadows but she didn't want his gold. Why would she when there were colorful butterflies to chase. So many different shades. Pinks, purples, yellows, so pretty. One landed on her shoulder and she saw that it wasn't a butterfly at all. It was a little person with wings. Sparkling in the sun. Oh, pretty!

She woke with a start and a cry. The pain throbbing in her shoulder still.

Her mother and her great grandmother rushed to her side. "Are you okay? What happened?"

She scowled, "It bit me! The pretty butterfly lady bit me!"

Her great grandmother nodded, "Pixies. Mean little things."

They looked at her shoulder. There was a small bloody mark perfectly shaped like the creature's mouth. "Let's wash that out so it doesn't get infected."

The went back up to the house and cleaned the wound. "What did you do when it bit you, darling?" asked Gram.

She looked at her great grandmother, fished one finger in to the back of her mouth, and spat out an iridescent wing, "I eated her."

"That will teach them not to mess with my great granddaughter."

She swelled with pride. Her Gram was never disappointed in her again.

...

He finally got the courage up to ask her to marry him. He wasn't sure she would say yes, but he knew he would never forgive himself for not trying.

She had said maybe.

He wasn't as devastated as he thought he would be. A maybe wasn't a no. It was almost a yes.

"Maybe? That's not very romantic."

She laughed, "I know. But I need you to meet someone first."

He looked shocked, "Do you have a kid I didn't know about?"

"No, actually the other way. I want you to meet my great grandmother. I want her to meet you. Then I will give you my answer."

"Your great grandmother is still alive? That's amazing. How old is she?"

"Very. She is very old. Will you meet her?"

"Of course I will. Of course."

...

The house looked the same, the fields around it the same, and Gram looked the same as well. "You never age!"

"I did for awhile, then I stopped. It got to be a bother." her great grandmother laughed. He shivered, it was her laugh. The laugh like champagne bubbles. This little old woman laughed the same way his beautiful love did. He thought to himself, "Blood will tell."

They spent a week with her great grandmother. They took long walks in the fields, they had picnic lunches under her trees. He listened to Gram sing the most beautiful songs and sat on the edge of his seat as she told stories. He was learning more Irish history than he had ever imagined. "When the babies were starving my daughter decided to leave Ireland and not look back. She took herself over to America and raised her family there. Never even brought her daughter to me to bless."

He was confused. She mistook what he was puzzled about, "We are a matriarch line. The blessings don't flow from the Pa but from the Ma. It's Catholic heresy that changed the proper order. Unnatural."

"Your daughter left Ireland during the famine?"

"During the starvations, yes."

"But that was in the 1800s." he looked at his hopefully soon to be bride, "Your grandmother came to America in the 1800s? How old is she?"

"Very. She is very old."

He looked at the two women sitting in front of him. "How is that possible? If your grandmother came to America in the, let's say at the end, 1860s or so that would mean she was born in 1840 and that would mean you would have to have been born before that, you would have to be 200 years old, at least."

Her great grandmother laughed again, that beautiful musical laugh, "At least. Though it is not polite to ask how old a woman is."

"How is that possible?"

...

She flew back to America alone. Gram had given him a drink and sung to him until he had fallen asleep. When he woke up he was in a hotel room in London with memories of a trip to England filling his head. He wouldn't remember her. His friends would assume that he was heartbroken over her refusal of his proposal and not mention her to him after his first denial of knowing who she was. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it would do.

He hadn't been the first she had taken to meet her great grandmother and she hoped he wouldn't be the last. She needed a man who could pass the test so she could pass along the line. She was hoping to bring her stubborn great grandmother over to America soon. She had a plot of land behind her house that she was sure would be perfect for establishing new roots, she just needed a few mushrooms from her Gram's garden and a blessing in song from her lips. As sure as her middle name was Mab, she wouldn't be the last in her line.