The Spirit of the Falls

"Don't go down to the waterfall or the Fair Folk will take you."

That's what the mothers told all of the village children, and for a while they all believed it, as children do. No one believed it more than Aisling, who was always a daydreamer as a girl. But as children grow up they put aside childish things, including the stories meant to keep them safe. And so as Aisling grew up, she became the strongest voice against all those old wives' tales of hobgoblins and cobs. Her mother's warning about the Falls was just one more ridiculous fairy-tale that a sensible young woman like her gave no heed to.

But perhaps this tale should not be so easily dismissed.

One fine summer's day, Aisling set out into the woods on her own to gather berries. She'd found a wonderful patch of brambles and spent the morning plucking sweet, dark fruits from among the thorns. Though she was careful enough, the bushes were thick and some of the berries were old and soft, leaking purple juice that stained her skirts as she passed them.

The day was hot and sunny, so Aisling decided to wash her dress in the Falls and leave it dry on a rock while she swam. She knew that nobody else from the village would be out in this part of the forest today, and there was no highroad for miles nearby. There was not so much as a spoken word or a whiff of chimney smoke as far as the ear could hear or the eye could see. The only voices that spoke were the birds of the air and the laughing gurgle of the Falls.

These were no Bridal Veil falls. They were not the kind that plummet from a great height in a single, dramatic spout to punish the water below. They were gentle and spreading: low, mossy tables of stone over which the water cascaded in innumerable streams and rivulets, here just drip-dropping, there spilling over in a steady stream. The riverbed above the Falls was shallow, so the water was warmer than one might expect in the Highlands. The pool below was chin-high to a young lass, deep enough to swim in but not enough to fear.

Safe. Gentle. Tame. That is how Aisling thought of the Falls her mother had warned her about as a child. Surely, a child might drown in these waters, but not Aisling. She was a strong, clever, grown-up young woman now, one who knew how to handle the natural world and everything in it -including a little dribble of a waterfall and a shallow pond.

Lulled by the warmth, safety, and sheer physical delight of swimming, Aisling's body began to stir. She had been having strange dreams lately, nighttime sensations of a soft grey mist without form or content that covered her all over and swirled around her limbs, twining between them, winding around her torso and throat and lips, wrapping her all over in a soft, wet blanket of dew. She awoke from these dreams with a sheen of sweat on her skin and a slippery, hot sensation between her legs. Some of her friends whispered about dreaming of the village boys and feeling the same kind of heat. So, even though there were no boys in her dreams, Aisling thought it must be normal. As she swam in the Falls, however, the dreamlike feeling of being wrapped and caressed came to her again even more vividly. It filled her with a sudden, sensual impulse.

Why not lie beneath the Falls and let the water splash on her skin?

Why not let it trickle and run down her belly?

Why not open her legs under the flow and cool the heat burning there?

She had heard about "carnal sin" from some passing missionaries who came to the village once, but she didn't consider this idea in any way sinful or perverse. Just lying under the Falls and letting the water run over her body seemed more akin to bathing and enjoying the rough scrub of a bristle-brush than to slipping into a hayloft with the local cock-of-the-walk. So, she pulled herself up onto a low, moss-covered ridge, sat on the edge, and positioned herself so that the drips and rivulets and little streams coursed over her naked body. She hunched forward first to let the water patter playfully on the back of her head and shoulders. Then she drew back to let the drops fall on her chest, first between her small, high breasts, then over them. She played the water down her belly and across her thighs. Finally, shuffling back a little farther into the shallow cave of moss, she opened her legs to the Falls.

Drip drop. Tip tap.

The water hitting her sensitive flesh filled her with an indescribable shuddering sensation. The stream's caress almost felt like a tongue -not that she'd ever felt a tongue there, mind you, but it felt how she imagined a tongue would feel. At the very thought of it, her pleasure surged and her reined-in imagination flowed forth. Yes, a tongue lapping at her, the delicate tongue of the river given form...

... a flowing form crouched over her, arched down gracefully to explore this strange bright mortal creature that had invaded the domain of the Falls...

The impression was so vivid that Aisling opened her eyes, already chiding herself for her foolish childish imaginings. She bolted upright in surprise to see the figure right before her eyes, rising to stand behind the curtain of falling water, as if its feet were resting on the surface of the water. Her mother's words echoed in her mind:

"The Fair Folk will take you."

What to do? Aisling had no cold iron to repel them as the old superstition said. She vaguely recalled from the missionaries' sermons that she should make the Sign of the Cross in the face of evil, but she felt frozen like a deer in a hunter's sights. She peered again at the falling water, but this time she didn't see the shadowy figure. Maybe it was just an illusion, a trick of her fanciful mind. Relief flooded her body with warmth and she laughed out loud at herself in embarrassment. Just to be sure, she stuck her head out from under the fringe of running water and looked around. No one and nothing. She was still alone. Now that the jolt of fear had passed, her interrupted pleasure surged up three-fold. She leaned back on her elbows and shifted her hips so that they caught a stronger runnel of water. She gasped at the sensation. It was like lips, like fingers probing, reaching inside of her...

How could falling water push up inside of her?

She half-opened her eyes again and saw once more the hazy figure in the Falls. It wasn't like a solid human form, but more like a vision wrought out of nature's own materials. The water coursing down made the shape of long robes and long hair around a face with ever-shifting features of foam and half-glimpsed forest. This time she didn't startle in fear. She knew -or at least, she told herself- that it was only an illusion created by the play of light and water and background. Her body relaxed, open and accepting.

So Aisling lay back fully and let the spirit of the waterfall take her. The current spilling from above seems to grow stronger as her breath quickened. The droplets blended into a continuous stream, splashing down harder, harder. The fingers of water struck her sharply enough to sting, stimulating her flushed lips and breasts even more. She felt irrationally that she had been chosen for a sacred rite, and she submitted herself willingly to the Falls.

Falling, falling, the water fascinated and transfixed her with the way it never ended and yet continually varied. She wished it would linger longer on one particular spot where her flesh ached most of all, that sensitive spot where her nether-lips divided -and no sooner did she wish it than a stream spilled down from above onto that exact spot. She cried out in pleasure and arched against the stream. With her eyes closed she could see the face of the misty figure even more clearly: pearly grey eyes like translucent morning mist, skin like a bone-china dish, high cheekbones and imperious eyebrows offset by a delicate, sensitive mouth, and crowning it all the long, trailing hair moving like water, streaming, falling. Aisling was falling, falling with the water down into a well of pleasure. She abandoned herself to it and was rewarded with a deepening, opening, pulsing between her legs as the water tugged her insistently, entered her fully, and brought her shivering pleasure to a peak that wrung a long, keening moan from her throat. She spasmed on the mossy ledge, and when she could stand it no longer, she gripped her thighs tight together and rolled over onto her side.

There she lay for quite a while, as the water still ran ceaselessly over the side of her thigh and down her legs. It seemed to be stroking her with soothing caresses. And yet, there was also something possessive about the way it never stopped, never let her alone. She had the feeling that it wanted her to open her legs again. And again, and again. It wanted her pleasure to be like the Falls: ever changing, never ceasing.

Aisling gradually became aware of the setting sun. The light was long and golden for the time being, but she knew that twilight would soon come.

"Don't go out at twilight or the Fair Folk will take you. That's their time."

This was another thing her mother had told her, another story to frighten children into behaving. But now it took on a new resonance for Aisling. The spirit of the Falls had taken her fully, wringing every drop of pleasure it could from her. Would it let her go?

Slowly, deliberately, Aisling sat up and curled her legs under her, away from the dripping water. Just as slowly and deliberately, a trickle of water ran under the ledge and dripped from the ceiling onto the centre of her breast. A claim. It was as if she were marked by the Fair Folk.

In a sudden burst of terror, Aisling leapt from the ledge and plunged into the water, frantically trying to make it to shore and escape. The instant she was immersed, she felt gripped and held all over. The water seemed to thicken around her limbs like hands as she struggled forward. Those liquid hands caressed her tender sex, opening her still-flushed lips to flow like silk against the sensitive pearl between them. It felt so good that Aisling lost her footing and fell face-first into the pond.

Head underwater, Aisling could see now that there was not just one figure in the Falls. There were as many as there were streams and rivulets, a whole host of lofty spirits, all the same and yet ever varying: here one thin and delicate as raindrops, there one long and sleek. All of them were holding their arms out, beckoning to her. Indeed, they were so beautiful and welcoming, promising such bliss, that Aisling was not sure she wanted to surface. But surely she would drown if she stayed.

A current brushed her shoulders, and the grey-eyed face she had seen before came into her view, just barely visible on one side. A hand brushed her eyes closed. Then something fixed on her lips: a kiss, deep and dark and sensual. Her mouth opened, letting the dark current in. Though the water should not have been so deep, she suddenly felt she was floating below the surface of a vast underground lake. Her whole being became weightless and light. She gasped in pleasure and then again in surprise to find that she could gasp underwater. There was no sensation of drowning, no distress at all.

Looking up, she saw the twilight filtering down from above. It was the hour of the Fair Folk. Slowly, she drifted up toward that light, floating effortlessly on the current of a hundred lifting hands that stroked her all over as they guided her up. She broke the surface and saw above her the pale curve of a white crescent moon just emerging into view in the still-blue dome of the sky. It was so lovely that she leaned back in the water and closed her eyes in bliss...

...only to open them to gravel. She was lying on the riverbank, her cheek pressed to the rocky sand. Beside her on a flat rock was her dress. The fabric was dry, stiff and crackly as wet cotton dried on a stone will be. Slowly, she stood and looked out at the Falls. They looked the same as ever. Just some water trickling over mossy rocks. Aisling shook her head. She'd been having such strange dreams lately. Surely this was one of them. Or perhaps she hit her head on a rock while swimming and drifted over to the shore. It was a wonder that she hadn't drowned! Whatever was she doing, lying half in the water with night coming on?

Aisling pulled on her dress hastily, determined to make it home while the light still lasted. Maybe the women of the village were wiser than she thought after all. It could be that this place was dangerous to more than children. Even full-grown young women like her could slip in the Falls.

In her haste, Aisling didn't notice the pale, teardrop-shaped mark on her skin at the centre of her chest between her small, high breasts. In coming years, the spirits of other places would use that mark to recognize her as one of the Taken and contrive to take her again.

But those are tales for other nights.