Her throne is decorated with white crystals that shine by night and by day. Whatever worshipers placed them here are gone with the dusts of the barrow bodies. I have waited and watched for the Hag to come and sit on her throne. It has been empty since I've been here, or else She sits there when I am guarding the other side of the cairns. I want to speak with Her about important matters. While I wait I carve more circles and spirals into the flesh of my tanned limbs. Blood flows and makes the ground fertile. A ring of wildflowers springs up where I last sat and dug out the lines of a rayed sun on my thigh.

Tonight She will come and sit on Her throne, I just know it. I sing loudly at sunset to call Her. I sing out that I am her last faithful guardian. I've planted myself here forever, as my mother Moriath is planted in her tomb. I may be dead too, for all I know. The thought of it sends me into fits of laughter. I dance around the Hag's throne in a wild surge of ecstasy.

In the thrall of my own lunacy, I miss Her arrival. I spin out of my dance and fall in exhaustion at Her feet. Her toes are bare and damp and cold to my touch.

She lifts me up by my shoulders and shakes me. My teeth rattle. I grin into Her face. Her face! Pale and moony with huge hollow eyes sunken like black pits into a starved skull. "I know you! I remember you! By the Dagda's stick! You're still here!" She is impressed. Good.

"I am still here," I echo and spread out my arms and legs, showing Her my markings. "I am like the stones. I stay and guard this place for you, for my mother, for the ancestors all!"

She takes a step backwards, the better to view me. She takes Her time to look carefully. One bony finger moves forward to trace the spiral on my forearm. A small sigh leaks out of Her.

"I remember now," She says sadly. "Where is everyone? There are rotting corpses around the cairns."

This is not what I expected to hear. Awkwardly I wait. I am so tired. We stare at each other silently. The Hag and I melt into a dream. We climb onto Her crystal studded throne and I rest my head in Her lap. Stardust and dew blankets us as we sleep.