Macallan Promises

"So which is it you like better Moll? Your little sister's hair or her boobs? I've always wondered."

I reluctantly pulled away far enough to talk over her supermodel mammaries, "For looking? Your eyes. For touching? Your hair. For licking... well..." I lapped at a breast to make my point.

"Nicely put," Tabby giggled and patted my head as I wriggled a hand under her other breast and cupped them both, really feeling them in my hands for the very first time.

I asked the question I'd always wanted to aske, "How do you walk around with these things anyway?"

She snickered tiredly, "C'mon, a 'C' is not that big."

"Bullshit. They feel damn big to me, and they're huge on little you, and you know it."

"Maybe," she admitted. "I guess I just have decent back muscles. Feels good to have you touch them," she purred. "Lick them a little more? It's kind of relaxing."

As if I needed the invitation. I settled in and kissed at every inch of smooth, tanned skin on her breasts I could reach, then circled one of her little pink nipples between my lips and licked its firm tip lazily while cupping it gently. Her hand found the back of my neck and cradled my head as I dragged my teeth over her nubbin then tenderly suckled. I let her first breast go only to wriggle down to her other one and give it the same soft treatment -- cupping, licking, nipping and suckling until my sister's breathing had become the smooth and even rhythm of near-sleep.

"I don't need to wait until tomorrow, Molly," she whispered dreamily when I finally scooted up all the way and she nuzzled herself into my throat. "I know what I want. What I've always wanted. I'm just surer now, sis."

"Me too, Tabby. Me too."

As I fell asleep with my face in Tabby's hair, breathing its lemony smell in and out like incense, I knew I wanted more of this. Needed it. Needed her. I didn't want to go back to the way things were yesterday. I couldn't go back.

~*~*~Part 06~*~*~

A few stray morning sunbeams on my face woke me up. Tabby had already hidden from them under the blankets and her face was pressed into my bare stomach. She was snoring, and her vibrating lips tickled against my belly in a nice way. I pet her head and let her tickling drag me from sleep's fog.

Now wide awake, I contemplated waking Tabby too. If I did it nicely, maybe offering to start some loving again, she'd know how I felt about the night before without me needing to say it again.

"Grá rúnda?" I whispered softly to see if she was awake. I'd have to teach Tabby what that meant. She deserved to know.

I stroked down my sister's smooth shoulder and across her back to see how she would react. The limpness of her warm body and her deep, blissful snoring told me she was exhausted. She needed her rest. We could talk when she woke up.

I stretched my toes leisurely and enjoyed the quiet, petting Tabitha's wild gold mane a little while longer before I slipped a pillow under her head and carefully snuck naked from the bed.

I had to do something with all this energy. I pulled on running clothes, waiting until I reached the front door to put on my shoes to keep from waking Tabby, and trotted out into the street.

My feet felt light, my legs strong. The morning air helped, sweet and cool in my lungs as I jogged. It was one of the best runs I'd had in a long time.

A lot of it was Tabby. My head and heart were clear finally. After years of my lies and self-denial, Tabby knew how I felt about her. Well, apparently she'd known for some time.

"Uascán," I heard my grandmother chuckling in my head. Yeah Gram, I guess I can be pretty dumb.

The most amazing part was that Tabby felt the same way about me that I felt about here. If we had wasted time with confusion or doubt then we could make up for it together. I was done running away from my sister.

In fact, I smiled as I jogged along, I was literally running towards her right now. I'd wake her and tell her again how I felt -- that I couldn't live without her like this. That I hadn't started living, really living, until last night.

This was like a fairy tale.

That thought twisted a cold knife into my stomach as I rounded the last corner onto my street. Irish fairy tales, the real ones, don't always have happy endings. As a people, we have a pretty dark sense of humor.

It was Tabby, the real-life Tabby, who chased my worries away. I looked up from my feet and saw her waiting for me by the curb. She'd figured out I was jogging and came outside to wait in one of my slinkier robes, a creamy white satin one that hit her mid-thigh and showed plenty of cleavage. The neighbors were getting an eyeful.

I saw Tabby was holding two mugs too. Wow, she'd even made coffee. Yep, one more reason to love her.

I waved to her from half a block away and she managed a small wave back with her mug-filled hands.

The funny thing was that a trash truck driver behind her waved to me too. He was working his way up the street. I smiled and waved again and he waved back.

That's when a big yellow ball bounced out into the street across from Tabby, the kind you get at the supermarket for a buck. Tabby didn't see it. Neither did the truck driver. He was almost cross-eyed, trying to ogle my sister from behind and ogle me, jogging right towards him.

Fuck. Everyone knows that where there are bouncing balls there are bouncing children. It's some kind of sick rule.

And here he came, a little toe-headed deathtrap. Right between two parked cars and darting out for his cheap-ass ball.

"No! Nononononono!" My lips could only make one useless sound over and over.

The truck driver finally saw the little boy and began to swerve away from him. His truck was heavy and slow.

His turn was towards Tabby. Towards my sister. Towards the woman I loved.

By then I wasn't running, I was sprinting. Sprinting and waving like a madwoman. I half-listened behind my ears too. Enough to know there was no knot coming for me to use to lock up this whole fucked up situation and figure a way out. No, of course not.

Helpless. Nothing to do.

And suddenly I was twelve years old again and watching my Mom throw herself from the car to stop time and save a busload of innocent children.

Now it was some clumsy tyke with a little yellow ball. Seriously, one way or the other, it's always the damn kids that do us in.

I couldn't let Tabby go. Not Tabby. Not now. I'd only had one day with her. I'd waited a whole lifetime for one day.

My chest tightened. I would do what Mom did. For Tabby. Only for Tabby. I skidded to a stop, took one good, deep breath, and, in my head, I reached for the sacred rope, the whole silk rope of time. The one that pulls literally everything.

It's what we're never supposed to do. Not without paying the steepest price.

Heat bloomed behind my eyes for what was coming. I didn't need a mirror to know they'd be blazing. Not the bright green of the soft old hills like Mom's. Mine would be the roiling black gray of the northern Irish seas at winter, terrible and merciless. Like Gram's would have been at her glorious end.

Now.

I squeezed the forbidden rope, squeezed and pulled. And felt nearly nothing. It was like yanking on an aircraft carrier. How the hell did Gram or Mom ever manage it? If they did, I could. I squeezed harder.

That's when I felt the real burning start. It drove me to my knees. My skull filled with lava and lit my brain on fire. I gasped but still somehow managed to squeeze tighter. My stomach heaved and I tasted bile. Still, I squeezed tighter. Holy hell, even my fucking teeth hurt.

Fuck you world, I squeezed even tighter.

Everything was slowing, the air was thickening in the telltale cooling candlewax way. I could feel it. Almost there. I dug deeper and squeezed again. That's when I felt an ominous wetness begin to drip from my nose and my ears. I hissed and squeezed one last time. When I opened my eyes, nothing was moving.

Tabby.

I could barely form the small thought through the pain. If I could just get to her and pull her a couple of extra feet away from the curb, she'd be okay. It's all that mattered now. I rose shakily to my feet and started stumbling towards her, my legs barely listening.

I felt a gentle push at my back.

Go dtabharfaidh mé aire do Tabby. I will watch over Tabby.

It was my heart promise, the one I'd made years ago to my Mom to look after my sister. It couldn't be broken. It bound me, steered me, guided me -- now when I needed it most. When she needed it most too.

I reached my sister, grabbed her round the waist and dragged her dead-weight body, coughing and wretching miserably as we went back towards my front porch. Blood dribbled from my nose and spattered across her clean white robe. When we were both well clear of the road, I collapsed at her feet, spent.

Reds and blacks swirled into my vision as everything restarted. The trash truck skipped the curb where Tabby had been standing then swerved its way back onto the street, missing the little boy too. I never saw him or his stupid yellow ball again.

You're welcome you little fucker, I though bitterly.

Tabby fell to her knees beside me, guessing what happened. It wasn't hard to figure out. She'd been down by the curb one moment and several feet away the next, with her nutjob sister twitching on the ground beneath her.

"How bad?" she sniffled, "Like, Mom-level bad?"

I could barely move my head to nod. "Pretty much. I kinda think I stopped the whole shebang from spinning for a little bit. Gram would be proud," I tried for a tough-girl smile then coughed. I had to swallow something chunky that came up with it. That couldn't be good.

Tabby sobbed openly now. "Not fair. Not fair. Just one day? Not fair!" Her lips, so soft and warm, pressed against my cold, sweaty forehead, and a few hot tears fell on my face. "Molly, don't get mad, but Gram taught me something..."

Through a slowly thickening haze, I watched Tabby bite into her own lip until it bled. She spat into her palm and looked down at me with worry, "I don't care what happens now, Molly. One day's just not enough."

She mumbled a prayer and swung at my hand laying limp in the grass, clapping us together palm-to-palm. My hand was already smeared with the blood that had been leaking from the various holes in my head. Our blood merged with the clap -- fae blood met fae blood.

There was a deep, thunderous crack so loud that it thumped in my chest and echoed down the street. It was a sound that probably hadn't been made for centuries. Thirteen of them, I guessed dizzily.

So much for subtle.

Tabitha began to chant, sing-song, like a little girl, "As ucht ár gcomhfhuil agus in am an ghátair, glaoim ort, a Bhrighde. A Bhrighde, impíonn d'iníonacha deireannacha cabhair uait."

I was delirious. What had she just said? 'from common blood and desperate need?' Oh god, my sister didn't speak Gaelic, she didn't know what she was doing.

"Tabby?" I sputtered. "You're summoning..."

"...Brighde. I know. Shhh, it's the only spell Gram taught me. She said to use it when things looked hopeless. That because we'd be the last Macallans, Brighde might answer. Molly, I don't want to scare you, but it's time to use it now."

"Sweetie... can't just call a goddess..."

"I COME," a powerful voice echoed from a distance.

Okay, maybe you do, I thought dizzily. I could barely keep my eyes open now, they were so heavy. Maybe a nice little nap. Just a quick one. A tiny snooze.

"Stay Molly. Don't go. Not yet. Wait just a little longer." Tabby rocked me in her arms.

Then I saw her across the street, our mother. She shimmered in from the east. It was her, but not her. I watched, stunned, as she padded towards us lightly, barefoot. Everywhere she stepped, asphalt or concrete, it didn't matter, green grass and heather grew.

Sweet heaven, a goddess, a real and true goddess.

Tabby, what have you done?

But the Mother of All Ireland was not angry. In fact, her face was serene and smooth as she came to kneel beside Tabitha. When she bent over me, the tips of her gold hair brushed my face. Power crackled along my skin at the slight touch, old and deep and true Power.

I looked up and tried to smile. She was beautiful, lit from behind by the morning sun. She looked just a little like Tabitha now, or rather Tabby looked like her. And all I could smell was heather and sweet grass. It was much better than the coppery stench of blood I'd been choking on.

"YOU KNOW THE LAW AND BROKE IT. WHY?" kind eyes older than stone asked, lips unmoving.

There was only one answer worth the breath I had left. I rolled my eyes towards my sister, "Grá rúnda."

Tabitha finally found her voice. It was tight with fear, cracking as her words came tumbling out, "If she dies, it ends with her, Great Mother. I will give you no children. The Macallans and your boon go with her."

Brighde's eyes never left me, ignoring my sister's outrageous threat, and she spoke aloud, "REST NOW, MOLLY OF CLAN MACALLAN. REST AND BE WELL. FOR THE LAST OF MY FAVORITE DAUGHTERS AND FOR A LOVE LIKE THIS, EXCEPTIONS CAN BE MADE."

"Exceptions?" Tabby whispered hopefully.

"OF COURSE, EXCEPTIONS WOULD HAVE... CONSEQUENCES." The last thing I saw was the way her nose twitched, just the way Gram's used to.

Then I heard Tabby's voice turn cautious, "I'm listening."

That's when everything went gray. Then black.

~*~*~Part 07~*~*~

"Hey, you," Tabby whispered, her smiling face inches from mine when my eyes slitted open against the bright hospital room lights. She reached up to gather a few of my sloppy curls and she tucked them behind my ear. "How do you feel?"

"I know how I feel," I winced and struggled to sit up. "Like shit. What I want to know is, how do I look?"

Her smile spread wider, "Well, I was sort of hoping that you felt better than you looked."

"Funny," I started to smile too but stopped because my lips were too dry and tight to do it without splitting. "So, either of us dying?" I asked lamely instead.

"Nope, looks like you're exhausted but healthy, but..." she glanced at the hospital bed next to us where a middle-aged women was reading a book, and dropped her voice, "...we need to do a few things. I made Grandmom Brighde a couple of promises. There was a lot of blood around. They were those kinds promises."

She looked at me meaningfully, as if I couldn't crack the code on who Grandmom Brighde was or what one of those promises were.

I nodded and it made my whole head hurt, "Well?"

"We, uh, need to go back to Ireland."

"That's not so bad, it'll make a nice vacation in the spring when..."

"To live," Tabby said quietly.

Live? In Ireland?

Home. Some part of me understood that, even though we'd never been there, for Tabby and me, Ireland was home.

I nodded. Ireland it would be. I didn't really care where we went so long as we were together. Flying away with my sister sounded perfect actually.

Flying away. Butterflies. The notion of flying made me smile and I reached forward to my sister. She looked at me oddly as I traced a few fingers across her stomach and I toyed with the little gold charm in her navel there beneath her blouse.

"You were right, sis. In the shower, I mean. We're butterflies. How many different ways have you tried to tell me how you felt over the years?"

Her eyes misted up as she squeezed my hand. "Thousands."

She smiled but her mouth tightened again. "There's more though. And it's trickier." She squeezed my hand harder. "Molly, we need to have kids. Both of us. Daughters."

"Well, that's not so..." I trailed off as the reality of it set in. "Oh."

Kids meant men. Marriage. Families. My stomach knotted. The life, whatever it might have been, that I dreamt of living with my sister, just the two of us, the life I'd tasted for less than a single day, and that, amazingly, she seemed to want too... had slipped through my fingers.

Strike that, our fingers.

Tabitha read the sadness on my face. "What? Oh cheer up, sis, you're not pawning me off on some dumb man that easily."

"Huh? You just said we had to... how are we going to...?"

Her smile stretched into a grin as she leaned closer. "Meh, we'll hit a few pubs and pick up a nice guy or two and let them have their way with us. We can even do that part together if you want. And we'll keep doing it until we have some little ones."

"Wow. Okay. When you say it like that, it starts sounding like fun."

"It will be, Molly. We'll raise them together too." She kissed me on the cheek, lingering just a little longer than a sister should, and I felt my stomach untie itself again. "I think I can even get you to like children, Moll. Well, yours and mine anyway. I can't guarantee anything about other people's," she added cheekily.

"Promise? I mean, about the together part, not the kid part."

"I promise. In fact..." she drifted further back, tracing a line with her nose back to my ear until I felt her breath on my neck. "Okay, I wish I could do this in Gaelic. I know it would mean more to you but Gram said it would work in English..."

She took a deep breath.

"I promise," she whispered, "with my whole heart, with each beat, each ebb..."

"Tabby, you don't have to," I tried to stop her.

"Shush," she sank her teeth into my earlobe to quiet me. "I've wanted to do this for a long time. And now I have to start over."

She kissed my cheek tenderly.

"I promise with my whole heart, with each beat, each ebb, each flow, with all that I am and will be... ."

Great big, messy, happy tears rolled down my face as my sister finished pledging her love to me until her dying breath. A sister's love. A lover's love.

In clan Macallan, a heart promise is the strongest of all. It's because we only get one.

Tabitha had saved hers for me.

~*~*~*~

Author's note: First off, bless you, dear reader, for making it this far. This was a labor of love and I'm grateful you stuck through it with me.

If you have a comment or criticism, I'd love to hear it. Please do it publicly though. My private feedback has never worked for whatever reason. Fair warning though, any posted comment that includes the phrase "too long" or variations thereof risks swift and merciless deletion. I did warn y'all about that up front. :-p

Because I've come to enjoy dishing questions to you guys: did anybody pick up on the symbolism lurking behind Tabitha being a photographer? I'm happy to say that most of my friends spotted it - more likely due to them being smart rather than me being a particularly good writer.

The attempted symbolism was twofold. First, Tabby is drawn to photography because it is essentially freezing time with each picture, the closest she'll ever get to Molly's ability. Second, a photograph saves something, preserves it, in a way Tabby wishes she could have done for her mom. Hehe, thinkin' porn. XD

Now just go ahead and click on that nice little 5-star thingie. Super. Thanks.

P.S. A very special thank you to one incredibly helpful Irishman who chimed in from the wilds of Rwanda to help me with Gaelic. As if third world relief weren't enough, he made time to stomp out one corner of this writer's boundless ignorance. I raise my glass to you, sir -- two fingers of good Irish Jameson's in your honor.