“Tell him, Liz.”
Lizzie put her iPod down and adjusted her position in her seat. “Well, there was this weird Irish guy with a real crazy accent who got all creepy and started telling us that the O’Neal clan were a bunch of Leprechauns from Corways.”
“Uh-huh,” said Oscar with a goofy grin like someone was trying to pull a fast one on him.
“That’s what he said.”
“That’s right, Dad. Leprechauns.” Brendan smiled broadly at his dad. “Now that the mystery is solved, can we please go home?”
Oscar began to pour himself a drink in the kitchenette and he chuckled. “As solid as that sounds, I think we’ll go ahead and stay. Not that the weird Irish guy isn’t a credible source and all, but I think I’ll look for more substantial leads in the records.”
Brendan heaved out the sigh of an anguished teen and Lizzie ignored him. “Hey, Dad, while you’re doing your thing, do you care if we check out Corways? It’s really not that far from here.”
“Mmmmm, I’m not sure.” Looking at Lizzie, he saw the familiar puppy dog eyes she often employed to get her way. “Okay, if it’s not that far and you have a cell phone on you at all times.”
“It probably doesn’t exist anyway, Dad,” Brendan said giving a doubtful gaze in Lizzie’s direction.
“Yes, it does,” Lizzie spoke with a clear confidence. “I can feel it.”
Brendan laughed. “Is your Leprechaun sense tingling?”
Lizzie folded her arms and replied with the always witty, “Shut up.” Though she wasn’t sure if it was Leprechaun sense or hunger pangs.
…
The scenery in Ireland was green, fresh, simple, and in many ways, breathtaking. Wardicon always felt that way. Even as a young Sidhe, he found out quickly that he was one who enjoyed nature. His mother, the former queen of the Sidhes, had instilled in him a love and appreciation for their home.
He liked to sit near the top of an old tree that was just on the edge of his forest and watch the stars and the moon move across the sky. He liked to imagine how large the universe was beyond what he could see and many a night he would get so caught up in his thoughts that everything else around him faded out of his mind. It was consuming and in some ways very dangerous.
He was so lost in his imagination and ponderings that he failed to see the large human-like figure approach from the road. He failed to see the being lift his arm with a gleaming hatchet in hand and fling it through the air. It was too late to do anything by the time he realized that his branch had been cut from the tree. Despite the fact that he had wings he wasn’t going to be able to catch himself before he hit the ground. By mercy or command, the large figure snatched him from the air and rudely shoved him into a burlap sack. Darkness surrounded him along with a distinct odor that he could not place. His mind couldn’t think on it long since he was rendered unconscious and taken away from his starry night.
Chapter 4
Rainbow Hunting
Brendan was half awake when Oscar ventured into the living room from his bedroom. He heard his old man shuffling here and there gathering papers and books, opening the curtains and mumbling about the overcast skies, and making a little noise in the kitchenette. Soon enough the coffee maker was percolating and the fresh blended smell of Columbian coffee beans wafted through the air almost enticing him to get up and join his dad for a cup. Instead, Brendan got to his feet and stumbled into his father’s room, and shut the door behind him.
Oscar turned when he heard the door close and saw that the couch was now vacant. “Well, good morning to you, too,” he mused. Oscar bundled up his briefcase, threw an umbrella under his arm, and grabbed his coffee and left the suite.
Brendan settled himself into the lumpy bed and found just the right position. He was slowly drifting off to sleep when a crash of thunder boomed in the distance and an excited screech boomed from somewhere much closer.
“No,” groaned Brendan, forcing his eyes shut. “Go back to bed, Lizzie,” he mumbled to his empty room. He was hoping that he wouldn’t have to yell at her. He needed to cash in on some much needed sleep.
“Brendan!” yelled Lizzie from the living room. “Where are you?”
Brendan heard her and imagined that she was digging through his blankets on the couch.
“Brendan!” she hollered again.
“What?” he slurred through his sleepiness, but she kept yelling for him, so he mummy-walked to the door and slung it open intent on blowing up on her.
Thud! went the door and Ouch! went Lizzie.
“Uh, Lizzie?” Brendan looked around the door and grimaced. He held out his hand and helped her to her feet. “Are you okay?”
To her credit, she only briefly rubbed her head and then said, “I’m fine. Did you see that it’s raining?” She smiled like someone who hadn’t just taken a door to her face.
Brendan lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah. So?”
She looked at him incredulously. “So? So, rain can bring rainbows. Duh.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he laughed. He was so tired that he thought the whole scene was ludicrous. “You think that I’m going to drive you out to the middle of nowhere in search of a rainbow in this storm?” He waited for her to show some recognition of how asinine the idea was, but when she just smiled wider, he could only shake his head.
“You must be crazy.”
…
“I hate you. You know that, right?” Brendan said half-seriously. He adjusted the windshield wipers to the fastest setting, which happened to be slow and choppy. The road was bumpy and saturated and the old car plodded along at a snail’s pace.
“No, you don’t. You love me.” Lizzie smiled the devil’s smile at her big brother. “Are you sure this is the right way?”
“This is the way Gordy told me to go.” Brendan thought back to the conversation and laughed. Gordy was rocking back and forth and came to a sudden stop when Brendan asked about Corways. The old man told them to not waste their time and blah, blah, blah, but Brendan stopped listening. What did old people know?
“I just don’t want to get lost.”
Brendan made a humph sound. “I have my cell phone, and besides, this was your idea. You were the one wanting to go rainbow hunting.”
“I know,” she sassed. “I get it.”
“Just keep an eye out for the rainbow,” Brendan commanded.
“Will do, Captain,” Lizzie said with a salute.
They drove on for a ways in silence. Brendan looked out through the water-soaked windshield and worked hard to keep the car on the road.
“I can’t believe that I’m rainbow hunting,” he laughed with a small bit of hysteria. “I can just hear it when we get home. ‘How was your trip to Ireland, Brendan?’ And I’ll say, ‘It was swell. We looked for rainbows all day long, and then we found one and then we rode bareback on a unicorn.’ They are all going to think I’m crazy!”
Lizzie watched his rant. “So, you think this is a waste of time, huh?”
He looked her in the eye. “I do. Oh, and if anyone back home asks, we did not go rainbow hunting.”
“What about unicorn riding?” teased Lizzie.
Brendan was not amused. “Just watch for the stupid rainbow.”
The drive continued on as the rain dissipated. The clouds were still hanging on strong, but the sun was able to peak through the cracks casting brilliant rays of light over the Irish landscape. Both kids were awestruck, but neither spoke about it. Brendan wondered if she felt the familiarity in what they were looking at as well.
Before too long, the storm began to die off. Brendan shut off his wipers as the last few drops of rain splashed on the windshield. “How much longer are we going to search, Liz? I mean we’re down to…” He glanced down at his gas gauge and was pleasantly surprised. “Huh? It’s still on full. These little foreign cars do get good gas mileage.”
Lizzie searched the sky to no avail and allowed her shoulders to slump. She sighed. “I don’t know. I guess we can turn around�
��if you want to…” She stopped in mid-sentence because something caught her eye. “Wait! I see one!”
The misty haze before them thinned slightly and Brendan also spotted the faded colors of a distant rainbow. The closer they got, the rainbow that had looked faded and so far away grew more brilliant. It beckoned them.
“Whoa!” exclaimed Brendan. “Look at the size of that thing!”
The rainbow shimmered in dazzling hues, radiating from a huge thundercloud that no longer dropped its heavy drops. Lizzie’s mouth hung wide open at the sight of the thing.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
Brendan and Lizzie drove toward the rainbow and Brendan had to marvel at how the road to get there was so traversable. Unlike rainbows in America, or anywhere else for that matter, this rainbow stood still, transfixed, rooted in a single unmovable location. Brendan found road after road that wound the car on a fairly direct route to the prize. When he finally turned onto a gravel road that lead directly into a thick forest, Brendan brought the car to a stop.
“Corways,” he read from an old wooden sign that guarded the dark entrance.
Brendan looked over at Lizzie to gauge her panic level about entering the dark forest and when she gave him a small nod, he slowly accelerated and their world was swept away with shadows. Only what lay in the path of the dim headlights was visible. Brendan was happy that the road was among the things that the light touched.
It was eerie. This much darkness wasn’t normally found topside of the Earth. Caves can hide light pretty well during the day, but a forest typically allowed a modicum of light to peak through. Even the rainbow had been hidden by the thickness of the canopy. They hoped that they were still on the right track.
“It’s kind of scary back here,” said Lizzie with a nervous laugh.
“We should be coming up on Corways any moment,” replied Brendan. He was trying to comfort both of them. He wouldn’t admit it to her at the moment, though, since someone needed to be calm and in control. He just hoped she couldn’t see well enough in the dark to notice his hands slightly trembling on the steering wheel.
The further on they drove, the thinner the forest became. It was subtle, but there was enough space in the trees for the rainbow to reappear. Occasionally, Brendan had to turn on his wipers to swipe away the drops of water that could no longer cling to the leaves and branches overhead.
The car wound around the trees and Brendan steered the little smoking car nimbly around the obstacles until he came to a dead end. A massive tree had toppled over at some point and laid crossways across the road.
“Looks like the end of the road,” Brendan said wryly.
“But we’re almost there,” Lizzie chirped. “Look!”
Sure enough, through the tree line shone the brilliance of the rainbow in all of its glittery luster.
Brendan heaved out the breath a person does when he’s about to do something that he doesn’t want to do. He reached back behind the passenger seat and pulled out a small emergency kit. He unzipped it and examined the contents. There was a flashlight, band-aides, gauze, iodine, medical tape, and rubber gloves all packed inside the little drawstring bag. He removed the flashlight and then handed the bag over to Lizzie. He cut the engine and put the keys in his pocket as he exited his door. Lizzie popped out from the other side.
“If we’re going to go on, then you carry the bag.”
Lizzie shrugged. “Fine. Let’s go.”
They paused and examined the surroundings. There was only overgrowth and large trunks to see. Lizzie’s face held a quizzical look.
“What’s the matter?” asked Brendan.
“How could a place that I’ve never been feel so familiar?”
“You feel it too?” Brendan said in surprise. “Crazy, huh?”
“I know, right?”
They smiled nervously, both confused over the weirdness of the idea.
“Well, if we’re going to do this, then let’s get to it,” Brendan declared.
He led the way over the fallen tree with the flashlight in hand and Lizzie followed close on his heels. He shone the beam of light around and then turned to his sister.
“Now be careful, Liz. It’s really dark and we don’t know what this ground is like.”
“I know, I know.” She rolled her eyes. “The rainbow ends just past those trees. Come on, let’s go.”
Brendan looked out into the mist and darkness and found the dirt, gravel, and mulch-like path. He could see the rainbow beyond, looming gracefully in its shine, but there were too many trees in between them and their prize to get a full view.
He led Lizzie down the path as the route began to slope and narrow. It was so steep that they found their ankles were having to point their toes and their upper bodies were starting to lean backwards. Brendan tried to slow his pace but with Lizzie right on his tail, it was growing more and more difficult.
“Stop pushing me,” snapped Brendan when the pace continued to quicken.
“Go faster!” Lizzie exclaimed, pushing her brother harder. “What if the rainbow disappears, then we miss seeing…whatever!”
“Stop! We’re going too fast!”
Lizzie must not have heard, or perhaps she didn’t care, because her shoving and forward motion carried the siblings faster and faster down the slope. It was all Brendan could do to not go tumbling like Jack and Jill. Brendan tried to focus his light ahead, but it was bouncy and scattered. At the last moment he saw that they were coming to an abrupt drop off.
“Whoa!” he yelled as his foot planted on an embedded rock at the very edge of the path. He teetered on his balance point and had just enough of a view to look over the drop. His arms flailed and his core wavered as he stared into the darkness below. In this low light Brendan had no idea how far he would fall if he didn’t steady himself. Luckily for him, he managed to hold his place.
Lizzie charged forward having seen her brother in trouble. “I’ve got you!”
Brendan didn’t turn in fear of falling, but he called out for her to stop, but it was too late. Lizzie was running too hard and tripped in the darkness on a root or a rock, and she slammed into Brendan. The momentum sent them careening over the edge and into the dark.
Ten feet down they slammed into a natural drainage slope sopped with flowing muddy water. It twisted around tree trunks and eroded chucks of hill and ground hurtling them faster and faster until they were dropped fifty feet into a retaining pool.
Brendan felt the sting of the cold water on his skin as he pulled at the water to reach the surface. It was a bit of a struggle, but he managed to burst from the water and gulped a needed breath. Water ran through his eyes and made it hard to see.
“Lizzie!” he called. “Lizzie, where are you?”
His heart nearly stopped as his call went unanswered. They always gave each other a hard time, but he knew he was her protector. He would never let anything happen to her, but here they were in an Irish drink and he had lost her. He called out again and his heart was ready to jump from his chest.
Coughs and gasping came from somewhere to his left. “Lizzie!” His sister hacked and coughed up some of the water. “You okay? Swim to the edge.”
He tore through the water toward her but she had already begun to make her way to the pool’s shore line. He helped her get out and followed her onto the grassy bank. Now that she was okay, he stared at her with a look that could kill.
She finally noticed. “What?”
“I told you not to push me, didn’t I?”
Lizzie couldn’t believe her ears. “I was trying to save you. Remember, clumsy?”
“Save me?” Brendan laughed. “You were the one…”
“Shhh!”
Brendan looked at his sister in absolute shock. “Don’t shhh, me. You about killed us!”
“Shhh! Stop being a baby,” she said to his astonishment. “Do you hear that?”
Brendan wasn’t sure, but he thought he heard something. Perhaps it was music or some
bird, but it didn’t matter at the moment. His sister had just insulted him and he wasn’t about to stand for it. Before he could reply, Lizzie was up and moving toward the direction of the noise.
“I’m not being a baby,” he mumbled. “I just wanted to be careful on a dark, slippery hill. That’s all.
Lizzie pulled back a large bough and a bright light shone through the space. She smirked at him. “I think I found something. Come on.”
She vanished through the brush before he could reply. He had to hustle to keep up. “Wait up.”
Brendan pushed limbs and bushes aside as he tried to follow his sister. She had a bit of an advantage on him being shorter and thinner. She probably slipped through the tight landscaping with little hindrance where he was getting swacked by branches and leaves every second or so. He emerged from the brush with a mouthful of greenery. He spat it out and spotted his sister standing near the rear of a beat-up old wooden cottage towards the edge of what appeared to be a town.
He scampered up to her. “Why didn’t you wait on me?” He noticed that the sky was lit in the direction of town.
She glanced back at him and smirked. “Did you lose your flashlight and get scared?”
“I wasn’t scared,” Brendan said defensively. “Something could’ve happened to you, that’s all.”
The noise grew louder momentarily. “There it went again,” Lizzie said with her ears perked. “Sounds like it’s from the center of town.”
“We’ll check it out, but let’s take it slowly this time. We don’t know what we’re going to find when we get there.”
Lizzie shrugged. “Fine.”
They crept away from their cover and walked to the next house. They looked around the wall and finally had a clear view of the light source. They had to partially shield their eyes from the rainbow, which had become blindingly white. Gradually the light separated into the spectrum of colors revealing the most glorious red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet that they had ever seen.
“It’s so beautiful,” marveled Lizzie.
Brendan couldn’t deny the assertion. He had flown over Las Vegas last summer on his way to San Diego for the Soccer Nationals and at the time he thought that it was the most beautiful display of lights that he had seen. This made Vegas look like Christmas lights on an abandoned gas station.
The Obsidian Dagger Page 4
