by Laura Howard
I realized with horror what she was saying. Deaghlan had done this. He’d messed with Ethan’s head on purpose. Anger seeped into my chest as I pictured the smug smile on Deaghlan’s face whenever Ethan’s name came up.
“You have to fix this. Fix him.” Fear shot through me and I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice.
I’m going to take him inside. Nobody else is here now.
I nodded, fighting back the familiar guilt. People I cared about went mad, and whether I meant for it to happen or not, it was directly related to me.
We walked into Liam’s house. He’d added several pieces of furniture. An overstuffed couch, some chairs and two end tables were arranged in his living room. Niamh got Ethan to lie down on the couch without speaking a word out loud. I didn’t ask how she did it.
She knelt by his head and closed her eyes as she placed her hands on his temples. Seconds ticked past as I waited for her to tell me whether she could help him or not. I started getting anxious that something was wrong when she fell back, eyes bright and chest heaving.
“Oh my god, Niamh. Are you all right?”
She blinked and turned to meet my eyes. Her placid mask slipped back into place, but not before I saw her troubled expression.
“I’m fine, it’s just a more intense compulsion than I’m used to dealing with. My coercive talents aren’t the strongest.” She almost sounded sheepish.
She picked herself back up and put her hands back in place. The front door opened and Liam and Aodhan walked into the kitchen. I stood to meet them just as my father caught my eye.
He waited for me to come into the kitchen before he spoke. “What’s up?” Hearing the expression in Liam’s Irish lilt sounded so odd and I was close to losing it.
“Deaghlan messed around with Ethan’s mind. Not just his memories of Tír na n’Óg, but by compelling him to be mean to me. Niamh’s trying to undo the compulsion, but I think she’s having some trouble.”
Aodhan had his back to us, but I saw him stiffen at my words. He turned around slowly and looked from me to the living room, but didn’t say anything.
Liam looked thoughtful. “Niamh doesn’t have a high level of compulsion. Nothing compared to Deaghlan.”
I followed Liam into the living room and stood next to the couch. Aodhan leaned against the doorway, eyebrows drawn together.
Neither Ethan nor Niamh moved when we came in. Niamh’s eyes were closed tightly in concentration. The only sign that she was doing something difficult was the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
“How long has she been at it?” Liam asked.
“Too long,” I said. “There was a point when she — “
Before I finished speaking, Niamh crumpled to the floor. I only saw a blur, but in an instant Aodhan was there. I lurched forward to help, but froze when Aodhan rose fluidly with Niamh cradled in his arms.
“She just needs to rest. I’ll take her to your guest room, Liam.” He left the room without taking his eyes off Niamh’s face.
Liam cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows at me. “Right, then. Ethan seems to be doing well, for his part.”
I knelt down where Niamh had been only seconds before and softly brushed my fingers against Ethan’s cheek, up to his forehead. His skin was soft and warm. I slid my hand down to check the pulse at the base of his neck — strong and healthy.
Dropping my hands to my knees, I looked up at Liam. “Physically, he seems fine. Is there any way of knowing if his mind is okay?”
“I think only time will tell,” Liam said quietly.
“I tried so hard to keep him out of all this,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to keep everyone around me from getting hurt.”
Liam sat down on the coffee table behind me. From the corner of my eye I saw him lift his hand like he would pat me on the back. His hand stopped mid-air and he put it down again.
“I know I’m not one to talk — the guilt of what I’ve done to your mother eats at me every day. From what I’ve seen, Ethan wants to be with you and I really doubt anything you would stop him. What Deaghlan did to him doesn’t surprise me.”
I remembered all the times Liam and Aodhan warned me that the Danaans don’t feel emotions like humans. “I know. It just makes me so angry. I feel helpless and I hate it.”
“Please don’t berate yourself for things you can’t control,” he said with a tight smile. “I’ve spent enough time doing that for both of us.”
I heard footsteps and looked up, expecting an update from Aodhan. But it was Deaghlan who walked in. His black button down and dark jeans gave me the impression he’d been out on the town last night and was just coming in.
Liam put his hand on my shoulder and I turned. He gave me a pointed look that practically begged me to let him handle Deaghlan.
“Well isn’t this a fun surprise,” Deaghlan said with saccharine sweetness as he walked over to Liam’s refrigerator. He pulled out a container of orange juice and sniffed it.
Liam cleared his throat, a nervous gesture. Deaghlan was intimidating, even the air around him radiated with an inhuman power.
“Deaghlan, we’re having a little trouble with Allison’s friend Ethan here. Seems his memories have been tampered with.” I could tell he was being careful not to come right out and accuse Deaghlan of anything. No wonder he wanted to deal with him. I would have launched right into a tirade. Liam was a diplomat. I would have to remember that.
Deaghlan spun around, one eyebrow quirked up with interest. “Oh?”
I kept silent as Liam told him everything I’d said about Niamh’s assessment of Ethan’s mind. Not once did Deaghlan appear remorseful or bothered by anything he heard.
A slow smile played on his lips. “Well, I do hope you’ll forgive me Allison. I thought you wanted to keep Ethan at a distance. Was I was mistaken?”
I looked away, my jaw clenching. “Not like this,” I whispered, barely able to control the emotions flaring inside me. It grated me to cower in front of him, but I wouldn’t meet his eyes. I wasn’t strong enough to fight his mind tricks.
“Niamh tried to undo some of the compulsion Ethan’s under, but she lost consciousness.”
At Liam’s words Deaghlan’s eyes flashed and he cocked his head to the side, listening. “Why does she insist on being a martyr?” he mumbled before he disappeared out of the room in a blur.
“I’ll never get used to that freakish speed,” I said, turning back to Ethan. He hadn’t moved at all. His breathing was slow and steady, barely noticeable.
Liam smiled a little, rubbing the back of his neck. “No, I suppose you won’t. I’ll go see how Niamh is doing, perhaps make sure Aodhan doesn’t murder the king.”
Looking down at Ethan, I thought about all the feelings I’d tried to deny for so long. The thrill that coursed through me whenever someone so much as mentioned his name. The way his chocolate brown eyes caused my thoughts to scatter every time he looked at me with that lopsided grin.
I traced a little pattern on his hand. His skin was smooth and warm, just like I remembered it from when he’d held my hand at his parents’ Fourth of July party. That seemed so long ago, so much had happened since then. Part of me wanted him to wake up so I could be sure he was okay. But the other part was terrified that he was going to suffer for wanting to be close to me.
I felt a twitch in his finger and my eyes darted up to his face. His eyelashes fluttered open and he stared up at the ceiling for a second before he grimaced.
He moaned low in his throat and I clasped his hand so that he’d look at me. His expression was all confusion.
“It’s okay, Ethan.” I could feel the muscles in his abdomen tense. “Don’t try to sit up, just stay quiet for a few minutes.”
He faded in and out for several seconds. Whenever his eyes would open, he’d stare at me with something like fear.
People fear what they don’t understand, Liam had told me more than once. Did Ethan fear me?
Did he remember seeing Niamh shift for
ms as he walked into Liam’s backyard? And, me with her…
Ethan sat up, his eyes wide with panic as he stared at me. He was too strong for me to stop him.
“What the hell is going on?” His voice was no more than a hoarse whisper as his eyes darted around the room. “My head is… I can’t even explain what is going through my mind right now.”
I picked up his hand again, and I thought he would pull it out of my grasp. He just looked down at our joined hands like they held the answers to life's biggest questions in them.
I told him about the day Liam showed up on my doorstep claiming to be my father, how hard it was for me to believe anything he said . I didn’t know how far to go, since I wasn’t even sure what he remembered. I figured talking about being introduced to Niamh might give me an idea of whether he remembered what had happened in Liam’s yard this morning.
“...and they’re different from us, not just because they’re inhumanly beautiful and don’t age. But they have these abilities. They call it magic, but it’s not like Abracadabra or whatever I thought magic was.
“Niamh is telepathic. She hears what I’m thinking and can speak directly into my mind. It’s awful and fascinating at the same time.” I forced myself to stop so I could get a feel for Ethan’s reaction.
He blinked and then looked at me for a minute. He opened and closed his mouth, starting to respond and then shaking his head. Did he think I’d completely lost it?
“Liam is… Liam is your father?” he said, his face was twisted in confusion. I wanted nothing more than to reach up and smooth the creases that marked his forehead.
“It’s okay if you don’t believe me. I get it. Most days I still think I’m going crazy. And I’ve had a couple months to get used to it.” I shook my head and tried to meet his eyes.
“No, I mean, I believe you. I saw what she did. Niamh.” He said her name stiffly, like it was hard to say it out loud.
“You remember seeing her change what she looked like?”
Ethan’s eyes scrunched up again and he breathed out in a chuckle. “It was unbelievable, like I was watching some sci-fi flick where an alien morphs into a human.”
I laughed, some of the tension leaving my body. “Yeah, morphing is a good word for it. They call it glamour. They can make you see or think whatever they want you to.”
He thought about that for a minute without saying anything. “So Liam, your father I mean, is one of them? Does that mean you are, too?”
“No. Well, not really. He started out human. He spent a long time in their world and I guess it changed him, made him have some of their abilities. I don’t think his are as strong as theirs, though. He’s fast and he doesn’t age, obviously. He can use glamour. But he told me glamour is a form of compulsion. And he said he can’t do it as well as a true Danaan.”
“I remember more than just seeing her change how she looked,” Ethan said, his eyes fixed on the ceiling.
“As you’ve been talking I keep getting little flashes of other really weird things. I feel like I’ve been drunk and blacked out.”
That was the part I was dreading. I couldn’t imagine how many bits and pieces of his memories were floating around his mind.
“So many things have happened,” I whispered, still unsure of whether he remembered Tír na n’Óg. “At one point Deaghlan wiped out a big chunk of your memories. It was supposed to be for your own good. And to keep their existence a secret, of course.”
“Deaghlan?”
“He’s the king of the Danaan. He’s been hanging around a lot lately, mostly to cause trouble, I think.”
“Is he the big, scary dude or the GQ model?”
I burst out laughing. Aodhan could definitely be described as a big, scary dude. He’d become such a good friend to me I sometimes forgot just how intimidating he was. But Ethan calling Deaghlan a GQ model was priceless.
“Deaghlan would be the GQ model,” I said, snickering despite the situation. “Aodhan’s a friend. He is big and scary, but he’s been a great friend to me.”
I told him about what had really happened when my mother had gone missing, and the more I told him, the more he remembered. He didn’t remember much from Tír na n’Óg, which I was glad for because even thinking about those Danaan women touching him made me flush with something a little like anger and a lot like jealousy. Still, it felt good to have someone to say this all out loud to. Someone human. But at the same time, I was afraid of what would happen to Ethan for knowing so much.
“Do you feel well enough to stand?” I asked, wondering how much longer we had before the king himself came back down.
Ethan turned and put his feet on the floor. “I don’t feel bad at all, really. Just like I could sleep for a week. What time is it anyway?”
Before I could tell him it was just a few minutes before ten, we were interrupted.
“Well, look who’s awake,” Deaghlan said imperiously as he entered the room.
I gritted my teeth and said nothing. Deaghlan strode over and leaned against the end of the couch Ethan was sitting on.
“If you’ll excuse me, Allison. This will only take a minute or two.”
“No,” I said.
Deaghlan tilted his head and furrowed his brow, his eyes glinting as he looked at me.
“No?” he repeated, astonished. I doubted he heard the word very often.
“I know you think you have to wipe Ethan’s memories. But I don’t want you to. He won’t expose you.”
“Ah, Allison. I’m afraid there is no other way. Now be a good girl and give me a moment with your friend.”
Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but Aodhan’s voice boomed out behind us. “She said no.”
Deaghlan’s eyes widened and he laughed as he shook his head. “This just keeps getting better.”
“Allison’s right. I won’t say anything,” Ethan said quietly, looking between Aodhan and Deaghlan.
Deaghlan sighed. He stood up and smoothed his hands down the front of his shirt. “I regret having to go against your wishes, but as the king I often have to make difficult decisions.”
With his hands held loosely behind his back, he began to pace. One look told me he lived for moments where he could display his power, like a peacock fanning his extravagant feathers.
Aodhan marched over to where I was seated on the coffee table. “Deaghlan, Allison has given you no reason to doubt her. If she says Ethan will remain silent, he will.”
The look Deaghlan gave Aodhan could only be described as indulgent. I wanted to beat my fists against Deaghlan’s chest and scream at him for what he’d done to Ethan. But Aodhan had warned me that despite Deaghlan’s flippant appearance, he was quick to turn the switch.
“Oh, Aodhan. You have such faith in your human brethren. You weren’t around when the humans rebelled against us last time. They called us monsters and came after us with their iron weapons while we slept. No, I will not trust this human, Aodhan. And you’d be wise to do the same.”
Aodhan’s calm facade cracked. LIghtning quick, he held Deaghlan by the throat just inches from his face.
“Don’t play the fool, Deaghlan,” Aodhan said, rage boiling from his gaze. “If you cared so much about your precious people, you’d be stopping Aoife from the havoc she’s been wreaking. Draining humans and siphoning off their blood. Don’t you know she’s bringing the blood to Tír na n’Óg? Human blood with iron in it? Have you been to her place lately? Have you seen the grass won’t grow, and the trees are all dying? The only things that survive in her land are black creeping vines covered in thorns.”
Deaghlan’s eyes narrowed and the lines of his jaw hardened as he tried to speak, but a soft voice beat him to it.
“Father,” Niamh said from the entryway where she stood with Liam holding her arm. “Let go of your pride. Aodhan is trying to help.”“
Aodhan sighed, releasing Deaghlan and backing away. But his eyes remained focused on the king.
“What are a dozen humans in the gr
and scheme of things?” Deaghlan asked with a sneer. “I just don’t see what the big issue is, Aodhan.”
Aodhan was quiet for a moment, seeming to weigh his answer carefully. “When your people attract media attention, doesn’t that bother you? You’re worried about Allison’s friend knowing too much, but what if they start digging deeper in Thunder Bay?”
Deaghlan scoffed and turned his attention to me. “Nobody there would object to the guards wiping anyone’s memories. If Aoife’s guards cause trouble, Niamh has her people do damage control.”
Heat rushed up my spine. Point taken, but that didn’t mean I was going to sit back while he turned Ethan’s mind into oatmeal. It was one thing to erase his memories, but Deaghlan had gone way beyond that.
“Now what’s this about Aoife’s land? I haven’t heard anything about this.”
Aodhan looked at Niamh, jaw clenching. I could see some silent communication going on there, which I would think more about later.
“Niamh?” Deaghlan said, giving her a look of impatience.
Niamh took a deep breath. “Breanh was teaching Aoife how to use Old Magic, as you know. Aoife hasn’t been careful about keeping her guards from coming and going as they please and the effects of the iron are spreading. Plant life and animal life are dying. It’s like Aodhan said, only brambles are thriving.”
“What I’d like to know is why Saoirse never mentioned this to me,” Deaghlan said and I wanted to punch him. It wasn’t a secret that despite his feelings of grandeur when it came to humans, he enjoyed plenty of human pastimes. When he wasn’t in Tír na n’Óg, he was enjoying the pleasures of this world, especially the women.
Niamh’s expression shifted from plaintive to almost indignant. “Father, everyone has tried to tell you about this. You just don’t want to hear it.”
Deaghlan cast his eyes to the floor, looking thoughtful. When he looked up his expression returned to his usual blithe indifference.
“Very well, I’ll play the bad guy,” he said, winking at me. “It suits me.”
