They rounded the corner of the barn and Abby stopped when she saw the gardens. Or what was left of them anyways. Emotions filled her as she looked at the barren land that had once held the most beautiful flowers she could ever have imagined. The stone walls were crumbling in some spots while the rest of them looked as if they were doing what they could to support but were sagging with the weight.
“What happened?” She barely managed to get the words out as she stepped towards the clearing.
“Everything just died. Myria said that our mother continued trying to care for them after you had died and I had left, but that nothing would work.” He moved to stand next to her by the entrance. “Nothing would grow here. Myria even used some magic, but it’s as if the land itself died with you.”
Abby stood speechless. She could feel the emptiness that surrounded the area.
“Our mother believed that the garden was grieving over you.” He added.
Abby stepped forward and crossed the threshold. She watched in amazement as the space transformed. Gone were the crumbling walls and dead ground. Everything started rebuilding around her. She watched as the walls fixed themselves and as the flowers and bushes began to grow.
Suddenly she was surrounded once again with the most beautiful flowers in the world. She knew it was a memory, but yet she could still smell every single flower as if she were really there.
Abby stepped forward and moved towards the center where she knew a small pond would be. She giggled when a young boy ran past her and she hurried to follow him.
He stopped behind a large bush and looked on at the young girl who sat kneeling next to the waters edge. Abby watched a smile form on his mouth as he crept out from behind the bush and moved to sit next to her.
“Aine what are you doing?”
“I just wanted to look at the water.” He heard the sadness in her voice and placed his hand on her back.
“What’s wrong Aine?”
“Oh, Aengus.” She cried and turned her face into his shoulder. “We went into the village yesterday and the other kids said some horrible things.”
“What could they have possibly said to you?”
“They called me names and said that they best thing I would ever be was a man's wench and that it didn’t matter that I can read, it didn’t mean anything at all.” Aine turned further into him and he wrapped his arms around her.
“They are only jealous.” Abby saw the anger on his face that Aine hadn’t. Even when they had been young, he had been her protector, and she hadn’t even known it. “You will never be a man’s wench. You will be loved and cherished and any man would be lucky to have you as their bride.” He pulled her away and smiled. “I know I would.”
Aine grinned at him. “Aengus you know you are only saying that to me to make me feel better.” She wiped her tears and looked down into the water. “I just want to matter.”
She stood and ran towards the house.
A young Aengus sat still looking into the water at his reflection. “You do matter.” He said to himself before standing up and following her.
Abby wiped the tears from her face as Aengus moved to stand next to her.
“Are you okay? We can leave if we need too.”
“I’m fine Aengus.” She smiled up at him and stood on her tiptoes to give him a light kiss. “I remember that day when you found me in here after the village kids had made fun of me.”
He nodded and she continued. “You had been so angry. I hadn’t known it then, but I just saw it on your face in the memory. You had always looked out for me, even when we were young.”
“You deserved to be treated better than they had been treating you.”
“Thank you for that.” She smiled at him again and wrapped her arm around his waist.
They walked in silence back towards the house and neither noticed the small blade of grass that had begun peeking through the dry ground.
Chapter Thirteen
Abby was on cloud nine for the next two weeks. She had finally gotten to tell Emit off after all these years, which had felt wonderful all in itself. She was back to painting, and she was in love. She hadn’t been able to get ahold of her assistant yet, but since she was at her parents she assumed the poor girl was finally getting her own vacation that Abby admitted guiltily, she should have gotten a lot sooner. The poor girl had definitely been overworked.
She smiled and rinsed her brushes. Oh, she was in love. Aengus was amazing, he would tell her things now and then about their past, things they had enjoyed doing together. She was learning that she liked a lot of the same things now. Although she knew that he had been missing who she had been all those years ago, she felt as if he loved who she had become as well.
“Knock, knock.” Sheamus stood in her doorway smiling when she turned around.
“Hey! I am almost ready, just needed to put my brushes away.” They were going to be running into town to pick up more paint for her. “And I’m ready.” She turned and smiled at him, “Ready?”
“I am.”
They were walking downstairs when she spotted Aengus coming in.
“You sure you have to go?” The worry on his face made her feel guilty.
“I'll be fine Aengus. I promise.” She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “Be back before you know it.”
She turned and left not seeing the look that passed between him and Sheamus. “I'll watch after her.” He whispered to him.
Dublin amazed her. Everything about it was fascinating. The people who moved along the streets, the pubs on every corner, the tiny shops nestled in here and there. It all made up a wonderful picture, one she wanted to get on canvas as soon as possible.
“Dublin is amazing!” She exclaimed as they left yet another small detour on their way to getting her paint.
“That it is. I knew you would enjoy it, there are so many amazing things to see. When I was a young lad, I would come here with my dad every now and then whenever he did runs for the pub. I always enjoyed those trips.” The sadness in his voice caught her attention.
“Do you not see them often?”
“No, my dad died eight years back, heart attack. My mom died when I was born, so I never knew her.”
“I’m sorry Sheamus.”
He smiled warmly at her. “You know about loss as well.”
“I do, my parents and I weren’t super close, and I don’t think they ever truly accepted that I didn’t want to be a psychiatrist. But I know they would have been proud of me now.”
“That they would have.”
“How long have you and Myria been seeing each other?”
He chuckled. “I fell in love with her when I was sixteen years old. Oh, she was so beautiful. I only met her because I disobeyed my dad and went further out into the woods then I should have. I was just strolling along working off some teenage anger over one thing or another and there she was. Standing in the trees at the edge of the cliff overlooking the ocean. She was surrounded by a bright light, just bathing in it.” He smiled at the memory. “I’m pretty sure my jaw hit the ground.”
“That’s so wonderful.” She smiled at how happy he was just thinking of the memory. She wondered if he knew his eyes lit up when he spoke of Myria. “How did you find out about them?”
“Well, I started coming around a bit once I figured out where she lived. Offered to do odd jobs here and there, anything to be close to her. Aengus took pity on my young heart and hired me to clean stalls. She would come out and offer me soup every day for the two years I worked there, and one day I asked her why she never got any older. I mean here I was changing with every year and she stayed the same. I didn’t mean to ask it, it just kind of came out. It scared her at first, but she brushed it off and told me it was flattering that I didn’t think she had aged but one day I caught her doing magic. When Caley was just a wee foal, she got out of her paddock and got scraped up pretty badly on some brush. When I came back one night to check on her, Myria was in the stall.
I snuck in and saw that she was bathed in the same light as that day on the cliff. Her hands were over the wound and she was whispering in an old language. I watched it heal and stood there dumbfounded as she turned around.” They turned the corner and stopped in front of a small art store. “I think when she realized I wasn’t scared off, she knew that she could trust me. I’ve been doing runs for them ever since.”
“Can they not leave?” She wondered. She realized that neither had ever spoken of leaving their property.
“They can, but it drains energy from them.”
At the puzzled look on her face, he continued.
“Myria’s magic is tied to the land where the original spell took place. When they leave that area, the magic can no longer sustain them, so it pulls from Myria. Think of it like this, when you have a handheld plugged into an outlet, you have an unlimited stream of power, but when it is unplugged, it drains the battery.”
“Oh.” She understood his example and grinned at him. “Quite the twenty-first-century man aren’t you.”
He laughed. “I handle the books for the bed and breakfast. Those two couldn’t find their way around a computer if their lives depended on it.”
“What happens if it drains all the way?”
“The battery dies.” His words rang with a sadness that Abby knew was his biggest fear.
“I thought they couldn’t die?”
“They can die, they just don’t age. It's almost as if they are frozen in time so to speak.”
“I’m so scared.” It came out of nowhere. She hadn’t even known she was until the words came out.
“Of what?”
“Caipre. Of what will happen if he finds me. He tormented me as a child, in my nightmares and I don’t even remember what happened to me before. All I have are little snippets that have popped up in a dream from time to time, but I know it was horrible.”
“Abby.” He put his hands gently on her shoulders. “We will protect you. Aengus will not let anything to happen to you.”
The tears had begun to sting in her eyes. “I don’t want anything to happen to him either, to any of you.”
He pulled her in for a hug. “Abby, everything will be fine. It will all work out, you will see. The two of you are meant for each other.”
On the drive home, Abby spent most of her time looking out the window buried in her thoughts. She started thinking about the time she had spent with Emit. He had never really been there for her, he had always been looking over her shoulder, but she couldn’t remember a single time where he had been there for her when she had needed him. He had never shown any emotional connection to her.
Could they be right? Could he be working with Caipre in an effort to lure her out? If so, then why hadn’t he grabbed her before now? There had been plenty of chances. It just didn’t make any sense. Why did Caipre want her now? What could she have possibly done to warrant this obsession he seemed to have for her?
He kept telling her that she would know ‘all that he had done for her’. Even in her nightmares as a child, he had used that phrase. What could he have been referring to? Certainly, it wasn’t the fact that he murdered her sister or killed her to keep her from Aengus. So what could he have been talking about?
“What’s on your mind?” Sheamus broke her train of thought.
“Just wondering why Caipre-”
They were a mile from the bed and breakfast when the storm hit. It came upon them so fast that they never saw it coming. Lightning struck the ground in front of them and the rain began to beat on the windshield. The wind blew with such force that it nearly blew them off the road. Lightning struck again and a tree was on the road before Sheamus could swerve to miss it. They clipped the edge of it and that’s when everything began to happen in slow motion.
Abby felt like she was watching from the outside as the car hit the tree and began to flip. Glass flew into the car as the windows shattered. She could hear the sound of the metal twisting in ways it shouldn’t have been. She knew she was screaming, but couldn’t hear it over the sounds of the storm. She felt something pierce her side and she cried out in pain.
The car continued to flip and when it finally came to a stop, Abby’s vision began to fade, and she frantically looked around for Sheamus. He was the last thing she saw.
“You have to wake up now.” Isleen stood in front of her. They stood in the center of a large clearing.
“What? What’s happening?”
“You have to wake up sister. They are coming.”
“What are you talking about?” Abby rushed towards Isleen. “Who is coming.”
“They are. They are going to take you and Sheamus back to Caipre. You have to wake up, you have to run!” Isleen screamed.
Her scream still rang in Abby’s head when she came to. They were upside down, both dangling from their seatbelts.
“Sheamus. Sheamus you have to wake up!” She yelled at him as she worked on her belt. She closed her eyes against the pain she felt. Her head throbbed from being upside down and she had no idea how long she had been out.
When it finally came loose, she tumbled onto what had once been the interior roof of the car. The wound in her side sent a fresh wave of pain over her and she did her best to ignore the glass shards that dug into her hands as she crawled to Sheamus.
“Sheamus!” She cried. She knew she wasn’t supposed to move him, but with the danger of who may be coming, she decided to risk it and began working on his seatbelt as well.
“Help!” She screamed as loud as she could when it wouldn’t come loose. “Someone please help us.” She yanked and the seatbelt finally came loose. He tumbled onto her and she laid him down to check him for injuries. She searched for a pulse and was relieved when she found one. His leg was bent at an unnatural angle and she knew it was broken. He also had a large gash on his forehead and Abby pulled her sweater off to add some pressure to it. “We're going to get out of here Sheamus.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Emit’s voice sounded from outside of the car.
No, no, no. She cried to herself, it couldn’t be, please let her be dreaming. She closed her eyes began to panic.
Abby tucked Sheamus up into her chest, she would protect him, just as she knew he would do for her.
“Come on Gail, I know you’re in there. Just come out.”
The rain had stopped and Emit knelt down next to the car and peered into the window.
“Oh isn’t that sweet! So let me guess, you think you have what it takes to fight me off? While you both are bleeding to death.” He laughed, “You always were the optimistic one, weren’t you. Well, it would fit for you to die like this, seeing as how its how your parents went out. But Caipre wouldn’t allow it.” He pulled out a gun and held it to Sheamus. “Now get out or I will speed up the process for your buddy here.”
She hesitated and looked down at Sheamus. His eyes had barely opened and he looked confused. Maybe she could buy them enough time for someone else to stop. Then maybe they could get away. “It’s going to be okay Sheamus.” She whispered in his ear and gently laid him on the ground.
“Don’t. Abby.” He groaned.
She began to crawl towards the shattered window and winced when Emit grabbed her hair and drug her the rest of the way.
“Wow, I’m having some serious deja vu right now.” At the sound of the second voice, Abby’s eyes widened in disbelief. She closed them and told herself this had to be the result of head trauma from the car flipping, but she knew that she wasn’t. She opened her eyes again and stared straight up into familiar blue ones.
“Annie.”
“Surprised to see me huh? You just had to come to Ireland didn’t you?” Annie smiled down at her and pushed her blond hair back from her face. She moved to lean against Emit. “Well? Aren’t you going to ask me?”
“Ask you what? What are you doing here? How in the hell did you turn out to be such a psycho? Oh, I have a million things I want to ask you.” Abby pulled herself up of
f of the ground and added pressure to her side. She felt the blood and knew it wouldn’t be too long before she passed out from the loss.
She frantically looked around for other cars but realized that their car had landed so far off the road she couldn’t even see it anymore. Hope that someone would stop quickly dissipated and she realized that she and Sheamus were on their own.
“We will have plenty of time to talk about all of that.” She smiled and moved closer to Abby. “No, I meant ask me why I was having deja vu.”
When Abby didn’t respond, she gripped the glass shard in Abby’s side and turned it. Abby did her best to bite back the scream and tried to focus back on Annie. The pain was excruciating and she could feel herself teetering dangerously on the edge of consciousness. But as long as the focus was on her she knew Sheamus might stand a chance. She fell to her knees and Annie knelt so they were eye to eye.
“Why.” She said through gritted teeth.
“Well see, I had a front row seat to a little ‘accident’ some loved ones of yours were involved in.” She grabbed Abby’s hair and pulled her head back. “Your mother looked just like this before she bled out.” Annie shoved Abby back to the ground and put her foot on her chest to hold her down. “Your father, well his was more of an instant death.” Abby heard the arrogant laughter ring in her ears as her mind tried to deny what she had just been told.
She couldn’t even begin to explain the pain she felt in her chest. “They. Had. An. Accident.” She groaned and rolled over.
“Yes, yes we’ve covered that. But they had the accident because someone ‘loosened’ their brake lines.”
Her eyes widened with horror at Annie’s confession. What made the blow, even more, sickening was the sick sound of accomplishment in what she had done. As if she were proud of herself. “You bitch!” She used the rest of the energy she had left and tried to shove Annie off of her. “Why would you do that? They never did anything to you!” Tears stung her eyes as she tried to make sense of everything.
Tethered Souls Page 8
