He hung up the phone and padded to the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee. Liam was measuring the coffee into the filter when the phone rang again. Jake’s mom cried on the other end. Liam invited her over as well.
Within a half hour, both mothers sat in Liam’s parlor. Jake’s mom, Carol, still in her nurse’s uniform, bags under her red-rimmed eyes, sat on the couch with Jake’s note held tightly in her hand. Esther quietly sobbed and grasped Fanny’s note tightly in her hands. Muriel finished out the quartet. She seethed but kept her lips tightly shut.
“Ladies, I know this is a shock for all of us. But we have to keep our heads about us. I suggest we compare the notes and see if our kids left us any clues so we can find them and get them back where they belong.”
“Liam, shouldn’t we call the police?” Esther asked. “They need to find my Fan … ” She broke down sobbing again and Carol put her arm around Esther. Liam could see tears well again in Carol’s eyes.
“I know it seems natural to call the police. But I’m asking you not to. The children weren’t kidnapped. And it’s clear from these notes that they intend to return. The police will classify them as runaways and these kids will be in all kinds of trouble when they get back. Carol, Jake needs scholarships for college, right?”
“Yes. Without scholarships, Jake will never be able to afford college.”
“I don’t want him to have a criminal record. Not if we can help it. And Fanny, her chances of sports scholarships will be jeopardized too,” he said.
Esther couldn’t speak but nodded her affirmation.
“And, well, I feel I need to take care of this. I’m not at all proud to say it – you may already know this – but I haven’t been a very devoted father to Emily since Bridget died,” Liam said. A tear came to his eye but he willed it not to fall. Both mothers reached and gently touched Liam’s hand. It was the first time anyone had intentionally touched Liam in seven years.
“I understand,” Carol said at last. “You need to find your little girl, Liam. And bring our Jake and Fanny back too.” Again, Esther only nodded her agreement.
With that, they went to the dining room table to pour over the notes and try to find clues. Liam was worried, sad and mad. But he was also exhilarated. It was the first real emotion he'd had in years. It was the first time he’d truly cared about anything in years. Liam felt like he’d been in a foggy sleep but was waking. He was needed, and he was going to find his daughter and bring her home. He’d bring her home at long last.
23. LIAM SEARCHES FOR CLUES
Three notes. Three different handwriting styles. All pretty much saying the same thing. None said where the kids were going.
All three mentioned an urgent ‘mission’. What kind of mission could three fourteen-year-old kids from the Midwest be on?
Liam thought that if any of them would leave a clue it would be Jake. Liam observed the neat handwriting of Jake’s note.
‘I’m sorry Mom. I know this puts you in a bind. But I’ve got to go help Emily with her mission. I’m sorry for the trouble this is going to cause you, but it’s for the greater good. I know that when I return you’ll understand.’
So it’s Emily’s mission. What mission could Emily have (besides running away from Muriel)?
Next Liam looked at Fanny’s note. Sloppy handwriting. Poor grammar and incomplete sentences. She better hope for a sports scholarship.
‘Don’t worry mom and dad. Don’t send my brothers after me. Not running away. Em needs me for urgent mission. She’s my best friend. Know you’d do the same for a friend. Please forgive me and I know you’re going to ground me for life when I get home.’
Again with the “urgent mission.” And Emily needs her. It’s Emily’s deal, and they’re just along for the ride. But what could Emily possibly have going on?
Liam read over Emily’s note again. He hadn’t turned it over before, but for some reason, he did then. In even sloppier writing, she wrote more on the back.
‘Dad, I miss you so much.’
Miss me? She just left. As Liam thought about it more, he realized what she meant. Oh, she means she had been missing me, even before she left. Tears welled in Liam’s eyes and he didn’t will them not to fall.
‘If I told you where I was going and why I was going, you wouldn’t believe me. Something amazing has happened. I know you wouldn’t understand. The ancient blood that runs in my veins is calling me home. Please don’t come looking for me. I love you dad.’
Liam read the backside of the note over and over. There had to be a clue in there somewhere, but all he could see was a runaway note from his missing daughter. Guilt and shame threatened to blind him until he could see nothing else.
Liam dragged himself to the kitchen and rifled through the high cupboard above the refrigerator that only his 6’3” frame could reach. Liam hadn’t had a drink in years, but it seemed to him the right time for a stiff one. He retrieved a bottle of scotch and poured himself a shot.
He swallowed the amber juice down in one gulp. The fire liquid set his innards ablaze but did nothing to clear his mind. He sat with his head in his hands, waiting for something to click. As he sat and contemplated how drinking shots of scotch wasn’t going to help clear the thick fog in his brain, the words from the note suddenly shouted at him. ‘The ancient blood that runs in my veins is calling me home.’
In a flash he was sober and alert like he hadn’t been in years. There was a clue in that phrase. It was a big clue that Emily didn’t know she had given. She didn’t know she had left a clue because she didn’t know what he knew.
Liam ran to the attic, taking the steps by two. In the far corner, covered in dust and cobwebs, was a special box. He had hidden it under clothes and other junk. He’d hidden it from Muriel and from Emily too.
It was the box of Bridget. His own box. He hadn’t touched any of the things in over seven years. Liam’s hands shook as he took the little box from under the pile of stuff and wiped off the years of dust. It was only a mundane shoebox. It didn’t look like anything noteworthy would be inside, but the dusty, ratty box contained the contents of his heart.
When Emily spoke of her ancient blood, Liam knew that she was talking about Bridget’s side of the family. It was a lineage filled with Irish blood. Bridget had once shown him a family history, actually drawn out by her like a tree. She’d kept it in the box that Liam held in his hands.
He gently took off the lid. On top were letters Liam had sent Bridget when they were in college at two different universities. He couldn’t believe she had kept them all those years. She’d also kept pictures Emily had drawn for her while in preschool. There were crayon drawings of houses and flowers. The bright colors mimicked the paintings that Bridget had made. He sifted through concert ticket stubs and more letters and cards. It was strange to see someone’s memories of their life, now over, laid in a box that way. Bridget’s memories laid to rest in a shoebox coffin.
There were sketches she had done of orchids and other flowers. Finally Liam found what he’d been looking for. On the bottom was a small black notebook. He pulled the notebook out and laid the shoebox to the side. He opened the cover and only a few pages in he found the sketch of a family tree. Bridget’s family tree. It was a complex and convoluted drawing with lines going here and there and everywhere and notes in the margins. She had spent hours tracing her family history. Bridget had her mother’s side back to the 1500’s. And then there it was. Ireland.
As soon as he saw the word, scribbled in large letters in black ink, he knew it was where Emily had gone. Had she received contact from someone in Ireland and felt she had to go. But who? Liam looked at the names of ancestors long dead. Unless a ghost had haunted her, he had no idea who could have contacted her. But he knew he had to get on a plane and go to Ireland.
He didn’t know what he would do when he got there or where he would go. He knew only the single-minded thought to get on a plane and fly to Ireland. He knew only the need to search for his only daug
hter.
She’s got Bridget’s eyes.
Liam carefully put the cards, letters, ticket stubs and pictures back in the box and shoved it back under a pile of dusty clothes. He grabbed the little black notebook and as he stood up, a small sketch fell out of the notebook and landed on the floor. He picked it up and puzzled over it for a few minutes. It was an odd sketch of something that looked like a bracelet. Liam had never seen Bridget draw anything like it. She always drew and painted flowers and plants and trees. Her work was all about nature. Why did she draw this odd bracelet, all twisted and? Somehow it seemed to Liam that this drawing was related to Emily’s ‘mission’, but he didn’t know how or why he felt it.
As he looked at the sketch, fresh tears sprang to his eyes. It felt to Liam as though Bridget’s energy zoomed from the strange drawing and straight into him. Salty drops dripped from his eyes. Until that day, he hadn’t cried since the day she’d died.
“Bridget, I miss you so much. If only you were here, you’d know what to do. You’d know how to find our Emily. Let's face it, if you were here, she wouldn’t have run away, would she?
“Bridget, I don’t know if you can hear me. I don’t even know if I believe that you still exist. You know I’m not a spiritual man. I don’t know why I’m doing this.” Liam buried his head in his hands and let the long quashed tears flow in rivers down his cheeks.
“Bridget, if you can hear me – if you’re still there, somewhere, somehow – if you’re there, Bridge, our little girl needs you too. If you’re there, look over our Emily.”
After a few minutes, Liam wiped his tears and nose. He folded the little sketch and tucked it back into the notebook. He’d have time on the plane to puzzle over the drawing and the notebook, the only clues he had to find his daughter amongst the entire population of Earth.
24. EMILY’S SEARCH FOR THE SACRED WELL
When I woke, it was the next morning. We had all slept through the afternoon and into the next day. We shook the sleep from our bodies and ate the day-old bagels we’d stashed in our packs. After our dry breakfast, Jake pulled out his maps and pages he’d printed off his laptop while Fanny cranked up the GPS app on her phone.
Jake had printed out pages that he’d found about different wells and sanctuaries dedicated to St. Bridget. It was a surprisingly long list. Over the years, the old goddess Brighid was turned into a Catholic saint, St. Bridget. The spelling was different, and she had become a saint instead of a Goddess. But St. Bridget was associated with wells, springs and healing waters just as the Goddess Brighid had been for thousands of years. There were wells and springs dedicated to her all over Ireland. When Jake plotted the wells and springs on his map, we could see a concentration of them in County Kildare.
“This is promising,” Jake said. “There are at least two wells within walking distance of each other in Kildare town.”
“Bingo,” said Fanny. “Hey, do you think that town cop called in an APB on us and has the whole Irish police force out looking for us?” Fanny asked.
“I think we should be cautious. In a little town like that, digging up a grave at a religious site is probably a high crime,” I said.
Fanny searched the web on her phone and found a bus schedule. We hiked to the next town and popped onto Bus Eireann. After two bus changes and six hours, we went about a hundred miles and got off in Kildare.
By the time we got there, it was about an hour before dark. But it was only about a mile from the bus stop to the first well on our list so we decided to press on.
Our most likely candidate for the Sacred Well was a small, somewhat touristy site that had a statue of St. Brigid and a walking path to a well. We walked down a newly paved road with a sidewalk and followed the signs to ‘St. Brigid’s Well’. Before long, a sign pointed down a long paved lane lined with towering old trees. When we got to the end of the lane, there were some cars parked there and about a half dozen people milling about the site.
We walked over a small wooden bridge onto a manicured lawn of intensely green grass. A statue of St. Brigid stood by a small stream, and there was a path with grey upright prayer stones leading to a small ring of stones.
There it was. A small hole in the ground surrounded by stones. It wasn’t much to look at and didn’t seem very sacred. And it wasn’t a deep hole either. It looked to be only two feet deep. I can’t imagine this is a portal to another world. Looking at the small ring of stones around a tiny spit of water, my doubt grew and I began to feel silly about the whole thing.
“Well, let’s get this over with,” I said. I reached into my bag for the box with the torc in it.
“Wait Em, you can’t do that now,” screeched Jake. “Not with these people around.”
“Why not Jake? Nothing’s going to happen anyway. These tourists will just think I’m a weird American kid.”
“What do you mean nothing’s going to happen? When you pull that thing out of its box, the portal will open up,” said Fanny.
I laughed out loud at that. They really believe this stuff.
“Look at this,” I said. I pointed to the small pool of water. “It’s a pathetic hole in the ground. Admit it, this doesn’t look like a portal to another dimension, does it?”
Fanny and Jake looked at the hole in the ground and at each other, then back to me. They couldn’t say anything. They knew I was right.
“Maybe nothing will happen. But we stole that artifact, remember? I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it out and wave it around in daylight with all these people around,” Jake said.
Jake had a point.
“Okay, you’re right. We’ll wait ‘til night when these people are gone,” I relented.
“So what do we do now?” asked Fanny.
“Let’s go back up to the town and have some supper. We’ll come back at night.”
We stopped at a small restaurant and had Guinness stew, brown bread and Coca Cola. All we’d had to eat that day were the dry bagels at breakfast. We ate like feral children. After the heavy dinner, I wanted to find an inn and crash instead of walking back to the well. But sleep would have to wait, at least until I satisfied Jake’s curiosity. He wouldn’t rest until I’d pulled the torc out and shown him that I couldn’t open a portal. Then maybe he’d let me sleep.
We staggered back to the well and it was full dark when we got there. Instead of all the tourists leaving, an even larger crowd had gathered.
“What’s up with this crowd?” I asked.
“I don’t know. But look over there. It looks like they’re going to light a huge bonfire in that field over there,” said Fanny. She pointed to a pile of wood and kindling large enough to set a house on fire. There was a real festival atmosphere going on as more and more people gathered.
Jake walked up to a small round lady and asked, “What’s going on here tonight?”
“Well, it’s Samhein – All Hallow’s Eve, don’t you know? We’re honoring the spirits of our ancestors. Join in the festivities, lad,” she merrily answered.
“Oh, okay, thank you then,” he replied. The lady shuffled off with her friends toward the bonfire.
Jake returned to where we were standing. “Doesn’t look like a good night to open the portal, does it?”
“Ah, this bites,” I said. “I’m so tired. I just want to get this over with.”
“What do we do now?” Fanny asked.
We stood there in silence for a few minutes. We were all cold and tired beyond belief. As miserable as my home had been for me, at that moment I would have gladly taken another crack in the face from Muriel if it was followed by sleep in my own bed.
We stood there, half asleep standing up, when a large bird swooped down and almost took my head off.
“What the … ” was all I could get out before it came back and swooped down again, this time actually grabbing at my jacket with its beak.
“What kind of bird is that?” Fanny asked.
“Looks like a small hawk,” Jake said.
“A h
awk?”
All of us looked at each other, jaws open, remembering what Hindergog had said. ‘Follow the hawk.’
The bird came at me again, this time flying right at me. I wasn’t sure the bird would pull up, but at the last minute, it did and flew across the grassy field just to the west of the well.
“Follow the hawk,” said Fanny.
“Yeah, I know what Hindergog said,” I replied.
“No, I mean do it. Follow the hawk.”
All three of us ran and tried to catch up with the bird.
“Why are we following this bird exactly?” asked Jake.
“Because the little dude with the pointy ears told us to,” said Fanny.
“Good point,” Jake said.
The bird led us away from the crowds at the Well of St. Brigid and over small hills. After about a quarter of a mile, we were well away from the bonfires and revelry and came to a small clump of old trees by a small brook.
As we went down a little dip, we entered a thick grove of trees. My body went into overdrive. I felt chills up and down my spine. The hairs on the back of my neck and on my arms stood up. Even the hairs on my legs were on end. My heart pounded wildly in my chest. What is this place?
“Does anyone else feel that?” Fanny asked.
“What, you feel it too?” I asked.
“Yeah, all my hairs are standing up,” said Jake.
And he was right. I looked over at him, and the hair on his head was standing straight up. Jake’s head looked like someone had rubbed a balloon on it and made static electricity.
“Holy crap, look at Jake’s hair!” said Fan. “Not a good look for you man”
We couldn’t help but laugh at his ridiculous hair.
“Come on guys, this isn’t time for jokes. There must be something near here causing this,” Jake said.
The Akasha Chronicles Trilogy Boxed Set: The Complete Emily Adams Series Page 11
