“When you brought your sons to me for safe keeping, I knew that it would be a difficult task to hide them against those who would seek to harm them,” she said, pouring another measure of something mysterious into the cup and swirling the contents. “I also knew that I could not keep them locked in a hole until your return, so the most logical conclusion I could reach was to hide them in plain sight. And they have been hidden, in full view, since your exile.”
She poured a final ingredient into the cup and watched it smoke. By this time, Destry had calmed her tears and was watching the woman mix the concoction. But her arms were still wrapped around Conor’s neck, holding on to him tightly.
“What’s she saying?” she sniffled.
He turned to look at her, his face right up against hers. He couldn’t help himself from kissing her on the cheek.
“She says that when you brought our sons to her for safe keeping, she had to hide them in plain sight,” he said softly.
Destry turned to look at him, realizing she was literally right up against his face. She loosened her grip on his neck slightly, just enough so there was a few inches of space between them. But she found herself giving in to the closeness, feeling the heat from the man’s body and loving it. He was so powerful, so sweet and compassionate, that she could feel herself succumbing to it.
Truth be told, she really didn’t care any longer. She didn’t care that she’d had a broken engagement two weeks ago or confusion about her love life and her future. There was something about Conor Daderga that broke down her walls and touched her deeply.
She lifted an eyebrow at him. “You know,” she murmured thoughtfully. “If you and I had… well, you know… I think I would have remembered it.”
He smiled. “I know for a fact that I would have.”
“She says we have children together?”
“That’s what she says.”
“I think I would have remembered giving birth, too.”
He laughed softly. “I would remember that also. It wouldn’t be like me to forget my baby’s mama.”
She started laughing. “You sound like you’ve had experience with that kind of thing.”
He snorted. “Thank God, no,” he said. “I’m just saying that I think I would have remembered the woman who gave birth to my children.”
Destry gazed into his sky blue eyes, permitting herself for the first time to feel the pull between them. She didn’t resist. “I don’t think it would be such a bad thing to give birth to your children,” she murmured. “I’ll bet you’d make a great dad.”
He couldn’t help it; he leaned forward and slanted his lips over hers, kissing her gently and passionately. Destry wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and kissed him in return, the first time she voluntarily did so. It was warm, gently, but full of promise. Thrilled, Conor was preparing to deliver a more powerful kiss in response but Padraigan’s voice interrupted his intentions.
“Mattock is your eldest and a very good lad,” she stood up from her make–shift laboratory. “He took the potion first. When Devlin and Slane saw Mattock drink it, they took it as well. The spell transformed the boys into dwarves so they would not be suspected by those intent to harm them.”
She was moving to the three dwarves standing expectantly behind her. She handed the cup to the first little man and he took two big, healthy swallows. Then she passed it to the other two, who drained it between them. Setting the cup down, Padraigan stood back and watched.
Conor and Destry were watching, too. The three little men seemed to stand there for a small eternity, looking at each other, inspecting their hands, touching their faces. Then, the first dwarf who had drank the potion suddenly coughed loudly and fell back onto his bum. He groaned and flipped over onto his belly, kicking his legs and mumbling unintelligible words. Concerned and curious, Destry and Conor strained to catch a glimpse of what was going on when the other two little men went down.
Being a nurse, Destry’s first instinct was to help. She stood up from Conor’s lap, trying to get a better look at the writhing men.
“What did she give them?” she demanded, looking at Conor. “Ask her what she gave them.”
Conor said something to Padraigan, who merely turned to smile at him. Destry, increasingly concerned as the three little men rolled around on the dirt floor and grunted, tried to move towards them but Conor stopped her. He had hold of her hand, pulling her back towards him.
“Wait a minute,” he said softly. “I doubt she’s poisoned them right in front of us. Just wait and see what happens.”
She still wasn’t convinced. “But they’re obviously in distress,” she said. “At least let me take a look at them and make sure their vital signs are strong.”
He could see the feet of the little men as they rolled around, the backside of their bodies, but not much else. He finally shook his head. “If something is going on, I don’t want you to get caught up in it,” he said. “You’ve already got a mild concussion and I don’t want to see something worse happen to you. Just… give this a moment to see what happens, okay? If it looks like they’re getting worse, then you can take a look.”
Torn, concerned, Destry did as he asked although she wasn’t completely comfortable with it. She let him pull her back down onto his lap, his big arms winding around her torso again. But as she watched, something strange began to happen.
First, she thought it was a trick of the light. She began to see an odd aura around the men, something that looked slightly purple. She blinked her eyes but it didn’t go away. Then she rubbed at her eyes but it still didn’t go away. As she watched, the first little man pushed himself to his knees. The purple light around him undulated, seemingly transforming him like a hand would transform clay. The man’s body moved strangely, elongating, working with the tricks of the light to transform him into something taller and more slender. By the time the man stood up, he wasn’t anything as he had been. Whatever magic the light accomplished was evident in the younger, taller and skinnier figure. He was no longer writhing or grunting, now completely calm as the purple aura faded. Then he turned around.
The man was no longer a man; he was a boy, perhaps eight or ten years of age, with auburn hair and bright blue eyes. He was a handsome child with beautiful features, his gaze moving immediately to Destry and Conor. His gaze met with two pairs of startled eyes, inquisitive, then joyful. Suddenly, he was bolting across the floor and throwing himself into Destry’s lap.
Destry shrieked when the boy landed in her lap, his arms around her and Conor, his little face pressed into her belly.
“Máthair, athair!” the child cried. “Tá mé caillte agat!”
Destry had her hands full of little boy. “What did he say?” she asked Conor.
Conor, too, was looking with astonishment at the boy on Destry’s lap. “He called us mother and father,” he said. “He said that he has missed us.”
Destry looked at Conor, her eyes wide with bewilderment. “He thinks we’re his…?”
She didn’t get a chance to finish her sentence; suddenly, two more boys were rushing at them, both with light brown hair, about six and four years of age, respectively. They threw themselves on top of the other boy, now all three young lads squirming in Destry’s lap. They were weeping with joy, especially the little one; he was an adorable little boy with light brown hair and sky blue eyes. When he gazed up at Destry, tears running down his face, she felt the overwhelming need to pick him up and hold him. She had no idea who the kid was but that didn’t matter; he was distressed and she wanted to comfort him. The child wrapped himself up around her, holding her tightly, as she looked at Conor.
There were tears in her eyes. “These poor little boys,” she whispered as tears trickled down her face. “They’re so… sad.”
Conor had his lap full with Destry and the other two boys. He, too, felt the instinct to comfort them. It was true that they were distraught but there was also something else deep in his heart that cried out to these children. T
he sensation confused and distressed him as a big hand found its way onto the oldest boy, still weeping in his lap. The child’s head came up and he threw his arms around Conor’s neck, holding the man tightly.
“Athair,” he squeezed Conor’s neck. “You have come home. You have come back!”
Conor hesitantly hugged the boy, not knowing what else to do. He looked at Destry over the top of the auburn head, their eyes meeting and silent words of bewilderment and compassion passing between them. It would seem that neither one of them knew what to do about these children. But Destry seemed a little more edgy, more fearful.
“Those… those midgets were really these children,” she breathed.
Conor lifted his eyebrows reluctantly. “I suppose so,” he muttered. “I just don’t know. There has to be a logical explanation for it.”
“Like what?” she wanted to know, whispering desperately. “You saw them turn into these kids just like I did. What’s logical about that?”
She was growing agitated, even with the four year old child wrapped up around her. Conor simply didn’t have an answer for her. “I don’t know,” he wouldn’t look at her. “But there has to be some kind of explanation.”
Destry’s gaze drifted to the biggest lad, the one with his face pressed into Conor’s neck. She studied the child, the shape of his head, and began to feel the faint wafts of déjà vu clutching at her. The feeling got stronger the more she stared at the child; more than that, the feel of the little one in her arms was vague familiar, as if she had known it once before. It was the sweetest thing she could have imagined. Her gaze found Conor once again.
“Did you see his face?” she whispered. “Conor, he looks just like you.”
Conor hadn’t gotten a good look; now he wasn’t sure he wanted to. So much of this situation was now becoming unbearably real to him and he felt like he was losing his grip on what he believed to be his reality. After a moment, he held the boy back, at arm’s length, and studied his handsome little face. He found himself inspecting bright blue eyes that looked just like Destry’s, and a mouth, nose and jaw line that looked just like his. It was the weirdest thing he had ever seen.
“Cad é do ainm, buachaill?” he asked softly.
What’s your name, boy? The lad looked as if he was about to weep with joy. “Mattock,” he responded. “I love you, Dada. I missed you.”
Conor didn’t know what to say; the little boy was so sad, so pathetic, he couldn’t help but hug the child. He just didn’t know what else to do. He looked over at Destry, who had her face buried in the top of the four–year–old’s head. As he watched, the middle boy cuddled up against her and she opened one of her arms for him, holding him tightly. He had to admit, as he watched the scene, that something inside him felt whole and settled. It was the most overwhelmingly comforting feeling he had ever known, as if now he was suddenly and finally complete.
As he watched Destry with the other two boys, pictures began to flash in his mind, like snippets of a movie reel. He saw himself with his hand on a pregnant belly, with a baby in his arms, and then flashes of more children at his feet. He blinked his eyes, shaking his head, thinking he was having hallucinations, but more visions flashed in front of him, this time of Destry. He had visions of kissing her, of making love to her, and he suddenly felt as if his heart was going to explode from his chest from the love he felt for her. He couldn’t breathe. All he could feel was adoration that went beyond words, beyond time. He couldn’t seem to think or feel anything else.
As Conor struggled through intense visions, Destry was quickly succumbing to something even more intense. The feel and smell of the boys in her arms was doing something to her; somehow, she knew these children. She could feel them deep down in her heart and as she hugged the littlest one, she, too, began to have flashbacks of something fluid and dream–like. She saw Conor in a way she’d never seen him before; dressed in leather, with primitive weapons, and she began to feel such love and affection for the man that she audibly gasped. Then she saw him making love to her and she could feel her limbs grow warm and weak, tasting his kisses and feeling the emotion that he stirred within her.
Flashes of a rounded belly came to her mind, startling her, then finally the last few moments of childbirth as pain surged and she pushed out a male child, who was immediately handed over to a weeping Conor. Tears came to her eyes as she saw these things and felt the powerful emotions they created. But another vision came along, more powerful than the rest, and she was lying on a bed struggling to give birth to another child, pain as she had never experienced surging through her body. It was enough to cause her to release the four year old, setting him down with shaky arms as she stood up, hand to her head as if to forcibly wipe away the visions that were now slamming into her with painful force.
She stood up, hand to her belly, hearing Conor’s voice ringing in her head, calling to her, but unable to discern if he was really speaking to her or if it was the odd hallucinations calling out. The vision of childbirth had not gone away; it was more intense now as she envisioned herself pushing out a dead child, hearing someone say that the daughter was not meant to be.
Grief, the depths of which she could have never imagined, swept her and she began crying aloud. She felt pain such as she had never known and her head began to swim. She tried to turn around, to say something to Conor, but she couldn’t seem to manage it.
Blackness closed in over her before she realized it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Conor sat at the table and watched the boys as they moved around the small, mud hut at Padraigan’s direction. They had brought him a cup of strong, tart wine, some kind of rustic soda bread, and big hunks of white cheese. The two older boys were obedient and intelligent from what he could see but the youngest didn’t want to work. He remained by Destry as the woman lay passed out on a small bed in the next room. The little one hadn’t moved from her side.
Conor had carried Destry into the room when she had fainted. Laying her upon the misshapen bed made from branches covered over with a rough blanket, he could only feel great confusion and great remorse as he gazed at her. Her pulse was strong and her breathing regular, so he could only assume that the stress of the situation must have somehow pushed her beyond her endurance. Coupled with everything else she’d gone through over the past two weeks, unconsciousness was her body’s way of coping with the stress.
So he kissed her forehead and returned to the bigger room when Padraigan insisted there was nothing they could do for the lady that rest would not more ably accomplish. He sat where he could watch Destry and the youngest boy as he sat by her side, holding her hand and speaking to her in his soft Celtic lilt. The more he observed, the stronger the sense of déjà vu he felt. Every time he looked at the three boys, it was as if something deep inside was struggling to burst forth with recollections. He couldn’t quite put his finger on how he knew these children, only that for some reason, he knew he did. And the fact that they looked like him and Destry only fed his sense of confusion and frustration. Something was happening here that he had yet to fully figure out. But, given time, he knew he would. It would come to him.
Padraigan seemed to steer clear of him since her initial tales of his true identity. She sent the boys to gather wood as she went outside and killed a chicken herself. Conor sat in relative silence, watching Destry in one room while inevitably finding interest in Padraigan and her very archaic ways. Her hut was incredibly primitive with no running water, no bathroom that he could see, and its dirt floor and crude furniture. More and more, he was coming to realize that perhaps there was something to what she had told him. Perhaps a door really had opened into the past and he and Destry had really stepped through. He was starting to feel as if there was no other possible explanation for what had happened.
Still, there was a part of his brain, the logical part, that resisted. As the sun began to set and darkness settled over the land, he was starting to feel a new sense of disorientation. To see this primitive land
in the daylight was one thing, but when night settled, it was if someone had thrown a black curtain. He’d never seen such darkness. But taking a few steps outside to gaze up at the stars, he couldn’t ever remember seeing such a clear dusting of stars. In all his years in Dublin, he’d never seen such a crystal night sky. It was quite beautiful.
Standing just outside the door, he could smell something cooking. Padraigan was making something with the chicken she had killed and he could see the boys off in the crude barn tending to the animals for the night. He was coming to suspect that Padraigan must have said something to the boys about him and Destry, because after their initial display of affection, they had kept a distance. All except for the littlest one; he was still inside seated on the floor next to Destry.
Conor turned to catch a glimpse of her as she lay inside on the small bed. She was still on her side, still passed out. The little boy with the light brown hair was also sleeping now, his head on the bed next to Destry while his body remained on the floor. It was rather touching and Conor smiled faintly at the sight. The little one was a cute kid, no doubt. He couldn’t help but warm to the boy.
As he gazed into the warm, fragrant hut, he suddenly realized he had company. He turned to see the two older boys standing next to him, one with a pony on a lead. The boys gazed up at him, timidly.
“Dada,” the oldest boy said. “Would you like to see my horse?”
Conor gazed at the boy. “You’re Mattock, right?” he asked, watching the boy nod. Then he looked to the middle boy. “What’s your name, lad?”
The boy cocked his head as if hurt by the question. “Devlin,” he said. “I’m your Devlin.”
Conor nodded faintly, realizing that the boy looked a great deal like Destry. He had her bright blue eyes and the shape of her mouth. It was such an odd realization but not an unpleasant one. He had seen the transformation this afternoon just as Destry did, when the dwarves had somehow turned into these young boys. That event, more than anything else, was breaking down his resistance. Something like that just couldn’t be explained, even to a man as logical as he was. The longer he looked at the boys, the more he realized that they looked vaguely familiar to him. He felt something for them, kindness and warmth and something else he couldn’t put his finger on. He realized that the ideas of these boys as his sons didn’t distress him in the least.
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