Twig of Thorn (The Blackthorn Cycle Book 1)

by L. M. Hawke

  “Nessa passed away two days ago,” Angus went on, “and Una has come to take over her cottage.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Ailill said. His eyes—his whole luminous, cat-like face—seemed to deepen with sympathy. “I met Nessa several times over the years. A good woman. She’ll be missed.”

  “Thank you,” Una said softly, thinking it better not to try to explain her complicated relationship—or non-relationship—with her grandmother.

  “Nessa’s old house is a nice one, though,” Ailill said, brightening. “You’re a lucky lass. What I wouldn’t give for a place like that, all tucked into the hillside and quiet as the Sabbath.”

  “Actually,” Una said with a shaky laugh, “I want to sell it. Maybe you’d like to buy it.”

  She was half-joking—what were the odds that she would run into a buyer as quickly or easily as that?—but Ailill leaned toward her, keen interest shining through the blue depths of his stare. “I just might do that,” he said.

  “R… really?” Una stammered.

  Ailill’s answering smile was slow as poured honey. It sent a thrill racing up Una’s spine. “But only if you’ll also be there.”

  She didn’t know how to answer that. She lifted her beer and drained the last of it.

  “I’m sorry,” Ailill said at once. “I’ve been too forward. None of us should scare off a newcomer by being too friendly.”

  “I… I should get back to the cottage,” Una said to Kathleen. “It has been a long day.”

  Ailill stood as Una did, holding back her chair for her as she gathered up her purse and jacket. “Do you mind if I walk along with the four of you, just part of the way? I’m staying at the Millers’ place, and it’s most of the way to Nessa’s old place.”

  Angus and Kathleen both looked to Una for her approval. She nodded eagerly enough. She wasn’t ready to part ways with Ailill just yet, even if he did make her as jumpy as a cat in a shower.

  “Good, then,” he said, and drank down the last of his whiskey. “Let me get my guitar and pick up my pay, and we’ll be on our way.”

  4

  “I think Ailill’s got the glad eye for you,” Kathleen said.

  Una gave her friend a weak, bewildered smile. She didn’t know how to respond. Kathleen and Angus had accompanied her all the way back to the cottage, where Mr. O’Malley’s bike still waited for them. Ailill had gone with them nearly as far as that, talking quietly about the inconsequential news of the village—mostly to Angus, who was unflustered by this presence. But Ailill had slowed his pace to remain at Una’s side, and often gave her lingering, thoughtful looks whenever Angus and Kathleen took the conversation off in their own direction.

  They had parted ways with Ailill at the crossroads, down at the foot of the hill. He had turned to Una with a dip of his head and said, “We’ll be seeing each other again, I’m sure,” before sauntering easily down the other road. It wound into a dark patch of woodland; Ailill was soon out of sight, vanishing into the night shadows, but Una felt as if she could still feel his presence beside her as they climbed the hill toward home.

  In fact, she could feel him still as she leaned against the stone wall that surrounded her grandmother’s cottage—her cottage—and smiled helplessly at Kathleen. She could smell him, too… that lingering scent of ferns and cool night breeze.

  “You will go out with him again, won’t you?” Kathleen prodded.

  Una found her voice at last. “What’s this—again? We never went out in the first place. He only sat with us at the pub.”

  “But he wants to see you again! You heard what he said.” Kathleen sounded as if she were on the verge of squealing like a girl at a sleepover party. Angus shook his head with a tolerant air.

  “He is very nice,” Una admitted.

  “And sexy.”

  Una laughed. “Yes, he is. I can’t deny that. But did you feel there was something… I don’t know… sad about him?”

  She had noticed it on the walk out from Kylebeg: a heavy feeling of melancholy that seemed to hang all around Ailill. She could all but feel it when she walked close beside her—a force that emanated from him, like heat rising from flesh, detectable at close range even without touching. Ailill’s startling and undeniable attractiveness combined with that mysterious aura of sadness, making him seem a bit creepy… but still powerfully compelling.

  “He’s only moody,” Angus said, “like all artsy types.”

  It was well past midnight, and the long, strange day had caught up to Una with a vengeance. She tried to hide a yawn behind her hand, but Kathleen and Angus took note.

  “Time we were getting home,” Kathleen said. “I hope you had a good time, Una.”

  “Oh, I did—lovely. Thank you both so much. It was just what I needed.”

  “Do you have all you need to see you through the night?”

  “Yeah; no worries. I guess I’ll go in to market tomorrow, though, just to see what it’s like.”

  “Then we’ll see you later.” Kathleen gave Una a quick, spontaneous hug, dropping a kiss on her cheek. A moment later she was climbing into the sidecar while Angus started up the bike’s engine.

  Una waved as they drove away. She was very tired—she could feel a shakiness in her bones that meant she was on the verge of making herself sick if she stayed up any later—but the night had embraced her. It didn’t seem to want to let go. She stood beside the garden wall, listening with her eyes closed as the bike’s engine faded in the distance. When it was gone, only the sigh of wind could be heard… a whisper moving through the garden.

  Una opened her eyes. Moon and stars together shone down on the hillside, silvering the world, picking out each blade of grass and every folded blossom as they stirred restlessly in the breeze. She thought if she looked long enough, she could see the paths of the stars as they wheeled slowly overhead. There were thousands of stars—millions—clustered and streaked through the sky, glittering so brightly she imagined she could all but hear them, a faint, tinkling, crystalline chime.

  I never saw so many stars in Dublin. I never knew the night could be so beautiful.

  Una had no awareness of motion, no idea that she had begun to walk until she nearly tripped over a rough spot in the road. She gasped and then muttered a curse under her breath, then turned and looked back at the cottage. It lay perhaps twenty yards behind her now, up the hill, nestled down in its hollow so only the tops of its two brick chimneys were visible over the garden wall. Dazed and uneasy, Una stared down toward the foot of the hill—the direction in which she’d been walking, lured by the enchantment of starlight.

  There at the bottom of the hill stood the crossroads. The place where she had parted ways with Ailill. From her vantage on the hillside, Una could see how the trees and thickets were clustered thickly there, where the two roads intersected. A band of wood followed one leg of the road—the one Ailill had taken—off toward another hill, but it was not as dense as the crossroad trees. No other place that Una could see had attracted such lush growth; it was as if the plants had chosen to grow there, had made a conscious decision in the matter. She could picture faceless trees and shrubs, slinking ferns and mosses, tearing up their own roots from less suitable locations and walking, spindle-legged and trailing clods of earth, over the fields to the crossroads, to settle back down again in the silvery light. The image made her shiver.

  Una walked on a few more paces before she realized that she was moving again. She forced herself to stop. The crossroads pulled at her, calling to her with a voice she could feel but could not hear.

  “Strange,” she muttered. Goose flesh rose along her arms.

  Then, with a sudden burst of stubborn courage, Una marched down the remainder of the hill, heading straight for the crossroads and quite of her own choice—just to prove to herself that there was nothing strange going on after all, that she was only tired out and behaving oddly because she needed a good, long sleep.

  The road leveled out. Dark trunks rose all aroun
d her, and arcs of branches stretched overhead, blocking most of the starlight. Una turned in a slow circle at the point where the roads met, staring into the cool depths of the trees. It was a peaceful place, quiet and serene. She sensed no danger there, nor anything unusual.

  You see, she told herself. You’re only tired. Now get back up the hill and go to bed. It’s long past time.

  Just as Una turned to haul her tired bones back up the hill, a flash of purest white caught her eye from among the tangle of branches. It was small and isolated, hanging at about the level of her eyes. She paused, then stepped a little closer to examine it.

  It was a cluster of flowers, blooming at the end of a slender, bare twig. The flowers caught what little light filtered down through the trees and amplified it, so that they nearly seemed to glow among the dark of the wood.

  Blackthorn, Una thought… but she didn’t know why she thought it.

  And then, with a shudder of sweetly sorrowful pain, she did remember. A long-forgotten memory flooded into her mind. She was very small—four or five—looking up at her grandmother as Nessa lowered one flower and leaf after another down in her graceful but age-worn hands, where little Una could see it. Nessa gave the name of each plant. Primrose. Ash. Oak leaf. Haw. Bluebell. Blackthorn. Ivy.

  Impulsively, wanting to cling to the memory, Una reached up and snapped the flowering twig from its tree. The moment it came away, the wind increased, rustling the branches above the crossroads and lifting the odors of fresh sap and mushrooms from deep within the thicket. Una flinched, for mingled with the wind she thought she could hear voices. Her gran’s voice from long ago, and Kathleen’s laugh, and Ailill singing in perfect harmony with the wind’s murmur.

  But she could hear other voices, too. Soft as silk, slipping across her consciousness, the voices seemed to be calling out… calling to her… though Una couldn’t make out their words.

  With a sudden tingle of fear, she realized she didn’t want to make out their words. That if she did understand what the voices said, she might never be able to stop listening.

  Una staggered backward, moving away from the crossroads as quickly as she could go, but never daring to take her eyes off the thicket. When she was clear of the branches and the stars shone openly overhead once more, she turned and hurried up the hill toward home. An eerily compelling force seemed to run at her heels, compelling her—commanding her—to turn back and look at the crossroads. But Una refused.

  “Long past time I was in bed,” she babbled to herself.

  By the time she reached her cottage, her breath was short and her heart pounding. She flung herself through the front door and slammed it behind, shutting the wind and whatever force had pursued her outside. Una flicked on a light and leaned against the door, squeezing her eyes shut, talking herself out of her panic and into a more rational state.

  “Just your imagination,” she said. “Just tiredness. Just a long, long day.”

  When she was composed, Una straightened and looked down at her hand. She had not dropped the twig of blackthorn; it was still pinched tightly between thumb and forefinger. The innocent white flowers seemed to stare back at her, but she could detect nothing threatening in them. She lifted the flowers to a small shelf beside her front door and forced her fingers to unclench. The twig dropped softly onto the shelf and lay unmoving. Una turned her back on it deliberately and climbed the stairs to her bed.

  5

  It had taken at least an hour for Una to get over her squeamish feelings of going to sleep in the bed where her gran had died. She’d sat up, propped against a pile of down pillows with the quilts pulled up nearly to her chin, reading a book on the glowing screen of her phone to distract herself from where she was and what she had experienced down at the crossroads. Finally, exhaustion had overtaken her, and she’d fallen into a fitful sleep, plagued by strange, wispy dreams of night breezes and blowing leaves, of soft, half-heard voices and hands beckoning to her from a black stand of trees. As a result, she slept late—if that tossing and turning could be called sleep—and woke feeling groggy and ill.

  She dressed from her duffel bag and dragged herself down to the kitchen. It was almost noon, and Una was ravenous. She raided the pantry and managed to put together a decent lunch—cheese sandwich, an array of pickled veggies from Nessa’s cache of jars—and reminded herself that she must visit the market soon. The loaf of bread was almost gone, and a girl couldn’t live on jams and pickles alone.

  The cottage by day, inside and out, was a far less spooky place than it had been by night. The afternoon sun came cheerily through the kitchen window, glowing amid the folds of the old-fashioned eyelet curtains. Even with the window closed, Una could hear birds singing outside, filling the garden with a merry chorus. She slid the window open to let in both birdsong and breeze, reveling in the sweet perfumes of rose, lily, and the pink spikes of stock flowers. The pleasant day and the lazy, sun-warmed garden soothed away some of Una’s lingering fears. But she couldn’t quite forget the strange things she’d experienced at the crossroads the previous night.

  What to do today? Una wondered as she finished up her sandwich and licked the last traces of pickle juice from her fingers. The market needed exploring—and if she wished to visit it, she must leave home soon—but she had no baskets or bags to carry her purchases home in. Her duffel was still full of her clothes, and she would have nowhere to unpack her things until she could sort through Gran’s closets and clear out whatever she didn’t need.

  I might find Kathleen or Angus, and see if they can help me carry home my things from the market… But how could she get hold of either one of her new friends? They hadn’t thought to exchange phone numbers at the Beltane fires last night.

  “Hello, hello,” a deep, melodious voice called from out in the garden.

  Una leaped up from her chair in sudden agitation, for she recognized that voice at once. It was Ailill. What’s he doing here? she wondered, miffed because she’d only recently woken from a bad sleep and had no time to make herself look presentable. But there was nothing for it; she went to greet him at the door.

  Ailill by daylight was, if anything, even more attractive than Ailill by night. His eyes were the same intense blue as the clear springtime sky; the glow of mid-day light deepened their color, so that they almost seemed a source of light themselves. He walked casually down the garden path until he nearly stood in the doorway, and smiled at Una with an easy, casual air, content to let her speak first.

  “Well,” Una managed, “this is a surprise.”

  Ailill chuckled softly. “Not an unpleasant one, I hope. I had some free time today, and I reckoned you would, too, so I came to see it.”

  Una blinked up at him in confusion. “See it?”

  “The cottage,” Ailill said, gesturing around him at the lush property—the day moths batting their wings lazily above a patch of yellow flowers, the sparrows hopping at ease along the path. “Unless,” Ailill went on, “you weren’t really serious about selling it.”

  “Oh,” Una said, with a little shake of her head to bring herself out of her daze. “Of course. I am serious about selling it. Come in, please.”

  Una led Ailill from one small room to the next, pointing out the few features the cottage could boast of. Small as the place was, the grand tour didn’t take long—and was all the shorter because Ailill asked no questions. He only leaned casually against the door frame in each new room, arms folded across his chest, watching Una with a crooked smile.

  Incredulously, Una realized that Kathleen had been right: Ailill had developed a liking for her. It seemed impossible that a man with Ailill’s otherworldly beauty—to say nothing of his miraculous musical talents—would find any cause for interest in an unremarkable woman like Una. But as they talked and lingered in the cottage and garden, Una couldn’t deny what she saw. Ailill was certainly acting like a man whose interest had been piqued—making and holding eye contact (which caused an odd quivery feeling in her stomach), laughing smoothly
at all her jokes, no matter how pathetic they were, reaching out now and then as they walked through the garden to gently brush her arm or her back as he gently ushered her ahead of him down a narrow path.

  Una was cautious by nature, and normally would have felt ill-at-ease. It wasn’t her way, to be alone with a man she hardly knew, no matter how good-looking he was. But she could find no cause to feel threatened by Ailill. His confidence was easy to see in his upright posture and direct, piercing gaze… but he had no hint of entitlement or force to go along with that confident demeanor. He made no attempt to hide his attraction to Una—the somewhat hungry keenness in his gaze spoke of it clearly enough—but he never overstepped any boundary, never pushed himself toward her or invaded her space.

  Eventually, talk turned away from the cottage—after all, what could one say about three tiny rooms in an ancient stone house?—and turned toward Una an Ailill themselves. They sat in the garden, enjoying the sun and the sleepy drone of bees, and chatted like old friends while the afternoon wore on.

  Una told him about her life in Dublin, the friends she’d left behind—not close friends, to be sure, but missed all the same. She told him of her studies and why she’d abandoned them, of her unexpected move to Kylebeg, and of her disconnected family, all gone now that Nessa Teig had died.

  Ailill spoke of his friends, the adventures he’d had on his recent tour. He told her of his music-writing, how he found his best inspiration in the lonesome landscapes and mysterious, mist-draped dreamscapes of the wide, open countryside. But it seemed the longer he spoke of his music, the sadder he became. The air of melancholy Una had noted the night before had returned in full force to Ailill. After a time, his eyes grew distant, his expression haunted, and his words trailed off to nothing.

  Una realized it was time for a change of subject, before Ailill began to associate her with negative feelings. Suppressing a shy smile, she thought she would like it if the dark, gorgeous singer only had reason to enjoy her company, not to dread it.