Everything about my life just seemed to be on hold. I didn’t want to have anything at all to do with my old life and there was no way for me to know for sure that Kieran was even going to return in spring. After all, I only received the one package and letter since he left me last summer. No other letters...No calls...
My depression swallowed me. I didn’t even turn on the lights in the house anymore. When it got dark, I just went to bed. It didn’t matter if I was tired or not.
Actually, sleep became an escape of sorts. My sleep was filled with dreams of Kieran and me walking hand-in-hand through a beautiful emerald green forest.
Looking down, I could see the moss covered path and the old-fashioned long dress swirling around my legs. Everything seemed to shimmer as if covered in glittering dust. It was...Magic.
Kieran pulled me to him and brought his lips down on mine. I clung to him even as he moved his kisses down to my throat. Through my half closed eyes, I could see the world around us spinning and spinning.
I wanted to ask Kieran what was happening, but my words made no sound. I wasn’t afraid though, not while Kieran held me against his chest.
Whatever worries I had disappeared as Kieran eased me down onto the soft grass next to the path. Our clothes melted away as they can only do in dreams and then it was just the two of us skin to skin as the world spun around us continued to spin.
None of it mattered. I cared about nothing other than the feel of his hands on my body and the taste of his lips on mine. I wanted only to pull him closer to me, through me even, until there was nothing between us.
Kieran...Kieran...
After we made love, I lay with my head on Kieran’s chest, listening to the sound of his breathing as if hypnotized. I just lay there and watch the blur of the motion.
Suddenly the spinning stopped. It was so abrupt that it startled me. I sat up and looked down at Kieran sleeping.
When I looked up again, all I saw was ruin. The forest that we were in was nothing more than a scattering of smoldering trees and stumps. A few yards away, stood the blackened ruins of a church.
Where did that come from?
My normal clothes appeared back on my body as I stepped toward the church. I could just make out the charred cross on top of the steeple. In the rubble stood an old man, staring at the mess and shaking his head sadly.
In that strange soundless dream speak, I asked him what happened as I touched his shoulder.
The man turned and oh – I recognize those blue eyes! I had seen those eyes looking at me in the snow begging me to understand. That old man was Alec!
I screamed a silent scream and turned to run back to Kieran, but now everything was different. The entire forest was burned, without a single trace of the lush green grass where my lover should be sleeping.
Panic swept over me. Where was Kieran? How was it possible that he just disappeared?
Up ahead there was a single tree that still had most of its branches as opposed to just being a naked trunk. I ran across the scorched ground and scrambled up the soot covered tree thinking I could get a better view and find Kieran.
Kieran...Kieran will make sense of all this...
I made it to the top, covering myself with black ash. I looked out over the bleak landscape and I could just make out Kieran near the edge of the ever-expanding forest. He was sitting up and looking around as if he was searching for me.
“Kieran!” I shouted, but my words died in the air not far from my face.
Why couldn’t he see me?
The forest continued to grow and multiply, separating us more and more. Determined to get his attention, I shouted again and waved.
One minute I was clutching the tree and the next I was falling through the air. I felt my necklace moving and tightening around my neck, but then it became a noose and I was hanging.
I called it my neck, but it was so hard to bury and the rope was so tight.
I don’t want to die... I don’t want to die...
There was a loud knock. It vibrated up the tree and down the rope. I struggled looked down and there was Alec, now young again, chopping at the tree with a crystal axe.
Knock.
Knock.
I struggled against the rope, trying to breathe. I looked down at Alec, silently pleading with him to hurry, to save me before it was too late.
Knock.
Knock.
My eyes opened and I was safe in my bed and the knock was at the front door. I looked at the clock; it was just past two in the morning.
Seriously?
“Who is it?” I shouted as I stumbled down the stairs in the dark even though I already had a pretty good idea it would be.
“It’s me,” Alec whispered against the door.
“Go away!”
“Harmony please! I shouldn’t even be here”
“Go away!” I shouted again and sat down on the bottom step, “We have nothing to say to each other.”
“I’m not leaving,” Alec said softly, again speaking right up against the door.
Frustrated, I pulled myself up from the stairs and opened the door. I glared through the darkness at him, “What?”
Alec stood on the porch in the darkness, looking over his shoulder.
“I need to talk to you,” he said.
I shook my head, “Just go home –“
He held his arms wide, “You were right.”
“About what?” I snapped, ready to go back to bed.
Alec stepped a little closer to me so we stood in the dim light shining through the living room from the kitchen. He looked down at me with pleading eyes, “I picked the wrong side.”
I opened the door wider, “Seriously?”
“Yeah,” he said with another glance over his shoulder. “That’s why had to come.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked with a yawn. “And why should I believe anything that you say?”
Alec flinched, “Would I be here otherwise?”
“Maybe you’re setting me up.”
“If I was,” he said. “I wouldn’t do it at two in the morning.”
I hated to admit it, but that made sense. “So what was so urgent?”
“The Mileans are going to attack the Tuatha De Danann.”
I yawned again, “Isn’t that what they do? Isn’t that your sworn duty or something?”
“This is different,” Alec said with a shake of his head. “This time they want to exterminate them.”
Fear pushed the air out of my lungs. Kieran was in danger and I had no way to warn him. The world began to spin, just like in my dream.
Kieran...Kieran...
“But no one knows where to find them,” I said weakly, trying to convince myself that there was no real threat. “I don’t even know where they are.”
Alec glanced over his shoulder again and then leaned in close.
“The Mileans do know,” he whispered.
“Where?” I asked, barely able to form the word.
Alec looked at me and sighed, “Ireland.”
Chapter 15
Alec took both of our winter coats and stuffed them into the overhead compartment on the plane and then sat down next to me.
I rubbed my sweaty palms over the tops of my thighs. I stared straight ahead, trying not to show how nervous I felt. It seemed so easy at first. I’d just go to Ireland and warn Kieran and his family, but then there were passports and plane rides over the open ocean. Could I really do this?
“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Alec offered as he buckled his seatbelt.
I shook my head and then as if that was the cue, the plane began to taxi down the runway. As I gripped my arm rests and squeezed my eyes shut, the plane took off.
I can do this...I can do this...
Once we were in the air, Alec patted my hand. “You can open your eyes now.”
I opened my eyes and turned to the window. Seeing the white clouds and the ground so far below, I sat back in my seat and closed my e
yes again.
“Come on, talk to me,” Alec suggested. “It will keep your mind off of the flight.”
“Okay,” I said as I took a deep breath and tried to slow my racing heart. “How did the Mileans figure out where the Tuatha De Danann would be?”
Alec shrugged, “Every one hundred years or so they turn up at the Imbolc festival in Ireland.”
“So how did they know they will be there this year?”
“I don’t know,” Alec mumbled. “They said something about the moon and the planets lining up. To be honest, I didn’t understand most of what they were talking about and I stopped listening once I started talking about killing people.”
“Is that why you didn’t join them?”
“That was a big part of it,” he said. “And grandpa said he didn’t want to lose anyone else to the old wars that are impossible to win, and I didn’t want to join any side that pitted me against you.”
He looked at me then, intense-like, as if he was gaging my every reaction. Why did he stare at me like that?
“What is this Imbolc festival?” I asked trying to draw his attention away from my face.
Alec smiled as if he knew I was purposely trying to change the subject.
“Well,” he said. “I guess the easiest way to explain it is that it’s the festival that marks the beginning of spring.”
“But it’s not spring yet,” I argued as turbulence shook the plane. I bit my lip and waited for it to pass. Once the ride smoothed out, I repeated myself. “It’s not spring yet.”
Alec laughed at my reaction, “It’s sort of like a halfway point. So the festival is held on the thirty-first and February first all over Ireland.”
I tightened my seat belt, “If this goes on all over Ireland how will we know where to go?”
“The O’Learys said they’d be found at the Hill of Tara by Lia fail.”
“The what?”
“The stone of destiny,” he said with a smirk.
“Seriously?”
Alec nodded, “You can’t make this crap up.”
I tried to breathe easier as the flight smoothed out, focusing all of my attention again to our purpose. All of it just sounded to fantastical to be real, but I already knew that reality could be very deceiving. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the brush of the butterfly wings and Kieran’s musical voice.
Magic...
Alec fell asleep somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Without him to talk to, I was left to my own troubling thoughts.
What if we found them, but Kieran didn’t believe me? What if we were too late?
Hurry...Hurry...
I tapped my fingers on the armrest and looked out the window. I had no idea how fast the plane was going, but I wished it would go faster.
I didn’t sleep at all that night. It was just past dawn when the coast of Ireland came into sight. Seeing the dark cliffs and the crashing grey waves, my heart skipped a beat. It was just like in my dream!
“Alec, wake up!” I demanded as I shook his shoulder, “What are those cliffs?”
He leaned over and stared bleary eyed out the window, “Um...Um...The Cliffs of Moher I think. Why?”
“No reason,” I mumbled as I looked at the scene of my nightmare.
Alec rubbed his eyes and smiled, “Are those the cliffs you were talking about from your dream? Is that what I pushed you off of?”
I nodded, not bothering to look at him.
“Creepy,” he said with a shudder.
“Yeah,” I said. “You know, it won’t be that easy for us to find them.”
“What do you mean?”
“The travellers,” I reminded him. “They’ll hide the Tuatha De Danann.”
Alec nodded, “That could be, but you best hope that we get there before the Mileans.”
* * * *
The light of the campfire pushed at the cold, wet, darkness. Still, I shivered inside my damp clothes.
Alec threw another branch on the fire and then sat down next to me. He rubbed his hands over my arms and shoulders, trying his best to warm me.
“Stretch your feet out towards the fire,” he suggested as he took my hands in his and exhaled his hot breath over them.
“I had no idea it would be this cold,” I stuttered as my teeth clicked together.
He turned and crawled into the open tent, pulling out one of the thick down sleeping bags. He unzipped it and wrapped it around my shoulders.
“See if this helps,” he said.
“Thank you,” I mumbled and moved closer to the fire. I could already feel the smoky warmth spreading over me.
Alec stared into the fire, poking at it now and then with a long stick.
“I know the cold sucks,” he said. “But hopefully it’s so cold whoever owns this property won’t come out and run us off.”
“Do you think they would really do that?”
“How do I know?” He said with a shrug, “We’re about a mile from the Hill of Tara; it was too dark when we stopped to really see anything. For all I know, we could be camping in someone’s back yard.”
I looked out into the darkness, straining to see anything. “We’re only a mile away?”
“According to the GPS on my phone we are.”
“Shouldn’t we be able to see or hear something of we’re that close?”
Alec poked at the fire and frowned, “Maybe your gypsy friends are just lying low.”
“It seems strange to think that Kieran could just be a mile away.”
Alec tossed his stick into the fire, sending orange sparks up into the air.
“Look,” he huffed and glared into the flames. “I’m trying real hard to do the right thing here. I’ve betrayed my family and my heritage for you, so can you try not to rub my face in it?”
I shrank away from him, embarrassed and ashamed.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s just—“
“I don’t want you to explain anything,” he snapped. “I just want to ask you one question.”
My stomach fluttered and my throat grew tight, not sure I even wanted to know his question.
“What is it?” I forced myself to ask.
Alec turned the full force of his gaze on me, his eyes glittering in the light of the fire.
“Why not me?” He asked.
“What?”
“You heard me,” he said. “Why not me?”
I looked away, thankful that the shadows would hide my expression.
“I don’t understand,” I lied.
Alec turned back to the fire, “I just want to know, why him? Why not me?”
“Alec, I—“
“I was there,” he interrupted. “Day after day, I kept thinking you’d look at me, that you’d really look at me, but you never did.”
“Alec...”
“Just be honest,” he said. “Why not me?”
How could I explain it to him? How could I describe that overpowering wave that was falling in love to someone that hadn’t experienced it?
One look at him though and I knew...Alec had experienced that feeling.
“Alec,” I began, too ashamed to meet his eyes. “What do you want me to say? For whatever reason, it was Kieran and I can’t change that.”
He flinched as if I had slapped him and glared into the fire.
“I know,” he said with a bitter smile. “I guess I just had to hear it for myself.”
I hated myself for hurting him, “If you want to leave, I’ll understand. You’ve already done so much to help me.”
“And what am I going to do?” He snapped, “Walk all the way back to Dublin in the dark?”
“I didn’t mean—“
“I promised to get you to Tara safely and that’s what I’m going to do.”
I looked down at my hands, knowing that I didn’t deserve his friendship or his company. It would serve me right if her would leave me here and catch the first flight back to America.
“Why are you still willing to help me?” I aske
d.
Alec tossed another branch onto the fire, “Because that is what you do when you love someone. You do things that make them happy, even if it breaks your heart.”
“Alec...”
“That’s something that your gypsy needs to learn,” he said.
Before I had the change to say anything else, he turned and crawled into the tent.
Chapter 16
The next morning we made out final trek to the Hill of Tara. The damp fog was cold, making me shiver as I stomped down the road on numb and near frozen feet.
I struggled along, my clothes wrinkled from sleeping in them and my hair tangling in the blowing wind. I kept thinking about finding Kieran and then going someplace where I could take a hot bath and sleep in a soft bed.
I wanted to whine about how cold and tired I was, but how could I when Alec went along without a word. All that I could do was adjust the heavy backpack on my shoulders and match his steady pace.
“So, what’s the deal with this Tara place?” I asked, trying to do anything to keep my mind off how miserable I was.
Alec glanced back and moved further off the road as a car passed, “Well, Tara is where the high kings of Ireland once lived and I’ll give you one guess who that tribe was...”
“The Tuatha De Danann?”
“Yep,” he said as he moved back onto the road. “Your friends the Tuatha De Danann. They brought the stone of destiny and ruled until my ancestors came along.”
I shifted my backpack again, “So when did you become such a walking encyclopedia?”
“Twice I’ve been asked to help stop the Tuatha De Danann,” he said. “I guess I just picked a few things up.”
I wanted to ask him more, but he squared his shoulders and walked a little faster, making it clear that the conversation was over.
As we got closer, the crowd grew from just a few people now and then to large groups moving about the snowy pasture that was Tara. We passed beautiful young girls in white dresses with long flowing hair, somehow not freezing in the frigid temperatures and groups gathered here and there doing some sort of weaving with green stocks.
“What are they doing?” I asked.
Far Away (Gypsy Fairy Tale Book Two) Page 6
