by Lila Dubois
Unlike downstairs, the hall didn’t end in a stone wall, but rather in more of the same beige paint. The light from the sconces between each door seemed dimmer, making the paint a sickly yellow at the windowless end of the hall.
Tim took a step, then another, wondering what the hell he was doing. The hair on his arms was standing on end, he was breathing fast and his hands were fisted and ready—for what, he didn’t know.
Either his system had gone completely haywire or there was a something up here that he could feel but not name.
Tim had grown up on a steady diet of folk music, the kind of songs that made a boy believe in love that transcended death. He’d grown into a man who sang about the cynic-less longings and hopes that people like to pretend they didn’t feel or believe.
He would never deny a feeling, even if he couldn’t name it. Even if it frightened him.
Tim crept forward, pausing between each step to take a breath.
This level had only five rooms, the hall about half the length of the one on the lower floor. The hall ended in a smooth wall, with no apparent access to what Tim guessed was about fifty percent of the second floor. He checked the castle map. There was nothing on this section—half the second floor of the west wing was simply blank. There was no room name or numbers, no explanation.
Tim stopped in front of the wall, staring at the expanse of beige paint. The closer he looked, the more certain he became that there was a darker patch visible in the paint—a large rectangular patch. A door.
It was cold, so cold that for a moment Tim was sure he could see his breath.
He raised his hand, fingers reaching for the darker patch on the wall.
“Tim? Mr. Wilcox?” A lilting voice called his name, the voice seeming to echo, as if the speaker had shouted through a pipe.
Tim pulled his hand back, curling it into a fist. His heart was beating so hard he could taste his heartbeat. The cold was seeping up the legs of his pants and down his collar.
This was bad. He needed to leave.
No longer feeling like the open-minded explorer, Tim turned and ran. He braced his hands on the banisters and took the first set of stairs in one leap. He nearly crashed into Sorcha, who stood on the landing.
“Mr. Wilcox.” Sorcha’s eyes widened. She touched the back of one finger to his cheek, quickly pulling her hand away. “You’re freezing.”
“There’s something going on up there, you need to go up there and—” Tim’s words tumbled out.
“Mr. Wilcox, we don’t use the second floor of the west wing.”
Tim blinked. Was she not hearing him? “There’s something up there, it’s cold, really cold at the end of the hall, and I think maybe you walled over the door. I could see, like, an outline in the paint.”
“You could see it?”
“You know about it?”
“I should have warned you. No one goes up there.”
“You know what it is? Is it haunted? Was that a ghost?” Tim was secretly thrilled with the idea of a ghost encounter, but that had felt almost…dangerous.
“There’s no such thing as ghosts. That’s a terrible thing to think, souls wandering lost.” Sorcha took his arm, drawing him down the second set of steps.
“Fine, it’s not a ghost. It’s something. Do you know what it is?”
“It’s an old building, there are places you’ll find that are—”
“No, there’s a door behind that wall. I think you accidentally walled it up when you remodeled or something. There’s something back there.”
They were standing at the head of the hallway on the lower floor. Tim glanced down it, expecting a twinge, but there was nothing. It was only the second floor. Sorcha too looked over her shoulder, then drew him out into the covered hallway.
“Mr. Wilcox, I’ll ask you not to alarm the other guests.”
“Then tell me what it was I just had a run in with.”
Sorcha shook her head. With a backdrop of sheeting rain through the windows, her red hair catching the hall lights, she looked like a sorceress, a keeper of secrets.
“I don’t know what, and if you want answers so specific, you’ll be disappointed. As for the door…” She turned to look out, into the rain. “When you cannot open a door for fear of what’s on the other side, you wall it up.”
Tim whistled between his teeth. It was nice to know he wasn’t losing his mind—there was a door outline in the paint. Being told that there was something so crazy up there that they’d walled in the door rather than deal with it blew his mind.
“You just…walled it up?” Tim rubbed his hand on the back of his head. His mind was going a million miles a minute. She must have been lying when she said she didn’t know what it was. People didn’t wall up access to half a floor of a castle because they suspected there might be something bad. They must know it was bad, therefore they had to know what it was.
“I did nothing.”
“What’s back there? You must know, otherwise you wouldn’t have walled it up.”
“You act like I did this, but I did not. Nor did anyone here, or even the O’Muircheartaigh family. That door was sealed shut with brick and mortar over one hundred years ago.”
Tim rocked back on his heels, eyes widening.
“So what you felt,” Sorcha continued, “must have been a draft, coming through a crack. That room, that whole part of the building, is not in the best shape. Your friend Paddy is looking for you, hoping you’ll join him in the pub for dinner.”
Tim looked over his shoulder, through the windows at the massive west wing, then let Sorcha lead him away.
Chapter Three
In the Rain
Caera dropped into a chair at a table in the middle of the pub. As much as she’d like to take one of the two snugs or a table by the window, the policy was to leave the best seats for customers, so the staff who sought their dinner in the wood-paneled pub took the center tables. She waved to some of the regulars, including a group of old men from Cailtytown who’d taken up residence at the table closest to the little stage, which was stacked with wood barrels since there were no acts billed for tonight. But it looked like there’d be music anyway. The “boys”, as they called themselves, though none was a day under sixty, all had their instruments and were always happy for a music session.
The pub was larger than a normal country pub, taking up almost the entire ground floor of the east wing, with two bars to keep the drinks flowing when it was full. But the seating arrangements and high walls of the snugs, which she sometimes heard Americans call “secret rooms”, broke up the space and kept the atmosphere intimate. A few die-hard smokers were on the patio out the back doors, puffing away in the rain. It smelled like cooked spuds, good beer and earth, the last scent having been trailed in by a few bachelor farmers who even in their clean clothes smelled of the land. The butcher’s son John was at the bar with Séan Donnovan, who never looked entirely comfortable in the pub.
Rory dropped down in a chair next to her. “I’m starving-like.”
“You worked hard, and I thank you,” Caera said. Finn’s Stable was set up, with each chair perfectly positioned and the stage ready and waiting for the musicians. “Let me buy you dinner.”
“Ah Caera, my darling love, I thought you’d never ask.” Rory pressed his hands to his heart and fluttered his lashes at her.
“Jaysus.” Caera pushed up. Weaving between the tables, she made her way to the bar—the crowd was large but not fast-drinking, so only one bar was manned—and flipped up the pass through. She waved at the bartender as she walked into the stock room. Locked cages protected bottles of alcohol, while the kegs were lined in neat rows, hoses disappearing into the wall.
Against the back wall, a spiral staircase led down to an underground hallway that connected the kitchen and the pub. Building it had come at huge expense, but Mr. O’Muircheataigh wouldn’t allow any other external buildings or halls besides the kitchen itself. The hall was hard on the servers, as were the stair
s, but hauling food through the rain or the long way through the restaurant and covered hall would have been worse. The rumor among the staff was that Mr. O’Muircheataigh and Elizabeth had fought bitterly over the building of the kitchen.
Caera, for one, was glad. With no proper kitchen of her own, she ate from the castle’s kitchen most nights, and its modern set-up had lured a wonderful French chef to Glenncailty. She said hello to one of the servers in the hall, turning sideways to make room for the tray of fish and chips, stew, burgers and brown bread he carried.
Climbing the stairs into the kitchen, she used the terminal there to key in her usual order of soup and bread and Rory’s of steak and chips, then wandered over to wait for it. She leaned on the end of one of the counters, doing her best to stay out of the way as Jim, one of the chefs, worked.
“I’ve never cut so many chips,” Jim said. He was the chef de partie of the fry baskets, or friturier, as the French chef de cuisine, Tristan, insisted Jim be called. It seemed like a fancy name for a man frying chips, but Caera had to admit these chips were better than most, so maybe the French titles helped. The whole kitchen glistened, not only with clean steel, but with the expectations and rigidity of Tristan. Caera usually hid if she saw him.
“You’ve peeled more spuds than this,” Caera said, looking in the garbage pail at the mountain of potato peels.
Jim slammed a potato through a dicer, tossed the pieces with some floury substance, then added them to a bowl of raw chips, ready to be made into fried bits of heaven.
“It’s been a fair while. I hear you’re to blame for this.”
Caera shrugged and smiled. Free Birds Fly was her baby, the biggest thing she’d done thus far at Glenncailty.
“Well, good luck to you. And tell Rory I’m going to Navan to watch the Meath-Galway game if he wants to come.”
“I’m sure he will.”
She saw another chef ladle up her soup, then fetch Rory’s steak from the restaurant side and slide it onto a plate. Jim added chips, Caera grabbed her own bread and, after stealing a tray to put them on, she carefully carried them back into the bar.
“You’re a lovely serving girl,” Rory told her.
“You’d do well to show some respect. I am your boss.”
“You’d look fetching in an apron.”
“Feck off.”
“Nothing but an apron.” Rory’s brown eyes danced.
“Now I’m telling your mammy.”
“Ah Caera, why won’t you—”
She didn’t hear the rest of what Rory said. The hair on her arms stood up, as if someone had let in the cold, but the doors were closed. She looked over to see the American sitting at the bar.
He was looking at her.
Their gazes met. Held.
“Caera?”
“Yea?” Caera ripped her attention from Tim and turned back to Rory, who was looking at her oddly.
He followed her gaze to the bar.
“Who’s that?”
She wanted to say “no one” and tell Rory to mind his own business, but that made no sense. She had nothing to hide. “He’s Tim Wilcox.”
“The American?” Rory turned to look again. Out of the corner of her eye Caera saw Tim studying Rory in return. “He dresses like an American.”
Tim wore jeans, a T-shirt with a picture of what looked like Johnny Cash, a gray scarf wound around his neck and a black jacket. Among the trousers and jumper-clad Irish, he did stand out.
Caera thought he looked a bit like a model, with his hair parted at the side, the forelock curling on his brow, his jaw square, lips finely cut.
“He’s looking at you,” Rory said, voice deepening.
Rory, I’m not yours to protect, Caera thought.
“We met earlier. He came in to Finn’s to test his fiddle.”
Rory turned back to her, the fight draining out of him at her words. He munched down a few fries, before adding, “That’s what she said.”
“What?”
“You said he came to ‘test his fiddle.’ That’s what she said.” Rory grinned at his own wit.
Caera threw a hunk of brown bread at him. Lifting her bowl, she drained the last drops of soup. She was just in time. The shift must have been changing in the hotel, because a reception clerk and two parlor attendants were hovering, waiting to join their table.
She stood, giving up her seat and bussing her plate to the far end of the bar, away from Tim. Quick as she could, she pulled up the ticket for their dinner and paid, prepared to sneak out and away to home.
She didn’t make it.
The first notes of a strummed guitar quieted and then raised a cheer from the patrons in the bar. The pack of wily old gentlemen from Cailtytown had their instrument cases up on their table, pint glasses carefully pushed aside. Next came a fiddle and another guitar. A triangle and tin whistle hit the tabletop.
One of them, an old farmer who could talk for Ireland, as the saying went, and God help the soul who he trapped in a conversation, stood while his friends drank and tuned their instruments.
His clear baritone, seasoned by years, filled the silenced room as he sang the first lines of “The Auld Triangle”, a song that was both sad and funny, about a execution day at Mountjoy Prison.
The others joined in, a multi-part harmony, all a cappella, each taking a verse, some with a quiet seriousness that reminded listeners the song was about men imprisoned, others with a devilish twinkle in their eye as they sang about the women in the female prison. When the song came to an end, the pub erupted in applause and good-natured heckling by those who knew the singers.
Caera jolted, remembering that there were professional musicians in the audience. This pub was part of the hotel, but in off times it was kept alive by locals and not-so-locals who came for the good craic. She didn’t want the musicians she’d brought here looking down their noses at locals who took up an instrument to play a session.
Stepping away from the terminal, she looked down the bar at Tim, who was lounging next to Paddy Fish. Paddy grinned and leaned over to say something in Tim’s ear, but Tim didn’t react, his attention riveted on the musicians.
The fiddler stood, took a mouthful of his pint, and tucked his battered fiddle under his chin.
“How about ‘Mairi’s Wedding’, my lads?” one man called out.
“We’ll be needing a lassie to dance for us, and I’m seeing the one I want. Sorcha, come up here.” Caera hadn’t seen her friend and housemate enter the pub for dinner, but at their request, Sorcha stood, pulling off her jacket and taking down her hair. Red waves fell down her back. There was a clatter and Caera looked over to see Séan Donnovan mopping up the spill from the pint he’d just knocked over.
When the chorus came, half the pub was singing as Sorcha held her arms at her sides and danced, her cheeks flushing with laugher.
Caera looked back to Tim, who was gazing around the pub with an expression on his face that was almost…wonder. Curious, she dodged between the swaying diners, the clapping hands and perched beside him.
His attention turned to her. “This is beautiful.”
Caera looked around. Only half the pub was singing, the music echoed oddly in a space that wasn’t designed for it and enthusiastic tabletop drumbeats only barely drowned out the clink of silverware. It was far from beautiful. It was good fun, nothing more.
“Why do you say so?” she asked.
“It’s…real. Paddy said those men aren’t professional musicians, they just play when they feel like it, and if someone else had an instrument, they would go up and play.”
“That’s the way of it.”
“That’s…that’s how music should be.” There was an aching sadness in his voice.
“I like it all right when it’s nicely planned in a place with proper acoustics.” Caera raised a brow, reminding him that he was a musician.
He grinned ruefully, seeming to take her meaning. “When I’m on the stage, the music is one-sided, and that’s nice when I have some
thing new to say about the song or when I want to own the feelings, but sometimes it’s too much pressure to be alone in the music.”
Caera sucked in a breath. She knew that feeling, that aching fear.
Tim’s eyes were green as the fields in sunlight. His gaze held hers, and she felt that he could see inside her, know her, but that was impossible, she hadn’t even told him her name.
The ruckus calmed, the song changing. The guitars started a simple progression of notes, a slower, sad tune. “We’ll have ‘The Four Green Fields’ to honor those who lost land to road works.” There was a round of head-shaking. “I can’t do it justice. Caera, do us the honor.”
At the sound of her name, the spell broke and she took a breath, still gazing into his eyes.
“I think they’re asking for you, Caera.” Tim’s smile crinkled the corners of his eyes.
Her name on his lips was a surprise. It must have shown on her face, because he held out his hand. “We haven’t formally met.”
“Caera Cassidy.” She slid her hand into his, touching him for the first time. Her palm tingled from contact with his fingers.
Caera turned away.
She made her way to the front, where the music was already underway, just waiting for the vocals to cue the next measure. One of the boys patted her on the shoulder as she turned to face the pub. She took a breath, closed her eyes and let the notes fill her. Hands pressed to her belly, she started singing. “Four Green Fields” was a story of a woman who had four green fields, but lost her sons protecting that land, and before the song was done it was clear that the fine old woman of the song was Ireland herself, her fields the four provinces of the island.
A rebel song at its core, the song elicited both shouts of protest and sad nods, reminding them of what their fathers and forefathers had suffered and lost. Caera opened her eyes, watching the crowd as she finished the song. Almost everyone in the pub had stopped to listen. No silverware clinked when she sang. If glasses were raised, they were in toast to something in the song. In that moment she had power, the music made her whole.
