Bowen was about to speak when a new thought crossed his face. He suddenly looked troubled.
“What’s wrong?” Catherine asked.
“You said you were walking with your sister. Where is she?”
“She stopped to rest, back a-ways. Why?”
“We must go to her. Now,” he said.
“We?” Catherine mumbled as she was pulled up by Bowen’s strong arms. She pulled her shoe on carefully.
Just as the two of them walked around the rock in the bend, Kathleen appeared and almost ran right into Catherine. “Oh! There you are!” Kathleen said. “I didn’t know how far you’d gone. I’m terrified of getting lost, you know!”
Kathleen glanced at Bowen, surprised by his looming presence. Catherine thought it odd that she was not more alarmed but the thought passed as Bowen helped her up the hill. As they walked, Catherine couldn’t help but notice Bowen’s strong hands and arms wrapped around her elbow and occasionally her waist. She felt a deep flush in her cheeks.
Yet Bowen seemed to never be looking at Catherine. Whenever she glanced through her hair, or took a quick side glance, he was looking ahead or surveying their surroundings. She felt a stab at her ego, realizing it was all in her own head.
Bowen helped Catherine into her seat in the car as Kathleen swiped the keys from her outstretched hand. She leaned slightly on his shoulder to bend more easily to sit down, and Bowen stiffened as he felt Catherine’s head against his chin. He had noticed her the first moment he saw her, and every moment since.
When he first found her it was a strange sense that led him. He had to follow it. She was captivating, and he was breathless. He kept watch from then on. He noticed the different ways her eyes flashed with each mood. The flame when she was furious, or the way they lit up when she was happy or had an idea. He had come to notice a lot about Catherine over the time he had been watching her. When he touched her he could think of nothing else. She consumed him. He’d finally realized what this could do before he went to her at the pub. It was the reason he had to act quickly now to protect her, and everyone else in Ireland, if not the planet. He didn’t want to tell her everything, knowing it would disrupt her whole life. But it was no longer safe to keep her in the dark. Once Catherine was seated he simply nodded to the two young women before turning to go.
Catherine hesitated, “Uh-Wait,” she held open the car door, “do you need a ride somewhere?”
Bowen looked over his shoulder and said “No, thank you.” He wondered why she was being courteous all of the sudden.
“Will we see you again soon then?”
“Definitely,” he said, suddenly warmed. He shook his head. No, she must go, he thought forcefully.
Catherine nodded and shut the car door. Kathleen started the engine and they took off with a slow start up the road. Bowen felt uneasy. He didn’t understand Catherine even after all his observing. Her moods changed so suddenly. It unsettled him. He shrugged as the car drove away. He had something more worrisome to check on now.
Bowen walked for some time through the trees to another side of the high reaching rocky hill. He walked up to a hollow overgrown with great varieties of plant life. In the rock there was a deep slit that was wide enough to fit an arm through. Bowen stood next to it for a while, still as the rock itself. He had a blank expression on his face.
“Must you keep standing there like a statue?” a deep voice rumbled from inside the opening.
Bowen didn’t say anything, seeming immovable.
After a while, the deep voice growled loudly “How DARE you!” with a rustling sound of tiny rocks falling from his end deep inside the stone.
The corner of Bowen’s mouth twitched downward, startled somewhat by the sudden falling rock. He looked at the rock in front of him with disdain. He laid his hand near the small opening, and leaned forward slightly.
“I don’t deserve a response from you?” the deep voice was now menacing, “You’ve come to stand by my door only twice before, pleading, always pleading for me to stop!”
A sound of something hard clashing with stone came from within. When Bowen heard it he looked forlornly at the ground as he struggled to listen further.
The voice laughed then, chilling Bowen’s spine. In a mocking tone the voice said, “‘You’re ill, please stop this!’” a low guttural growl “Well I’ll not stop Bowen, I’ll never ever stop, not until my dying breath. And you can’t do anything about it,” he chuckled.
Bowen waited, he knew there was more. There was always more.
“When I’m free there won’t be anywhere for you to run from me, I-” he paused “wait, something must have changed, it’s been too long since I saw you. There must be a reason you’re here now . . .”
Silence deafened Bowen’s ears, and he imagined the worst.
“Oh,” breathed the deep voice.
Bowen froze.
“You’ve found her? It’s finally happened! Soon I’ll be free!” maniacal laughter ensued.
Bowen’s heart sank. He shouldn’t have come, even if only to check that nothing had changed.
“What is it, dear Bowen? You don’t laugh as well as speak? How DARE you not speak to me! I’ll make you suffer for this on top of everything else! And after that I’ll kill you and spit on your body in front of everyone! Speak to me. Bowen, NOW!”
Bowen’s hand slid off the rock as he turned to walk away. He hesitated at first, but kept going. Even at a distance he could still hear the mad screaming echoing behind him.
CHAPTER TWO
INSIDE A LARGE cavern where very little light shone through, there was a madman. He rustled around in turmoil, holding onto a bitter anger because it was the only thing he believed kept him going. Since he had already torn his clothes in previous fits of madness, he instead hit his hands against the walls of the cavern near the opening where Bowen had just been. So many times before had he torn at himself and tried to break his bones and die against the caverns.
“No . . .” he said to himself in a moment of clarity, “it’s no use continuing . . .” then he sat down using his bloody hands to hold his head up while he wept. He absentmindedly wiped the blood on his thighs.
He sobbed, softly whimpering. “Oh my darling, how—” he stopped mid-sentence and his eyes widened as he looked at his hand slowly. Then he whirled himself up to hold his hand into the light leaking through the cracked stone.
“Blood,” he remarked quietly, then shouted, “Blood!”
Others in the cavern heard his cry. Accustomed to his fits, they usually ignored him. But his words drew them in and they thawed into living beings once more, aware of their surroundings. The bleeding man ran some distance to the original opening of the cave. It had been blocked last he checked. When he arrived, the space was reopened. He simply stood there taking in the scene, his eyes beaming with sparkling fire. He felt a sense of adventure. At last he would get Bowen, and be at peace. Others who had followed him to the opening stood behind him, reveling in amazement. Their eyes squinted at the sudden burst of light, turning away from the sun as they laughed with long awaited relief.
In an ancient Gaelic language long dead, “Freedom,” was uttered in hushed and awed tones.
*
A few days passed, and Catherine’s foot healed decently. She didn’t limp anymore, though it was tender with bruising. She sat calmly at the edge of her bed staring out her bedroom door watching the dancing lights from the window on the stair banister. Catherine wondered when she would see Bowen again, wanting to know more about what he said. Was she really endangering herself, her family, even everyone in Ireland? Just by being here? And from what?
The front door slammed and Kathleen stomped up the stairs, “I met a guy!” she said happily.
“A guy?” Catherine’s eyes were wide with surprise.
“Yes, I was on my way to meet Bella at her new apartment.”
“They’re called flats here you know . . . What happened?” Plopping herself down on the other side of C
atherine’s bed she grinned. “I dropped my phone accidentally, and when I bent down he ran right into me! We both fell; oh it was perfect!” Kathleen said dreamily. Catherine laughed. “We helped each other up and went for coffee. He is amazing! And I never say that about anything or anybody, Catherine,” Kathleen leaned forward and touched her hand for reassurance.
“That’s great, Kathleen! Did you forget about Bella?”
“Oh no, I texted her. We talked about lots of things. Catherine, I think I’m in love, I really think so, it was one of those at-first-sight things.”
“You’re talking too fast, calm dow—”
“He seemed really interested in me, too. We have a lot in common. I wish I’d taken a picture of him to show you.” Kathleen brushed off Catherine’s hand and ran out of the room.
Catherine shook her head and smiled. She got up and went to her dresser to change, looking through her jewelry to find a pair of antique pearl dangling earrings. But she could only find one of them. Then she remembered Kathleen had helped her take them out the day they saw Bowen on the walk. “Kathleen!” she yelled out the door.
“I’m on the phone!”
Catherine stood still, irritated. The earrings belonged to her grandmother. She couldn’t bear to lose one.
Kathleen appeared in the doorway with the phone at her side. “Yes?”
“When you took my earrings out did you put both right here?” Catherine said pointing to her jewelry box.
“No, you only had one in,” Kathleen said.
“What?! I was missing one of grandmother’s earrings and you didn’t say anything?”
“I was preoccupied getting bandages for your bleeding foot!”
“That was THREE days ago Kathleen! It’s probably gone forever!”
“I saw you had both of them when we went for the walk. Maybe you lost it when you hurt yourself ? I didn’t notice until we were home.”
Catherine growled under her breath, “I can’t believe this . . .”
Kathleen walked back out of the room with the phone to her ear again.
Catherine fell back on the bed. She’d received them for graduation. They had been a gift from her deceased grandfather to her grandmother before they were married. Sad that she had lost such a treasure, she laid there longer than intended and drifted off. A few hours later she woke to Danny’s face as he yelled her name.
“What, oh my God, what?” she whined.
“The car is gone, and I need to get to work! I can’t be late my first day,” he complained.
“You have a job?” Catherine rolled on her side.
“Yeah, I told you I did. I’ll be in the sorting room at the post office,” he gestured in the building’s direction out the window.
“Then why don’t you just walk?”
Danny sighed, “I can’t, I’m training somewhere else!” he pulled the pillow from underneath her, “THE CAR!”
Realization finally struck. “The car is gone?” Catherine pushed herself up rubbing her face.
“Look for yourself . . .” Danny waved toward the window facing the empty driveway.
Catherine reached and grabbed her phone.
“What are you doing?” he asked exasperated.
“I’m going to call the Gardai, Danny, what else would you have me do? Go hunt the thief down myself ?”
“Maybe . . .” Danny said sarcastically, a little hurt.
Catherine looked at her phone unmoving.
Danny was impatient, “Well?”
She got up and put her phone in her pocket, a text message flashing off the screen. “Kathleen has the car. She went to look for my earring.”
“That’s a relief. But I’m still gonna be late for work . . . I have to tell her to bring back the car!”
“You can’t, she said her phone was dying, and she forgot her charger. And stop yelling at me!” She threw a warning glare at him.
Danny ran a hand through his hair as he tried to control his frustration.
“I’m really more concerned about Kathleen. She shouldn’t be out there alone, she doesn’t know the area well enough for that, she could get lost. And now being unreachable, this is so stupid . . .”
“What? Nah, she won’t get lost, she’ll be fine,” said Danny.
“She said so herself. Plus, it’ll be getting dark before too long. I don’t like this,” Catherine put on a jacket hanging from her desk chair, took her wallet from her purse and put it in the jacket’s inside zipper pocket.
“Where are you going?”
“To go get her, of course,” Catherine said.
“Without a car?”
“I’ll borrow Bella’s,” she said, as she left for Bella’s place. Catherine didn’t have a good feeling about this, and couldn’t think clearly, having been roused awake in alarm.
While driving she thought maybe she should have brought Danny with her, but shrugged it off as she tried to remember which spot Kathleen might think the earring would be. Catherine hoped she guessed right and would look where she ran her foot into the rock. That was the most logical spot. But Kathleen was not often logical.
At the hill she parked and walked down to the spot, more carefully this time. Kathleen was nowhere to be seen. As Catherine searched, she noticed some foot-prints in the mud close by. There were other markings in the ground but Catherine couldn’t read them. There were a few others that all seemed different from each other. Catherine’s heart went into her throat and that bad feeling increased rapidly. Kathleen was missing, and wherever she was there were several other people involved also. Possibly very bad people. Catherine tried to shrug it off. Maybe it was some friends she ran into who were hiking, or maybe Kathleen brought her friends with her. Catherine took some deep breaths to calm herself, and began following the prints.
It was quiet. Catherine didn’t notice how quiet last time. Kathleen was missing. Her twin sister, the only other girl in the world who knew her completely. She gulped as she thought of her sister possibly not being alive anymore, then shook her head to vanquish the thought. Having a twin was a connection so unique from any other relationship, at least for Catherine. She felt something was wrong, deep down, in that twin place, she could just tell. And this uneasy feeling wouldn’t go away. Catherine thought again of Kathleen being materialistic, and superficial, and how much that annoyed her. But of course she knew that wasn’t the real Kathleen. Her Kathleen. Where is my sister?
Catherine had walked a good distance away in the other direction from the rock and past the bubbling creek that cooled her wounds the other day. She feared continuing as darkness fell. Catherine again regretted not bringing Danny, zipping up her jacket and pushing on. Kathleen, she thought. She stopped where she stood suddenly. She saw the edge of the wooded area ahead, and felt a pinch of relief. But the panic filtered in. Would she be able to find her way back? Was Kathleen out there? She was about to take a step when all of the sudden she heard voices nearby. She froze and listened. They were male voices she was sure, but she couldn’t understand what they were saying. She didn’t know why, but instinctively, as quick as a cat, she hid herself behind some bushes. It was just in time, for the men walked by as she did. Catherine’s breath was quick, but she covered her nose and mouth with her jacket to silence it.
She could tell now there were two men as they walked closer. Their features were visibly clear. Both wore what looked like simply wrapped cloth around their torsos that hung loosely, then openly at their ankles. The cloth was dark and looked very grungy and ragged hanging off them. One of them had a belt fastened around his middle that looked to be made of fine rope entwined with some sort of metal loops. The other had a basic sash, which, though speckled with holes, was tied at the bottom atop his hips. Their faces seemed gruff, and their wet hair soaked their clothes around the neckline. At knee level she followed their movements mostly by eying their feet, which were either laced in sandals or covered in a crude looking boot. One of them was snapping twigs in his hands as they walked. The men
had a look about them that made you think their bones were heavy inside them, for they hunched over strangely. They looked strong, and sturdy. Catherine wondered why the strange men were here, and hoped desperately she could escape without them noticing her. Her legs were beginning to throb. Very slowly, she managed to stretch them without a sound. She knew she needed to be ready to run at any minute, and could not afford to have her legs give out beneath her.
Suddenly, as she saw the men disappear out of sight, she heard screaming in the distance. Her heart leapt in her chest. She quickly strode to the edge of the woods some feet away. Catherine’s eyes widened at what she saw. The scream was apparently coming from a single man standing out on an empty, slightly overgrown field. Like a madman, he was waving his arms around wildly as he strode from left to right.
The two men who had passed Catherine joined a group made up mostly of men who looked equally ragged. The wild man was headed away from them as he paced. The expressions of the people were all different, but all very concerned as they stood and watched. They wore garments that looked raggedy, but they were worn and draped around them like once dignified robes, for their mannerisms suggested they were once very fine fabric and fully covering. It was windy and Catherine struggled to keep her hair and the bushes out of her face and eyes long enough to see clearly. There were a few other smaller wild crews sporadically placed on the large field before her, huddled together as if they didn’t know what to do in wide open spaces.
In the far distance, the sun was about to set over the hills, about to disappear in its last light. Catherine nearly popped up from her crouched position when she saw Kathleen sitting on the ground ahead with her arms being held tightly behind her. She looked unharmed other than that, so Catherine suppressed her tears. She watched, and waited. It was a wide open field. She couldn’t get her sister out of there now. Catherine regretted again, bitterly this time, that she did not bring Danny with her.
“Why did you bring me this woman?” the wild man said in a growling voice directed at four of his men, who were now surrounding Kathleen, “I want Bowen damn you!”
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