by Nora Roberts
“In what?”
“Getting back to yourself.”
Since she wanted that—she couldn’t mend things with Connor when she could barely lift a spoon—she began to eat. The first taste was like ambrosia.
“I thought I was starved, but I couldn’t really feel much of anything. It’s wonderful to feel hungry, and this is brilliant. I can’t piece it all together. I remember it, most of it, clear enough until I started back to the stables, then it goes dim.”
“Once you feel yourself again, you’ll remember. It’s a kind of protection.”
“Oh God.” Meara squeezed her eyes shut.
“Is there pain? Darling—”
“No, no—not that kind. Branna, I did something so stupid. I was upset, in a black temper so I just couldn’t think sensible. Connor—well, he said he loved me. The kind of love that leads to marriage and babies and cottages on the hill, and it just threw me into upheaval altogether. I’m not fit for that sort of thing—everyone knows it.”
“No one knows anything of the sort, but I won’t argue you think it. You should stay calm, Meara.” Branna stroked a hand along Meara’s leg. “Rest easy now to help yourself be well again.”
“I can’t be calm and rest easy when Connor’s gone off as mad at me as he’s ever been. And worse, even worse.”
“Why would he be mad at you?”
“I took it off, Branna.” Her fingers rubbed at her throat, where the necklace should be. “I wasn’t thinking, I swear. I was just caught up in the temper. So I took off the necklace he gave me and pushed it into my pocket.”
The hand stroking to soothe stilled. “The blue chalcedony with the jade and jasper beads?” Branna said carefully.
“Yes, yes. I just shoved it into my pocket, along with the charms. And I was picking fights with everyone within arm’s reach until Boyle had enough of me. He sent me out to the compost, and as it’s filthy work, and it was raining buckets, I switched my jacket for a barn coat. I didn’t think—didn’t even remember I’d taken the necklace off, you see. I wouldn’t have gone out without it. I swear, even in a mad, I wouldn’t have done that purposely.”
“You took off what he gave you out of love, what he gave you to protect you, what he loves, from harm. You cut through his heart, Meara.”
“Oh, Branna, please.” She sobbed in air as Branna rose, walked to the window to stare out at the dark. “Please don’t turn me away.”
Branna spun back, her own temper bright in her eyes. “That’s a cold and cruel thing to say.”
All the color dropped out of Meara’s cheeks again. “No. No. I—”
“Cold and cruel and selfish. You’ve been my friend, my sister in all but blood since my first memory. But you could think I’d turn you away?”
“No. I don’t know. I’m so confused, so twisted up inside.”
“The tears are good for you.” Voice brisk now, Branna nodded. “You don’t shed them often, and they’re good for you now. A kind of purging. There are five people in this house—no, that’s not true as Iona and Boyle have gone off now that you’re awake to pack up your things for you.”
“Pack up my—”
“Quiet. I’ve not finished. Those five people love you, and not one of us deserves you’re thinking we would stop because you’ve done something hurtful.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“I know you are. But I’m here, Meara, standing between you and Connor, loving you both. He blamed himself, you see, for not giving you stronger protection.”
“I know.” Her voice hitched and shook on every word. “He said. I remembered. I told him. He left me.”
“He left the room, Meara, you idjit. He’s Connor O’Dwyer, as good and loyal and true a man as there ever was. He’s not your bleeding father or a man anything like him.”
“I don’t mean . . .” It flooded back, the force and clarity of it leaving her gasping for air.
“Calm. Be calm.” Branna rushed to her, gripped her hands, pushed her will against the panic. “You will be calm, and breathe easy. In my eyes, look in my eyes. There’s calm, and there’s air.”
“I remember.”
“Calm first. No harm comes here, and no dark. We scried the candles, laid the herbs and stones. Here is sanctuary. Here is calm.”
“I remember,” she said again, and calmly. “He was there.”
“You’ll let yourself settle a bit, and as much as I want to know it all, we’ll wait until we’re all together. You’ll only have to tell it once.”
And Connor, Branna thought, deserved to hear it all.
“What did he do to me? Can you tell me that? How bad was it?”
“Drink the broth first.”
Impatient, and stronger already, Meara just lifted the bowl, drank it down straight. And made Branna laugh a little.
“Now you’ve done it.”
“Tell me— Oh!”
It was like a jolt of electricity, or a good, quick orgasm, or a direct hit by a lightning bolt. Energy shot straight into her, rocking her back.
“What is that?”
“Something you’re meant to drink slowly, but leave it to you.”
“I feel I could sprint all the way to Dublin. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome. We’ll just leave this for later.” Cautious now, Branna moved the tea out of reach.
“I could eat a cow and still have room for pudding.” But she reached for Branna’s hand. “I’m sorry. Truly.”
“I know it. Truly.”
“Tell me, will you, what he did to me? Was it poison, like Connor?”
“It wasn’t, no. You were open and defenseless, and he would know it. He used his shadows, and I think it blocked it all for a time. But they cleared enough, for he can’t keep that box, as Connor called it, shut tight for long. The lot of us were coming. He’d have known that as well, so he acted quickly and with cruelty. The spell he cast, you could call it a kind of Sleeping Beauty, but it’s not so pretty as a fairy tale. It’s a kind of death.”
“I . . . He killed me.”
“No, it’s not so clean. He took your breath; he stopped your heart. It’s a kind of paralysis that anyone who didn’t know would take for death. Without intervention, it could last for days or weeks. Even years. Then you would wake.”
“Like, what, a zombie?”
“You would wake, Meara, and you would be mad. You would claw or dig your way out if you could, or die raving. Or . . . he would come for you, at a time of his own choosing, and make you his creature.”
“Then I would be dead,” Meara declared. “All that I am would be gone. He couldn’t have done this to me if I’d worn the protection Connor gave me.”
“No. He could hurt you, he could try to draw you to him, but he couldn’t cast such a spell on you when you’re protected.” She paused a moment. “It was Connor who breathed life back into you. He reached you first. He brought you back—your breath, your heart. Then the rest of us came together as he pulled you out of the sleep. Even in those few minutes, Meara, you’d been drawn deep. You could only sob and sob, and shake. He had to slide you into sleep again, healing sleep, so you could be calm while we worked.”
“The candles, the stones, the herbs. The words. I heard you—you and Connor and Iona.”
“Fin as well for a bit.”
Five people who loved her, Meara thought, all sick and afraid because she’d been foolish.
“He could’ve broken us, because I was childish.”
“That’s true enough.”
“I’m shamed and sorry, Branna, and so I’ll say to all. But if I could speak with Connor first.”
“Of course you should.”
“Could you help me clean up a bit?” She managed a wobbly smile. “I’ve been a bit dead, and probably look it.”
* * *
BECAUSE IT CONTINUED TO RAIN, CONNOR SAT IN BRANNA’S workshop, drinking his second beer and brooding at the fire.
When Fin walked in, he scowled. “You�
�d be wise to feck off. I’m not fit company.”
“That’s a pity.” Fin dropped into a chair with a beer of his own. “You said she’d waked and was better—but little else. Branna’s yet to come back down, and as Iona and Boyle just came in with cases of her things, I’d like to know just what the bloody hell better might be.”
“Awake, aware. She drank the potion, and her color was good when I left her.”
“All right then.” Fin took a sip of beer, waiting for the rest. When it didn’t come, he prepared to pry the lid off, then Boyle came in.
And better yet.
“I hauled clothes and boots and Christ knows, enough for a month or more that Iona swears is all essential. Then I was dismissed, which is just fine with me.”
He dropped down, as Fin had, with a beer.
“Branna said she’d rallied well, and was having a shower. A hell of a thing, a scare like that. A hell of a thing.” He drank deep from the beer. “I sent her out there. She was snappish and snarly, and I’d had enough of it, and sent her off to Shite Mountain. I should’ve kept her inside, working on tack. I shouldn’t have—”
“It’s not your fault.” Connor shoved up, paced around. “Don’t take any kind of blame on this, for it’s not yours. She took it off. I told her I loved her. And to think I was entertained at the way she stormed about after, claiming she had to get to the stables straightaway.”
“So, that’s why I lost a full hour’s sleep this morning. And,” Boyle added, “that’s what crawled up her arse like a scorpion.”
“She took what off?” Fin asked, circling back.
“The necklace, the blue chalcedony with jasper and jade I gave her for protection. She took it off, went out without it, because I told her I loved her.”
“Ah, God.” Fin rolled his eyes heavenward. “Women. Women drive men to madness, and is there any doubt as to why? Why, the question should be, do we want them about when they devil us at every turn?”
“Speak for your own women,” Boyle suggested. “I’m more than fine with my own.”
“Give it time,” Fin said darkly.
“Ah, feck off. She was in a temper,” Boyle added, watching Connor. “It was foolish and reckless, but, well, as someone who’s a temper of his own, it’s the easiest thing in the world to do the foolish and reckless when caught up in one.”
“We could have lost her.”
“That will never happen,” Fin vowed.
“She was gone, for moments—that might as well have been years for me.” It shook Connor, belly deep, to think it. To know it. “You saw it yourself, Boyle, as you reached her seconds after I did.”
“And in those seconds it felt as if the blood drained out of my body. I wanted to start CPR, and you tossed me back with a flick of your hand.”
“I’m sorry for that.”
“No need. You knew what needed to be done, and I was in the way. You breathed light into her. I’ve never seen the like.”
Seeing it again, Boyle took a breath of his own.
“You’re straddling our girl on the ground, calling out for gods and goddesses, and your eyes, I swear to you, went near to black. And the wind’s whirling, the others come running, and you lifted your arms up, like a man grabbing on to a lifeline. And you pulled light out of the rain, pulled it out of the rain, into yourself so you burned like a torch. Then you breathed it into her. Three times you did that, burning hotter every time so I near expected you to go to flame.”
“Three times is needed,” Fin said. “With fire and light.”
“And I saw her draw in air. Her hand moved, just a bit in mine.” Boyle took another long drink. “Christ.”
“I owe you all,” Meara said from the doorway. She stood with her hands clasped, her hair loose, and her eyes filled with emotion. “I have to ask if I could have a moment alone to speak to Connor. Just a few moments, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Of course not.” Boyle got up quickly, moved to her, hugged her hard. “You look fine.” Drawing back, he gave her back a hearty pat, then walked straight out.
Fin got up more slowly, studying the tears swirling in her eyes. He said nothing at all, but kissed her lightly on the cheek before going out.
Connor stood where he was. “Did Branna give you leave to be up and about?”
“She did. Connor—”
“It’s best if you tell what happened to all, at one time.”
“I will. Connor, please, forgive me. You have to forgive me. I couldn’t bear it if you didn’t, couldn’t bear knowing I ruined it all. I was wrong, in every way wrong, and I’ll do anything, anything you need or want or ask to mend this with you.”
Her shame, her sorrow poured out, all but pooled at his feet. And still he couldn’t bring himself to move toward her.
“Then answer me one question with truth.”
“I won’t lie to you, whatever the truth costs. I never have lied to you.”
“Did you take off what I gave you because you thought I might have used it to hold you, to keep you with me, to make you feel for me?”
Shock ripped through the sorrow, pushed her one stumbling step back. “Oh no, God no. You would never do such a thing. I would never think any such thing, never of you. Never, Connor, on my life.”
“All right.” That, at least that, stanched the worst of a bleeding heart. “Be calm again.”
“It was temper,” she said, “temper and . . . fear. Honest, be honest,” she ordered herself. “Fear more than anything, and that sparked the temper, and together the roar of it made me blind and deaf to any sort of sense. I swear to you, I swear I never meant to go out without it. I forgot. I was so turned around and wound up, that when Boyle booted me out, I changed jackets without a thought I’d left all the protection in the other.”
She had to stop, press her fingers to her eyes. “Read me. Go in here—” She moved her fingers to her temple. “Read my thoughts, for you’d find the truth.”
“I believe you. I know when I hear the truth.”
“But will you forgive me?”
Was it as hard for her to ask, he wondered, as for him to accept? He thought perhaps it was. And still they needed to clear it all before the answers.
“I gave you something that mattered to me because you mattered.”
“And I was careless with it, and with you. Careless enough to cost us all.” She took a step toward him. “Forgive me.”
“I give you love, Meara, of the kind I’ve never given to another. But you don’t want it.”
“I don’t know what to do with it, and that’s a different thing. And I’m afraid.” She pressed both hands to her heart. “I’m afraid because I can’t stop what’s happening in me. If you don’t forgive me, if you can’t forgive me, I think something inside me would die of grief.”
“I forgive you, of course.”
“You’re more than I deserve.”
“Ah, Meara.” He sighed it. “Love isn’t a prize given on merit, or something to be taken back when there’s a mistake. It’s a gift, as much for the giver as the one who’s given it. The day you’ll take it, hold it, you won’t be afraid.”
He shook his head before she could speak. “It’s enough. You’re more weary than you know, and you’ve still a tale to tell. You should sit, and we’ll see what Branna’s cooked up as, Jesus, it’s been a long time since breakfast.”
When he crossed to her, she reached for his hand. “Thank you. For the light, for the breath, for my life. And thank you, Connor, for the gift.”
“Well now, that’s a start,” he told her, and led her back to the kitchen.
* * *
SHE TOLD THE STORY HALTINGLY WHILE SHE DUG INTO THE spaghetti and meatballs—a particular favorite. It seemed she couldn’t get enough to eat or drink—though she found even a few sips of wine made her unsteady.
“You’ll do better with water tonight,” Branna told her.
“I think part of me knew it wasn’t real, but it looked and felt and smelled and so
unded so real. The gardens, the fountain, the paths, just as I remember them. The house, the suit my father wore, the way he tapped his finger to the side of his nose.”
“Because he built the spell on your thoughts and images.” Fin poured her more water.
“The way he called me princess.” Meara nodded. “And how it could make me feel like one when he paid special attention to me. He was . . .”
It pained her to speak of it. “He was the fun in our home, you see. His big laugh, and how he’d slip us extra pocket money or a bit of chocolate like it was a secret shared. I worshiped him, and that all came back, those feelings, as we walked around the garden with a bird singing in the mulberry tree.”
She had to stop a moment, gather herself. “I worshiped him,” she repeated, “and he left us—left me—with never a backward glance. Sneaking off like a thief, and indeed it turned out he was just that, as he took everything of value he could with him. But there, in the gardens, it was all as it had been before. The sun shining, and the flowers, and feeling so happy.
“Then he turned on me, so quickly. He’d left because of me, he said, because I was friends with you. I’d shamed him by consorting, conspiring—he used those words—with witches. I was damned for it.”
“A trick, using some of your thoughts again,” Branna explained, “then twisting them.”
“My thoughts? But I never thought he left because we were friends.”
“But you’ve thought, more than once, his leaving was your fault. I don’t have to slip into your mind to know it,” Connor added.
“I know it’s not true. I’m meaning I know he didn’t leave because of me.”
“And still it can make you doubt yourself.” Iona sent her a look of understanding. “Make you wonder, when you’re feeling low, what it is about yourself they can’t love. I know how it is, and how hard it is to accept someone who should love you absolutely, doesn’t. Or not enough. But it wasn’t me, and it wasn’t you. It was them, the lack in them.”
“I know it, but you’re right. Sometimes . . . The rose he gave me began to bleed, and he said I was a whore for lying with a witch. But I certainly never had before my father left us. And God, come to it, the man was too much of a coward ever to say such things to anyone’s face.”
She paused, stared down at her plate. “He was so weak, my father. It’s hard admitting you loved something—someone so weak.”
“We can’t choose our parents,” Boyle said, “any more than they can choose us. We all just have to muddle through best we can.”
“And loving . . .” Connor paused until she lifted her eyes to his. “It’s never something to be ashamed of.”
“What I loved was an illusion, as much as what I saw today. But I believed in both, for a while. And with this, today, I felt things change when he said those things to me, those hard things he, for all his flaws, would never have said. I heard the rain again, and I heard Roibeard, and I knew him for a lie. I had the shovel. I hadn’t when I walked with him, but now I did again. I swung it at him, swung it at his head, but he was quick. I swung it again, but the world started to turn and rock. And you, Connor, riding up like a demon on Alastar, and Boyle running from the stables, and Kathel and . . . He smiled at me—Cabhan now and nothing like my father.”
She saw it clearly now, that cruelly handsome face smiling. “And it felt like something stabbed my heart—so sharp and cold—as he smiled and swirled away in the fog.”
“Black lightning,” Boyle stated. “That’s what it looked like to me, just a flash of it from the stone he wears.”
“I didn’t see it.” Meara lifted her water glass, drained it again. “I tried to walk, but it was like swimming through the mud. I felt sick and dizzy, and I couldn’t feel the rain now as the shadows closed so thick.
“I couldn’t get out of them, couldn’t seem to move, couldn’t call out. And there were voices in the shadows. My father’s, Cabhan’s. Threats, promises. I . . . He said, he would give me power. If I took Connor’s life, he’d give me immortality.”
