“All th’ way from Boston, yeah? Brilliant.” He spoke quickly with a thick brogue. “Yer grandparents are from the west, I hear. Nicest part of Ireland, sure.” He took my heavy case as he pushed open the blue door. “Bein’ an O’Malley in the west is quite a thing now. Yer lot go way back, ya know.” His tone took on a hint of pride.
My ears perked up at the sound of my family name as I followed Mr. Flaherty through the blue door and into a long outdoor corridor space. It would have been a narrow alley between two buildings if not for the door we had just come through.
“Do you know much about the O’Malleys?” I pried, moving behind him like an eager puppy.
We reached the end of the alleyway and I could see around back of the building. The yard was filled with building rubble and trash. It was a total waste site. My heart sank. “Yer entry is ’ere.” Mr. Flaherty opened the white door on the right. “Go on, have a look-see. I’ve got yer bags.”
I moved up the stairs to the second floor, holding my breath waiting to see what my apartment—no, my flat—looked like. The shiny black and white alternating tiles of the kitchen floor struck me first. The bold statement set the personality of the newly renovated space and invited me in. I looked back at Mr. Flaherty with a huge smile of relief and approval.
“Do you think I’ll find any O’Malleys around here?”
I looked out the back window over the kitchen sink. Green hills rolled in the distance, but tightly packed housing estates filled the close-up view.
Mr. Flaherty hesitated again, but had no way of avoiding the question a second time. His silence was deafening and I turned to him. I caught a look in his eye that unnerved me, like he had seen a ghost…but he stared right at me.
“Ach, sure,” he mumbled and snapped back to the moment. “The O’Malleys are in Mayo. That’s where you’ll need be goin’.” He checked his pants pockets for something that likely didn’t exist and said, “Now, that should be everythin’. Gimme a holler now, Miss O’Malley, if I can help ya at’all.”
And he was gone before I could draw my next breath.
~ ~ ~
Michelle’s voice crackled and popped over my antiquated landline in my flat as she instructed me to meet her in town in exactly two hours. Her giddy voice assured me nineteen was The Big One, “true adult,” and she intended to celebrate pub-style. A sour twang shot through me as I realized I was saying goodbye to eighteen. It would be a memorable age. The age when I woke up and started breathing again.
Clothes flew in every direction as I dug through my bags for a decent outfit. I chucked my unresponsive cell phone out of the way and eyeballed it like a traitor. It would be unfair to judge it too harshly for its incompetent international service issues, yet a growl escaped through my teeth. Somehow it found its way back into my hand anyway, like a missing body part.
I ran to the tiny grocer a few doors down for some quick supplies, cell phone attached like a bad habit. Maybe I’d find a SIM card or whatever technological upgrade it needed. A stack of turf briquettes sat by the door, like a necessary last-minute item for all shoppers. I lifted a bundle to test the weight.
“’Tis the sod cut from the ancient bogs in Connemara, dried and turned into briquettes. Used for fuel, for the fire.” The clerk gave a half smile at my obvious greenness. “Go on.” He nudged his chin at me, lifting one eyebrow.
I keeled to one side as I grabbed the heavy stack—the smell of burning turf had tickled my nose all the way up Bohermore.
As I checked out, he added, “You’ll be needin’ ta get a new one of them.” He tapped on my old phone with smug certainty. “Tesco’s have got them pay-as-you-go phones.” I shot him a sideways glance and grabbed my phone, pretending to protect it from his negative judgment.
The turf bundle got heavier with each step as I grumbled toward my blue door. Maybe it was the insult to my phone, but likely the extra ten-pound load. I readjusted every few feet, rubbing the deep red lines out of my hand each time.
In the midst of my inconvenience, my eyes were drawn up Bohermore toward a sea of crosses gazing at me. A small church, surrounded by a cemetery of Celtic crosses, nestled itself into the landscape. Each ornate cross was decorated with a ring around its intersection and stood with pride for Gaelic Ireland.
They tilted their curious expressions at me with a hint of recognition. An unnerving chill ran through me as I looked around to see if anyone else was noticing this. A light pulsating on my chest warned me that my old burn was awakening.
Bags dangling, I grabbed my heap of briquettes and picked up my pace, wasting no time slamming the blue door behind me with a thud. The burning sensation eased and as I rubbed it, I was pretty sure it never really existed.
Feeling stupid, I began arranging the briquettes in my fireplace, one at a time like a teepee. They tipped and fell flat as I fumbled with their positioning, now ruing my reluctant participation in Girl Scouts. As I leaned in to check the flue, an uneasy sickness turned my stomach, like I was going to throw up. The sensation came in the exact moment that I felt—
The wind was coming.
I braced myself on the hearth, holding onto the edges, preparing for the terror and abuse of the winds. Ice ran through my veins, confirming the wind had found me again. But I had changed my direction, fled across the ocean in search of answers, and still it continued to attack me.
My eyes squeezed shut and I covered my mouth to control my sickness as the wind continued to blast me. Holding my breath, I opened my eyes one at a time. The whipping wind filled my vision with swirling salty mist.
I searched through the drizzle and swirling fog, looking for my mother. She was trapped in the wind and I had to find her.
I stumbled forward and reached out blindly. My hands struck damp stone: cold, solid rock—a high stone wall. I shuddered as chills shot through me, straight to the bone. Could it be the same stone wall I’d seen when I had my vision in Gram’s kitchen?
“Mom?” I whispered. “Mom? Are you there?”
I missed her. Just calling out to her split me in two.
A desperation rose in me, years of yearning, with the thought of seeing her again. It grew like a swarm as each painful, empty day I had existed without her came back to me in a flood. Flattened by its weight, I tried to push the ache off like every other day, but in this unnatural place it was even harder than normal.
Weakened from the crush of missing her, I leaned against the wall, pressing my cheek to it for support. Then, through the thick mist, I saw it—the ominous figure racing toward me.
I sprinted away on a bolt of adrenaline, keeping the wall on my right as I searched for a place to hide. The wall continued without end, like a sick nightmare, offering no shelter, no end to turn around. I was exposed. Like a defeated victim, I looked back toward my attacker in surrender.
The dark gray mist held no shape at first, and I caught my breath in the borrowed moment. Then my mind exploded with the war cry of a banshee. A mangled screech, like crushing metal and scratched chalkboards mixed with pure death, rose into one ringing, terrifying sound.
I flattened my back against the wall, trying to become part of it, to disappear into the mist before I was caught. My eyes darted upward, searching for safety and, through the dark fog that surrounded me, I could see an expanse of white sky drawing me upward. Was it “the light?” Was I supposed to head toward the light?
I blinked at its calm sanctuary, unable to resist its lure, and my muscles began to relax. My eyebrows rose up in slow motion as I focused on it—no, not on the light. On my ceiling. It was the ceiling of my flat, on Bohermore.
My hands, still on the stone wall, or so I thought, gripped the stonework of my fireplace. The stone wall vanished. The return from my awake dream went from slow-mo to face punch as the sound of my own voice hit me with its freakish, high-pitched scream.
“Who are you? What do you want!”
My voice echoed in the empty flat.
Then that troubling feeling seepe
d through me, the one you get in a horror movie when the slasher is creeping up and the ominous music is mounting. I wasn’t alone. Someone was near, just out of my view, watching me, stalking me.
My blood pressure plummeted, making me light-headed, causing the room to swirl. The jolting return of my heart’s steady beat brought me back, shocking me like a defibrillator, and I wondered how long it had actually been stopped.
My head reeled back as my life force surged through my veins and in a violent jerk I proceeded to vomit all over my new turf briquettes.
To continue reading go to:
BOHERMORE, Book One of the Pirate Queen Series
The Shuttered Ward Page 24
