I thought of Nora again, and how she could possibly play into all of this. “It doesn’t make any sense. Why would Deri kidnap my best friend and bring her all the way to Wexford? If Carmen is trying to escape, what could she want with a human?”
Deidre’s forehead wrinkled in thought. “If the stories be true, it took four Tuatha Dé to imprison the witch. Could be Deri’s attempting to gather four of their descendants with the idea to break the enchantment. Are you sure your friend be pure human?”
“Yes,” I answered emphatically. “Nora has no notion of our kind, so far as I know.”
“Then maybe it be a trick o’ sorts. Who’s to say what that little devil be thinking.” Deidre shook her head slowly. “A week afore Roddy died, he was very upset about something Deri told him. He only shared a wee bit as I was breeding for the first time and he didn’t want to upset me.”
My gaze dipped to her belly. The needles and woolen square rested on the swollen curve, momentarily forgotten. “What did he tell you?”
“Sounded like a bunch o’ cryptic nonsense at the time. But I think it had to do with Carmen wanting her three sons back, who were exiled from Ireland during the rampage.”
“Wouldn’t they be dead by now?” Even if Carmen were a goddess, the offspring most likely carried some human blood, and it only took a drop to render a person mortal.
“Dead and turned to dust,” Deidre confirmed. “So you understand why I didn’t take it to heart. I wouldn’t now, except...” Her words trailed off as she glanced skyward through the glass pane.
“Except for what?” I prodded.
She looked back at me, eyes unmistakably darker this time and worry etched in her face. “That I feel something be wrong, like a foul breath waiting to blow across the land.” She laughed softly. “Carmen and her sons almost destroyed Ireland once. Given another chance, I know in me bones that they won’t fail a second time.”
A headache threatened after so much depressing talk, and I pressed several fingers to my temple to help stave it off. If Deidre was right, this was one pack of sleeping dogs we needed to let lie, or remain imprisoned and dead, in their case. “The sooner you show us where Carmen is buried, Ailish and I can stop Deri from whatever she has planned.” I just prayed it wasn’t too late—for Nora and for every man, woman, and child living in this ancient land.
“I’ve never been to the place meself. Roddy told me about the dolmen after we married, and by then he wouldn’t go anywhere near it, for fear that the witch would draw him in again.”
My heart dropped. “You don’t know where it is?”
“Oh, I’ve a good sense o’ where the mound be from listening to Deri and Roddy talk. Going on foot, the journey would take nigh on two hours. But with horses, you can be there in half the time.”
I pushed to the very edge of the chair. “Where is it?”
Deidre gestured toward the front garden. “Follow the trail back to the stream. At the charred stump, you’ll turn away from Wexford and go for a fair space until you reach the edge of an oak grove. There’s no path to guide by, but if you travel due north, you’ll come upon several large rocks that be leaned together like a giant stacked them. That’s where the witch be.”
The directions sounded easy enough, except for one small detail. “How do we get into the mound?”
“Don’t know exactly. The key’s in the blood is all Roddy ever said. If it be a true dolmen, I suppose you walk between the stones just, and the goddess blood will speak for you.”
This was a rather big assumption, considering all that rode on our success—or failure. “And if it doesn’t?”
Ailish shifted on the footstool. I glanced at her, fully expecting some sort of insight on our predicament. Or anything really, just to acknowledge that she had indeed been paying attention and understood what was at stake. Her silence persisted though as she drew a long breath in through her nose, held it for several seconds, and then exhaled.
The fate of Ireland rested on our shoulders, and that was all she had offered since coming into the cottage.
Annoyed, I returned my attention to Deidre in the form of a pointed stare. “Did Roddy allude to any other way into the dolmen, in case walking through the stones doesn’t work?”
Deidre kept her eyes fixed on mine. “Can you smell it then?”
I started. “Smell what?” Wood smoke? The herbs and meat simmering in the pot?
“I smell it all right.”
My head jerked back to Ailish, and I saw fevered eagerness in her eyes. “What on earth are you talking about?”
A grin split her mouth. “Death,” she said, tipping her head toward the bedroom door. “Coming from there.”
Deidre nodded. “Living with one foot in the grave, she has, for nigh on a month now. Refuses to put the other in for fear o’ leaving me alone.”
I eyed the door suspiciously. “Who’s in there?”