The Holders

13



If there was one thing I learned over the next few days, it was that Ireland was nothing like the US. I guess I should have suspected that, but for some reason my subconscious had it figured that since the people in Ireland spoke English it must be a lot like home.

It was not.

Sure, there were similarities; they did (basically) speak English, though there were some euphemisms I was unfamiliar with, like “trainers” for shoes, and so on. My personal favorite was “feck”. As you can imagine, the Irish dialect caused the “e” to sound a lot like a “u”, which sorry, but I got a kick out of. Hearing that – ahem – word thrown around in casual conversation by everyone from professors to students was hilarious, and it took me several days – and a lot of suppressed giggling – to get used to.

The food wasn’t much better. I have always been a picky eater, and unfortunately the Irish cuisine wasn’t doing it for me. In the cafeteria’s defense, they did try. The school hosted students from all over the word, and I could tell that the culinary staff did their best to cater to everyone, what with “Italian Day”, the “Eastern Buffet”, and the “American Specials”. But, try as they might, putting a sign over something that says “American”, doesn’t inherently make it so. For instance, the “American Grilled Cheese” was grated hard cheddar, melted between two slices of rye soda bread.

No thanks.

I was anxious about breakfast as that had always been my favorite kind of food, and was happy to find that most of it was the same sort of stuff I was used to – eggs, bacon, toast, pancakes – except of course, the baked beans. Who in their right mind came up with the idea to serve baked beans for breakfast I’ll never know, but it isn’t a tradition I’ll be adopting any time soon.

And then there was the weather! After a few days I started to wonder if an umbrella shouldn’t be added to the national flag, as I’d never seen so much rain in my life! There wasn’t a day without it, and you never knew when it might pop up. Sure, there were your typical storms that were easy to see rolling in, but sometimes a shower would sneak up, soak you before you had a chance to run, and then be gone again like it had never been.

Strange euphemisms, weird food, and crazy weather aside, my stay at St Brigid’s was turning out much more enjoyable than I would have ever imagined. I’d expected to be little more than Ryland’s sister, but everyone made me feel so included and at home it was as though they were honestly happy to have me. Min always greeted me with a smile, Mr Anderson and Mr Reid held a permanent seat for me in whatever the daily game was, and Chloe was always happy to spend as much time with me as she could. Honestly, if she weren’t taking a few of the college-level courses that St Brigid’s offered, thus requiring her to go to class once or twice a day, I’d probably never be alone. Alex was worried that it bothered me, but I actually liked it. It made me feel wanted, and Lord knows I wasn’t getting that from Ry. The only time I even saw him was in the morning before he left for classes, and even that was only because I made a point of going to his dorm on my way back from breakfast each day to say hi. Normally I wouldn’t have been so clingy, but after those first few days I realized that if I didn’t make the effort I very well might not see him again until he graduated. Mr Popularity certainly wasn’t going to any lengths to seek me out. Which, I had to keep reminding myself, was good, even if a little annoying.

The one person who didn’t seem to want me around was Taron. He continued to ignore and/or sneer at me in derision every chance he got, but it didn’t bother me, as he was a jerk. I didn’t care how long he’d been with Jocelyn, or how trustworthy Alex said he was. To me, he’d been nothing but a gigantic ass, and I would continue to consider him as such until he gave me a reason to do otherwise – and I wasn’t holding my breath.

Last, but by no means least, there was Alex. I’d worried that after our almost-kiss, fantastically frustrating as it had been, that things would be awkward between us. However, when we’d met the following day he acted as though it had never happened, which was a relief…

… and, kind of annoying.

But as my only options were to either ask him outright about it, or ignore it and move on, I chose the latter. Better to be happy and enjoy what time with him I had, than to ruin everything by being needy.

We hung out together every day, without fail. Most days he would find me playing, judging, or just watching the Anderson/Reid game of the day. So often actually, that I came to expect him and started to look forward to that more than the game itself. He would arrive no later than four, and join us for a while. Sometimes he would play a round or two of whatever sport or contest we had going, then eventually he would casually ask if I wanted to take a walk. Sometimes we would in fact walk, while other times we’d find a seat somewhere and talk, or go to the cafeteria and grab dinner. But no matter what we ended up doing, it was always, hands down, my favorite part of the day.

The afternoon Alex didn’t come to the lounge at his usual time was the first day since we left Pittsburgh that I hadn’t seen him. I forced a smile through the last round of checkers, no longer in the mood, pulled on my jacket and walked out onto the porch, not really sure what to do with myself. Or more accurately, avoiding what I knew I should be doing with myself, which was go to the computer lab, finally make a decision about which school to attend in the spring, and send my enrolment forms in. I’d been thinking about it a lot over the past few days, and the fact of the matter was I was out of excuses. It was clear that Ryland was happy, and thanks to security updates from Min and a few conversations with Alex, I was actually beginning to believe that he was indeed safe here as well. Mom and I talked every few days, and I could tell that she was also doing well on her own and wouldn’t need my help at home anymore. Everyone was happy, and there was nothing holding me back.

So why couldn’t I do it?

Why couldn’t I bring myself to take the twenty minutes and send in an enrolment paper? Why did I suddenly get a knot in my stomach every time I thought of going back home and starting a real life for myself?

I sat down on the wide stone railing that ran along the edge of the porch, straddling it, with one foot almost touching the stone floor of the porch, while the other was dangling over ten feet off the ground. I noticed a piece of branch from a bush, laying on the railing just in front of me, and started absent-mindedly picking the tiny leaves off of it and piling them up on top of each other. When the twig was bare, I tossed it over the rail and stared at the tower of leaves, admiring the fact that I’d gotten it so high. But then, all of a sudden, the top leaf began to slowly lift off the tower, and float in the air. The second leaf followed, then the third, and the fourth, until all the leaves were hovering in the air, only inches from my face. I blinked a few times, sure I was seeing things, but when I looked again there they were, bobbling gently in the air, like Christmas ornaments on a swaying branch. They hung there for a moment longer, then began to move again, arranging themselves into letters, and then words: May I join you?

I whipped around to find Alex standing a few feet behind me, smiling.

“Did you…?” I turned back to the floating leaf-message only to find it gone. Of course it was gone – it had never really been there.

“Sorry,” Alex chuckled, as he came around to sit next to me on the rail, “didn’t mean to scare you.”

I gave him a wry grin as I brushed the leaves away. “All right… that was pretty cool.”

“Thanks,” he said, crossing his legs up under him and shifting to face me, “I try. I’m not bothering you, am I? You seemed pretty deep in thought.”

“No, just thinking about school,” I told him, happy to have something else to put my mind to.

“What do you mean?” There was a sudden seriousness in his tone that confused me.

“I’m going to send in my enrolment paperwork soon, that’s all.”

“Oh,” he said, reaching down and pulling some long palms off of the tree growing just under his spot on the rail. He began twisting and tying them together in his hands. “Where are you going to go?” he asked, not looking up from his work.

“Well, that’s part of the problem, I’m not sure yet. Probably Princeton. It’s in a suburb which I like, and it’s really pretty. Lame reasons to choose a school, I know, but it’s Princeton after all. Hard to go wrong.”

“Hmm.” He nodded, still watching his hands. He hadn’t even glanced up while I’d been talking, and I started to worry I was boring him. “Everything OK?” I asked.

He looked up at me, but didn’t quite smile. “Yeah, sure.”

Looking for a new subject I saw a few of the scattered leaves from the twig on the rail between us, and got to thinking.

“What do you see?” I asked, curious. “When you cast something, I mean. Do you see what you make other people see, or do you see what’s really there?”

“Well,” he said, looking thoughtful, “both, really. Mostly I see what I cast, but I can still see reality.”

“You see both at once? Doesn’t that give you a headache?” I was getting dizzy just thinking about it.

“No, not at all, but then I’m used to it. Here, I’ll show you.”

Everything around me went blurry and when it cleared, Alex and I were unmoved – me straddling, while he was cross-legged – only now we were on a long white-sand beach, seated on a smooth driftwood log. The sun was setting on the horizon, while the waves rolled back and forth, licking the shore only a few feet from where my toes dangled.

“Wow,” I said under my breath in amazement. “Where’s this?”

“A beach in the South of France. Taron and I were scouting near here last year.”

“I guess scouting does have its perks,” I laughed, looking around. “So, you see all this?” I waved at the scenery.

He nodded. “I see everything that you see, but for me there is also reality. I can still see the school, and the grounds over the top of everything else, but… I don’t know, it’s hard to describe… it’s almost as though I can see through them to the alternate reality that I cast.”

“Show me.”

He smiled, seeming happy. I wanted to understand, and in an instant things around me shifted and suddenly I could see it all too. We were still on the beach, but now I could also see vague shapes and outlines of the real world that I hadn’t been able to see a moment ago. Lorcan Hall, the rail we were on, even the outlines of each of the stones in the floor of the porch were there, but the actual objects themselves were transparent. It was as though everything in reality was made of clear glass and you could only see the edges and shadows of the shapes.

“I can always see reality, but it’s also easy to ignore if I want to,” Alex said.

“What about other people? If someone were to walk by us right now, would they see all this?”

“Only if I wanted them to.”

“Would I even know if someone walked by?”

“You wouldn’t see them but you could still hear them. Listen.” The sounds of the ocean, which I hadn’t even registered were there, suddenly disappeared, and I could hear people – students and teachers – off in the distance, returning to their rooms for the night, or maybe heading to dinner. “I can create sounds, and cover the visuals of reality, but I can’t cover the sounds of the real world. I can drown them out when possible,” he said as the sound of the ocean came back, covering the distant sounds of the campus, “but any noise within a normal conversational distance, I can’t do anything about.”

“So, if I had said something in the hall the other day, I would have been busted?” I asked, remembering the way Alex was able to hide me.

“Definitely,” he agreed. “We both would have.”

The beach faded away as Alex turned his attention back to the palms he was casually braiding.

“Looks like tomorrow is the day,” he said after a while, glancing up at me, “For Ryland’s meeting I mean.”

“Oh… right.” I’d been wondering how much longer they’d wait.

“We can go get him in the morning. That is, if you want to go. I figured you’d still want to take him, even if you weren’t going in.”

“I do,” I nodded, feeling guilty. “Honestly, I do want to go in with him, you know, just to be there for him, but… I can’t.”

“It’s all right, I’m sure he’ll understand. And for his first meeting maybe it’s best that he does it alone.”

“Maybe. Still, I feel like I’m letting him down. And I feel horrible for making you do something that I should be doing.”

Alex looked up at me then with eyes so deep they might well have been endless. “I don’t think you have ever let anyone down, Becca.” The warmth in his voice made the back of my neck get hot, even with the chill in the air. “And don’t worry about me,” he added a moment later, “I am more than happy to help.”

As I looked into his eyes as he said those words, something fell together for me. He was more than happy to help; I’d seen that countless times over the past several days. But it wasn’t just that he was always helping me, he was always helping everyone. Taking care of everyone, the way that someone would care… for family. This was his family, where he belonged. Min, and Chloe, Anderson and Reid, it was even clear that he regarded Jocelyn as a father figure although I’d never actually seen the two of them together. He’d adopted them all as the family he’d never had. Though, I could also see that it wasn’t just the people, but the Holder idea in general. From the way he’d spoken about the first time Jocelyn told him that he wasn’t the only one who was different, to his vast knowledge of the Holder stories and histories, it was clear that this was truly who he was.

“This is your home, isn’t it?” I asked quietly. I knew the question didn’t really make sense, but I could see he knew what I meant.

He nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “It’s the only one I’ve ever had.”

Again for what seemed like the hundredth time since I’d met him, I was in awe. Instead of allowing himself to be defined by his horrible childhood – as so many people would have done – he took the opportunity offered by these people and this life to start over and make his own identity. Little as this realization may have seemed, it explained so much. None of the other Holders spoke fluent Gaelic besides Jocelyn, who I knew had learned as a child, but Alex did. Not only did he speak it, but his use of it always impressed me, like his flawless accent, or the way he would seamlessly slip in and out of Gaelic when describing or naming something he was particularly fond of, as he had done when introducing me to Min, calling her máthair ghlac, or surrogate mother. At the time it had seemed odd, but now I understood; it was the language of his heart.

“It’s who I am,” he finished, as though he could see the realization in my eyes.

No, I couldn’t let him think that. Much as I admired his adopting and identifying with a new life, it was his ability to do so that was truly remarkable. His strength of character and courage in the face of everything he’d gone through – that was what made him who he was.

What made him amazing.

I shook my head, still holding his eyes. “That’s part of who you are, but you are so much more than that.”

He held there, both of us still as the building itself, and, I couldn’t speak for him, but I would have been happy to stay there the rest of the night. Without willing it to, my mind went back to the night in my room when he’d come so close to kissing me. He hadn’t tried anything like that since, but that didn’t mean that I couldn’t, right? It would have been easy, all I had to do was lean forward a tiny bit. Should I? Did I really have the balls to–?

Alex took a deep breath, breaking my train of thought, and the moment itself.

Damn it! OK, no hesitating next time…

He uncrossed his legs and slid down to the porch while I worked at regaining my composure. He brushed off his pants and tossed the clump of palms he’d been fiddling with onto the rail where he’d been sitting.

“What is that?” I asked, picking up the palms, which he had twisted and tied into an intricate knot shaped sort of like an X.

“Nothing,” he said with a shrug. “It’s called a St Brigid’s Cross. Chloe showed me how to tie them. I make them all the time, just for something to do. Grass works the best.”

Obviously he thought it was no big deal, but I was impressed.

“Let me run and get my coat and we’ll go to dinner. I told Chloe she could meet us over there, I hope that’s all right.”

“Sure, that’d be great,” I said, though I would have preferred it to have been just the two of us.

“I’ll meet you up front,” he said walking off and disappearing into the building.

When I was sure he was gone I hopped down off the rail and slid the little cross into my jeans pocket, for the first time actually admitting to myself that I was seriously falling for this guy.

Falling hard.

And if I didn’t watch myself, I might not be able to get back up.