Shadow Spell

16

WOMEN WERE A CONSTANT PUZZLE TO CONNOR’S mind, but their mysteries and secret ways accounted for some of their unending appeal to him.
He considered the woman he loved. Courageous and straightforward as they came on all matters—except those of the heart. And there she turned as fearful as a trapped bird, and just as likely to fly off and away given the smallest opening.
And yet that heart held strong and loyal and true.
A puzzle.
He’d spooked her, no question of that, with his declaration of feelings. He loved her, and for him true love came once and lasted forever.
Still, as he’d rather see her fly free—for now—than batter herself against the cage, he roused Boyle.
Having Boyle go into the stables with Meara—earlier than either needed to be—accomplished two things. She’d have his friend with her, and the three would have some time to talk alone.
Rain blew across the trees and hills, shivered against the windows. He let the dog out, walked out himself, circling the cottage—as they’d done the night before—checking to be certain no remnants of Cabhan’s spell remained.
His sister’s flowers bloomed, bold, defiant colors against the gloom with the grass beyond them a thick green blanket. And all he felt in the air was the rain, was the wind, was the strong, clear magicks he’d helped light himself in a ring around what was theirs.
When he paused at Roibeard’s lean-to, the hawk greeted him with a light rub of his head to Connor’s cheek. That was love, simple and easy.
“You’ll keep an eye out, won’t you?” Connor skimmed the back of his knuckle down the hawk’s breast. “Sure you will. Take some time for yourself now, and have a hunt with Merlin, for we’re all safe for the moment.”
In answer, the hawk spread his wings, lifted. He circled once, then soared to the woods, and into them.
Connor walked around again, went in through the kitchen door—holding it open as Kathel came up behind him.
“Done your patrol, have you then? And so have I.” He gave the dog a long stroke, a rub along the ears. “I don’t suppose you’d go up and give our Branna a nudge to get me out of making breakfast?”
Kathel simply gave him a look as dry as any hound could manage.
“I didn’t think so, but I had to try it.”
Accepting his fate, Connor fed the dog, freshened the water in the bowl. He lit the fires, in the kitchen, in the living room, even in the workshop, then had to calculate he could stall no more, and got down to it.
He set bacon sizzling, sliced up some bread, beat up eggs.
He was just pouring the eggs into the pan when Iona and Branna came in together—Iona dressed for work, Branna still in her sleep clothes with that before-my-coffee scowl in her eyes.
“Everyone’s up so early.” Knowing the rules, Iona let Branna get to the coffee first. “And Boyle and Meara already gone.”
“She wanted to change, and promised Boyle she’d fix him some breakfast for taking her around.”
“Mind those eggs, Connor, you’ll scorch them,” Branna said, as she did whenever he made breakfast.
“I won’t.”
“Why is it you have to turn up the flame to hellfire to cook every bloody thing?”
“It’s faster is why.”
And damn it, he nearly did scorch them because she’d distracted him.
He dumped them on a plate with the bacon, tossed on some toast, then plopped it all in the middle of the table. “If you’d stirred yourself sooner, you could’ve made them to your liking. Now you’ll eat them from mine, and you’re welcome.”
“It looks great,” Iona said brightly, and finger combing her cap of bright hair, sat.
“Ah, don’t pander to him just because he’s made a meal, and for the first time in weeks.” Branna sat with her, gave Kathel’s ears a scratch.
“It’s not pandering if you’re hungry.” Iona filled her plate. “We’re going to get cancellations today.” She nodded toward the steady, soaking rain. “Not only rain, but a cold one, too. Normally I’d be sorry about that, but today I think we could all use the extra time.”
She sampled some eggs. They were very . . . firm, she decided.
“If it’s as slow as I think it may be,” she continued, “I can probably get off early. I can come work with you, Branna, if you want.”
“I’ve some stock to finish up as I didn’t work on it yesterday. I’ll need to get it done and run it into the shop. But I’ll be here by noon, I’d think. Fin and I’ve finished the changes to the potion we used on the solstice. It’s stronger than it was, but the spell needs work, as does the timing, and the whole bloody plan.”
“We’ve got time.”
“The days click by. And he’s growing bolder and bolder. What he tried last night—”
“Didn’t work, did it now?” Connor countered. “What are his devil bats now but ash blown by the wind, washed by the rain? And it gave me a notion or two, the whole business of it.”
“You’ve a notion, have you?” Branna lifted her coffee.
“I have, and a story to tell as well. I looked for Eamon in dreams, and he for me. So we found each other.”
“You saw him again.”
He nodded at Iona. “I did, and pulled Meara into it with me. He was a man, about eighteen, as he said it had been five years since he’d last seen me. His Brannaugh has two children with a third to come, and Teagan is carrying her first.”
“She was pregnant—Teagan,” Iona added, “when I saw her, in my own dream.”
“I remember, so this would have been for me the same time in their world as it was for you. It was, for me as for you, at Sorcha’s cabin.”
“You know better than to go there,” Branna snapped, “in dreams or no.”
“I can’t tell you in truth if it was my doing or his, for I promise you I don’t know even now. But I knew we were safe there, for that time, or I would have pulled it back. I wouldn’t have risked Meara again.”
“All right. All right then.”
“They’d come home,” he continued, and lathered toast with jam, “and that was bittersweet. They know they’ll fight Cabhan, and they know they won’t win, won’t end him, as he’s here in our time, our place. I told him we were six, and that one of our six had Cabhan’s blood.”
“And did that float well?” Branna wondered.
“He knows me.” Connor tapped a hand on his heart. “And he trusts me. So in turn, he trusts mine, and Fin is mine. He had the pendant I gave him as well as the amulet we share. I had the little stone he gave me, and when I took it out, it glowed in my palm. You had the right of that, Branna. It has power.”
“Well, I wouldn’t put it in a sling and play David to Cabhan’s Goliath, but it’s good to keep it with you.”
“So I do. And more, I had the bluebell.”
“Teagan’s flower,” Iona added.
“I planted it, fed it with my blood, with water I drew from the air. And the flowers bloomed there on Sorcha’s grave.”
“You kept your word.” Iona brushed a hand over his arm. “And you gave them something that mattered.”
“I told him we’d end it, as I believe we will. And I think I know something that we missed on the solstice. Music,” he said, “and the joy of it.”
“Music,” Iona repeated even as Branna sat back, speculation in her eyes.
“What drew him here last night, so enraged, so bold? Our light, yes, and we’ll have that. Ourselves, of course. But we made music, and that’s a light of its own.”
“A joyful noise,” Iona said.
“It is that. It blinds him—with that rage against the joy. Why couldn’t it bind him as well?”
“Music. We made music that night last spring, do you remember, Iona? Just you and I and Meara here. I brought out my fiddle, and we played and sang, and he lurked outside, all shadows and fog. Drawn to it,” Branna said, “drawn to the music even as he hated it—hated that we had it in us to make it.”
“I remember.”
“Oh, I can work with this.” Branna’s eyes narrowed, her lips curved. “Aye, this will be something to stir into the pot. It’s a good thought, Connor.”
“It’s brilliant,” Iona said.
“I tend to agree with that.” Grinning, Connor shoveled in the last of his eggs.
“I’m sure Meara said the same.”
“She may, when I tell her. I only came around to it this morning,” he added, “and she was in a fired hurry to get on her way.”
“Why was that? I’ve still got nearly a half an hour before I have to get to work.” And because she did, Iona rose for a second cup of coffee. “If she’d waited, Boyle and I could’ve . . . Oh.” Her eyes rounded. “Did you have a fight?”
“A fight, no. She went into a fast retreat, as I expected she would, when I told her I loved her. Being Meara, it’ll take her a bit of time to settle into it all.”
“You figured it out.” Dancing back, Iona wrapped her arms around him from behind his chair. “That’s wonderful.”
“It wasn’t a matter of figuring . . . Maybe it was that,” he reconsidered. “And she’s some slower on coming to the conclusion. She’ll be happier when she does, and so will I. But for now, there’s a certain enjoyment in watching her try to squirm around it.”
“Have a care, Connor,” Branna said quietly. “It’s not a stubborn nature or a hard head that holds her back. It’s scars.”
“She can’t live her life denying her own heart because her shite of a father had none.”
“Have a care,” Branna repeated. “Whatever she says, whatever she thinks she believes, she loved him. She loves him still, and that’s why the hurt’s never gone all the way quiet.”
Irritation walked up his spine. “I’m not her father, and she should know me better.”
“Oh no, darling, it’s that she’s afraid she is—she’s like her father.”
“Bollocks to that.”
“Of course.” Branna rose, began to clear. “But that’s the weight she carries. As much as I love her, and she loves me, I’ve never been able to lift it away, not altogether. That’s for you to do.”
“And you will.” Iona pushed away from the table again to help. “Because love, if you just don’t let go, beats anything.”
“I won’t be letting go.”
Iona paused to kiss the top of his head. “I know it. The eggs were good.”
“I wouldn’t go as far as that,” Branna said, “but we’ll do the washing up since you cooked . . . after a fashion.”
“That’s fine then, as I need to call Roibeard in and get on to work.”
He got his jacket from the peg, and a cap while dishes clattered. “I do love her,” he said as the words felt so fine, “I love her absolutely.”
“Ah, Connor, you great git, so you always have.”
He went out into the rain thinking his sister was right. So he always had.
* * *
A FOUL MOOD, AN EDGY MANNER, AND A TENDENCY TO snipe equaled an assignment to the manure compost pile.
A filthy day for a filthy job, Meara thought as she changed into her oldest muck boots, switched her jacket for one of the thicker barn coats. But then again she was feeling fairly filthy. And since she couldn’t deny she’d picked a fight with Boyle—after snapping at Mick, snarling at Iona, and brooding her way through the rest of the morning—she couldn’t blame Boyle for banishing her to shit duty.
But she did in any case.
He’d given her guided to Iona—hardy souls from the midlands who weren’t put off by the sodding rain. Mick had a ring lesson, so the sodding rain didn’t matter for that, not a bit. Nor did it matter to Patty, who was cleaning tack, or to Boyle, who’d closed himself off in his office.
So it was left to her to tromp around in the sodding rain, and to the majestic turning of the shit pile.
She wrapped a scarf around her neck, pulled a cap low on her head, and clomped her way out—carting a shovel and a long metal stick—well behind the stables to what was not-so-lovingly referred to as Shite Mountain.
A stable of horses produced plenty for the mountain, and this by-product—if she wanted to use a fancy term—had to be dealt with. And wiser, eco-minded souls did more than deal. They used.
It was a process she approved of, on normal days. On days she wasn’t pissed off at the world in general. On days when it wasn’t raining fecking buckets.
Manure, properly treated, became compost. And compost enriched soil. So Fin and Boyle had built an area—far enough the odors didn’t carry back—to do just that.
When she reached Shite Mountain, she cursed, realizing she left her iPod and earbuds back at the stable. She wouldn’t even have music to distract her.
All she could do was mutter as she pulled the old, empty feed bags off the big pile, and began to use the shovel to turn the manure.
Proper compost required heat to kill the seeds, the parasites, to turn manure into a rich additive. It was a job she’d done countless times, so she continued automatically, adding fertilizer to help break down the manure, turning the outer layers into the heart and the heat, making a second pile, adding ventilation by shoving the stick down deep.
At least she didn’t have to drag out the hose as the sodding rain added all the water required to the mucky mix.
Mucky mix, she thought, putting her back into it. That’s just what Connor had tossed them into.
Why did he have to bring love into it? Love and promises and notions of futures and family and forever? Hadn’t it all been going well? Hadn’t they been doing fine and well with sex and fun and friendship?
Now he’d said all those words—and said many of them in Irish. A deliberate ploy, she thought as she shoveled and turned and spread. A ploy to twist up her heart. A ploy to make her sigh and surrender.
He’d made her weak—he had, he had—and she didn’t know what to do with weakness. Weakness was an enemy, and he’d set that enemy on her. And more, he’d made her afraid.
And she’d started it all, hadn’t she? Oh, she only had herself to blame for the situation, for the trouble it was bound to cause all around.
She’d kissed him first, she couldn’t deny it. She’d taken him into her bed, changing what they were to each other.
Connor was a romantic—she’d known that as well. But the way the man flitted from woman to woman, she couldn’t be blamed entirely for never expecting proclamations of love.
They had enough to deal with, didn’t they? The time to All Hallow’s Eve grew shorter every day, and if they had a true and solid plan for that, she’d yet to hear it.
Connor’s optimism, Branna’s determination, Fin’s inner rage, Iona’s faith. They had all that, and Boyle’s loyalty as well as her own.
But those didn’t amount to strategy and tactics against dark magicks.
And instead of keeping his brain focused on finding those strategies and tactics, Connor O’Dwyer was busy telling her things like she was the beat of his heart, the love of all his lifetimes.
In Irish. In Irish while he did impossible things to her body.
And hadn’t he looked her straight in the eye in the morning, after they woke from that strange dreamworld, and said straight out he loved her?
Grinned at her, she thought now, steaming up. As if turning her world upside down was a fine and funny joke.
She should’ve knocked him out of bed onto his arse. That’s what she should’ve done.
She’d set things right with him, by God she would. Because she wouldn’t be weak, not for him or anyone. She wouldn’t be weak and afraid. Wouldn’t have her heart twisted up so she made promises she’d only break.
She wouldn’t let herself become soft and foolish like her mother. Helpless to care for herself. Shamed and mourning the betrayal dealt like an axe blow by a man.
More—worse—she wouldn’t let herself become careless and selfish like her father. A man who would make promises, even keep them as long as his life stayed smooth. Who would heartlessly break them, and the hearts of those who loved him, when the road roughened.
No, she’d be no man’s wife, no man’s burden, no man’s heartbeat. Especially not Connor O’Dwyer’s.
Because, God help her, she loved him far too much.
She felt a sob rising up, brutally choked it back.
A temporary thing, she promised herself as she spread the bags over the compost piles again. This kind of burning in the heart couldn’t last.
No one could survive it.
She’d be herself again soon, and so would Connor. And all this would be like one of those strange dreams that weren’t dreams.
She told herself she was steadier now, that the physical labor had done her good. She’d go back, smooth things over with Mick, especially, and the others as well.
“You’ve done your penance,” she said out loud, stepped back, turned.
And her father smiled at her.
“So here you are, my princess.”
“What?”
A bird sang in the mulberry tree, and the roses bloomed like a fairyland. She loved the gardens here, the colors, the scents, the sounds of the birds, the song of the fountain as the water poured into the circling pool from a jug held by a graceful woman.
And loved all the odd corners and shaded bowers where she could hide away from her siblings if she wanted to be alone.
“Lost in dreams again, and didn’t hear me calling.” He laughed, the big roll of it making her lips curve even as tears stung her eyes.
“You can’t be here.”
“A man’s entitled to take a pretty day off to be with his princess.” Smiling still, he tapped the side of his nose with his index finger. “It won’t be long before all the lads in the county will start coming around, then you won’t have time for your old da.”
“I always would.”
“That’s my darling girl.” He took her hand, drew her arm through the crook of his. “My pretty gypsy princess.”
“Your hand’s so cold.”
“You’ll warm it up.” He began to walk with her, around the stone paths, through the roses and the creamy cups of calla lilies, the aching blue of lobelia with the sun showering down like the inside of a broken pearl.
“I came just to see you,” he began, using that confidential voice, adding the sly wink as he did when he had secrets to tell her. “Everyone’s in the house.”
She glanced toward it, the three fine stories of brick, painted white as her mother had wished. More gardens surrounded the large terrace, then led to a smooth green lawn where her mother liked to have tea parties in good summer weather.
All tiny sandwiches and frosted cakes.
And her room there, Meara thought, looking up. Yes, her room right there, with its French doors and little balcony. A Juliet balcony, he called it.
So she was his princess.
“Why is everyone in the house? It’s such a bright day. We should have a picnic! Mrs. Hannigan could make up some bridies, and we can have cheese and bread, and jam tarts.”
She started to turn, wanted to run to the house, call everyone out, but he steered her away. “It’s not the day for a picnic.”
For a moment she thought she heard rain drumming on the ground, and when she looked up, it seemed a shadow passed over the sun.
“What is that? What is it, Da?”
“It’s nothing at all. Here you are.” He broke a rose from the bush, handed it to her. She sniffed at it, smiled as the soft white petals brushed her cheek.
“If not a picnic, can’t we have some tea and cake, like a party, since you’re home?”
He shook his head slowly, sadly. “I’m afraid there can be no party.”
“Why?”
“None of the others want to see you, Meara. They all know it’s your fault.”
“My fault? What is? What have I done?”
“You consort and conspire with witches.”
He turned, gripping her shoulders hard. Now the shadow moved over his face, had her heart leaping in fear.
“Conspire? Consort?”
“You plot and plan, having truck with devil’s spawn. You’ve lain with one, like a whore.”
“But . . .” Her head felt light, dizzy and confused. “No, no, you don’t understand.”
“More than you. They are damned, Meara, and you with them.”
“No.” Pleading, she laid her hands on his chest. Cold, cold like his hands. “You can’t say that. You can’t mean that.”
“I can say it. I do mean it. Why do you think I left? It was you, Meara. I left you. A selfish, evil trollop who lusts for power she can never have.”
“I’m not!” Shock, like a blow to the belly, staggered her back a step. “I don’t!”
“You shamed me so I couldn’t look upon your face.”
The sobs came now, then a gasp as the white rose in her hand began to bleed.
“That’s your own evil,” he said when she threw it to the ground. “Destroying all who love you. All who love you will bleed and wither. Or escape, as I did. I left you, shamed and sickened.
“Do you hear your mother weep?” he demanded. “She weeps and weeps to be saddled with a daughter who would choose the devil’s children over her own blood. You’re to blame.”
Tears ran down her cheeks—of shame, of guilt and grief. When she lowered her head, she saw the rose, sinking in a puddle of its own blood.
And rain, she realized, falling fast and hard.
Rain.
She swayed a little, heard the bird singing in the mulberry, and the fountain cheerfully splashing.
“Da . . .”
And the cry of a hawk tore through the air.
Connor, she thought. Connor.
“No. I’m not to blame.”
Drenched by the rain, freed by the cry of the hawk, she swung out with the shovel. Though she took him by surprise, he leaped back so it whooshed by his face.
A face no longer her father’s.
“Go to hell.” She swung again but the ground seemed to heave under her feet. As it did she swore something pierced her heart.
On her sharp cry of pain, Cabhan bared his teeth in a vicious smile. And he spilled into fog.
She managed a shaky step forward, then another. The ground continued to heave, the sky turned and turned over her head.
From a distance, through the rain and the fog, she heard someone calling her name.
One step, she told herself, then another.
She heard the hawk, saw the horse, a gray blur speeding through the mists, and the hound streaking behind him.
She saw Boyle running toward her as if devil dogs snapped at his heels.
And as the world spun and spun, she saw with some amazement Connor leap off Alastar’s bare back.
He shouted something, but the roaring in her head muffled the sound.
Shadows, she thought. A world of shadows.
They closed in and swallowed her.
She swam through them, choked on them, drowned in them. She heard her father laugh, but cruelly, so cruelly.
You’re to blame, selfish, heartless girl. You have nothing. You are nothing. You feel nothing.
I’ll give you power, Cabhan promised, his voice a caress. It’s what you truly want, what you covet and crave. Bring me his blood, and I’ll give you power. Take his life, and I’ll give you immortality.
She struggled, tried to claw her way through the shadows, back to the light, but couldn’t move. She felt bound, weighed down while the shadows grew thicker, thicker so she drew them in with every breath.
Every breath was colder. Every breath was darker.
Do what he asks, her father urged her. The witch is nothing to you; you’re nothing to him. Just bodies groping in the dark. Kill the witch. Save yourself. I’ll come back to you, princess.
Then Connor reached for her hand. He glowed through the shadows, his eyes green as emeralds.
Come with me now. Come back with me. I need you, aghra. Come back to me. Take my hand. You’ve only to take my hand.
But she couldn’t—didn’t he see—she couldn’t. Something snarled and snapped behind her, but Connor only smiled at her.
Sure you can. My hand, darling. Don’t look back now. Just take my hand. Come back with me now.
It hurt, it hurt, to lift that heavy arm, to strain against binding she couldn’t see. But there was light in him, and warmth, and she needed both so desperately.
Weeping, she lifted her arm, reached out for his hand. It was like being pulled by her fingertips out of thick mud. Being dragged a centimeter at a time, and painfully, while some opposing force pulled her back.
I’ve got you, Connor said, his eyes never leaving hers. I won’t let you go.
Then she felt as if she exploded, a cork out of a bottle, into the clear.
Her chest burned, burned as if her heart had turned into a hot coal. When she tried to draw in air, it seared up into her throat.
“Easy now, easy. Slow breaths. Slow. You’re back now. You’re safe. You’re here. Shh now, shh.”
Someone sobbed, wrenching, heartrending. It took her minutes to realize the sounds came from her.
“I’ve got you. We’ve got you.”
She turned her face into Connor’s shoulder—God, God, the scent of him was like cool water after a fire. He lifted her.
“I’m taking her home now.”
“My house is closer,” she heard Fin say.
“She’ll be staying at the cottage until this is finished, but thanks. I’m taking her home now. But will you come? When you can, will you come?”
“You know I will. We all will.”
“I’m with you now, Meara.” She heard Branna’s voice, felt Branna’s hand stroke her hair, her cheek. “I’m right here with you.”
She wanted to speak, but nothing came out but those terrible, tearing sobs.
“Go with them,” Boyle said. “Go with them, Iona. It should be the three with her. I’ll see to Alastar. Take the lorry and go with them.”
“Come soon.”
Meara turned her head enough to see Iona running for Boyle’s lorry, climbing behind the wheel. Running through the rain, through the mists while the world rocked back and forth, back and forth like the deck of a ship in a storm.
And the pain in her chest, in her throat, in every part of her burned like the fires of hell.
She wondered if she’d died. If she’d died damned as the father who wasn’t her father had said.
“Shh now,” Connor said again. “You’re alive and you’re safe, and you’re with us. Rest now, darling. Just rest now.”
On his words, she slipped into warm sleep.