Originally, I’d planned to tour the island country before doing anything else, but I’m finding myself drawn north, toward the city of Torr.
For a long time, as I head out of town, there’s traffic thick around me. Then I’m on a long, winding road that tilts upward, driving into rocky, high-grassed fields that ripple into foothills rising between lakes. Fog sprawls across the road and climbs the hills and makes them hazy, even in the golden sun. I see a rainbow, some lone houses, finally a small township.
Behind the scattered, whitewashed buildings, which are organized around a stone cathedral that looks like a Catholic church, I see mountains—the ones that were visible from downtown Clary. My map says they’re called An Ocht.
Driving in their shadows, I feel slightly dizzy. They’re just…so big. They’re not as wide as Colorado’s Rockies. They’re steeper. And greener. Possibly taller. When the fog clears momentarily on a narrow mountain pass, I see a peak, and it’s snow-white.
Fallen rocks crowd the little road I’m on, and I stick close behind the navy blue van in front of me. It’s tall and skinny, not like mom vans in the U.S. I crack my windows, inhale cool air, eat a ginger snap.
When I start feeling sick again, I eat a few of the weird cracker things and chase them down with ginger ale.
I breathe slowly.
You can do this.
I notice that I don’t have service on my phone and worry that it won’t come back as I head toward Gael’s north coast.
“It’ll be fine,” I tell Grey. “We’ll borrow someone’s landline or stop at an internet café. Do the still make those? I think they do.”
I realize I don’t have the slightest idea what towns or cities stand between me and Torr, so at an observation point, I pull over and unfold my paper map.
I see a few dots on the map, but they’re all pretty smallish. Larger ones like Clary are all along the coast, especially the island’s western coast, which points toward Scotland. There are a few more big dots along the southeastern coastline, but only one big one up north, and that’s Torr.
So I’m stunned when, just a few miles later, I approach the area where there was a little, black tower symbol on the map, and find myself looking down a massive, stone fence-line, behind which I see four brown stone towers.
“Castle!”
I’m so surprised, I actually hit the brakes—and promptly pull off the road, onto the grassy shoulder.
“Sorry, Grey.”
He meows, and I decide to let him out. I hold him for a minute, rubbing down his head and back while he paws at my lap.
“Whoa…”
This thing is big. My gaze darts down the fence-line. The fence is tall, like almost as tall as a two-story house, and the castle behind it is even bigger. The weird thing is, the stones themselves don’t look worn or anything.
The castle doesn’t face the road—it’s angled in another direction, as if the road’s path near it is purely coincidental—but I can see a few large flags, including Gael’s, with its cream background and two navy blue lions. I look across the grass between the road’s side, where I am, and the fence, which is really more a wall.
It’s probably two hundred yards of distance. I’m not sure what would happen to me if I walked over to the wall, and I’m not really sure I want to find out. A few more minutes looking around reveal small guard towers along the wall. Real guard towers. Crazy!
I set Grey’s carrier in the passenger’s side floorboard and set him on the chair, where he seems comfortable enough.
Then I open my bag and pull out the thick stack of papers I printed before leaving the states, fishing for…this one. I skim the article. It says in a story from the Guardian a few months ago that the ancient Gaelic castle in Torr has been fully renovated over the past few years for use by Prince Liam, whose actual first name is—shudder—Willahelm. I’m not sure how you get Liam from Willahelm, but I’m sure glad you do. Poor guy.
My stomach flip-flops as I think it.
Poor Prince Liam my ass. Poor me.
I get back into the car and commence my drive, looking in awe up at the craggy, moss-streaked mountains with their jagged edges and their cloudy wreath. I’m fascinated by the rug of pure, Ireland-style green that runs around their foothills, which I assume, from my time in Colorado, is maybe due to lots of rain and snow on the mountains’ peaks, which runs off into streams around the foothills. In any event, the lands around the base of the mountains look much greener if you see them from high-up, on one of the mountain passes.
It’s cold up here, like thirty-eight degrees cold, and I drive through several bursts of snow-slush stuff. Then I start to descend, and when I get another chance to pull off and look down at one of the lakes, I realize I’ve just gone right over the mountain range, which extends from the northwest corner of the island up toward the northeast, with the peaks due east of Torr.
As I drive slowly down, my car’s lights on, piercing through the fog, shining against the hazy afternoon gray, I think of what I’ll tell Liam when I see him.
I spend a few minutes worrying over how the baby might be raised. Liam wouldn’t try to take it, would he? Raise it on the island? Surely not, especially if he was educated in America. I tell myself he obviously has a lot of American friends, a lot of women all around the world, a lot of money.
We’re not married, so the child is mostly mine…right?
By the time I stop at a one-horse prairie town in the mountain’s shadow to pee at a gas station, I’m feeling almost hostile toward Prince Liam.
You could just not tell him, a small voice whispers. But I know that’s wrong. This baby is his child, too, and he or she deserves a father. I’m not sure how great a father Prince Liam—just Liam, I correct myself—will be. His own sire is a notorious asshole who terrorizes the country’s parliament and overrules them in ways that violate the island’s constitution all the time. But…who knows. He’s been really nice to me.
For sex.
“Shut up,” I mutter.
I wonder when I’ll get the nerve to approach his castle in Torr. I wonder whose castle I just passed. I think maybe that’s his father’s? Will Liam’s castle be smaller? I remember from my readings that it backs up right against the sea. That should be pretty.
I wonder how long I’ll stay. Maybe just long enough to tell the gate keepers that I’m here to see him (about something important, if they press me) and have a quick sit-down by the throne where I can let him know I’m his baby mama.
I look down at my stomach. Looking pretty normal. It’s hard to believe I’m even pregnant.
I take another swig of ginger ale and munch a few more crackers before I realize I’m starving. Like, for real food.