Furain an t-aoigh a thig, greas an t-aoigh tha falbh . . .
It was Mary. The hood on her dark green cloak had fallen back, and her brown, curling hair tossed like wild bramble, framing her pale face. Now more than ever the cluster of freckles over her nose looked like a smear of blood. I recognized the Gaelic language but not the meaning of the words. Still, their strangeness did not diminish the haunting beauty of her voice. A lullaby and warrior’s chant all in one. The refrain repeated, louder now, for I was limping closer as her song reached its crescendo.
Furain an t-aoigh a thig, greas an t-aoigh tha falbh!
The rain began not as a trickle but as one drenching downpour. I was soaked in an instant, and I wrapped the book more carefully in my skirts, desperate to keep it safe from the sudden rain. A crack of lightning struck so close to the manse’s property that I was temporarily blinded. When the shock wore off, I reeled back a little, gasping, the house illuminated as if it stood in broad daylight. I saw shadows moving among the windows, their silhouettes blinking from one floor to the next, great, grasping bodies lurking wherever I looked.
Mary’s voice broke through to me again, and I forced my way through the rain, watching, gasping once more as I realized the raindrops avoided her altogether. Not a speck of water darkened her cloak. It was as if a beam from heaven protected her, keeping her dry and safe.
I stumbled in one of the holes and swore, and she whipped around to face me. Never could I have imagined a less kind expression, but it softened as soon as she recognized me. One of her raised hands dropped, reaching, gesturing . . . I regained my balance and pushed through the mud, taking her hand as the sheltering force around her blasted back the rain.
“Don’t let go,” she whispered. “Don’t let go, Louisa, it will be all right.”
But I jumped, startled by another silver spike of lightning cracking open the sky. Shadows stood in every window now, and it occurred to me that perhaps they were not up to any business inside but were in fact staring out. Watching Mary. Watching us.
And then I remembered—tonight was to be the night of Mrs. Eames’s demise.
Mary squeezed my hand tightly just as the scream ripped through the house. No, not the scream—two of them, though they tore at me simultaneously. One was real and raw and present, shorter than the other, which sounded oddly muted, as if my ears had been suddenly dunked in water and the liquid still sloshed around in my head, dulling everything.
It gave me a jolt, a headache that came and went before I could even make sense of the pain.
And as both screams died, the wind rose harder and faster, and I huddled against Mary, anchoring myself to her, afraid then that we would be lifted into the air and dashed against the walls. But the rain eased, and with it the winds, and though I still shivered with the cold and wet, the storm was no longer a danger to us.
Mary squeezed my hand again, her sweet, familiar face back to smiling shyly.
“What was that?” I whispered breathlessly.
“Only a bit of shielding,” she said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Poppy’s scream could kill us all, the little scamp. She never did learn how to rein herself in.”
“Then Mrs. Eames is dead.” It was less shocking than I expected. Less affecting. I didn’t know if I believed the stories about her, but I did know that there was no longer anything I could do about it.
“Oh aye,” Mary replied, taking my arm. She tugged me gently back toward the house. “But she went real quick-like. No suffering but what was already eating away at her heart.”
“No.” I pulled my arm out of her grasp. “I won’t go back in there.”
“Well, you can’t sleep out here,” Mary said with a frown. “You’ll catch your death.”
Grimacing, I nodded toward the barn. “It’s warm enough in the hayloft. Those shadow things . . . I’ll never rest knowing they’re prowling about.”
“It does take some getting used to,” she admitted. “Can I at least bring you tea in the morning? You have to eat eventually, you know.”
She looked so sad, so . . . offended. And I suppose in a way that made perfect sense. I was rejecting her as much as I was rejecting the rest of the madhouse she lived in. Her cloak settled in the lessening wind, falling more tightly to her body, and she hugged herself, waiting for my reply.
I couldn’t meet her warm green eyes. Green eyes that had peered back at me for years and years of my childhood, eyes that had sparkled to hear my jokes and shed tears when I shed tears. But this was not Maggie, it was Mary, and Mary had just helped a little girl kill someone. I would not allow myself to be deceived, even if her eyes said: Trust me, and her smile said: I mean well.
“I can manage on my own,” I said, turning back toward the barn. “I don’t need your help, and I don’t want it.”
Chapter Twenty
Ainsprid Choimhdeachta: Guardian Angels
or Guardian Devils? A Journey
In the spring of 1798, I brought a handful of gifts to Kilmurrin Cove, following a rumor of a spring sacred to the Dark Fae. There is the better known Holy Well, which is easy enough to find, but this particular spring was a long-held secret of Waterford. Mentioning the secret spring in pubs and taverns resulted in grunts and dismissals and suspiciously high bills. These inquiries were not wanted, and thus, I was not wanted.
It was on an unseasonably warm evening, after another failed campaign of casual suggestions in a pub, that a young man approached me as I left. He was stout and round-faced, with ruddy hair and a knowing cat’s grin. The name he gave me, Alec, was surely not his own.
“If a spring’s your thing, I ken one fit even for a king.”
Charming though his rhyming was, I was not in the mood for games. It did, however, spark my interest, considering nobody else in the Irish town seemed willing to entertain my questions. And so I indulged him, answering in kind.
“If you know the place, I have a coin for your trouble; lead on, young friend, to the place where dark secrets bubble.”
“Aye, to the spring we will go, but not without tribute. The Fae are greedy, as you and I both know.”