The Crow of Connemara, by Stephen Leigh
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The Crow of Connemara, by Stephen Leigh
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The Crow of Connemara is a contemporary Celtic fantasy set primarily in Ireland. Picking up threads from ancient Irish mythology and folktales, this story is fantasy, drama, and tragic romance all at once, a tale caught in the dark places where the world of ancient myth intersects our own, where old ways and old beliefs struggle not to be overwhelmed by the modern world.Colin Doyle is young Irish-American musician from Chicago, whose interest is traditional Irish music. Maeve Gallagher is an Oileánach, an "Islander" from Ireland's west coast. Islanders are outcasts treated with suspicion by the locals, who think them responsible for wild and strange happenings in the area. Colin soon discovers that he's connected to Maeve in ways he never could have imagined.
The Crow of Connemara, by Stephen Leigh - Amazon Sales Rank: #1065293 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-03-03
- Released on: 2015-03-03
- Format: Kindle eBook
The Crow of Connemara, by Stephen Leigh Review "An intriguing mix of old Celtic Fae mythology and a contemporary drama of finding yourself....Leigh is a master at building an entire world, not just the bare bones required by the plot." —RT Reviews "The Crow of Connemara is an aptly written, thoughtful story that weaves its magic using strands from Irish mythology and folktales and juxtaposing them nicely with life in the modern world. I consider Leigh’s book as one part fantasy, one part drama, and two parts tragic romance." —North Kentucky Tribune"Leigh did a wonderful job doing the world building of this story....An exciting and interesting ending." —The Reading Café"There is something so otherworldly about Ireland and its rich history, and [Leigh] does a beautiful job of tying it in with a contemporary storyline." —Coffee Time and Romance
About the Author Stephen Leigh is a Cincinnati-based, award-winning author with nineteen science fiction novels and over forty short stories published. He has been a frequent contributor to the Hugo-nominated shared world series Wild Cards, edited by George R. R. Martin. He teaches creative writing at Northern Kentucky University. The Assassins' Dawn series encompasses his long-unavailable first three novels: Slow Fall to Dawn, Dance of the Hag, and A Quiet of Stone. He can be found at farrelworlds.com.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
DAW TRADEMARK REGISTERED U.S. PAT. AND TM. OFF. AND FOREIGN COUNTRIES—MARCA REGISTRADA HECHO EN U.S.A.
A Note on Dialect
Given that the majority of the people in this novel are Irish, they would speak English with a distinct accent. From my own time in Ireland, I remember that the “depth” of the accent and even the pronunciation of words varied quite a bit depending on the person and their location. There were times I had to “translate” what some of my relatives in Roscommon were saying even though we were all nominally speaking the same language, their accent was so pronounced.
We won’t even talk about idioms, which can be very different there.
An author always has choices to make when rendering dialect in fiction. The dialogue and even the exposition could be entirely in dialect (à la Huckleberry Finn, for example) but to my mind that slows down the reader unnecessarily, requires far too much work on the reader’s part, and can lead to confusion. Another author might choose to not use phonetic dialect spelling at all, but leave the sound of the dialect entirely to the reader’s imagination.
My personal preference is to take a middle road between the extremes: to try to give the occasional hint of the pronunciation where it doesn’t seem to hinder comprehension, with the hope that the reader will begin to “hear” the accent and continue to provide it in their inner hearing for all characters’ dialogue. Hopefully, that works for you. If your preference is more toward one or the other pole, please forgive me.
Irish Gaelic provides another issue for those readers who insist on knowing how to pronounce the words. I’m not someone who knows Irish Gaelic beyond a few words, though I love the sound of the language. I’ve rendered the occasional Gaelic word or phrase here in the generally accepted spelling—but be aware that you won’t capture the pronunciation of any version of Gaelic by using the rules of English any more than you’d get proper pronunciation of French by applying English rules. For instance, in Irish Gaelic “mh” is a single aspirated consonant, and is pronounced as an English “w” or “v” depending on the surrounding vowels—thus, the Celtic festival day Samhain (to a reader of English) looks like it should be pronounced “Sam-hane” when it’s actually pronounced more like “Sow-en.”
There’s the added complication that the same word in Irish Gaelic can be pronounced differently in various regions of the country, in much the same way that we have regional variations in pronunciation in the USA. For instance, how do you pronounce “pecan”? Is it pee-KAHN, puh-KAHN, pick-AHN, pee-CAN or PEE-can? They’re all “correct,” depending on what part of the country you’re in.
There are online guides to pronunciation of the Gaelic consonants, vowels, diphthongs, and so on; check them out if you’re so inclined. For this book, I’ve attempted to give a rough phonetic pronunciation of most of the Irish words in the appendix at the end of the novel, but I apologize in advance if my efforts don’t quite match reality.
PART ONE
MACHA
1
Death and the Sinner
DARCY FITZGERALD LAY DYING in the next room.
His family and friends were gathered in the small front room of Darcy’s farmhouse on Ceomhar Head, well outside the town of Ballemór in County Galway. Two and sometimes three of the group took brief turns sitting at Darcy’s bedside with the priest and Darcy’s sister Margaret Egan, who were holding vigil. The priest—Father Quinlan—had been sent for by Margaret; the truth was that, in living memory, no one could recall Darcy ever trudging into town of a Sunday to attend Mass, but Margaret had insisted that her own pastor come out and sit with her.
“Darcy’s been baptized, an’ so I’ll be having the Last Rites done proper for the repose of his poor soul,” she proclaimed. “The good Father will do them, too, or he won’t be seeing another pence of mine or m’family’s in the offering tray.”
Margaret, Father Quinlan, and the occasional friend sat in the stuffy bedroom: listening to Darcy’s labored, stuttered breathing and the muffled din of conversation from the other room. They talked quietly to each other over Darcy’s form under the blanket once quilted by his twelve-years-dead wife, occasionally glancing at the grizzled, sunken face on the pillow that was, in turn, staring blindly at the candlelit shadows gathering on the ceiling.
In the front room, the evening already had more the aspect of a wake. The dozen folk there had gone through two bottles of Jameson 12-year-old Special Reserve from Darcy’s cupboard (“Well, he won’t be a’needin’ the whiskey now, will he?”), and flasks were regularly being produced from back pockets and passed around. The air was murky with fragrant smoke from cigarettes, pipes, and the smoldering peat fire in the hearth, which didn’t seem to be drawing properly. Their voices were loud and boisterous, laughing as they related stories from Darcy’s past: purely fiction, embellished, or nakedly raw, they didn’t care. Someone had brought along a guitar and another a fiddle, and the stories and conversation intermingled with playing and singing.
Outside, a gale off the North Atlantic howled and shook the shutters and roof beams of the farmhouse. The door to the farmhouse rattled in its frame, causing those closest to glance toward it to check that the latch was still holding.
The door to Darcy’s bedroom opened. Margaret stood there with her white hair hanging limply around her face and a rosary clutched in her hand, Father Quinlan a dark presence behind her. The song failed in mid-phrase and the laughter shuddered to a halt. Margaret sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “Poor Darcy’s gone,” she stated simply. Several of those in the room made the sign of the cross at the news.
At the same moment, the shutters boomed and rattled, and the door visibly quivered with a sound as if wild fists were beating on the planks. “Sweet bleedin’ Jaysus!” one of the company shouted in alarm, then glanced guiltily at the priest. “Beggin’ your pardon a’course, Father.”
The door and shutters continued to rattle as the wind rose with a nearly human, furious shriek. The blue flames of the peat fire shuddered in a sudden downdraft that sent smoke pouring into the room. “What in heaven—” Margaret began as the gathering coughed and waved hands against the invasion, but a new voice interrupted her.
“’Tis yer fault, all of yez,” the voice said, and as one they looked over to the hearth from where the voice had emanated. A woman stood in front of the fire, and hers was a face that none of them knew. She was bundled in a hooded red cloak, the cloth beaded with rain as if she’d just come in from the weather, though no one could remember her entering the room. Her eyes were a deep, saturated green, and the strands of hair that escaped the cowl were the color of a moonless sky at midnight. Her voice was edged steel wrapped in dark velvet, low and sensual. “There be no door or window open here for the soul to depart through, as is customary. The spirits sent to accompany Darcy are angry.”
“Darcy’s soul ca’nah be kept from the Lord by doors or windows,” Father Quinlan interjected. He scowled. “This blather is simple superstition, woman. Shame on yeh.” Both he and Margaret glared at the intruder.
“Darcy Fitzgerald didn’t believe in yer foolish God, priest, so shut your gob,” the woman said, and half the company drew in their breath at the blasphemy. Several warded themselves again with the sign of the cross. “Darcy believed in things much older than that, and they’ve come for him now. Yeh must let him go. Why has no one stopped the clocks here or turned the mirrors?”
Again there came the sound of fists beating at the door, and the shutters were nearly pulled from their hinges. The wind shrieked in the chimney, and the guitar player, sitting on the hearth nearest the woman, looked at the fire, startled. “’Tis the very banshee,” he said, then glanced guiltily at the woman.
“Aye,” the woman in red answered. She was smiling strangely. “Open the door,” she commanded, gesturing to the men nearest to it.
“Nah,” Margaret shouted back. “There be no need for that. Darcy’s soul is already in heaven, and his body will be placed in consecrated ground.”
The cloaked woman laughed as fists continued to hammer at the planks, and she gestured once more. “Open the door,” she repeated. Her voice was imperious, commanding, and one of the men sitting next to the door rose to his feet, glancing at his wife who sat alongside him who, in turn,was staring at the woman.
Finally, the wife nodded, faintly, as if she and the woman had exchanged some unheard communication. “What can it hurt?” she half-whispered, though she kept her gaze averted from Margaret and the priest, who remained standing in the doorway of Darcy’s bedroom as if defending the corpse. Her husband lifted the latch and turned the knob, pulling at the door.
The door flew from his hands, slamming hard against the limits of its hinges as the mourners shouted in alarm. A hurricane wind as cold as a winter gravestone blew hard into the front room, snatching papers and napkins from the small table and hurling them about, extinguishing all the candles, sending the pictures on the wall swaying and falling, and toppling the empty bottles of Jameson. The few electric lights in the room—Darcy having been slow to have the lines run out to his farmstead—flickered and went momentarily dark. Only the faint, ethereal light of the peat fire remained, strangely untouched. The wind plucked at the coats and pants and skirts of those gathered there as if with invisible fingers, and tugged especially hard at the priest’s cassock, enough that they heard him cry out in the darkness. Then the wind abruptly reversed itself, rushing out from the house and slamming the door shut behind itself. Later, some of those in the room would swear they heard a man laughing in the midst of the retreating gale, and that the laughter was that of old Darcy himself.
The electric lights pulsed once and returned. The peat fire crackled contentedly as the gathering blinked and looked around. “That woman . . .” they heard Margaret say. “I swear that she . . .” and they all looked to where the woman had been.
But she had gone as suddenly as she’d come.
This time, it was the priest himself who made the sign of the cross.
2
A Dream, Vanishing
THE CHICAGO WEATHER promised to be a shock. Even in early May, the heat threatened to overwhelm the sweater Colin Doyle was wearing. He pushed his glasses back up his nose as he peered myopically at the crowd near the Arrivals gate.
His sister Jen waved at him as he emerged, rushing over to him after a moment’s hesitation. Her short hair was disheveled, as if she’d just hurriedly toweled it dry after a shower. She wore her smile in the same way she wore a business suit. When he hugged her, he heard the smile break and a sob escape. “How’s Dad?” Colin asked as he embraced Jen.
“No better,” she answered, sniffing as she stepped back. “Sorry. I promised myself I wasn’t going to cry when I saw you.”
“My face sometimes has that effect.”
That brought back the smile momentarily. “Silly as always. Good. I’ve missed that.” He saw her glance at the gig bag on his back, his Gibson J-45 safely ensconced within; she said nothing, but her lips tightened a bit, and he wondered if she were going to say something about it. “Let’s hit the baggage carousels and get home,” she said instead. “You’re sure you want to stay with me and not Mom? You know she’s expecting you at home, in your old room.”
“I’m certain she is. I’m just not sure that’s where I want to be.” Colin gave a shrug. He lifted his glasses and rubbed at his eyes. “Or is that going to be a problem with you and Aaron? You are still seeing him, aren’t you?”
Jen’s quick blush gave him the answer, and suggested more.
The first time he’d heard about Aaron had been last semester . . .
Last semester . . .
Colin slid into a booth at the Starbucks on University Way NE with a grande latte. He pulled out his phone, which claimed it was 6:32 in the morning—8:32 back in Chicago. He touched the link for his sister Jennifer. He heard the click of the connection, a long hiss of static, and finally a ring. A second ring. A third.
“Colin? Do you have any idea what time it is here?” Her voice was simultaneously sleepy and irritated.
“8:30, give or take a couple minutes.”
“Yeah, in the morning. Saturday morning.”
“I wanted to get you before you left the apartment.”
“It’s a cell phone, dear; you’d get me whether I was in the apartment or not. And on Saturday, ‘before I leave the apartment’ means, oh, somewhere before one in the afternoon. Maybe later. It’s Saturday, damn it.”
“You complain a lot. What happened to the ‘Don’t worry what time it is, little brother, just call me whenever you get a chance’ story you gave me when I left?”
He heard her yawn; a male voice muttered something indistinctly in the background. “My brother Colin in Seattle,” he heard Jennifer say. “Go back to sleep.”
“Oops,” he said. “Jen had company last night. Sorry. Anyone I should know?”
Colin thought he heard the sound of bare feet on hardwood; she’d left the bed. “Hah, you’re not in the least bit sorry, so don’t even try to apologize. And no, you don’t know him, and as to whether you will ever know him . . . well, that’s not decided yet. It probably depends a lot on when you come back here.” She yawned again, sounding a bit more awake, and he heard dishes clattering in the background: she’d moved to the kitchen.
“What would Mom and Dad say?”
“I’m not in the habit of discussing my sex life with them. And not with you either, little brother. Speaking of which, how’s yours? You know Mom’s half-terrified you’re going to bring home some young undergrad coed, probably from the Music department, with a grandchild already incubating in her belly.” Colin heard something liquid being poured, and Jen taking a cautious sip: coffee. He took a sip of his own before he answered.
“Not much chance of that at the moment, I’m afraid. I’m too damn busy. So who’s this paragon?”
“His name’s Aaron Goldman.”
“Aaron Goldman? He’s Jewish?”
“Yes.” He could almost see her eyebrows raising with the affirmation, as if in challenge.
“And how has that gone over with the parental units?”
Her sigh scratched at the speaker of the phone. “It’s not 1950 anymore, Colin. In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re in a whole new century, and Irish Catholics marry Jews all the time now. They marry Latinos and African-Americans, too. Guys marry guys, women marry women. Or have you regressed back to another era since you went to the left coast? I thought things were more liberal out there.”
“Sure, all that goes on, just not in the Doyle family. Heck, I remember Tommy getting lots of grief back in high school for dating a Methodist. Somehow, I can’t see Dad letting his grandchild go to temple wearing a kippah.”
Another sigh rattled the speaker. “I’d like to point out that I’m neither married, pregnant, nor considering a conversion. And Mom said she thinks Aaron is very nice, thank you. Now, let’s talk about you, since you called . . .”
...They had, though he hadn’t told her then what he’d already been thinking.
“Hello?” he heard Jen saying now. “Earth to Colin.” Colin shook away the memory.
“Sorry,” he said. “Just not enough sleep. So Aaron’s still in the picture?”
“He is, but I do have an extra bed in my office at the apartment, and you can have that if you decide to stay with me instead of Mom.”
Colin nodded. “Good. I don’t think I slept more than a few hours last night. I’ll probably end up crashing pretty soon, and I’d rather do that at your place, if you don’t mind.”
“Not a problem for me, though it might be for Mom. But we can decide that later. Right now, let’s get you to the hospital. Everyone’s there.”
Colin lifted his chin in agreement and started walking down the corridor to where the signs pointed to the baggage area. “So . . . tell me about Dad,” he said as they walked. “He’s going to be all right, isn’t he?”
He saw her eyebrows raise at that, but he also saw her press her lips together again, as if to hold back the comment she wanted to make. “I’ll fill you in once we’re in the car . . .”
On the drive to the hospital, Jen told him that there’d been little change since the phone call he’d received the day before, and the changes that had occurred weren’t heartening. His father had been found collapsed on the floor of his downtown Loop office by one of the janitorial staff, after his mother became worried about him not answering his phone and called the building owners. No one knew how long he’d been down, unconscious and barely breathing. The doctors were saying it had been a massive coronary event, that their father had been too long without oxygen, that there’d been too much resultant brain damage, and that his body was failing. His kidneys had shut down; the circulation to his extremities was poor.
“They’re telling us it’s our decision to make. They can keep him on the vent and see if he improves, but . . .” Jen stopped, biting her lip. He saw her eyes filling with tears, and when she blinked, twin streaks rolled down her cheek. She took one hand from the wheel to wipe at them, almost angrily. Colin reached over to place his hand on her shoulder. He could feel her trembling underneath his touch.
“S’okay, Jen. I wish I’d been in town and able to get here sooner.”
“You’re here now,” she told him. “That’s all that matters. Mom and Tommy’ll be glad to see you.”
Colin wasn’t quite so certain of that, especially not given the news that at some point he had to relay to them—when the time was right, which it certainly wasn’t now, not with his father’s condition. That has to wait. There’ll be a moment soon enough.
He could only hope that was right. He sighed and laid his head back against the seat rest, watching the once-familiar landscape scroll by.
Home. At least it once had been. Somehow, it no longer felt that way.
Colin wasn’t so certain that Jen was entirely right as the elevator doors opened on the lounge of the Cardiac ICU unit. His mother and Tommy were sitting in chairs near the nurse’s station, conversing with his Aunt Patty and a man he didn’t recognize who was wearing a business suit. Tommy was also dressed in a suit; even from this distance, Colin could tell it was expensive. His mother was wearing a black dress and looking as if she were going out for an evening on the town. Diamond earrings sparkled below her carefully arranged and dyed-too-dark hair.
Tommy looked their way as the elevator doors opened and nodded, as if in approval. He leaned down to speak in his mother’s ear, and she glanced toward the elevator. There was a frown on her face before she theatrically arranged it in a smile. He would see weariness in the way her face sagged, though, and that told him how much she’d been affected by his father’s illness.
“Colin,” she said, rising and holding out her hands. “It’s so good to see you again, my dear.”
Jen nudged him forward before he could move, and he went to his mother, kissing her on a dry cheek as she pursed her lips for an air kiss. “I’m sorry I wasn’t here. I came as soon as I heard,” he told her. Great. Starting with an apology right at the start. She squeezed his arm, and released him.
“At least Tommy and Jen were here for your father and for me,” she said. “I was blessed to have that.”
He told himself that there was nothing personal in the words; it was only her way. But the sting of them also told Colin that his rationalizing was only a partial success. “Hey, Tommy,” he said as his brother came over to join them. Tom Jr. was a decade older than Colin; his hair already touched at the temple with the start of what Colin was certain would soon be a distinguished salt-and-pepper gray. Tommy had always been too old to be a true playmate for Colin; as a teenager, he seemed to consider Colin more a nuisance than anything else. When Tommy had reached college, he seemed to be more like a distant, usually absent uncle than a brother. It was Jen, three years older than Colin, who’d been his true sibling.
Tommy extended a hand—no offer of an embrace there. Colin shook his hand: Tommy had a politician’s grip, firm enough to feel solid, but careful. He put his other hand over Colin’s as if to make up for the lack of a hug. “Good to see you again, little brother. Just wish it weren’t in these circumstances. How’s school?”
“School’s school,” Colin answered. If Tommy noticed the false smile that accompanied that statement, he didn’t react.
Behind Tommy, the man in the business suit watched. He looked to be in his forties, with an athletic build that was beginning to sag and paunch, his hair thin on top and gray. Tommy followed Colin’s gaze, releasing Colin’s hand as if relieved. “Oh, Colin, this is Carl Harris, Dad’s campaign manager.”
Harris extended his own hand. “So you’re the grad student who’s also the musician.”
“Yep,” Colin answered. “The black sheep of the family. They usually keep me carefully hidden.” Harris gave that a thoughtful half-smile.
“You’re exactly what you should be.” Aunt Patty had come up behind Colin. He turned into her full embrace and an enthusiastic kiss on both cheeks. “You and Jen always were more like the O’Callaghan side of the family than the Doyle side. So sorry you had to come back like this, darling.” She hugged him again, tightly. Their glasses clashed slightly with the embrace—the O’Callaghans were also uniformly nearsighted. He could smell the musk of her perfume and the shampoo in her hair, which—unlike his mother—she had allowed to go naturally gray, though she kept it unfashionably long. Patty was his mother’s older sister, now in her early sixties, the athletic figure she’d always had softening over the years. Aunt Patty had always been his favorite relative. Sometimes he felt that he had confided more in Aunt Patty than in his own parents. She was childless herself. She’d once been married to the stormy and temperamental Andrew Martelli, who had owned a small chain of shops selling Italian ices and yogurt. Aunt Patty had divorced Uncle Andrew two decades ago, for reasons that were talked about in hushed tones but never around Colin or the other children, though it became easy enough to guess why.
After divorcing Uncle Andrew, Patty had never remarried, though Aunt Patty’s best friend, Rebecca, had moved into the old Martelli house, which Patty kept after the divorce, not long after. That Rebecca’s “best friend” was also her lover was something that was never openly discussed by his parents, though it was an open secret in the family. “Hey, Aunt Patty,” Colin said as they hugged. “It’s so good to see you. How’s Rebecca?”
“She’s fine, and thank you for asking, darling. She said to give you a hug when I saw you.” She kissed his forehead and hugged him hard. “So there it is,” she said, smiling.
Along with Jen, Aunt Patty had supported Colin when he had announced that he wasn’t going to go for the PhD in History; that he intended to leave college to pursue playing music full-time. His parents had been appalled; Aunt Patty had been supportive. “Oh, for Christ’s sake,” she’d told them. “He’s young, and that’s the time to do these things. Let him go—he may just surprise you with how well he turns out.”
In the end, Colin had succumbed to the pressure from his parents and from Tommy: Get the PhD now while you still have the energy. Go now, while that nice offer from Washington University stands. There’s no future in music, especially for the traditional music you like to play. You can always do that as an avocation and a sideline, but with a doctorate, you could make a decent living, like Jen . . . He’d listened to their incessant arguments for continuing his education, though he now regretted his capitulation.
He remembered a favorite saying of his father: Regretting past decisions is useless. All that matters is making better ones in the future. He wasn’t certain his father would like the one he’d made.
“When can I see Dad?” Colin asked the group.
“I’ll take you back to his room,” Jen said. “Okay, Mom? Then maybe we can go out and get some dinner and talk.”
His mother nodded. “Go on. We’ll wait out here—they don’t like lots of people in the room. Tommy, come here and tell me what you and Mr. Harris are thinking . . .” She turned away, her mind obviously already elsewhere.
“So has Mom been playing the stoic as usual?” Colin asked as they walked down the hall.
“She’s being Mom, so yeah, I guess so. But this has been hard on her. Dad’s always been around, and now . . .” She gave a shrug. “Well, you’ll see.”
Three doors down, she turned into a room. Inside, there was the rhythmic sigh of the ventilator machine. On the bed, laced by tubes from the vent, IV, and catheter, a blood pressure cuff around his arm and an array of graphs on a flatscreen behind him, his father lay on a bed. Colin stopped in the doorway, trying to take it all in. His father’s face was pale, the cheeks sunken, his hair disheveled. His hands lay like two dead birds on the sheets. His eyes were closed, a rubber tube ran into his nose, held in place with tape. His mouth was slightly open, and below, the blue bulk of the vent wrapped his neck over the tracheotomy site. The only indication that he was alive was the slow rise and fall of his chest in tandem with the life-support machinery and the relentless, slow beep of the heart monitor.
For a moment, the room seemed to shift in his vision, like an old movie lurching in its sprockets. He saw flecks of light at the edges of his vision. “Oh, my God,” he whispered, and Jen took his hand.
“I know,” she said. “It was really hard, the first time I saw him this way.”
“There’s been no change?” Colin blinked, taking a deep breath before moving to the bed. He touched his father’s hand; it felt cold, and there was no response when he squeezed his father’s fingers.
“No. If anything, there’s been further deterioration, according to the docs. The question is, how long do we keep him on the vent, and when do we take him off—or do we? But go on, talk to him. They say that he can still hear you, even if he can’t respond.”
“Hey, Dad,” Colin said. “It’s me, Colin, back from school. Sorry that it took this long to get here. I wish you’d wake up, Dad, so we could . . .” His throat closed up then, and he couldn’t finish. He felt unbidden tears well up in his eyes, and he blinked them back. He took a long, slow breath, patting his father’s hand. “Anyway, you just rest and get yourself better. Everyone’s praying for you, Dad.” He hesitated, then: “Love ya, Dad.”
It was as if he spoke to a cut log or a bronze statue. There was no response, no indication that anything he’d said had been heard or understood. The words hung in the air and vanished. Whatever spark had once inhabited his father’s body was gone; he was an empty shell tossed up on a beach. Vacant.
The exhaustion of the long hours of travel and the sleepless night before hung about him suddenly, dark and heavy and silent. Colin stepped back from the bed. Jen’s arm went around his waist and she leaned against him, but he could barely stand himself. A nurse came in and slid around them. “Just here to check his vitals,” she announced. “You can stay if you like.”
“Thanks,” Colin said. “But we were just leaving.”
Back in the lounge area, they found that his mother had made reservations for the group at Gene & Georgetti, an Italian steakhouse on North Franklin Street. Tommy and the mysterious Mr. Harris had already gone ahead, and his mother and aunt were getting ready to leave even as Colin and Jen returned. Colin’s eyelids were beginning to feel as if they were made of lead. He sighed at the announcement, thinking of two hours or more in the restaurant with his family, and dreading the inquisition that he knew would come when they’d finished talking about his father, and the revelation that he might have to make then. “I’m a little underdressed for the place, Mom,” Colin protested, but she waved her hand.
“They won’t care. I’ve reserved the Bar Room for us, anyway, so no one will see you. We need to discuss the situation with your father, now that you’re finally here.”
Turning a concern into a criticism. Well, that’s normal at least.
“Mary,” Aunt Patty interjected. “Look at the boy. He’s about ready to fall over. He’s not in any shape to talk about anything yet. Let him get a good night’s sleep so he can think clearly. We can all talk in the morning.”
His mother’s lips tightened. “I suppose,” she said. “Well, we need to eat anyway, so the rest of us can still go. Colin can take a cab back to the house . . .”
“Mom.” This time it was Jen who interrupted. “I need to get back to my place and take care of the cat, and my contacts are killing me, anyway. I’ll take Colin home with me; he can have the bed in the back room. Why don’t you guys go on to the restaurant; I’m not feeling that hungry right now and we’ll fix something at the apartment after Colin gets settled. His stuff’s in my car, anyway.”
“Thanks, Jen,” Colin said hurriedly. “That sounds good to me.”
“I thought you’d be taking your old room at the house,” his mother protested. “I had Beth come in and clean it.”
“I can stay there tomorrow night,” Colin told her. “This’ll give Jen and me time to catch up a bit.”
“Catch up? You call her often enough from school. I’ve been hearing everything about you secondhand from my daughter . . .” his mother began, then sighed. Colin decided that it was, perhaps, a measure of how worn out she was herself by her husband’s crisis that she didn’t pursue the accusation—against which, he had to admit, he didn’t have a good argument. For the first time, he noticed the heavily-drawn lines in his mother’s face and he realized just how much the last few days had cost her, and how much she had to be hurting. She and Dad have been married over forty years . . . He knew he had no sense of what that kind of commitment might mean, or how he might feel if someone he’d been with that long might be leaving. The realization humbled him and made him want to apologize again, but he resisted the impulse.
“Fine,” his mother said, with a face that indicated that the word tasted sour in her mouth. “Let’s all have dinner tomorrow night at the house, and we’ll talk then about the decisions we need to make.”
“How’s your dad, Hon?” Colin heard someone say inside even as Jen unlocked the door to her apartment. He set down his luggage in the hall and took the gig bag from his back, leaning it against the wall. Jen tossed her keys into a bowl on a small table next to the door as she shut it behind the two of them. There was another set of keys already in the bowl, and the implications of that suddenly hit Colin.
“He’s about the same,” Jen answered the voice as someone stepped out of the kitchen. “Aaron, this is my brother Colin.”
Aaron Goldman wore his dark hair close-cropped, his face adorned with a full beard. His eyes were as dark as the hair and deep set. He was wearing a dress shirt and tie; his suit jacket hung over one of the chairs in the front room as if he’d just arrived himself. He had the build of someone who had once been a runner but was now mostly sitting behind a desk. He came forward—expensive shoes, Colin noted—and extended his hand. “Hey, Colin. Jen’s told me a lot about you.” The handshake was firm and didn’t linger too long.
“I’ll bet,” he said. “Sorry for the interruptions.”
Aaron grinned: a pleasant, self-deprecating smile. “No problem. Brothers always rank over boyfriends, as they should.” The smile faded into the beard. “Really sorry about your dad. That’s a hell of a reason to have to come back home.”
“Yeah,” Colin answered. “It pretty much sucks all around.” He took off his glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his sweater. Without intending to, he yawned, hard and suddenly. “Sorry,” he said as he put his glasses back on. “Jet lag, I guess. Plus I think I’ve had about three hours’ sleep in the last thirty hours.”
An orange-and-white cat appeared, rubbing against Jen’s ankle. She picked it up and scratched its neck. It purred loudly. “This is Finnigan,” Jen told Colin, and pointed to the hallway. “Your room’s down there on the right. Bathroom’s at the end of the hall if you need it. Close the door unless you want Finnigan coming in.”
“It’s too early to go to bed.”
“It’s eight o’clock—so don’t worry about it. Get some sleep, and hopefully by morning you’ll be feeling better. I’ll get you up when Aaron leaves tomorrow morning.” Jen let Finnigan down and pecked Colin on the cheek, then moved over to give Aaron a kiss as well—that one longer and far more lingering. Aaron’s arms went around her, and she leaned against him easily.
They look like they’re comfortable and familiar with each other . . . He wondered at that—Jen had had boyfriends enough before, but they had generally been around only a few months before vanishing. Colin had found most of them a bit stodgy and self-absorbed: like Jen, the majority had been academics and university teachers. He’d thought that, now in her late twenties, Jen would never find herself in a long-term relationship; it seemed he might be wrong. “Go on,” she said. “We can talk tomorrow and do that catching up.”
Colin nodded. The thought of a bed was enticing and made the exhaustion even more oppressive. He yawned again, then picked up his suitcase and the guitar. “Aaron, it’s good to finally meet you. I promise I make a better impression when I’m actually awake.”
“Hah,” Jen laughed. “Aaron, I’m afraid the impression he makes is about the same either way, honestly.”
“Love you, too, Sis. I hope my snoring doesn’t distract the two of you too much.”
Jen laughed. “In that case, it’s another reason to close your door. Besides, I’m getting used to snoring.” She dug a playful elbow in Aaron’s side.
“Guilty,” Aaron said. “At least, that’s what she tells me.” He leaned toward Colin and said in a stage whisper, “She snores, too. She just won’t admit it.”
Colin laughed. “Yeah, I know. I grew up with her.”
“It’s good to finally meet you, Colin. I hope we have a chance to chat while you’re here.”
“I’m sure we will. See you two in the morning, then.”
With that, he left them. He went to his room, shut the door, and stripped off his clothes without unpacking anything. The bed beckoned.
He was asleep within minutes.
3
They Are Gone
SHE COULD SEE the green land spread out before her, tantalizingly close—as if she could step from here into that world. She could hear the lyric melody of some ancient song in the air, as if the strength of the tune itself was holding open the portal. Strands of color danced and shimmered in the sky, and her hand ached to hold them, to use them, but she no longer had the cloch, the jeweled stone that would allow her to do that . . .
“Most of the Old Ones have gone on, an’ we’ll never see that land of yours.”
Maeve started at the sound of the voice. With the interruption, the vision in the smoke vanished as if it had never been there, and a weariness came over her. She sagged, letting her head drop, her long, dark hair falling around her face like a curtain. The kitchen table at which she sat was scattered with herbs and potions; a brazier with burning peat inside it sat on a brass tripod before her. Keara, the young woman who’d been helping her create the spell, swept a tattered woolen shawl over her shoulder and glared wordlessly at the speaker with pale eyes. Maeve lifted her head, sighing. She glared at Niall herself for having spoiled the work she’d spent the morning preparing.
So close. I could feel the bard; I could nearly talk to him. So close, and now I have to start again.
“Yer wrong, Niall,” Maeve told the man, swallowing her anger. Niall’s brown eyes were as hard as winter acorns. His nose looked as if it had been broken once or twice in the past, set over tight and thin pale lips cracked with cold and salt. “There’s time yet for us to go there.”
“So yeh keep saying, year after year, decade after decade. I just wonder whose time it is yer talking about—yers or that of those like me. Like that poor soul yeh took last week, we’re too few and dying too fast.” Niall tossed a crumpled envelope on the table, ripped open and with an official-looking document sticking up from the torn seal. “They’ve given us notice. I just talked to a garda at the harbor who came on a boat from the mainland and handed me this. They say this ain’t our island and that we have’ta leave. How do we do that, I want t’know, when we got nowhere else to go and yeh say it must be here or nothin’?”
Maeve glanced at the document. “’Tis just empty words the leamh are spouting,” she told him. Keara laughed at that, as did Niall, though more bitterly: leamh was the right word for those on the mainland—the mundane people, the ordinary ones. “I tell yeh, Niall. I know now what we need, and I will get it. Yeh tell yer people that.”
“I will, Maeve. But yeh should know that me folk won’t wait forever, nor will some of the others who are here. I’ll be taking ’em elsewhere if we need to in order to survive. Yeh and those who sleep under the mound see time differently than we do. We can’t be waiting forever.”
“Yeh won’t have to. ’Tis certain.”
Niall lifted his chin at that, but his eyes challenged Maeve. She held his stare, unblinking, and eventually his gaze dropped. “Yeh better be right,” he mumbled to the floor, then turned and left the room. They heard the front door of Maeve’s cottage slam. The wind set the flames dancing above the turf fire in the kitchen hearth.
“Sorry,” Keara said to Maeve. “Do yeh want me to set it up again?”
Maeve shook her head. “Neh. I’m knackered, I’m afraid.” She glanced toward the front door. “Niall,” she said, the name summing up everything she felt. Keara gave her a soft smile as she touched Maeve’s hand.
“Not to worry, m’Lady. Niall do’nah think before he talks. ’Tis his way. He’ll be back tugging his forelock and asking your forgiveness tomorrow.”
“Maybe.” Maeve rubbed at her eyes, stinging from the peat smoke in the brazier before her. She leaned back in her chair. “G’wan home,” she told Keara. “We’ll do this again tomorrow and see if the signs are better. And I can reach out to the bard. Aiden must have supper waiting for yeh.”
“Should I bring supper to yeh as well?”
Maeve shook her head. “Nah tonight. I’ll just make do here. Now, g’wan with yeh.”
She watched Keara gather her things, curtsy once to her, then leave the cottage. Maeve waited until her footsteps had faded on the pebbles of the walk. She cupped the brass legs of the brazier, looking at her hands as she pushed it back from her. They were the hands of a younger woman, aye, but there were lines there now that had never been there before, fine creases in the skin. She saw the same thing in the mirrors when she glanced at them.
Yer not so different now. Once yeh were, but no longer. Yer dying slowly, like all of them. Yeh even think like them now sometimes. An’ if yeh can’t do this now, then they will all die soon enough.
“Nah,” she said aloud, her voice no louder than the crackling of the fire in the hearth or the sound of the gulls along the harbor quay. “I won’t let that happen.”
Her fist pounded the table once with the denial, but it only rattled the crockery there and didn’t convince.
4
Visitations
IN THE DREAM, at first, he was in Ireland, and his playing held the audience in thrall. They were silent, listening to every word and every chord, and his voice was like liquid fire coming from his throat. When the song ended, everyone rose in applause, shouting . . .
...and the dream, as dreams do, shifted and became dark. He was still on stage, but the magic of his voice was gone, and he was feeling frantic because he was playing a set with several Irish-born musicians. Someone called a new song, and he couldn’t remember the chords; when he guessed at the key and strummed a chord, his guitar was terribly and hopelessly out of tune. He frantically turned the tuning pegs, putting the strings seemingly in tune, but the D chord he hit was dissonant. The lead musician—Lucas, his name was—glared at him; and one of the other people on stage with him struck his Gibson from behind, with a sound like a fist knocking on a door. “What the feck?” Lucas snarled. “How can yeh not know this song? Every idjit knows it.” Again the knocking came, a little louder than before, and the Gibson shivered in his hands.
“Breakfast in ten minutes,” a dark-haired woman said, getting up from her seat in front of the stage. She felt somehow familiar to him, and her full smile made him smile at her in return. Vivid green eyes sparkled in her face, and she pulled a red cloak around herself. “Better wake up.”
The dream dissolved and fled, and Colin felt a momentary panic, not sure where he was. The sun was spilling in through blinds, throwing long, out-of-focus slanted stripes across the opposite wall and over the small desk and bed in the room. Colin rubbed his eyes, yawning. His mouth was dry and tasted like someone’s trash can. He struggled to bring saliva into his parched throat as he fumbled on the bedside table for his glasses. He put them on and the room jumped into focus. On the table, a radio with an iPod sitting in the slot atop it proclaimed that it was 9:17 in the morning. Sitting up, Colin saw that someone had unpacked his suitcase. A new pair of jeans, a green long-sleeved polo, underwear, and socks were neatly folded on a chair near the door. The clothes he’d peeled off the night before were gone. He threw aside the covers and sat up, rubbing at his head. He put on the clothes and opened the door. “Hey, sleepyhead,” Jen called from the kitchen. “I’m putting stuff on the table now.”
“Give me a minute or two,” he answered. “I really have to pee.”
“Then don’t let me stop you. End of the hall, remember?”
A few minutes later, he padded barefoot into the kitchen. Jen was already sitting at the little table near the window. Finnigan stared at him from the counter; Jen also looked him up and down appraisingly. “Not bad,” she said. “You look almost human again.”
“Right. Where are the rest of my things?”
“In the dresser in the room. The clothes you were wearing yesterday are in the dryer now.”
He nodded and sat across from her. “Thanks. You didn’t have to do that.”
“Yes, I did. Those clothes were beginning to stink. Y’know, you don’t have to wear your jeans for a week at a time.”
“Yeah,” he told Jen. “I should’ve changed before the flight, but there just wasn’t time.” He took a sip of the coffee in front of him and a bite of the eggs. “I keep thinking about Dad. That was such a shock when I got your message about him.”
“I know. This doesn’t seem possible. Just three days ago, I had lunch with him down in the Loop . . .” She pressed her lips together and Colin could see tears gather in the corners of her eyes. She sniffed and scraped her eggs across her plate with her fork. “That first night, after they . . .” She stopped and he saw her throat convulse. “. . . after they found him, I thought I’d wake up the next morning and find that it was just a dream, that Dad was back to his old self.”
That brought back Colin’s own memories. “I keep thinking about the last time I saw Dad before I left for the university. We argued. As usual.”
“Dad knows how you really felt about him. You shouldn’t worry about that.”
“That’s the thing, Jen. I don’t really know how I felt about him. Sometimes I loved the man; other times I thought he was a gigantic pain in the ass and a totally self-absorbed person, and I’d just as soon be as far away from him and Mom as possible. It’s all mixed up. I’m all mixed up. Fuck . . .” He took a bite of his eggs, then took a long sip of his coffee. The heat steamed his glasses; he looked at Jen through the fog. His thoughts had drifted into dangerous territory, and he still didn’t want to broach the subject, not even with Jen. “Aaron seems a decent guy. He’s a lawyer?”
She let him change the subject without comment. “He’s actually in Finance,” she answered. “But he does have a law degree. And yeah, he’s a decent guy.” She lifted her own coffee mug, looking at Colin over the rim. He could see a slight blush in her cheeks. “It’s too early to say much more.”
“Have you used ‘those words’ yet?”
She laughed quickly and set the mug down. “None of your business.”
“Aha. Then you have.”
“What about you, Mr. Grad Student, since you’re being so nosy about my love life? Have you used those words with anyone?”
“No,” he answered. “I haven’t. I had a couple dates now and then with a few women, but . . .” He shrugged.
Jen didn’t look convinced. She took a bite of toast and chewed it, her gaze on Colin, who took refuge in the appearance of his coffee mug. “So what have you been doing with yourself? How’s the dissertation coming along? You haven’t sent me that draft you promised me.”
Colin hid the flush that erupted then behind the coffee mug. “Yeah, I know. Things have been hectic.”
“How hectic can they have been? You having trouble with it?”
He shrugged again. “Can we not talk about this now?” he asked.
“And that tells me that there’s more that you’re not saying. I could always read you, little brother. Talk.”
“I will. I promise. We’ll have time. Just . . . not now.”
Jen gave an overdramatic sigh. “Okay,” she said. “You don’t want to go into details, that’s fine. I can wait. But you know Mom’s going to notice, too, and she’ll worm it all out of you.”
Colin shook his head. “Not this time. I promise.”
“Right.” She put her fork down. “So what do you want to do today? I’m off; with everything going on with Dad, the Chair has some of the other professors in the department covering my classes this week.”
“I want to go see Dad again. I’d like to talk to the doctors so I know what’s going on before tonight.”
Jen nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me. Finish your breakfast, let me get myself ready, and we’ll head over there.”
Jen stayed in the lobby with their mother, who was also there when they arrived. Colin walked back to his father’s room alone.
The doctor on duty that morning—Elizabeth Pearse, the hospital badge clipped to her pocket declared—entered the room just as he pulled up a chair to sit next to his father. He placed one hand over his father’s, which felt cold and clammy to him. “Doctor,” he said, “has there been any change?”
She shook her graying head. “You’re the son who was in Seattle?”
He nodded.
She tapped at the keyboard and monitor next to his bed. “Your family should have already told you how it is.”
“Tell me again,” he told her. “Without the sugar coating. You know how families are.”
She smiled at that, lines deepening around her eyes. “All right, then. Bluntly, all the medical signs indicate that your father has suffered brain death. There’s no response to a light shone in his eyes, and when we removed him briefly from the vent, he made no attempt to breathe on his own. None of the other tests have given us any indication that there’s any significant activity from the brain stem. Unfortunately, he was brought here to the hospital too late. If he’d been found earlier, or had been able to call for help when the event happened . . .” Dr. Pearse shrugged. It was a more telling statement than anything that she could have said. “In my opinion, and I’m sorry to say this, your father’s clinically dead at this point. The only thing sustaining his life are the machines. Your family needs to think of what his wishes would be in this situation. Did he have a Living Will, or had he talked to any of you or your mother about what he might want?”
“I don’t know,” he told her. “I’ve . . . been away for some time.”
She nodded. “I’m very sorry,” she told him. “I wish I had better news for you.”
A few minutes later, she logged out of the computer and left the room. Colin turned back to his father. “Dad?” he said. “It’s Colin again. I’m here.”
There was no answer except the hissing wheeze-and-thump of the ventilator.
It wasn’t any better, even knowing what to expect this time. The noise of the machinery keeping his father alive and monitoring him contrasted ironically with the man’s silence and obliviousness to the world around him. It was hard to imagine the husk in the bed as the same driven and intense man who had shaped and manipulated Colin’s youth, with whom he’d had epic battles and arguments, whom he’d loved, hated, and feared—all at once. And that last time . . .
Colin had entered into the conversation knowing what to expect, but he still hadn’t expected the vitriol that spewed at him from the volcano of his father . . .
He’d met his dad in his office in the Loop. Outside the window high in one of the towers, Chicago was spread out around them, gleaming and bejeweled with lights in the evening, with a glimpse of Grant Park and the expanse of Lake Michigan between the buildings around them. Tom Sr. was standing at the window, with a glass of whiskey already in his hand. “There’s a bottle of Redbreast on the bar,” he said without turning. “Help yourself, son.”
He did exactly that, figuring it might fortify his courage. He took a long sip as he stood next to his father. He could see his father’s reflection in the glass of the office window, staring outward almost possessively, as well as his own: torn jeans and T-shirt as opposed to his father’s gray, three-piece business suit; perfectly trimmed, salt-and-pepper hair against Colin’s hand-combed mop of brown. “So what’s up?” he asked Colin, still not looking at him. “You said you had something important to discuss.”
Colin was sweating even though the office was cool. He pushed his glasses firmly up his nose, took a deep breath as if he were about to dive into cold water, and plunged in. “You know how interested I am in Irish folk and traditional music—right, Dad? Well, I’d like to go to Ireland. I want to get a visa and study music there. I could probably get approval for the visa pretty quickly.” He’d glanced up then, but his father wasn’t looking at him. Instead, he was still staring out toward the downtown towers. “Especially with your contacts at the Irish consulate,” he added.
He’d expected the storm to break then. It didn’t. His father took another calm sip of the whiskey without moving. Then, very slowly, he turned. He set the glass down on his desk as he faced Colin. “No,” he said. Just the single, simple word.
“I don’t need your permission, Dad. I’m an adult, and I’ve already made my decision. I can do this with or without your help and approval.”
“No,” his father repeated. He shook his head. “We had an agreement. I expect you to live up to it.”
“Dad, you’re not listening to me. I know this isn’t what we agreed to, but I’ve made plans and started to set things up over there.”
A nod. “So just what have you ‘set up’?” he asked. “What plans have you made?”
Colin blinked. “Stop it, Dad. You need to trust me.” In truth, about all he’d done was to check the airline prices and determine how long his savings could last at a bare minimum. A visa might give him two years in Ireland, but his savings wouldn’t even give him a quarter of that. He would need to make money playing or busking to stay there more than six months, but he figured he could work on that once he was actually there and had surveyed the situation. He’d managed to scrape together a living, if a sometimes precarious one, here in Chicago, playing solo at local coffee shops and pubs and gigging with three or four different bands. He couldn’t imagine that making the same kind of living would be harder in Ireland, which at least celebrated its musicians, writers, and artists, and where the cost of living would be decidedly lower.
“Trust you?” An internal mockery laced his father’s words. “Your mother and I gave you all the advantages anyone could have, and you’ve done very little with them. Look at Tommy and Jen, and think about where they were at your age. Tommy had already graduated law school; Jen was getting her PhD and was already teaching. Or just look where they are now: Tommy’s a respected partner in this firm, and Jen is on the tenure track at DePaul. Your brother and sister were both ambitious, and they went after what they wanted with all the energy and commitment they had. They still do. The decisions they made weren’t selfish; they thought of their future and how they could use their skills to enhance the lives of others. They wanted to do something, not just indulge themselves.”
And what you’re talking about doing is selfish, and what you’re talking about doing is self-indulgent. Colin could hear his father’s subtext perfectly well. He’d heard it through most of his life: in his academic career, even back in grade school. “The teachers say you spend all your time lost in your daydreams, that you don’t pay attention. You need to buckle down and work . . .”
Colin swept his hands through the air, not caring that his whiskey glass slipped from his finger and went careening away spewing golden liquid. “Stop it, Dad. Just . . .” He swallowed the profanity he wanted to say. “ . . . stop it. I really don’t need the ‘Tommy and Jen’ lecture again. You’ve given it to me a few million times already, and you know what, they have done better than me, at least by your standards. But they’re not me, and this is what I want to do.”
“What you want to do is what you always do,” his father shot back. “You always make the easy choice. And you know what? I’m done with it. You told your mother and me that if we gave you three years, you’d make it in music, and that if you didn’t, you’d go to grad school and get your doctorate. You’re a good musician, maybe even more, I’ll admit that, but it’s been three years now and you’re just scraping by. Your mother and I still pay your health insurance, your car insurance, and are covering your student loans. Well, it’s time to live up to the bargain. So no, you can’t go. You made us a promise, and you’re damned well going to keep it. We’re done supporting you, unless you do that.”
Colin snorted derisively. “I don’t want your help. I don’t need it. Hell, you think you can solve everything by throwing enough money at it.”
“So you don’t want our money now?” His father gave a bitter, loud laugh. “Whose money was it that paid for at least half of your music equipment? Whose money paid your rent last year when you were four months behind? Whose money bailed you out when you ran into credit card problems your first year out of college? Who let you stay in your old room when you dropped out in your fourth year after changing majors for the third time? Who found you a decent-paying job afterward—a job you quit after three months, as I recall, because it interfered with your precious gigs?” His father nearly laughed. “Right. You can take care of yourself.”
There it was, the endless litany of Colin the Failure, to be resurrected again and again until the end of eternity, it seemed.
“Don’t worry, Dad. I promise I won’t call you or Mom for help. I wouldn’t want to give you the satisfaction.”
“You know what would satisfy me? You having some drive and responsibility. You keeping your word! You acting like you had an ounce of the goddamn sense you were born with!”
The thunder was in his voice now, the volume rising, and Colin knew that this was going to be another shouting match, and that there would be no reconciliation here. They’d both walk away furious, having said things that they’d both regret later.
It was the effect they had on each other. Maybe Jen was right claiming that they were both too much alike—in that way, at least.
And it had ended as he’d expected, a screaming battle that closed with Colin stalking out of the office in full retreat and slamming the door behind him, flushed and with his jaw clenched so tightly that the muscles ached for two days afterward.
And two days later, realizing that he had exactly eleven dollars in his wallet, an over-limit credit card, and a two-figure savings account, he’d relented. He’d kept his promise and enrolled in graduate school—one as far away from Chicago as he could find.
And now . . . now . . . he’d made the decision to renege on that promise once again.
He remembered all that, staring at the wasted figure on the bed and holding his father’s cold, unresponsive hand.
Colin wept then, as he hadn’t since he returned.
“I don’t think we really have had much of a chance, Dad,” he said when he felt able to speak again. “There was so much you wanted to do yet, but there’s also so much I want to do. I’m sorry that I wasn’t like Tommy, but the time I’ve spent as a musician . . .” He patted the hand. “Dad, I can’t tell you how much I’ve learned and how much I’ve grown, and how good it’s been for me.”
He laughed then; an incongruous sound that was mixed with a sob. “Maybe I’m more like Grandpa Rory—I can still remember him telling us all these far-fetched tales about his boyhood in Ireland, how he saw leprechauns and the fair folk. He was never afraid to say what he believed. I have been, and I’m sick of it, Dad. Sick of lying to everyone around me and to myself.”
He was staring at the monitor, at the eternal marching of the graphs on the blue screen. He thought he caught movement on the bed from the corner of his eye. When he looked, it seemed for a moment that it was a woman’s face that he saw, not his father’s: the woman he’d seen in his dream the night before was lying there, her long dark hair spread out on the pillow, her green eyes staring at him. Her lips moved, as if she were trying to speak. “I need you . . .” he thought he heard. For a moment, the whirr and beeping of the machines receded, and he thought he could smell sea air and see a green coastal landscape overlaying that of the hospital room.
Somewhere distant, a crow cawed its shrill note three times.
Colin gaped. He drew his hand back, his spine tight against the back of the chair in which he sat. But he blinked then and the vision vanished, and it was only his father lying there.
The ventilator chuffed; his father’s chest rose and fell in concert. He could smell only disinfectants and the faint, sour odor that lingered in the room. The IV bag dripped on its stand, like a sterile hourglass ticking away the last moments of his father’s life.
“Shit,” he muttered. He was sweating despite the room’s chill. Maybe the waking dream was just latent exhaustion from having been up so long the last few days. Maybe he’d never seen or heard anything at all. Now, in the glaring light of the hospital room, it seemed impossible: a momentary and lost dream fragment. Colin leaned forward again to examine the face on the pillow, trying to remember how his father had once looked in motion even though it seemed impossible. The face was pale, the cheeks more sunken than he remembered, just empty flesh hanging from a skull. “I hope you’re happy wherever it is you’ve gone, Dad. I hope you can hear me there. I just wish . . . I just wish your kind of afterlife was something I believed in myself, but I can’t. I lost that faith a long time ago, and I especially can’t believe it now. Maybe . . . maybe you’re where you always expected to be. Maybe that’s how it works—you go to whatever afterlife you expect to have, and maybe those of us who believe in nothing end up going nowhere at all.”
He chuckled once, dryly and humorlessly. “I guess I won’t know until it happens, huh? I remember that when I first told you I’d lost my faith, you said you weren’t having ‘a goddamn pagan son.’ It wasn’t the first time I’d disappointed you; I know it certainly wasn’t the last. Sorry I couldn’t be who you wanted me to be. I wish I could have been less of a disappointment to you, and I’m . . . well, I’m sorry. Sorry for everything.”
He rose from the chair. Leaning over, he touched his lips to his father’s forehead.
“Bye, Dad,” he said.
5
Searching for Young Lambs
FOR A MOMENT, just a moment, she’d seen him as if he were standing over her. He wasn’t quite what she’d expected: a young man wearing glasses, his brown hair longish and disheveled, but he looked at her with a sadness she nearly couldn’t bear, the emotion so strong in him that the shock of it threw her entirely from the vision . . .
“M’Lady?” Keara was crouched alongside Maeve’s chair, the other woman’s hands cradling hers and Keara’s face staring up into her own with a look of concern. Maeve took in a breath she hadn’t known she was holding. She blinked and realized that she was crying.
“’Twas him,” she said to Keara. “Finally. Almost as I remember him.”
“You’re certain?”
“Aye. And neh.” Maeve took another breath and wiped at her eyes. Even though the kitchen of her small house was warm, she felt cold. Everything around her now was in too sharp a focus, as if she’d been seeing with eyes other than her own: the brazier with its curls of aromatic smoke, the herbal potion that Keara had fixed. Her ears rang with the memory of Keara’s long chant, and she could feel the exhaustion from the effort touching every joint in her body.
It had been over half a century now that she’d been searching and calling. At first, she’d been able to touch him, but he fought her every time, ignoring her calls and her signs. Then, for long decades, there’d been nothing at all, and she despaired of ever recovering what she’d lost, knowing that as a mortal, he was gone. She could feel her own slow but inevitable death approaching, and that of those she’d gathered around her. But then she’d felt a sense of that presence again, fainter but growing stronger each time she’d reached out. Him, but not him. Him, and stronger yet. “I could nah feel the cloch na thintri with him,” she told Keara, “but this one has the gift of song that t’other di’nah. But ’tis the same family, aye. The same line. He’ll come to us. I have to nudge the boy, is all, and he’ll come.”
Keara smiled. “Good. Then nudge him.”
Maeve shook her head. “Not yet. Not till I know that he has the cloch. ’Tis near him, I’m certain. I could almost feel it. But we need that as well as the boy himself.”
Keara squeezed Maeve’s hand. “You should be pleased then, and those must be tears of joy. Niall and the others will be happy to hear this. Fionnbharr, too.” Keara stood, releasing Maeve’s hand. “I can make a potion ’twill call him from under the mound.” Maeve saw her gaze suddenly drop, as Keara evidently realized how that might have sounded. “I di’nah wish to presume, m’Lady. Only if that’s what yeh wish, of course.”
Maeve gave a low chuckle. “No, yer perfectly correct. Fionnbharr needs to wake, since we’ll require him and his people soon enough. And I . . .” She lifted a shoulder. “I’m nah as strong as I once was, either. I’ll need yer potion if I’m to call him forth, Keara. I ca’nah do it m’self, not as tired as I am.”
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Great story in a world of Fae mythology, Celtic lorr and Irish Fantasy By Barb The Crow of Connemara is a contemporary Irish fantasy, with Celtic lore, and Fae mythology. This story is a romance tragedy of modern day and old time myths. Colin Doyle is our hero, who is pressured by his family to get his degree, even though his only interest is his Celtic music, and desire to go to Ireland. Colin dreams of this Irish woman, who calls to him in his visions. When his father dies, Colin decides to follow his heart and go to Ireland.While joining other musicians playing his music in pubs, Colin with meet the woman of his dreams. Maeve Gallagher shows interest in Colin, but he finds the townsfolks do not like Maeve or her friends that live on the local island. The Oileanach’s are resented by the town, marked as outcasts, feared as witches. In a short time, Maeve and her friends are told they need to leave the island or they will be forced out.Maeve and Colin’s relationship grows slowly, and we the reader learn quickly that Maeve is indeed more than anyone knows. This is where the fae mythology involving all the members of the island, goes into more detail as to who they are, and what is Colin needed for.This is modern day contemporary story, with a romance that is doomed. I like Colin, but I thought that Maeve was a fascinating character. I enjoyed the mythology, and learning about them. I also love anything that takes place in Ireland.Stephen Leigh did a wonderful job doing the world building of this story, though it was a bit slow early on as we learned more about the Oileanach and the island. It was an exciting and interesting ending, leaving me wondering if there would be another book, or we are to use our imagination.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Great Celtic Story With Fae By JBronder Book Reviews Colin Doyle wants nothing more than to play his Celtic music and visit Ireland. His family try to guide him into better choices but he finally decides to follow his dreams and go to Ireland. While there, he meets Maeve Gallagher. But Colin finds the locals don’t like Maeve or her friends, Oileanach’s they are called, that live on a local island. Colin throws the warnings to the wind and follow Maeve. But Maeve has a big secret, she is fae and as her relationship with Colin grows it’s going to end in tragedy.This is a great story. I loved the imagery. Colin loves Ireland and after trying to do what his parents tell him finally decides to follow his heart. I enjoyed all the mythology of Ireland and finding out more about the fae as we learn more about Maeve. I was hoping for a happy ending but this is a relationship that won’t work out. I did feel bad for Maeve because of this.Over all this is a good story and I would recommend it for those that like romance with some Irish mythology added in.I received The Crow of Connemara for free from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. THE CROW OF CONNEMARA~ By Coffee Time Romance & More There is something so otherworldly about Ireland and its rich history, and this author does a beautiful job of tying it in with a contemporary storyline. Colin’s path is riddled with obstacles. And while his journey is never easy, he cannot give up on his dream. In Maeve’s case, her course is regrettably clear, and she has little choice but to follow it. This story’s imagery is incredibly vivid, and its voice is so hauntingly beautiful I would love to actually hear its soundtrack!Lototy Reviewer for Coffee Time Romance & More - See more at: http://coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/thecrowofconnemarabystephenleigh.html#.VaFh2o39N9A
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