C H A P T E R 1 3 - C H U A I G H S I N D E A R M A D D E R I R A C H I L E ( P T 2 )

C H A P T E R   1 3   -   C h u a i g h   s é   i   n d e a r m a d   d e   r é i r   a   c h é i l e   ( p t   2 )

Órlaith stared at the box, mind racing. She was looking, rather desperately, for an escape. She knew that once she opened that box the story started moving again. This box, it was the last sentence of a closing chapter. A chapter that, if she ever wanted to see Brian again, had to end now, with this old dusty box, inside this old dusty library.

Now all she had to do was stop looking for excuses and lift the lid.

But she didn’t. Instead she walked away. Busied herself in the kitchen, cleaned the house, ordered more groceries. She kept returning to the box, checking in on it from time to time to see whether it moved. It never did.

It was well past midnight when she finally closed the door to the library and faced the box one last time. She was still not brave. She was a coward and like a coward she knew this thing has to be handled like a band-aid – yank it off quickly, not giving yourself a chance to run.

She lifted the lid releasing a puff of dust that made her cough. She threw it aside and looked in, expecting all kinds of monsters to attack her. But all the monsters were dead, died a long time ago leaving behind old, dingy relics. She pulled them out, one by one.

Photos stared at her, resting in a pile that never got sorted into a photo album. Staring at the mess she decided to start there. She pulled out what she supposed was her family photo-album and got to work, adding photos to chalky pages. There were no photos of him. She only took photos of Maya.

When she was finished she lifted Mr Jungle, Maya’s favourite panda bear and put her arms around it, leaning back in her armchair. She felt tears biting in her eyes and for once, let them flow as she held on, pushing her fingers into the dusty plush toy.

She woke up hours later, face resting on Mr Jungle. The sun was desperately trying to part the thick clouds outside to announce it’s ascend, falling short. It was going to be a stormy day. With that notion Órlaith stood up, packed up the scattered items, labelled the box Maya and put it back on its shelf.

Mr Jungle stayed with her as she climbed up the stairs and went to sleep in her bed.  

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C H A P T E R   1 5   -   I t   a n   t - e o l a s   s i n   a r   f a d   ( p t   2 )

Padrick fell asleep with his nose buried in a volume of old Irish folk tales.

‘I should take the kid home,’ muttered Brian, leaning down to kiss her forehead. ‘I will stop by tomorrow…’

She stopped him, reaching for his hand. ‘Come back after you drop him off. Please. I… I found something in one of the books. I didn’t want to talk in front of him.’ She whispered, nodding toward the sleeping boy.

‘Sure. Go take a nap in the meantime. I will wake you up when I’m back.’

She nodded, handing him the keys and watched him shake the boy awake gently. His big, tired, blue eyes stared at them in defiance when they offered him a ride home, but in the end the exhaustion won and he nodded, taking his jacket and following Brian to his car with slow, stumbling steps.

Órlaith watched them go faking a smile.

The monsters watching her from the shadows snickered.  

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C H A P T E R   1 6   -   T u b a i s t e   ( p t   1 )

‘I might be able to get inside through the window.’

As far as famous last words went, Brian lived to hear better ones. But really, the kid’s heart was in a good place. If only his fitness abilities were as strong as his determination.

He hit the porch with a loud bang, making Brian wince. Half-faerie or not, that shit had to hurt. Brian rushed to him, leaning down over his pained expression. ‘Kid, are you okay?’

‘I’m not able,’ mumbled the kid.

‘No shit.’

Padrick’s parents choose that moment to barrel out, brandishing various household items as weapons. They pointed them all at Brian threateningly, barking out police numbers and for some reason, pleas. Brian stepped back from them, deciding this was not the day to die by the hand of an Irish village idiot. May the Englishman in him rest in peace.

‘Mom, dad!’ cried the kid, bringing order to chaos. ‘It’s me! It’s me! Stop it!’

The dad, freezing mid-swing, fixed a confused expression on his son. ‘Padrick?! What are you doing outside!’

‘And who are you?!’ screeched mom, pointing at Brian.

‘He is… a friend!’ cried the kid, making all the adults look at him in doubt. Sure, the pause, decided Brian, didn’t help much. But then, he was helping a faery to break into a house of it’s not quite parents. Somehow a fight with said parents ranked very low on his strange meter tonight.

‘I’m a teacher,’ he said, lifting his hands to communicate peace.

‘Yes!’ nodded the boy adamantly. ‘He teaches… maths.’

Brian winced. Of course. Of all the subjects in all the world the kid had to choose the one which made him want to take an iron pipe to his brain. But sure. Why not. Maths. Derivations. ‘I found him walking down the street a few block away,’ he lied, making Padrick glare. ‘I didn’t think it safe for him to wander around so I took him home.’

Sometimes it sucked to be adult. It sure as hell sucked to be a kid right now. But then, Brian decided it sucked far more to spend his night in jail being questioned as a suspect of a paedophilia case. Sometimes adults called the shots and the kids just had to sit down and bloody listen.

‘You!’ cried the adult, pointing at both, the kid and Brian in turn, ‘inside now. You two better explain yourselves right now.’

They followed, mindless of the darkness pushing them forth. All the while the phone in Brian’s pocket kept ringing.

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C H A P T E R   1 1    -   S í o f r a    ( p t   3 )

She was waiting for him in the garden by the time his car pulled into her driveway. The sun was just beginning to set, colouring the entire landscape in warm oranges and reds. Somehow, despite the dropping temperature, it felt warmer than it had in weeks.

He cleared his throat as he approached the garden swing, making her look up with a small, tense smile. ‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘What did you want to talk about?’

She motioned for him to join her and once he did, bit down on her lip, looking for a right way, any way to rely her insane theories. In the end she decided to go with the most believable fact. ‘Padrick came by today.’

‘He did?’ Brian sounded surprised. ‘What did he want?’

‘He… came to talk. About where he went when he… wasn’t here.’ She looked up at his quirked eyebrow and huffed in despair. Jesus. God help her. ‘He told me… stories. And I shouldn’t believe them, but I do.’

‘What kind of stories?’

‘Remember the night we found him by the cliffs?’ she asked, shivering in the warm breeze. ‘That scary fairy-tale I told you?’

‘Yes?’ he drawled carefully, eyes narrowing with understanding. ‘Órlaith…’

‘I know. It sounds… insane. But…’ She handed him the book she was holding, tapping a page with her index finger. ‘I saw some things that night too. We have to go back.’

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hi, i hope you don't mind a little wcif? i'm looking for the coat, beanie, scarf and mitens the girl is wearing in this post https://wolfavens.tumblr.com/post/671115349594390528/snow-storm-nah-prime-christmas-tree-hunting

coat │ beanie BG │ scarf │ mittens (beware i think they may be behind adfly)

E P I L O G U E   -   C o s á i n   s i ó g a 

The boy was sitting on a bench, watching life pass with frustrating nonchalance. People walked by, waving at each other, talking about the weather, watching kids play on the moor. Nobody spared him a glance as he stood up, heading down toward the beach.

Nobody noticed Órlaith Hannigan missing. It will take a while until somebody ventures into her little cottage, notices the spiderwebs stretching along the entrance and decides to call the Garda. They will come and they won’t find a trace of her inside, no trace but a few objects scattered in the dust. Cassidy will tell them he had expected this sooner. She probably walked into the sea and drowned. Poor soul. She had that coming. Nobody can live with the murder of their own blood on their conscience. They are going to pack her things up and give the key to a real estate person from Dublin. The house is going to be sold to an English couple and be abandoned until the next summer. A few rats will find their way in and set up camp in the library, right on the spot where Órlaith kept her most precious fairy-tale books.

And the life goes by and nobody notices.

He passed the boy next, holding hands with a pretty girl. She wore a yellow ribbon in her hair and with a pang he realised it was the same girl he and Brian took home one stormy night after the faeries tried to pull her to their world. She smiled and the boy blushed and looked away, his gaze barely brushing the shadow passing him. Still the shadow turned, still it tried to hide its face from him before they disappeared in the fog and left him alone again, kicking pebbles on his way.

The man was waiting by the road when he arrived, looking pale and crestfallen. Putting boxes into the trunk, he huffed when he spotted Padrick creeping at his side. ‘Ready to go?’ he asked.

Padrick nodded, watching him proceed in silence. When he finally spoke his voice was so quiet it was surprising the man heard it at all. ‘Nobody will ever know, will they? Even if they find her body they will just think she finally broke down and jumped. Nobody will know she saved them.’

Brian looked up at him, dark eyes sad. ‘You know. And I know.’

‘And what good does that do to her? I don’t exist and you? Nobody would ever believe a single word you say, Sasanach,’ snarled Padrick, crossing his arms over his chest. ‘She sacrificed herself for people who hate her and they didn’t even notice she is gone.’

‘I know it’s hard for you, but you can’t think of it like that. Órlaith was… she needed this. She needed to help you and the other kids. It was her way of making amends,’ he explained, opening the driver’s door.

‘But she did nothing wrong. She didn’t need to be absolved,’ muttered the boy, kicking gravel with his shoes. He was angry, angry and sad, knowing she died to be forgotten, hardly more than a few dusty books left behind. ‘And she had you.’

‘Not everybody can be saved, kid,’ whispered Brian, looking back at the lighthouse. The sigh alone send chills to his bones. ‘Now come on. We have places to go.’

Padrick didn’t argue. With one last glance at the place he called his home he got inside and banged the door shut behind Fanore. He snatched the map off the windshield and pointed at a big red dot way off the east shore. ‘Here.’

Brian leaned down to look into his map, nodding. ‘Good. Care to tell me what do we find once we get there? Aside from a strong magical presence that is.’

Padrick looked up at him with a small shrug. ‘If you can believe the internet a detective agency.’

‘And you sense magic there how?’

‘I don’t know. But then, maybe detective Faye O’Donnel can tells us.’

The End

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