by Nora Roberts
“It’s not that I don’t trust you.” She’d have sworn that’s what he thought. “And we won’t need it at the cottage. But we’re going to walk around the village now, and we’ll need it when we visit some sights I haven’t gotten to yet.”
He seemed less insulted by it when they walked, even preened when people stopped to admire him. He got to sniff at shoes, nuzzle kids, meet a couple of other dogs.
Breen told herself she was socializing him—as recommended—but she knew she was just showing him off.
She bought him chew toys, a bright red ball, and a small stuffed rabbit.
On the drive home, he sat in the back, a chew bone clamped in his teeth and his head out the window so his curls blew in the breeze.
Once home, she let him out for a run and a swim while she sat on the patio with her tablet. Since she hadn’t found him a bed, she ordered one online. And a few more toys. And chew sticks, and a dog tag with his name and her cell phone number.
“God, if I ever have kids, I’ll be a maniac.”
Fresh from the bay, Bollocks raced up to her, so she tossed the red ball. He just cocked his head at her. “You’re supposed to run after it, get it, bring it back to me so I can throw it for you again.”
She could all but hear him thinking What’s the point?, but he trotted to the ball, clamped it in his teeth, trotted back. She tossed it again.
After the first couple times, he seemed to get more into the spirit, gave serious chase.
“Okay, you’ve got it, and my arm’s worn out.” When she set the ball on the table signaling game over, he trotted toward the woods. He gave a bark, looked back at her.
“No, we’re not going there. I’m not ready. I’ve got laundry to do, and I’m going to write more. And . . . I’m just not ready. Let’s go in.”
When he came back, she patted his head. “Maybe tomorrow.”
But she had excuses at the ready the next day, and found it surprisingly easy to fill the time. Especially when she took a break from her novel to write a short story about the adventures of a magical dog named Bollocks.
She spent the day after that expanding the story as she realized it could be a book for middle schoolers. After all, she’d taught that age group, knew what they liked to read.
So she shifted happily between her novel, the children’s book, and the new routine with the dog himself.
Then on a bold summer day where she took her work out to the patio, Bollocks raced toward the woods, his happy barks a clear signal.
She wasn’t surprised to see her grandmother, and Finola with her, walk out of the woods.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
They looked like ordinary women, Breen thought as she rose from the table. Maybe not ordinary, as both looked years younger than their ages. But they sure as hell didn’t look—not from her perspective—like a witch and a faerie.
Marg carried a pouch, and Finola a basket.
The dog greeted them with mad joy and affection while Breen struggled with trepidation.
“What a fine day for being out and about,” Finola said brightly. “And are you working here, darling? With us coming along and interrupting you.”
“No, it’s fine. It’s fine.” Breen closed her laptop. “I meant to come back sooner, but . . .”
“You’re a busy one, aren’t you, with the writing. And Seamus tells me you’re adding gardening to that, and very well. Now you’ve this rascal on top of it all.”
Finola took Breen’s hand for a squeeze, a deliberate gesture of calming and comfort. “If it’s all the same to you, why don’t I just pop into the kitchen there, make us some tea to go with these sweet cakes I baked?”
“I—”
“It’s not a bit of trouble.” With her basket, Finola breezed right in, with the dog close behind.
With a little smile, Marg looked after her friend. “She knows I’m a bit unnerved, so she chatters to give me time to settle.”
“That makes two of us—on the unnerved front. I really was coming back. I just needed to work up to it.”
“I can’t blame you for it. So much thrown at you at once. It’s a lovely spot here. It makes you happy.”
Easier, by far, to talk about that.
“It is, and it does. It’s the first time in my life I’ve lived on my own, and done what I wanted to do. The first time—that I remember—I’ve had a dog, and he makes me happy, too. I want to thank you for giving him to me.”
“Trapping you into it more like.”
“He still makes me happy.” And she needed to be grateful, and gracious. “Please, sit.”
“You were working—writing.”
“Yes. I think I’m not too bad at it, and hope I get better.”
Marg sat, and in her slim pants and thin blue sweater, crossed her legs. “You show talent in the blogging.”
“You read my blog?”
“In my way, yes. Your father had a way with words himself.”
“He’d tell me stories. I couldn’t get enough of them. I was coming back,” Breen repeated. “And I wanted to ask if there was something of his, just some small thing, I could have to remember him by. I have a picture. A publican in Clare let me have it, one of him and his friends playing there. He was—his band—was very popular.”
“Music was his first love, and an abiding one. I’d like very much to see the photograph before we go. As it happens, I’ve brought you something that meant a great deal to him.”
Marg reached in her pouch, took out a smaller one tied with a white ribbon. “I have more of his things, of course, and you are welcome to choose whatever you like. But I know this he’d want you to have.”
Breen opened the pouch, took out the gold ring. A claddagh and, she remembered, his wedding ring.
“He wore it always,” Marg told her. “Even after there was no marriage between them.”
Breen rubbed her fingers over the ring. “He loved her. He knew they weren’t meant to stay together, but he loved her. They’d made me.”
“It may be fate brought them together for only that.”
“It means a great deal to me to have this.” And shamed her because she’d meant to go back—but she hadn’t.
“You’re kinder to me than I deserve at this point.”
“Ah, bollocks to that. I’m your nan, and have more than twenty years of spoiling to make up. Give me the chance to, won’t you, Breen?”
Though Marg’s voice stayed steady and calm, the plea shone in her eyes. “You’ve a good heart. Give me that chance.”
“I have so many questions.” But Breen reached over to take Marg’s hand as she spoke.
“It will take time to answer them all.”
“Then we’ll take the time. I’m going to go get the picture. Next time I’m somewhere with a scanner, I’ll make a copy for you.”
She went inside where Finola fussed over a teapot and cups.
“You knew me when I was little.”
“I did indeed. You and our darling Morena twined together like ivy. She lives with us now that our son and his woman—Morena’s parents—are in the Capital.”
“The Capital.”
“Aye. Talamh isn’t so big as this world, but it’s more than you’ve seen as yet.” She glanced up, looked at Breen with those strong, direct eyes. “Will you see it again, Breen?”
“Yes.”
“That would make your nan very happy.”
“I’m just going up to get a picture of my father to show my grandmother.”
“I’ll take the tea and cakes out then. She is a woman of great strength and power,” Finola added. “One who has suffered deep losses, and still stands. She is my friend, as dear to me as a sister. Perhaps dearer, come to that. It’s my great hope that you take after such as Marg.”
She didn’t know if she took after anyone, but since she only had one grandmother, she’d stop evading.
She brought the photo out to where Marg and Finola sat with the tea, and Bollocks sprawled under the table
with one of his biscuits.
Breen stopped, staring down at the little squares of frosted cakes on the plate.
“The pink ones taste like roses.”
“They were always your favorite.” Smiling, Finola put two on a small plate. “I told you, didn’t I, the girl always had a fondness for my sweet cakes. Morena favored the blue ones, and the taste of a summer sky.”
Sitting, Breen offered the framed photo to Marg.
“Ah, look at my boy there, so handsome! And there’s your own Flynn with him, Fi.”
“And so it is! That’s Morena’s da there, with the pipe. And there’s Kavan—he who was the best of friends with your da, Breen, and father to Harken and Aisling, and they you met, and Keegan as well. And there’s Brian holding his bodhrán drum. And only my own Flynn with us still.”
“They’re . . . gone?”
“Brian long ago, and Kavan as well. It’s good to see them young and alive and doing what they loved doing.”
“I’ll make copies, and bring them. Will you tell me how he died, my father?”
“When you come and I take you to where we laid him to rest, we’ll talk of it. Can today not be for the sadness?” Marg asked her. “There are other questions buzzing in your mind. Pick one I can answer that doesn’t bring grief to tea and cakes.”
“All right. You’re of the Wise—that’s witches, right?”
“So I am. Once such as I am—and you are—were respected in the worlds. Until fears and greeds and envies and the like grew in those without powers. It’s not such in Talamh, where our gifts and skills and knowledge are given to help and heal and defend.”
“Okay, and you?” Breen turned to Finola. “Are one of the Sidhe?”
“We tend—the earth, the air, the growing things.”
“Is that it? I mean, as far as your world? Witches and faeries?”
“Oh, other tribes she’s meaning, Marg. We live, work, mate, defend, all as Fey, as people of Talamh, but we have other what you would think of as tribes. The Elfins—they tend as well, and prefer the forests and mountains to the fields and lowlands.”
“Elves. Like . . .” Fascinated, Breen held her hand a couple of feet from the ground. “Elves.”
“They’re not the little ones with pointed ears the storybooks in your world would make them,” Marg said. “Nor are the weres the thing of nightmares who transform under the full moons to attack and kill.”
“Weres? Like werewolves?”
“A were has a spirit animal, and can become—at his will—a wolf, a hawk, a bear, a dog, a cat, and so on.”
“The mers,” Finola added, clearly enjoying herself as she nibbled on a cake. “Who live in, tend, and guard the waters. The trolls who mine.”
“And with all these, there are abilities,” Marg continued. “A troll may have the ability to communicate with animals, though this is more likely to be found in a witch, an elf, a faerie. A were might have dream visions. We have what the gods give us.”
Fascinating, Breen decided. Not frightening now, not impossible now. Just fascinating. “What gods?”
“There are many. Even in your world you give them different names, purposes, lore.”
“Did they make the tree? The Welcoming Tree?”
“This was an agreement between the realms of man and gods and Fey, and choices made more than a thousand years ago. The portals were a way to travel from world to world, but worlds change, and more choices had to be made.”
“What kind of choices?”
“In this world such as we began to be persecuted and hunted and murdered.”
“Witch trials.” That was history, Breen thought. Solid and inarguable. “Burnings and hangings and drownings.”
Marg nodded. “And most who suffered those fates had no power at all. I think a kind of madness came over the realm of men. We were to be feared and damned—then we were simply stories and superstitions. This world, as worlds will, pursued a different path. Machines became a kind of god, technology a kind of sorcery—and the true magicks faded to shadows. The Fey of Talamh chose to preserve what they are, choosing the magicks over this progress.”
“But I went through, and you came through this way. My mother, you said, lived in Talamh. Is she Fey?”
“She’s of this world.” At ease now, Marg poured more tea.
“She came through willingly to ours for love of your father. No one can be brought in without their full consent—that is law. And all in Talamh are encouraged to go through, to explore, to spend time in another world. They may choose to stay in that world, and that is their right—but they must take the most sacred oath to never use their power to harm unless in defense of another. Even then, there must be a judgment. Some, like your mother, come to us and stay. Some find it’s not their place, and leave.”
“Wouldn’t they tell people about everything?”
“Who would believe them?” Marg said with a smile. “You, who remember some, have seen some, still struggle to believe.”
But believing wasn’t as hard as it had been, maybe should have been.
“I lived my whole life—at least since I was three—in this world. In a place so different from where I’m sitting right now. And I was taught for so long that I wasn’t just ordinary, but barely average.”
Something flashed in Marg’s eyes before she cast them down. “That was your mother’s fear to blame. I can believe she was wrong, very wrong, but not slap at her for it. You are far from ordinary, in any world, mo stór. You are brighter, stronger than you may think. What’s in you is sleeping. Let me help you wake, just a bit.”
She stood, held out her hand. When Breen put hers in it, she led her to the garden. “The rosemary there, such a useful plant. Would you touch it, think of it, how it grows, how it basks in the sun, fills the air with its fragrance.”
Seeing no harm, Breen brushed her fingers over the soft needles.
“Its roots spread through the earth. When the rain comes, it drinks. Think of it, what it needs, what it gives. Think of what you give it.”
She thought of it, how it smelled—how her fingers smelled when she ran them over it. How it branched up toward the sun. How it—
“It grew!”
To her astonished eyes, Breen watched the branches reach up another inch.
“You did that.”
The dangles at Marg’s ears glinted as she shook her head. “Not I, no. This is in you. I may not tell you all, not at once, but I will not lie. This is in you, and more. It’s all one, you see—linked together. Water, fire, earth, air, magicks. All in you as well.”
“All connected, Seamus said,” Breen murmured. “All bound together.”
“So it is. And this is enough for one day. I want to ask something of you.”
Breen turned, and Marg took her hands. “What do you want?”
“If you would come, stay a day or two with me.”
“You’ll take me to my father’s grave.”
“I will.”
“I need to write.”
“That won’t work.” Marg glanced at the laptop. “But there are other ways. I’ll help you so you can do what you love and need. A day or two, my darling girl.”
“All right. Tomorrow.”
“I’m more than grateful. We’ll leave her be now, won’t we, Fi.”
“And sure a lovely visit we’ve had.” Finola gathered her basket and rose. “Bright blessings on you, child.”
“Thanks . . . and on you.”
“Tomorrow then. I’ll watch for you.”
Breen stood where she was as they crossed the lawn to the woods. Bollocks trotted over with them, then raced back to her.
“I guess I should pack something. What do I pack to spend a couple days in another world?”
She opted for an abbreviated morning routine. The blog, the novel, the children’s book all got her attention even if she gave them all less time.
By midmorning, she hitched on her backpack and carried her nerves into the woods wi
th Bollocks. She could feel his excitement in every step, and wondered if somehow he could feel her anxiety.
Either way, he led her, as before, through the shifting light and shadows while the pulse under her tattoo beat fast.
She thought of what her mother would say.
Don’t be stupid, Breen. You’re not equipped to handle any of this. Go back, book a flight, and come back where you belong. Follow the rules. Live a quiet life. If you reach too high, you’ll only fall.
And hearing all of that inside her head pushed her forward, lengthened her stride until she reached the tree.
And there it is, she thought. Strange and glorious and terrifying. Every logical bone in her body insisted a tree—however fantastic—couldn’t be a doorway to another world.
But she’d been there—and had the dog to prove it.
“‘There are more things in heaven and earth,’ right, Bollocks? So . . . here we go.”
He took that as a command, scrambled right up the rocks and branches. Remembering the spill she took before, she followed with more caution.
When once again she felt herself falling, she gripped a branch. She hovered in a flood of light, in a kick of wind that tossed her hair, lifted her jacket. She had to fight the part of her—her mother’s voice—that desperately wanted to jerk back.
Instead, she stepped forward.
Her head spun as two worlds seemed to revolve—the dense forest behind, the green fields ahead. But she stood on a sturdy ledge, catching her breath as Bollocks leaped down to chase the sheep.
“It’s real. That’s the first thing. It’s all real. So, we have to see what happens next.”
Her legs might have been a little shaky, but she managed the steps, crossed the field. With the dog beside her, she went over the stone fence to the dirt road.
She saw the man—Harken, his name was Harken—walking to one of the stone outbuildings. And Aisling hoeing in what appeared to be a vegetable garden while a pair of raven-haired boys sat on the grass nearby. The smaller one hooted as he banged two tin pails together. The older carefully built a tower out of wooden blocks.
An enormous gray wolfhound sat beside them, as watchful as a nanny.