Shine

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  Zachary threw me an exasperated glance as we walked through the center of the complex. “The most sacred site in all of Ireland, the burial ground of ancient kings, the legendary final resting place of a mysterious race of Stone Age beings—is a big lumpy field?”

  “The view is pretty, now that the sun’s coming out again.” I watched him sputter over my irreverence before adding, “I’m kidding. It’s definitely got charm.”

  “So it’s a charming big lumpy field,” he said.

  “Exactly.” We were heading along a ridge past the burial mound known as Cormac’s House, but we weren’t stopping to read the signs. Which wasn’t like the information-hungry Zachary at all.

  We reached the western end of the field, where there was a tree with a gnarled trunk split down the middle. It looked like a pair of trees had grown up beside each other and decided to entwine.

  From nearly every low branch, amid the bright red podlike berries, hung a piece of cloth or ribbon. Many were faded and tattered from the sun and wind.

  “What is this?” I asked Zachary.

  “A hawthorn. A wishing tree. People hang things as gifts to the faeries and make a wish.”

  Now that we were closer, I could see a baby’s pacifier dangling from a branch. A yellow sweatband was wound around another twig.

  On impulse, I unclasped my new necklace with the three-spiral design. I looped it over a low branch, twisting the leather tie around the base of a clump of berries.

  I wish Zachary could find a life of peace. With me. I touched my fingers to my lips, then the spirals.

  On the far side of the tree, overlooking the wide, sun-speckled Boyne Valley, a child’s stuffed animal hung by its feet. “Poor bunny.” I tapped its pink plastic nose. “But I guess it’s an honor to be put here, right? Better than going out in the trash or a yard sale.”

  Zachary didn’t answer. I turned to see him tying something to a branch over his head. He tugged it, dropped his hand, then closed his eyes. His lips moved silently.

  I didn’t interrupt or look away. Zachary opened his eyes and saw me watching him.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “Nothing. Let’s go. It’ll be dark soon and harder to see the road signs.”

  He strode down the hill back the way we came. I went to stand beneath the branch he’d just touched.

  A bright blue shoelace flapped in the gathering breeze. Letters were written on one end, near the plastic tip. It was too high for me to grab without jumping, and I worried I’d break the branch if I yanked it down.

  The breeze was twisting the shoelace so fast I couldn’t read the letters on it. But I recognized that sky-blue color, and the skate shoes it had once matched.

  At last the wind eased. The shoelace swayed faintly. I tilted my head to read the initials Zachary had written in black.

  LPK.

  He made me promise to do something for him.

  I walked over the slopes of Tara, my chest aching, until I reached Zachary. He was waiting near a statue of a man with a tall pope-type hat. It seemed out of place here among entities and legends so much older than the Catholic Church.

  Carved into the marble base were the words NAOMH PADRAIG. Saint Patrick, the one Logan had been middle-named after.

  I looked out over the Hill of Tara and saw why Logan had wanted his ashes scattered here, and felt sad that his parents hadn’t allowed it. Now, a form of his final wish had been granted—by his ex-rival, of all people.

  “I love you,” I told Zachary, and had never meant it more.

  He gave a heavy sigh. “Don’t say tha’ now.”

  My heart thumped. “Why not?”

  He turned to me, his mouth serious but his eyes alight. “Makes it even harder not to kiss you.”

  The rain had soaked through my shoes from the wet grass, so we went back to Ballyrock to change clothes and call our families before lunch.

  As we mounted the last set of stairs to our fourth-floor room, Zachary put an arm in front of me and a finger to his lips. Then he beckoned me to follow him, moving softly.

  Our door was closed, but the Do Not Disturb sign was missing from the knob, and the tiny piece of tape at the top was broken.

  Zachary’s eyes narrowed as he sidled up to the door. He listened for a moment, then opened it suddenly and silently.

  Inside the room, a girl squeaked. “Oh my goodness! You scared me.”

  Everything was clean. The powder was off the floor, the sheets had been straightened. A girl our age, maybe even younger, was standing beside the bed, one hand holding a dust cloth and the other clamped over her heart.

  “No one was supposed to come in here.” Zachary stalked past the cleaning cart. “No one.”

  “I didn’t know. They didn’t tell me.”

  “We put the sign on the door.” He looked at the knob. “Where is it?”

  “It wasn’t there, I swear.” The girl looked like she was about to cry. “Please don’t tell Mrs. McGuerin. I’ll get sacked, and me ma’s sick. I need the work. Please, sir.” She clutched her hands together.

  Zachary’s shoulders lowered a fraction. “Was someone in the room when you arrived?”

  “No. But I think—” She swallowed. “Someone was here before me.”

  I looked at Zachary, thinking of the Nighthawk agent. But he stayed calm and kept his gaze on her.

  “Why do you say tha’?” he asked her, quietly but with an edge to his voice.

  “There was baby powder by the chest of drawers. There were footprints in it.” She brightened. “Maybe whoever came in took the Do Not Disturb sign, and that’s why I didn’t see it.”

  Zachary and I went to the dresser. He slid the left-hand top drawer open carefully, and I did the same on the right with my stuff.

  “Maybe we should wait until she leaves before we go all 007,” I suggested in a whisper.

  “Good idea.” He turned to her. “Thanks very much. That’ll be all.”

  “You won’t tell anyone?”

  “Of course not,” I said, digging in my pocket. “Here, take this as your tip.” I gave her a five-euro note.

  Her jaw dropped. “All of it?”

  I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “Sorry if we scared you, um, what’s your name?”

  “Deirdre.”

  “Deirdre. Jack can be a little tense sometimes.”

  “Who?”

  “Jack. My husband?” I angled my body slightly to indicate Zachary.

  “Oh, of course.” Deirdre pocketed the money and gave me a shy smile. “Thank you for your kindness. I hope you’re enjoying your stay.” The girl hurried out, avoiding Zachary’s eyes.

  The door closed behind her. He looked at me. “Five euros?”

  “Is that too much?”

  He drummed his fingers on the wooden dresser top. “Not if it keeps her away.”

  Zachary and I combed the room, but couldn’t find anything out of place, other than what Deirdre had cleaned. Everything in the dresser was exactly how we’d left it.

  “Could Deirdre be working for Nighthawk?” I asked him as we stood in front of the wardrobe, where our bags remained untouched.

  “She barely looked sixteen. Why would an elite group of spies hire someone like her?”

  “I don’t know. But I’d feel better if there was only one group of bad guys after us.”

  “We should be so lucky.” Zachary shut the wardrobe doors. “I’ll start arranging things so we can go to lunch. After that, you should try searching for ghosts. It’ll be long enough since we kissed.” He looked at me with a longing that was more than physical. “I hope.”

  “Before lunch I need a hot shower. I’m all cold and damp.”

  “I’ll be out here, then.” He turned away quickly and spoke under his breath, “Thinking of you in the shower.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  In the shower, I thought about Zachary’s reaction to Deirdre’s mistake. For a few moments, I’d seen real rage and fear in his eyes, quic
kly masked by a studied self-control. His ordeal at 3A—whatever it was—no doubt made him sensitive to finding strangers in his personal space.

  When I came out of the bathroom, Zachary was sitting on the bed, holding a strip of plastic packages up to the nightstand light.

  “Reading your fortune in a pack of condoms?” I asked him.

  “Aura, come look.” His voice was serious. “Something’s wrong.”

  I leaned close, holding back my hair so it wouldn’t drip on him. “Is that a hole in the middle?”

  “It’s in about half of the packets, from a wee pin.” He threw the condoms onto the nightstand. “It was that girl! She was standing by the bed when we came in, and while she was talking to us, she glanced over here. Only once, but I caught it. Also, I stepped on this.” He held up an open safety pin.

  The sight made me shiver. “That’s the creepiest thing I’ve ever heard of. Why would Deirdre do that?”

  “Dunno. Why would she want you to get pregnant?”

  “But you would’ve noticed the hole, right?”

  “Not in the dark. See, it’s barely visible on the wrapper in the light. I wouldn’t have known until it was too late.”

  “Holy crap.” I sank onto the side of the bed, feeling dizzy at our close call. “Are we sure it was her? Maybe it was whoever was in the room before.”

  “There was no one here before. She lied about that.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The Do Not Disturb sign was peeking out of her pocket. At first I thought she was just covering up her mistake so she wouldn’t get sacked. But something bothered me about her. While you were in the shower, and I was trying not to think of you in the shower, I figured out what it was: She’s Irish.”

  I nodded solemnly. “That is strange, considering we’re in Ireland.”

  He shook his head. “These days, hotel cleaning people in the British Isles are mostly Eastern Europeans. Poles, Czechs, Romanians. It’s an immigrant’s job, like in America.”

  I thought about the other housekeeper we’d passed in the hallway. She’d been speaking on her cell phone in what sounded like a Slavic language. “So Deirdre doesn’t really work here?”

  “Aye, she works here. I saw her when we checked in, cleaning another room.”

  “Maybe she took the job just to get to us.”

  “Remember, our real names were on the original reservation I made back in March. So stupid of me.”

  I gasped. “Remember when I called you Jack? She looked confused, even though that’s the name on the reservation now.”

  “Good point. Maybe she knows who we really are.”

  “So what do we do now? Do we have to leave? Is the place bugged?” I whispered.

  “No, I checked again.” He crossed his foot over his knee. “If she thinks we believed her story, then we should stay. We might learn more.”

  “We spy on the spy. I like that.” I almost kissed him in appreciation of his wiliness, then remembered we had to stay apart.

  “Besides,” he said, “it’s the holidays. Our chances of finding lodging anywhere in the country are less than nil.”

  I hated the feeling of violation and knowing that someone—even a crazy sixteen-year-old girl—knew who we were.

  I looked at the condom box on the nightstand. “We’re buying more of those, right?”

  “Aye, first thing before lunch. And keep them secure.”

  “Why would someone want me to get pregnant?”

  “No idea. If she’s working for the DMP or Nighthawk, I can’t see how that would fit their agenda.”

  “Unless—oh my God. You think they’d want to see what would happen? You’re the Last, I’m the First. Your dad always said the DMP didn’t want us together because they were afraid of what we might, um, make.” My heart pounded harder. “Maybe they’ve changed their minds. Maybe they want to study us by studying our kid.”

  Zachary went utterly still. In the moment before he looked away, I saw a hurricane-size storm in his eyes. “They would,” he said in a soft, cold voice.

  “Zach?”

  “Let’s eat. I’m starving.”

  As we put the room back in order, dispensing the baby powder and mussing the covers just so, I considered the terrifying possibility we’d raised: Any child we’d have together would be scrutinized, examined, maybe even taken from us.

  I’d never really thought about babies before. As a kid, I’d treated the dolls I’d played with like actors in a movie, not like my own offspring. But the idea of anyone harming a person Zachary and I loved drove me near blind with rage.

  I would die before I let that happen.

  The sun set while we were having a late lunch at a pub in the village of Slane. I excused myself before dessert and walked out onto the front porch. After what had happened this morning with the Nighthawk agent, I didn’t want to stray far, but I had to get out of Zachary’s sight.

  Or at least, what I was looking for had to be out of his sight.

  I walked to the nearest corner, ignoring the rain that dampened my hair. A few pedestrians were out, on their way to the jewelry shop across the street, where a sign advertised a Christmas sale on engagement rings.

  My thumb shifted my own diamond back and forth, bumping my middle finger, then my pinkie. I’d gotten used to it so quickly. Maybe it was the travel, or spending the night with Zachary, or—well, that—which made me feel strangely grown up. I wondered what Megan would think, and had a sudden urge to call her. But I had to wait until later when she’d be with Gina at my house. MI-X had warned us about making calls to people whose phones might be tapped.

  I couldn’t go home without the answers I needed—not just about the Shine and the Shift, but about Flight 346 and the draft and what my government would do to me now that I’d turned eighteen.

  But as I stood there in the rain, with no ghosts in sight, hope bloomed within me. If Zachary and I had undone the Shift this morning at Newgrange, most of my problems would disappear. My life would open up with infinite possibilities.

  I headed back toward the pub, avoiding the large puddles. The storefronts’ red and green holiday lights reflected in the water’s shimmering surfaces.

  I stopped short. Ahead of me, a round puddle next to a parking meter reflected a color that had nothing to do with Christmas.

  Violet.

  The young woman’s ghost drifted between the parked cars, then crossed the road, ignoring the vehicles passing through her. She moved deliberately, maybe putting space between herself and the candy shop’s red holiday lights.

  Whatever had happened this morning at Newgrange had been mysterious and powerful. But it hadn’t ended the Shift.

  I entered the pub and climbed onto the barstool next to Zachary’s. He gaped at my soaking hair and clothes.

  “They have indoor plumbing here, aye?”

  “I took a walk.” I slumped to put my head onto my fist. “And saw a ghost.”

  “I’m sorry.” He poured me a steaming cup of tea from a metal pot. “Maybe Padraig Murphy was right—it’s Dowth we need to visit, at sunset tomorrow.”

  I pointed to the TV above the bar. “The weather guy said it’s going to rain again.”

  “Maybe it won’t matter whether the light hits us or not. Maybe it’s our being there at the right time.” He dug into his piece of chocolate cake. “After all, the sun goes where it goes regardless of clouds.”

  “I guess.”

  “Besides, Dowth means ‘darkness.’ So it makes sense that it would be the opposite of Newgrange. Talking of darkness, did you still want to try to turn a shade tonight at solstice?”

  “Definitely.”

  “So no kissing you for hours before?”

  I let out a whimper. “Sorry. Probably not after six p.m.”

  His knee nudged mine under the bar. “But now’s good, aye?”

  Before I could answer, he kissed me, letting the barest edge of his tongue graze my upper lip. Maybe it was the lingering taste
of tea and chocolate, but the feel of his mouth on mine sent a shock of adrenaline out to the tips of my toes and fingers, and all parts in between.

  Yes, I thought, now is very good.

  The hearth held no fire, a draft whistled through the crack between the balcony doors, and our quilt was . . . somewhere. But winter couldn’t touch me and Zachary. Our only shivers came from the touch of hands and mouths, our only shudders from the quakes within. And in that mystical place we dwelled in together—which we felt even more vividly than before—the air was anything but cold.

  Afterward, we lay pressed together, our breath caught in the same slowing rhythm. I wanted to fall asleep just as I was, using him as a full body pillow beneath me. By the way he kept me snug against him, tracing lazy circles on the back of my shoulder blade, I didn’t think he’d mind.

  Finally Zachary whispered my name, his tongue barely tapping the r. Then he said, “I never want to leave this place as long as I live.”

  “You mean County Meath or this room?”

  “This place.” He spread his palm against my side. “Specifically.”

  I closed my eyes tighter. “Happy birthday.” It was a statement, not a wish.

  Zachary sucked in a breath. “Birthday! I have a present for you.” He slid from beneath me, switched on the lamp, and opened the nightstand drawer. A small box wrapped in gold paper glimmered in the light.

  My bliss turned to glee. “Thank you! Can I open yours last? Gina gave me something, too.”

  We washed up, got dressed, and met back in bed ten minutes later. The thought of opening my aunt’s gift while naked totally squicked me out. After glancing at her card, I tore the blue paper off the gift.

  The jewelry-type box looked suspiciously like the one she’d given me last year, which had held an obsidian necklace that drove Logan over the edge into shadedom. Had she regifted me that present?

  I lifted the lid. It was a silver chain with a teardrop-shaped piece of clear quartz. Ghosts’ favorite gem.

  “Funny.” I lifted the chain, examining the transparent stone. “Last year I had a ghost boyfriend and she got me obsidian. This year I have an anti-ghost boyfriend and she gets me clear quartz.” I looked at Zachary. “She wants me to be a nun.”