The promised lunch had eventually happened sometime around three in the afternoon. Unfortunately, it had taken the form of a stale jelly doughnut and a cup of what the officers of the homicide division referred to as coffee. My personal jury was still deliberating on that point.
I told her about that too.
“So anyway,” I continued. “Ben is going to be tied up down here for a bit longer, but they’ve given me the okay to leave.”
“Give me twenty minutes,” she replied to the unasked question.
“I’ll be waiting outside.”
CHAPTER 7:
“Bar food?” I said to my wife. “I’ve been stuck down here all day with nothing but a stale doughnut and bad coffee, and you want me to eat BAR food?”
“It’s not ‘bar food’,” she replied as she dropped the Jeep into third gear and veered onto the Kingshighway exit from westbound Interstate 64. “It’s PUB food.”
The top was down, and the warm wind was whipping through the open cab of the vehicle. There was still better than an hour of sunlight left in the day, so it was still hot and humid. Fortunately, the temperature had dropped off by a few degrees, so it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been earlier in the day; if you liked steam baths, that is. Although, I had to admit the artificial breeze generated by the motion of the Jeep went a long way toward making it tolerable.
“There’s a difference?” I asked with a chuckle.
“Aye, and you’ll be finding out soon enough, then,” she answered, dredging up her inherent Celtic brogue with no effort whatsoever. Truth was, it was probably more of an effort for her to hide it.
Felicity was second-generation Irish-American, but you wouldn’t know it to look at her— or especially at times, to hear her. In fact, one would think she had just stepped off an airplane direct from the Emerald Isle.
Her looks were straight out of Celtic myth. She was petite, standing shoeless only slightly more than five feet tall. Her complexion was milky white and smooth like porcelain with the only exception being a light spate of freckles across the bridge of her nose. Bright, green eyes peered out of her doll-like face, and the whole package was framed by spiraling locks of fiery auburn hair that hung down past her waist. If a toy company were to produce a doll to represent Ireland, my wife would make the perfect model for it.
If the looks weren’t enough, she was also possessed of the stereotypical temper that, whether politically correct or not, was so often associated with both the ethnicity and hair color. Fortunately, it wasn’t one that was easily ignited although I had managed to spark it on a few occasions.
Growing up, she had spent almost as much time in Ireland as the United States, even attending college there; hence, she was never completely devoid of a light, Irish lilt in her voice. However, get her around her family, get a few alcoholic drinks in her, or wait until she got overly tired, and her guard would drop. The lilt would morph into a thick brogue, replete with slang and colloquialisms the average American was hard pressed to understand. We’d been married better than twelve years, and she still came up with some that perplexed me.
When she really got riled up, she would even mix languages on you. While certainly not fluent in Gaelic, she had more than a passing familiarity with it. That particular vocabulary, however, consisted of innumerable curses and derisive phrases born of the ancient language, and if provoked, she was more than happy to use them.
On the flip side, she even knew a few of the endearments, and I’d had the good fortune to hear them whispered in my ear from time to time.
“I love it when you talk with an accent,” I said, shooting her a grin.
“Aye, what accent?” she asked, still laying it on thick and laughing as she spoke. “You’re the one with the accent, then.”
“Right,” I answered. “Midwest plain and dull. So what’s the name of this place again?”
“Seamus O’Donnell’s.”
“Sounds Irish,” I joked.
“Well, duh,” she returned.
“So it doesn’t sound familiar. Have we been there before?”
“No.”
“Hmmm. I thought we’d been to every Irish pub in Saint Louis by now.”
“They’ve only been open a few months.”
We had made the loop and merged into the afternoon traffic. She sped up to the next intersection, just catching the light before it switched and turned the vehicle to the right from Kingshighway onto Oakland.
“So how do you know this so called ‘pub food’ is any good if we haven’t been there?” I asked, shooting a glance over at her.
Her hair was pulled back, but loose strands were whipping about her face as she looked over and smiled at me. “I said we haven’t been there before. I never said that I hadn’t been there.”
“Oh,” I exclaimed playfully. “So you went there without me, did you?”
“Hey, a girl’s got to have lunch, doesn’t she?” she laughed.
“Yes, I suppose she does,” I replied. “So do they have colcannon and Dublin coddle?”
“Among other things, yes they do.”
“And Guinness, of course?”
She glanced at me and raised an eyebrow, giving me an unmistakable stare.
“Okay,” I held up my hands in surrender. “I know, I know. Stupid question.”
“Well, it IS an Irish pub, Rowan,” she laughed.
She downshifted as the traffic signal ahead of us winked yellow, and we rolled to a stop at the white line just as it switched over to a glaring red.
Considering the events of the day, I was surprised to find myself in such a good mood. Truth is, even if today had never happened, I still would have been surprised. I hadn’t felt this good about life since the first time I’d been cold-cocked by an unwanted ethereal vision of a horrific murder; and that had been almost four years ago.
A far cry from past experiences, my seizure-induced headache had faded relatively quickly. None of the typical creepy sensations that always accompanied these events had plagued me in the least. Even though I could still feel a troubling shadow falling across my life yet again, it was faint and nebulous. Nothing like the dark foreboding that always forced me into a brooding stupor.
I didn’t know if it was some sort of artificially conjured euphoria brought on by my wife’s contagious good mood, or what. Maybe I was just getting better at keeping myself grounded and centered. As basic a task as that is for a Witch, it was something I’d been having trouble with for some time now. In the end, I simply didn’t care what it was, but I knew one thing for sure— I planned to enjoy every minute of it.
I simply felt good. I was truly relaxed and happy for the first time in a very long while.
I felt my wife’s fist thump hard against my shoulder as she playfully punched me. “What are you grinning about, Row?”
I hadn’t realized that the broad smile had carved itself into my face, but I suppose it was just part of the mood. “Nothing,” I replied, rolling my head to the side so I could look at her. “Not a thing.”
“Sure, whatever,” she replied with her own smile, then asked, “So, did Ben say when he would be getting out of there?”
“Probably in a couple of hours is what he said. Why?”
“Well, it’s only a little after six right now, so that would still be early yet,” she replied, pulling her hand across her forehead and dragging some of the wild strands of hair from her face. “Maybe he and Allison could join us later for a pint or two.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I replied, remembering that I had purposely not told her about the phone call I’d overheard. Truth was, I didn’t actually know to whom Ben was talking on the other end, but I had my suspicions. Still, it was best not to start a rumor, even if it was only between us.
“Come on,” she urged. “It’ll be fun. The Don’t Be Brothers are supposed to be playing tonight.”
“The what?” I asked, furrowing one eyebrow and squinting at her.
“The Don’t Be Br
others,” she repeated. “It’s a play on…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I told her as I nodded my head. “I’m just not sure I want it.”
“They’re really good, Row. I’ve heard them play before.”
“Okay, so speaking of playing, what DO they play?”
She shrugged. “Irish folk songs, what else?”
“You mean Irish drinking songs.”
“Of course, they’re playing in a Pub.”
“So that means we have to sing along.”
“Your point?”
“I don’t know any of the words, and I doubt if Ben or Allison do either.”
“Aye,” she said as she shook her index finger at me. “But I do.”
“Okay,” I gave in, reaching to my belt and grabbing my cell phone. “I’ll give him a call, but I don’t make any guarantees.”
I wasn’t actually sure if I would be able to reach him, but I was willing to try. If I was correct, and the earlier call had in fact been from Allison, maybe they had managed to patch things up by now. An evening out might even be just exactly what they needed. After all, it was Friday. They were adults. Their son was old enough not to require a sitter, so that shouldn’t be an obstacle. Looking at it that way, there was really nothing to keep them at home.
I thumbed in the speed dial code and put the phone up to my ear. I heard the ringer at the other end issuing from the earpiece, but halfway through the trill it suddenly became muffled. As I listened, a heavy, rhythmic thrum was starting to fill my ears and was effectively dulling the ambient sounds. I glanced around expecting to find a car with a radio blasting heavy metal music somewhere nearby. If that was the source of the noise, however, I couldn’t locate it.
When the second ring sounded, a coppery metallic taste began creeping up the back of my tongue, and I instantly tensed. The sensation wasn’t new to me, and I desperately feared what I thought it was about to bring. The false sense of security I had felt a few moments ago was now fleeing in earnest.
A tidal wave of déjà vu slammed into me full force, and I knew it was more than just a trick of an overactive imagination. I had been here before, experiencing an unwanted psychic event from the passenger seat of my wife’s Jeep. I opened my mouth to warn her of what was about to happen only to have my words halted in my throat by the sound of Felicity’s own frightened voice.
“R… Ro… Rowan…” she stuttered, a note of confused terror like I’d never heard from her before was interwoven through the syllables of my name.
I turned my head only to see my wife’s normally beautiful face drawn tight into a pained grimace. Her teeth were clenched, and her back began to arch, pressing her body hard against the shoulder belt. A split second later she was shaking uncontrollably. Her head snapped back, thudding against the headrest as her eyes began to roll upward.
The Jeep suddenly lurched forward as her feet slipped from the clutch and brake, her right foot landing momentarily on the accelerator. I dropped the phone, grabbing at the steering wheel as I wrenched the stick shift into neutral. The engine coughed then settled to an idle, but we were still rolling forward.
“Felicity!” I screamed, but she couldn’t hear me. I could only barely hear myself as the driving rhythm continued to grow inside my head.
Her body was bucking in violent spasms against the safety harness, and she continued to vibrate with the physical tremor. Her arms were drawn up to her chest, turned inward, and her hands were postured like tight paws, her fingernails digging into her palms.
A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her mouth as she frothed, and I could see that she was biting her tongue. The back of her head continued to slam against the padded headrest, and I mutely thanked the ancients for it being there.
Sharp but distant noises began to invade the heavy beat in my head, and I recognized them as blaring horns. A quick glance forward told me that the traffic signal had switched to green. We were moving forward, rolling by the grace of leftover momentum, but it was far from what traffic would bear. Still, it was too fast for my liking considering the circumstances.
“Felicity!” I called out again, ignoring the futility of the action.
I was struggling to guide the rolling Jeep while at the same time unbuckling my own seatbelt. My first thought was to get my foot on the brake and bring the vehicle to a stop, but I wasn’t the most limber individual on the face of the planet, and I wasn’t sure I could get around my wife’s stiffened legs. In a hostile attempt to assume control of my emotions, a wave of panic began sweeping over me as it elected to challenge my desperate concern for Felicity and move itself into the top position.
A prolonged whimper emanated from my wife as she jerked against the tensed muscles of her body, and I realized it was a scream that couldn’t escape. The other realization that struck me square in the face was that the tables had turned. I was helplessly watching her go through all of the things she had stood by and watched me suffer so many times before.
I managed to release the catch on my shoulder harness and twist toward her, levering myself against the back of the seat. As I brought my leg up, my knee cracked hard into the dash, sending a lance of pain through the joint. I barked out an expletive as I pitched forward, and the back of my hand raked against the jangling key ring that hung from the ignition switch.
It was then that I realized the panic had taken over long before I’d ever noticed its icy fingers clawing at my stomach. A brief but welcome stab of lucidity hit me, and the logic it brought along set off a chain reaction in my brain. I reached for the keys and gave them a hard twist, switching off the engine. That done, I quickly wrenched the gear shift into first with a hard shove, doing little good for the transmission but bringing us to a lurching halt.
The dark music was pounding inside my skull as I scrambled from my seat amid the dulled blare of horns. Angry motorists were pulling around our stalled vehicle and speeding off, narrowly missing me in the process. The commotion began to die down only after I could be seen pulling my wife’s still-seizing body from the driver’s seat.
It was official. I was no longer in a good mood.
CHAPTER 8:
“Lemme get this straight…” Ben’s voice came at me over the cell phone. “Firehair went all Twilight Zone this time instead of you?”
Firehair was just one of the nicknames he had for my wife, but it was by far his favorite.
“Yeah, kind of,” I answered. “Or maybe in addition to.”
Felicity and I were parked diagonally across from one another in a booth at Seamus O’Donnell’s. She had pressed herself as far into the shadows of the corner as she could get, and I was keeping a close eye on her.
The pub wasn’t my first choice of places to be given the situation, but it was the closest for what she needed. Fortunately, the evening rush had not yet started, so I was able to carry on the phone conversation without yelling over the noise of a crowd or stepping outside.
“What?” he chirped, a note of concern leaping into his tone. “You were both all zoned out in a moving vehicle?”
“No, not exactly,” I explained, still trying to get a handle on what had happened myself. “I had some ethereal background noise in my head, but I never stepped over the line. I did that this morning before you came by.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Do what?” he barked again. “So you did the la-la land thing this mornin’, and you’re just now tellin’ me?”
“I didn’t have anything to connect it with at the time, Ben,” I replied. “Then the whole thing with the kidnapping happened… I mean, give me a break.”
“So you think it all has something to do with the Brittany Larson abduction?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.”
“Don’t be so goddamned overconfident, Rowan,” he chided.
“Cut me some slack, Ben,” I replied stiffly. “I’m still a bit rattled. This kind of thing has never happened to Felicity before. I’m not real happy about it, in case you haven’t noticed.”
“No.” I shook my head out of reflex as I spoke. “We’re in a bar down on Oakland called Seamus O’Donnell’s.”
“What’d ya’ go to a bar for?” he asked, a note of confusion in his voice.
“It was the closest place where I could get her out of the heat and let her rest up,” I told him. “Besides, it’s actually where we were headed for dinner anyway.”
“She doin’ okay?”
“Seems to be.” I looked across at Felicity. She was still at the far end of the booth but had leaned forward now, elbows on the table, eyes closed, and fingers slowly massaging her temples. “But judging from the looks of her and speaking from experience, she’s got a killer headache at the moment.”
“What about you?” he pressed. “You gonna go all loopy or anything?”
“Like I actually know when that’s going to happen, Ben?”
“Yeah, forget I asked.” He huffed out a heavy sigh then muttered, “Jeezus fuck, white man. What am I gonna do with you two?”
“Wish I could help you there, Chief,” I told him. “I’m wondering the same thing myself.”
“Not what I wanted to hear,” he replied. “So listen, stay right where you are. I’m pretty much done here, so I’m gonna shake loose and come down there.”
“We’ll be waiting.”
I thumbed off the phone and clipped it back onto my belt then turned my full attention back to my wife. Her eyes were still closed, and she was carefully working her fingers from temples to forehead and back again. Her lips were parted slightly, and I watched the rise and fall of her chest as she struggled to regulate her breathing. I knew exactly how she felt, and it was killing me to see her like this.
Of course, I suppose now I knew exactly how she felt when the roles had been reversed.
“I’d like to tell you it gets better,” I said softly. “But, it’s more like you just get used to it.”
Crone's Moon: A Rowan Gant Investigation Page 6