by Sophie Moss
“Between us,” Liam finished, dropping the paper into the fire when the flames reached his fingertips.
Caitlin nodded.
Liam chose a knotted piece of driftwood from the weathered wooden crate, watching the flames flicker over the pale wood. “You weren’t the first girl to sleep with your boyfriend at sixteen.”
“True,” Caitlin said slowly. “But you weren’t exactly my boyfriend.”
Liam met her eyes across the room. “That’s debatable.”
Caitlin sent him a long look. “It was one night. And there was a rather large bottle of whiskey involved.”
“It might have turned into more than that.”
Caitlin turned, pulling two tumblers from the shelf above the sink. But he could have sworn he saw her fingers falter. “This is hardly the point. My parents were—and still are—very Catholic.” She set the glasses on the counter. “And as the oldest of eight children, I was supposed to set an example. Not wind up pregnant while my youngest sister was still in diapers.”
Liam winced. “But you didn’t. End up pregnant, I mean. It was all a mistake.”
“Right.” Caitlin looked away and Liam felt a sharp stab of guilt. She hadn’t known any better. She’d panicked when her period was two weeks late. Understandably. She was only sixteen. He’d only been eighteen at the time—a couple years older and heading off to university in the fall, but still just a kid as well. He pushed at the peat with the stick, watching the flames lick up the sides of the log. He hated knowing he’d played a role in having her sent away from her family. Her friends. Her home. “I’m having a hard time imagining you at an all girls’ school.”
Caitlin opened the freezer, scooping out a handful of ice. “Let’s just say I wasn’t voted class president.”
He glanced up, expecting to see at least a hint of joke in her eyes. But her gaze had drifted to the rain-streaked window, a somber expression darkening her features. “How long were you gone?”
“Less than two years. Just long enough to finish high school.”
Liam moved the log a fraction of an inch, sending sparks shooting up into the hearth. “Did you ever consider staying on the mainland? Going to university?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t want to stay on the mainland.” She turned back to the cabinets, pulling out a bottle of Bailey’s. “I didn’t like it there.” She untwisted the cap, setting it on the counter. “This is my home. This is where I belong.”
Liam pushed to his feet, letting that soak in. His job was on the mainland. His career was at the University. The dean’s words floated back. ‘If this goes as well as I think it will, you’ll finally have a term to work on that precious island of yours.’ Had he asked for a term on the island to be with Caitlin? The faint scent of roses drifted back to him, just as they had that first night on the dock. He looked around her house, but there weren’t any roses anywhere. “Last night…” he began. “You mentioned we’d been talking on the phone.”
She nodded. “You don’t remember any of the conversations?”
He shook his head.
She sighed. “Mostly you talked about the fairy tale you recently discovered in Dublin. You wouldn’t tell me the story, but you were really excited about it. You said it was a game-changer. That you would never even have found it if you hadn’t stumbled across your mother’s name on the registry list when you were researching something else.”
Liam took a step back. “My mother?”
“Apparently, she’d borrowed it. I know,” she said, watching him. “The Trinity Library doesn’t let just anyone check out a book. She must have had a special relationship with them… like you do.”
Liam stared at her, stunned. His mother had left him and Dominic when they were only children. But he’d found her name connected with a story in the Trinity Library? “When did she borrow it? It would have had to have been…”
Caitlin nodded. “It was only a few weeks before she… left.” She let the words hang and watched Liam’s mouth fall open. “Apparently it was re-shelved somewhere else in the library, and the librarian had to spend all weekend hunting it down for you.”
“My mother… hid it? On purpose?”
Caitlin nodded. “That’s what I gathered. But you wouldn’t tell me anything else.”
“Why would my mother hide an Irish fairy tale in the Trinity Library? Weeks before she ran away?”
“You don’t know where she is, right?”
Liam shook his head, looking out the window. “I don’t have a clue where she is.”
“Have you ever thought about trying to find her?”
“She left us, Cait. She made her decision. If she wanted to be found, she’d come to us.” The scent of roses drifted into the room again and he frowned. “Do you smell that?”
She let the ice drop into the tumblers, clinking like bells against the glass. “Smell what?”
“Roses.”
Caitlin looked at him strangely as she poured a splash of the creamy liquor into each glass. Crossing the room, she handed him the glass, careful not to let their fingers touch. Picking up a small bowl of pottery off the mantle, she held it out to him. “Is this what you smell?”
Liam gazed down into the dried red rose petals. “Are those Tara’s?”
Caitlin nodded. “What’s left of them, yes.”
“Why do you keep them?”
“To remind me.” She took the bowl back from him, setting it carefully on the mantle beside the jars of black sand, the salt-weathered driftwood, the colorful seashells, and sprinkling of beach pebbles. “I hold onto things, Liam. I’m sentimental like that.”
And he spent his career digging up myths and legends, searching for truth in ancient poems and songs, finding the stories long buried and bringing them back to life. “I guess we have that in common.”
She lifted her eyes to his. “We do.”
He’d always been fascinated by what came before him, by the people and the stories of Irish history. But he’d never considered his own history, his own past, to have much meaning. He’d blocked out most of the first ten years of his life before moving in with his grandparents and meeting Caitlin. But now there was a connection between his mother and a missing fairy tale he couldn’t remember?
“Liam.” Caitlin edged back so she could look up into his eyes. “You don’t remember what you were working on before you came here, do you?”
He shook his head slowly. “No.”
“Don’t you think it’s a little strange that the only pieces of your memory you lost are me and that fairy tale?”
***
Nuala ducked her head against the rain and wind. The book felt heavy and sharp against her side. She held it clutched inside her cloak with one hand, holding onto her hood with the other. Rainwater gushed through the rutted streets of the village. She stepped over the swirling puddles, her heels clicking on the cracked pavement as she passed O’Sullivan’s pub. A warm, inviting light glowed from the windows where the villagers were gathered inside weathering the storm.
What would it be like to have a community to depend on in tough times? To have someone to turn to when the storms came? She’d had that once, long ago. But she’d made her choice. She’d turned her back on her family and chosen a different path. But she wasn’t going to be alone anymore. She was finally going to have the life and the family she’d always dreamed of.
The wind ripped a wooden board advertising Fresh Cod off the door to the market and it went flying into the street, smacking against a stone wall and landing in a puddle. The dog inside the house down the street started to howl—a terrible, wretched sound that made her skin crawl. She gathered up the soft material of her cloak, lifting it out of the puddles as she tucked her head against the gales and strode through the deserted streets of the village.
She’d made a mistake this morning, underestimating the attachment Owen would form with Caitlin. She hadn’t been thinking straight about that, but s
he would make sure they stayed apart from now on. And more importantly, that Liam and Caitlin stayed apart. She hadn’t given the redhead much credit until now, but she might have misjudged the power of friendship and memories. She’d seen Liam’s face last night when he recognized the sand. And if a simple bowl of spilled sand and this book could spark that forgotten bond in a single evening, who knew what else that woman had up her sleeve.
She made her way to Caitlin’s squat white-washed cottage, where a steady stream of smoke curled from the chimney. Rainwater spilled in waterfalls from sunny yellow window boxes filled with nothing but soil and stones. She imagined these boxes bursting with a colorful assortment of flowers in the summer. Flowers that would blossom and fade as quickly as the sun dipped into the sea at night.
Not like her roses. White roses that lived forever. White roses fit for a queen. The wind chimes spun in crazy circles, their strings tangling in the thatch of the roof and she brushed them aside, rapping the gleaming gold claddagh knocker against the door. She heard voices through the walls, footsteps shuffling toward the door.
“Nuala.” Liam’s tall, broad-shouldered frame filled the doorway. His long, lean body was tucked into a rumpled gray T-shirt and faded jeans. He was barefoot and his hair was mussed, like someone had been running their fingers through it. She gritted her teeth when she saw how comfortable he looked with his hand resting casually against her doorknob, nursing a tumbler of some creamy liquor, like he made a practice of answering Caitlin’s door.
Nuala smiled pleasantly, making sure the book was tucked safely inside the rubber rain slicker. A man like Liam needed space—room to roam. He needed an ocean at his disposal. Not the crumbling shores of a minuscule island, or the four walls of a cottage sorely in need of repair. “I came to return Caitlin’s things.”
Liam’s eyes held no warmth or friendliness as he stepped back, opening the door wider so she could enter. Nuala walked into the candlelit cottage, noting the cozy fire in the hearth, the open bottle of Bailey’s on the counter, and the flush staining Caitlin’s pale cheeks as the redhead glared at her from across the room. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything,” she said sweetly, her eyes drifting up to Liam’s. “I ran into Tara on the way over. She said she was looking for you.”
Liam made no move to take her jacket, or return her smile. He stood between her and Caitlin. Nuala felt a surge of rage well up inside her. She had underestimated the redhead alright. She had greatly underestimated her influence over this man. But not anymore. It was time to get rid of her. For good.
“Did she say why?”
“The ferry captain—Finn, I think that’s his name?”
Liam nodded.
“He wants you to help him secure the boats in the harbor. He’s worried the storm’s not showing any signs of letting up.”
Liam rolled his jaw, glancing over her shoulder at the white caps tearing over the surface of the ocean, at the torrents of rain pouring into the sea.
“Go,” Caitlin urged, her voice taking on an edge of exhaustion. “Finn never asks for help unless he really needs it.”
Liam looked back at Caitlin and held her eyes. Nuala didn’t like the expression that swam into them. She didn’t like it at all. “We’re not done here.”
“I know,” Caitlin said quietly. But she walked across the room, slipping his sweater off the back of the chair and holding it out to him.
He watched Caitlin for several long moments, searching her eyes. There were questions in them, questions Nuala couldn’t read and her nails bit into the jacket as that swell of rage built inside her. “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”
Caitlin nodded.
Liam’s eyes never left Caitlin’s as he took the sweater from her outstretched arms and tugged it over his head. He slid his feet into his boots and reached for his coat. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Nuala stopped him with a hand on his arm. “I haven’t had a chance to say thank you.” She lowered her voice, but not so low that Caitlin couldn’t hear it. “For last night.”
***
Caitlin watched Liam pull his arm away, but not before that witch had a chance to sink her claws back into him. She saw the way his eyes shifted, the way his entire expression changed when she touched him. And she could only imagine what happened last night when Liam walked her home to help her fix her heater.
Liam glanced over his shoulder as he opened the door and a cold gust blew into the room. But there was something different in his eyes now, something not quite right. He slipped out of the cottage and the wind caught the door behind him, slamming it shut.
Caitlin crossed her arms over her chest. “How convenient that you ran into Tara on your way over.”
Nuala unfastened the front of her long white cloak, pulling out the storybook. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t want Liam around me.”
Nuala smiled. “That’s the least of my worries.” Stepping into the room, she set the book on the coffee table. The candles flickered under her movement and water dripped from her cloak onto the carpet. “I need to talk to you about my son.”
“Where is Owen?”
“He’s in the cottage.”
“Alone?”
“He’s ten years old. He’ll be fine.”
“The power’s out all over the island.”
“I lit a fire before I left.”
“You could have brought him into the pub. I’m sure all the kids are there now playing board games.”
“Owen’s shy.”
Caitlin reached for the glass of Bailey’s. “Shouldn’t children learn to get over their fears?”
“Some children prefer to spend time alone. Owen’s life has been… stressful lately.” She reached out, letting her fingers rest on the blanket draped over the back of an armchair. “This weekend was supposed to be a chance for him, for us, to get away and relax.”
“If you want him to relax, why are you taking books away from him?”
“That’s what I came to talk to you about.”
Caitlin took a sip of Bailey’s, letting the sweet liquor cool her fraying nerves. “So… talk.”
“My son has a vivid imagination.”
“He’s a kid.” Caitlin grabbed the stick and poked it into the fire. Why was it so cold in here all of a sudden? “He’s supposed to have a vivid imagination.”
“For most kids, I’d agree. But Owen is different.”
Caitlin focused on the flames. “How?”
“A few years ago, I was reading him a story before bed. He started asking questions about it, like it was more truth than fairy tale.”
Caitlin paused, the tip of the stick just touching the log of peat. “Which story?”
“Sleeping Beauty.”
Sleeping Beauty? He wasn’t the first child who’d found truth in that story. Caitlin straightened, glancing at the bowl of Tara’s dried rose petals on her mantle. If Kelsey hadn’t followed the clues in that fairy tale to lead them to where to find the selkie’s pelt and break Tara’s ancestor’s curse, would Tara still be here with them today? She turned, narrowing her eyes. “I’m listening.”
“Owen became obsessed with the story, looking for signs all over Limerick that it was real. He was sure there was a princess trapped in a tower and convinced the other kids on our street that it was true.” Nuala took a deep breath. “I didn’t take it seriously. I thought they were just being kids and playing pretend.”
Nuala started to pace, back and forth across the small living room. “But one night in the spring, when the roses were blooming as tall as the trees, he snuck out of the house with two of the other children to the ruins of King John’s Castle.”
Caitlin nodded. She knew the famous castle. It was a popular tourist destination during the day, but no one was allowed inside the gates at night.
“They found a way in and started to climb up to the tower. If they’d made it to the top, they might have seen it was nothing more
than an empty room and there was no princess lying asleep waiting for her prince.”
Nuala gazed out the window, at the rain streaking down the glass. “But on the way up, one of the children climbed out onto the balcony overlooking the river.”
Caitlin gripped the thin stick of driftwood. She knew the ending to this story. She remembered hearing about it on the news. “That part of the castle was blocked off to the public because the rocks were coming loose. But the kids didn’t know that.”
Nuala nodded grimly. “One of the children fell. He died. Because of Owen.”
Caitlin’s head spun. Of course she remembered this story. Everyone in Ireland remembered this story. It was a terrible tragedy. But… surely it wasn’t Owen’s fault. “He was only a boy.”
“They wouldn’t have been there if Owen hadn’t convinced them to go.”
“But it wasn’t his fault the child climbed out onto the ledge.” Caitlin did a quick calculation in her head. “A few years ago, Owen would have only been six or seven years old. He couldn’t have known any better.”
“He didn’t know any better, because I didn’t take his questions seriously.”
“But… how could you have known?” Caitlin dropped the driftwood back into the box with the other sticks. “I’m sorry, Nuala. I can see how this was traumatic for both of you. But you can’t separate him from other children and take books away from him when he didn’t know any better. Don’t you think he’s learned his lesson?”
Nuala shook her head. “I can’t take that risk. I don’t want him reading those sorts of stories.”
“What sort of stories do you want him to read? If a child can’t read about magic and fairy tales, what’s he supposed to read?”
“Stories based on reality. On truth.” Nuala pushed back from the chair. “Stories based on what’s actually going on in the world.”
“But…” Caitlin protested. “You’re a songwriter. It’s your job to spin tales and use your imagination to make beautiful music. You can’t take the will to dream and create away from a person.”