by Jodi McIsaac
“‘You’re wrong,’ Donald said then, taking her into his arms again. ‘I did love you as Utain. I only loved Aiofe because she was kind, clever, and strong in heart—she reminded me of you, and I thought I had lost you forever. I don’t care about the rest of it, Utain. You are back, and you love me, and that is all that matters.’
“So they went back to their homes, and were very happy together.”
Maggie sat back, a satisfied look on her face. Cedar blinked. She had become so engrossed in the story that it was a surprise to realize that it was over. Finn reached over and squeezed her hand and then leaned over and whispered in to her ear, “I’m sorry. About leaving you behind.”
She looked up into his golden eyes and squeezed his hand back. “Thank you,” she whispered back. “I love you.”
“What happened to Marsha?” Eden asked.
“She returned to the village, where her father had discovered that she had stolen money from him. He decided that he had been far too lax with her. So he sent her to work in the kitchen of his inn until she could pay back the money she’d stolen—plus interest. She tried to tell him about Utain and Aiofe, but he just laughed at her. ‘You’re as crazy as Old Nat,’ he said. ‘Aiofe has gone back to the city; it seems as though country life wasn’t to her liking after all. But don’t feel too sorry for young Donald. I heard Utain is back, and the boy seems happier with her than he ever did with that pretty girl. Fickle lad, if you ask me, but that’s young people for you.’”
Jane laughed, and Eden said, “I like that story. Can you tell us another one?”
“Maybe another time, dear,” Maggie said. “But I believe you were leaving shortly, is that not so?”
“Wait,” Cedar said. “So you’re saying that the magic stone in this story is the Lia Fáil, and that it’s still at Tara?”
“I have no way of knowing for certain,” Maggie answered, holding up her hands. “But it is an old story, one I learned from my grandfather, and he from his. As I said before, there is a germ of truth to be found in even the most outlandish stories. Was there really a young woman who could change her appearance by baptizing herself in the River Boyne? Was there really a stone that could reveal one’s true self? Impossible to tell for sure, but I’d say it’s at least as likely as the existence of leprechauns,” she said with a wink.
“But the Lia Fáil just roars,” said Jane with a puzzled expression on her face. “It doesn’t ‘reveal one’s true self,’ does it?”
“Maybe… I mean, if one’s true self is the king or queen, it would reveal that, right?” Cedar said uncertainly. She glanced over at Finn, whose brow was furrowed. Liam had stood up and started pacing, glancing every now and again out the window.
“Well, it’s the most recent account we’ve heard of the Lia Fáil,” Finn said. “Or at least of a stone with magical properties. The fact that it’s in Tara makes it even more likely. We know it’s not the standing stone at Tara that they call the Lia Fáil for the tourists—I’ve been there and touched it. Not even the human scholars believe it is the stone of legend. But it could be somewhere else; Tara is a huge place. Perhaps Murtagh sent a fake to Fergus, and the one they were protecting for so long at Scone Abbey wasn’t the real thing after all.”
The thought made Cedar strangely sad. She remembered the grief of the abbot whose job it had been to guard the stone. He had spent centuries in anguished purgatory for nothing. She was glad that he was finally free. She got to her feet. “Does the story say exactly where it is on this hill?”
“As this young man says, Tara is vast—both in geography and history,” Maggie said. “The story only says that the magic stone was at Tara, nothing else.”
“Well, it’s the best lead we’ve got,” Cedar said. She looked at Eden nervously. “I’m just worried that they’ll manage to get into Eden’s head again, or attack us. But we’re vulnerable to them no matter where we are.”
“You’re right. If they knew we were going to be at the castle, surely they’ll think we’ll head to Tara sooner rather than later, right?” Jane asked. “I mean, if it’s not at Edinburgh and not at Scone, it’s the most obvious place to look, isn’t it? It’s the only place we know for sure had the stone at some point in history. Didn’t you guys—I mean, the Tuatha Dé Danann,” she glanced nervously at Maggie as she corrected herself, “have a kingdom and castles and all that jazz there?”
Felix smiled. “Something like that. Tara is a very old, very special place,” he said. “And it’s fine to let our gracious host in on our secret. When we lived at Tara, it was the royal seat of our High King, and the place where the Council would meet and debate. Not a stone of those buildings has survived, of course. This was several millennia ago. But Tara has been a sacred place since before humans started recording time. It was the center of everything. Now… well, you’ll see once we go there, which should be soon.”
“I know,” Cedar said. Her head was starting to pound, and she pinched the bridge of her nose as she thought. “We have to go… but we also have to assume that they’ll be waiting for us there. If we could figure out exactly where the stone was, maybe I could just slip in and grab it.”
“You can’t just ‘grab’ the Lia Fáil,” Felix said. “It would be far too heavy for you to lift.”
“And we’re not splitting up anymore, remember?” Finn said. Cedar opened her mouth to argue but closed it again. He was right; if they were anywhere near the druids, it would take both Finn and Felix to protect them.
“What about Brighid?” Felix said softly.
Brighid. Of course. Cedar kicked herself for not thinking of her sooner. She was still upset that Brighid had helped Nuala, but Cedar could hardly blame someone else for falling under the redhead’s spell. After all, she had done so herself. But she had to wonder if Brighid’s self-absorption wasn’t partly to blame for how easily she’d provided Nuala with the information she wanted. But there was no point fretting about that now. Brighid had been on Ériu for more than fifteen hundred years. If anyone knew the true whereabouts of the Lia Fáil, it would be her.
“Of course!” Cedar exclaimed. “We should have gone to see her first. I’m sure she knows exactly where the Lia Fáil is.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Felix said, and Cedar’s smile faltered. “She’s quite intentionally ignored anything to do with our people for some time. I don’t think she would have kept track of the Lia Fáil.
“I figured we could use the backup. We managed to escape the druids last time, but Finn can’t keep turning into a dragon every five minutes if we want to keep a low profile. And we almost lost Eden and Jane.
“As flighty as she might seem, Brighid is more powerful than all of us. If she doesn’t know the exact location of the stone, maybe she’ll agree to come to Tara with us. She could at least help us fight the druids.”
“Yeah…” Finn said slowly. “Brid’s kind of gone underground since she found out about what happened with Nuala. She doesn’t deal very well with… well, failure. When she found out that Nuala tricked her into helping her find that painting of Tír na nÓg, and made her forget about it… well, it wasn’t pretty. She’s off sulking somewhere, and she’s sworn to have nothing to do with the Danann.”
“Can’t you at least ask her?” Cedar said. “She adores you, and now she owes us one for the whole Nuala thing.”
“I’ll give her a call,” Finn said. “If she hasn’t changed her number on me. Maggie, may I use your phone? I’m afraid we lost all of ours.”
“Of course, my dear,” she answered, nodding. “It’s on the counter in the kitchen.”
“I’d like to come with you,” Liam said to Cedar. He had been very quiet since they had arrived at Maggie’s, and it had crossed her mind that he’d probably prefer to be back in the university library in Dublin.
“Of course,” she said, pleasantly surprised.
“I may not be as powerful as Brighid, but I know how to fight my own kind, if it comes to that,” he sa
id. “I’d like to help keep you safe, if I may. And Eden, too, of course.”
Cedar smiled at him. “You have been very kind,” she said. “Thanks for coming all this way and for all the help you’ve given us already. Eden might still be trapped in that dream if it weren’t for you.”
He blushed and apologized again for what had happened between her and Nuala in the dream.
“You had no way of knowing that Maeve had given Nuala and Eden the same potion,” she told him, “or what the result would be.”
Just then Finn returned to the room. “Well?” Cedar asked. “What did she say?”
“She says she hates phones,” Finn said, a wry expression on his face. “She wants to see all of us in person.”
Cedar sighed. “She wants to see you, you mean.”
Finn grinned at Felix. “Actually, I think she’s more interested in Felix this time,” he said. “She became quite adamant about the visit after I told her he was with us, and that he’s ditched his fisherman disguise.”
Cedar looked at the clock. The day was getting on, and she was bone tired. But they had less than a week. There wasn’t time to lose. “Okay, let’s go,” she said. “Is she still in New York?”
“No,” Finn said. “She’s, uh, well, she has her own island.”
Somehow, this did not surprise Cedar one bit. “Of course she does.”
“Uh, guys?” Jane said. “How are we going to get there? Via dragon? ’Cause I’m assuming Eden doesn’t know what Brighid’s island looks like, and all my tech is toast.”
“Brighid said she’d send over some pictures of the beach beside her place,” Finn said. “Apparently she has protections on the house so that we can’t just show up in her bedroom.” He gave Felix a sly grin. “She said she’d make an exception for you.” Felix rolled his eyes. Jane scowled and hunched further down into her robe, running her fingers self-consciously over her scalp.
Cedar turned to Logheryman. “Where’s the closest town? We need to get to a library or an Internet café.”
Maggie answered for him. “It’s not far,” she said. “But if it’s technology you need, why don’t you just borrow mine?” She reached into a drawer in the desk in the corner and pulled out a tablet computer. “I use it for reading, mostly, and for the games. I wouldn’t have expected folk like you to need such a thing.”
Jane grinned at her. “This is my kind of magic,” she said, taking the tablet from her. “And you are one very hip old lady.” Maggie laughed at this and took up some knitting from a basket on the floor while Jane, Finn, and Eden hunched over the screen.
“There they are,” Finn said, reaching across Jane to slide a photo across the screen. “See that, Eden? Think you can take us there?”
“Yeah, that place looks awesome!” Eden said. “Let’s go!”
“Hold on a second!” Cedar called before Eden could reach the nearest door. She turned back to Maggie. “Thank you very much for your help.”
The old woman bowed her head slightly at Cedar. “It’s been my pleasure,” she said. “I’m here to help you anytime you need me.”
Cedar turned to Logheryman. “Did the druids tell you what they were planning on doing next? Did they say anything about Eden—how they can get inside her head?”
“They were looking for information, not offering it,” he answered with a roll of his eyes.
“Well… thanks anyway,” she said. “For deciding to help us.”
Logheryman merely nodded. Cedar walked over and stood beside Eden. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s go.”
“Thanks for the story!” Eden called, and then she reached out for the door and yanked it open.
CHAPTER 12
Wait, Eden!” Cedar called, racing through the door after her daughter. Eden was sprinting along a dark beach under the glow of the moon, the light reflecting off the puffs of sand she was kicking up with her feet. She slowed to a walk, but didn’t turn around. Cedar stopped to take in her surroundings.
Leave it to Brighid to have a home in such a breathtaking, exotic place. They were on a small island off the coast of Thailand under a glowing full moon and a skyful of stars that were brighter than any Cedar had ever seen before. The moon was so large and incandescent that she could actually see the enormous dome-shaped mountains rising out of the water. It had been early afternoon at Logheryman’s house in Ireland, but it was evening here, and the only lights were the celestial bodies and a scattering of tiki torches that lined the beach. A bird sang in a nearby palm tree, and Cedar felt her body start to relax. The warm air felt amazing, and she peeled off her light jacket and bent down to take off her shoes and socks. She almost laughed when her toes sank into the sand.
“Wow. Just… wow,” Jane said, coming up behind her. “Can we stay here forever?”
Cedar grinned and followed Eden’s footprints along the beach. “It’s like we’re in another world,” she said, and Finn snorted at the irony.
“Brighid does have a flair for the exotic,” he said. He took her hand, and together they walked down the beach. She allowed herself to pretend for a moment that everything was normal, that they were just a normal couple walking hand in hand down a pristine white beach, watching their daughter play in the sand. Someday, she thought, this will all be over. She squeezed his hand and looked up to meet his eyes.
“It’s almost perfect, isn’t it?” he said.
“It is,” she said with a smile. “Almost enough to make me forget that we’re on the run from an angry horde of druids who want to kill us while we look for a stone that could be anywhere on the planet.”
“Yes, there is that…,” he said. Then he called out to Eden, and she ran back to join them. “This way, I think,” he said, and the rest of the group followed him up a narrow, torch-lined path that led off the beach and over a small incline that was covered with large, leafy trees and a tangle of vines and exotic grasses.
When they emerged on the other side, Cedar couldn’t help but break out into a grin. Brighid’s “house” was enormous, and built like a modern version of a medieval castle, complete with a moat and drawbridge. But instead of rough bricks and stones, the entire thing was smooth and white, and more than half of the building was paned in sheer glass. Cedar couldn’t see any spotlights, but the building was completely lit up, as though glowing from within.
They walked around to what seemed to be the front, where two large white pillars stood, a single sheet of solid glass between them. A silver button started to pulse on one of the white pillars, and Finn walked over and pressed it. A voice came out of thin air. “Come in, please. She is expecting you.” Immediately the glass retracted into the ground and a delicate white bridge rose up out of the moat, which was filled with water so smooth it looked like a mirror, perfectly reflecting the moon and stars above it. Cedar joined hands with Eden and Finn, and together they crossed the bridge toward the castle. Felix and Jane followed, and Liam walked a pace or two behind them. The massive front doors, made entirely of glass, swung open to admit them. Then they heard her.
“My dears!” Brighid said, holding out her arms as she descended a large, curving white staircase, dressed in a flowing white pantsuit. She looked as though she would have been equally at home in the yoga studio and at an evening ball. Her hair was loose and cascading around her shoulders, softening the striking features of her face. They waited for her at the bottom. Cedar glanced over at Finn, who nudged Felix forward with his shoulder, an amused grin on his face.
“Well, look at you, Toirdhealbhach,” Brighid exclaimed, reaching for Felix first. “Aren’t you a sight for sore eyes?” She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him enthusiastically on both cheeks. “You are very welcome in my home,” she said, with a look that clearly said he’d be very welcome in her bed as well. Cedar heard a soft huff from Jane behind her.
Brighid didn’t notice, because now she was oohing and aahing over Finn and how dreadful his fight with Lorcan must have been and was he absolutely sure he didn’t need to
stay with her for a while to recover? Finn demurred politely and brought Eden forward. “I don’t know if you remember meeting her,” he said. “But this is our daughter, Eden.”
To Cedar’s surprise, Brighid’s face softened and she knelt down so that she was at Eden’s level. She shook Eden’s hand softly. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Eden,” she said. “I understand that we’ve met before. I’m sorry to say I do not remember it.”
Eden smiled and said, “It’s okay. Nuala does that to people. I like your house.”
Brighid stood up and beamed. “Why, aren’t you sweet? It’s my own private retreat, although I’m always thrilled to have guests, of course. And now tell me about these humans you brought with you,” she said.
“This is my friend Jane,” Cedar said. Brighid looked Jane up and down, her dark eyebrows raised in question.
“I was in a fire,” Jane said. “Felix healed me. Couldn’t do anything about the clothes or the hair, though.”
“Did he now?” Brighid gave Felix an admiring look. “Well done, darling.” Then she turned back to Jane. “We’ll get you all fixed up, don’t you worry,” she said. “And you’ve brought a druid, I see.”
Liam stepped forward and bowed slightly. “This is our new friend Liam,” Cedar said.
“Mmm,” Brighid said, running her eyes over Liam. “Well, they’re dead useful to have around, that’s for sure. I had one for ages and ages, but then he went and died, which I suppose they all do, eventually. I meant to get a new one but then decided I preferred to travel alone. Still, good for you for acquiring one so soon. You didn’t waste any time after finding out who you really were, did you, Cedar?”