“Have you seen my son?”
“No.”
“You swear you haven’t seen him?”
“Happily. Would you believe me?”
Sarah couldn’t believe him but it did no good to think he was lying about everything either. She tried to put the question away. If Cormac and his crew had found John and killed him, then only retribution remained. If they hadn’t, she would need to keep searching. In the absence of facts, she chose to believe the latter.
“You killed twenty people in the pasture by the compound. Some of them children.”
“Tch. Pikeys,” he said with disgust.
“So your fairies are racist.”
“I warned you, Missus. I must ask you to refrain from denigrating our religion.”
Sarah felt an exhaustion wash over her. The pain in her leg was worsening and her mouth was dry. She rubbed a hand across her eyes and felt the grit and dirt from the day smear across her face.
“What do you intend to do with me?” she said tiredly. “I’ve seen your camp. Am I to be another accidental offering to the gods?”
“We’ll escort you to within a mile of New Dublin so you may deliver a message back to your people and to your husband.”
“What message?”
“Vacate the compound in three days time.”
“Or?”
“Or experience a rebirth sooner than you’d expected.”
“You mean death.”
“Every last one of you.”
Sarah took in a long breath and let it out slowly to steady her nerves. She’d not had much experience dealing with truly insane people. Or perhaps Cormac was merely a zealot. It occurred to her that that was likely a distinction without a valuable difference.
“And go where?”
He held out his arms to indicate the woods around him.
“I hope you will want to return to the element from which you came. Live here with us. We will love and help one another. We will teach our children and each generation to come to live with understanding and respect for all. In the end, ’tis the only way.”
He stood up and dusted off his robes. They had originally been white but were dull gray now.
“To show our good intentions toward the people of New Dublin,” he said. “We’ll be sending along a special gift with you when you return home tomorrow. I’m sure one person in particular will be delighted to receive it.”
“And if I choose not to return to the compound?”
Cormac spoke pleasantly but with a tincture of impatience in his voice.
“In that case I will dump your body at the front gate. Either way, my message will be delivered.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The rain began nearly an hour after Mike left the compound. If he’d stopped long enough to grab a hat, he’d at least be able to see the road ahead.
Where would she have gone? Did she have any idea where John was or was she trying to track him? That was impossible in this muck! She was just running around in desperation, too afraid to come back without him, but with no chance of finding him.
Mike knew just how she felt.
How can it all be unraveling like this? How is it possible? Gavin gone, John gone, Sarah gone, Mickey murdered…
Mike pulled up in the middle of the road and realized he was trembling under his jacket. Most of the rain was wicking off and not sinking in, but his jeans were sopping and the wind was cutting into his legs like an arctic gale. Of course he should have waited until morning. This was hopeless. All he was really doing was avoiding the agony of sitting in a dry living room and watching the rain and wondering why every single person he loved in the world was out in this hell. And he couldn’t do that. He’d rather freeze to death or fall out of his saddle with exhaustion than do that.
The woods crept up to the western side of the road and Mike aimed his flashlight into the dense thicket. He’d circled Seamus’s property because of the special meaning it held for both Sarah and John and had found nothing. He’d revisited the altar and the mass grave and also found no hoof or foot prints. As he sat there, he thought he could hear, faintly, the sound of men talking as if from far away. It could be that the wind was carrying the voices of the little girl’s searchers. Or perhaps it was the druid band.
Now that it was virtually a certainty that the bastards had killed Mickey—and likely the band of gypsies too—Mike would have to confront them and either convince them to move on, or…or what? He opened and closed his fists as he felt his anger build at the thought that they had taken Gavin and were now responsible for Sarah and John’s disappearances.
His last run-in with them had been worse than useless. Outnumbered and on a back foot, he hadn’t been able to get the answers he needed. Would it be any better with Declan by his side? Was Declan still interested in standing by his side?
Mike turned his face to the sky and let the rain splash against his mouth and eyelids.
Sarah, lass, where are you?
His shoulders slumped and he felt weakened by the thought of her. He couldn’t blame her for leaving to look for John. Not at-tall. How could she have done any different? He dismounted, feeling his jeans and the leather saddle squeak and pinch as he did. He ran a hand down all four of Gunner’s legs, looking for heat, but feeling none. Ballinagh was three kilometers down this road. He began walking, leading the horse. He was in no hurry. Maybe now was when he needed to slow down and look everywhere at once.
Maybe tonight was when a glimpse of something in the woods that shouldn’t be there would be the thing that helps me find her. Or the lads.
And so he’d walk. All the way to Ballinagh and then take the woodland route back—eight kilometers and the narrow tractor road now so overgrown to not even be passable save by horseback—until he was standing in front of the gates of New Dublin again, exhausted, broken, and empty-handed.
Where, please God, Sarah and John and Gavin would run out to greet him and this nightmare would finally be done with.
Why wouldn’t she tell me? Was it because I’d tell her she couldn’t go looking for John because of the little one to come?
And Sarah couldn’t take the chance she might actually listen to me. She had to go.
The rain came down harder as he walked, bowing his head against its relentless hammering. He kept his eyes on the woods and deliberately slowed his steps. The flashlight probed the dark interior like a knife, illuminating only the naked trees and the ground.
By the time he saw her standing on the side of the road, he was sure he’d seen her several times before. Each time she vanished into the woods like she was playing a game he’d never known the name of. So when he saw her walking toward him, it wasn’t until he saw she was leading her horse, Dan, that he knew this time it was real.
“Sarah! Sarah, is that you?”
She was running toward him, her hand yanking on the reins as Dan jogged beside her.
“Mike!” she called, her voice shrill with joy.
Mike whipped the tail of his reins against Gunner’s flank and the horse shot into a startled trot beside him. Mike felt the ground slick and rocky beneath his shoes but he only ran faster. He grabbed Sarah and crushed her to him as both horses stamped and blew steam from their nostrils in agitation beside them. She felt so small in his arms and he wanted to touch every part of her and never let her feet touch the ground.
“Mike, I am so sorry,” she said, her voice muffled in his jacket. “You know I didn’t want to put you through—”
“Whisht, Sarah,” he said. “I understand. I do. Thank God, though. I can’t believe I’ve got you back.”
“Two for one, my darling,” Sarah said, stepping back so Mike could see the little girl perched on Dan’s saddle. Her eyes were big, watching him from inside a man’s overcoat covering her head. At first glance it looked like a headless rider. Mike wiped the rain from his face.
“Where?” he asked.
“The druids had her,” Sarah said. “Claimed they found her
wandering in the woods. Mike, they had Gavin the day you talked to them but he’s gone now.”
“Gone?”
“No, not like that. They swear he left them alive.”
Mike pulled her to him again and felt her give way as if her strength had finally collapsed.
“You’re hurt,” he said, supporting her with one arm.
“My knee is all.”
He pulled Gunner around and helped Sarah into the saddle.
“I’m sorry, Mike,” she said, wiping long strands of wet hair from her face. “We’ll find them.”
“Aye, we will,” he said, rubbing her leg and reaching for Dan’s reins. “First things first.”
“Oh, Mike, wait. I need to tell you something before we get back.”
He turned to look at her.
“There’s somebody in the compound who’s working for them.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Somebody Gavin trusted.”
“And so, somebody we trust.”
“Yeah.”
*****
Cormac lifted the feathered headdress to examine it from every angle. The woman who’d made it stood three steps away, her head bowed in perfect supplication. The black raven feathers were thick and fanned high and back. In the front was a handful of bright blue feathers from a Kingfisher. He smiled. It would be well for the coming battle.
“And the cape?” he asked, turning to her. His adjutant Bodhmail stepped from the shadows holding the heavy bull hide cloak.
Cormac fingered it but didn’t take it from him.
“Very good,” he said. The headdress and hide were traditional for the leader to wear in battle, especially since he would be unarmed. He turned away, his robe dusting the ground as he moved, and faced the gathered members of the camp. They stood before him, old and young alike, their faces rapt.
To Cormac’s right was a tall ash. The children held hands around the tree, looking apprehensively toward their parents. But they didn’t break the circle.
“This tree connects us to those who have gone before us,” Cormac intoned solemnly.
He watched the members nod. Some were dressed in dirty robes, like himself, and some in rags. He had no reason to doubt their hearts, however, or their faith, no matter their dress.
“It connects us with the heavens and the underworld,” he said.
The crowd murmured affirmative noises.
“We come together tonight to honor the life taken to the Otherworld by the god Bile. And because of this death, we will welcome a new birth.”
Everyone began to hum in low, nonmelodic tones. The vibrations of their song went deep into the ground, into the trees, the bushes and through every single member of the tribe. Cormac felt his skin vibrating with their song.
“Let us call the spirits of each world to us!” he said. “Let them awake to aid us in our undertaking! Hail to you, oh spirit of the wild thyme growing in the fields!”
Three women in the front of the group intertwined arms and began to sway, their eyes shut, their mouths open in tuneless, discordant noise.
“Hail to the spirits of the rabbit, the hawthorn, the oaks towering above us! Cradle us in your mighty roots and bring your people into communion with your creatures of the darkness—the very earth itself.”
Cormac turned from the gathering, their voices cresting higher and higher. The stone altar was embedded in a wild hedge of evergreens, almost hidden. On it lay the boy, his last breath extinguished hours earlier. Cormac held his dagger high for all to see. The sleeve of his ceremonial robe fell to his elbow and he felt the chill of the day—like a welcome guest to the feast—confer its blessings on him.
“Invoke the Goddess Morrigan in her essence as manifested by the earth, the sea and the air we breathe,” he shouted. “And by this boy whom we offer as our gift. Nourish us!”
He stabbed the knife down hard into the body and heard the collective gasp from the women behind him.
*****
Sarah could see the sentry beams crisscrossing the front of the fort and wondered who was on duty tonight. Even manned with flashlights, the search party would have been impossibly hampered by the dark and the rain. No one would have blamed them for returning empty handed.
Well, no one except the distraught mother.
She glanced over her shoulder at Mike and the girl. Too exhausted to sit the horse without falling over, the girl slept now in Mike’s arms as he rode his horse. The thought of the mother’s joy squeezed Sarah’s heart. She knew exactly how the poor young woman would feel when she saw her child again, alive and unharmed.
Sarah had fantasized the same feeling over and over again for herself—the joy she would feel, the deals she’d made with God that she would happily fulfill. The infinite, exquisite pleasure of her child’s body tight in her arms again.
The two searchlights moved swiftly over them in their path through the bushes and trees surrounding the fort before sweeping sharply back. Momentarily the beams intersected and drilled down on them as one, blanketing the main drive leading to the compound entrance and blinding the two riders and their mounts.
“Hold ‘im, Sarah,” Mike called to her. “He won’t like it.”
“I know,” Sarah said, sitting up straight and tightened her grip on Dan’s reins. He tossed his head but that was all. She closed her legs around him to drive him forward as she heard the sound of the front gate being ratcheted up. Within moments, she urged her horse through and saw Declan standing by the gate crank.
Did the man never sleep?
“So he’s brought you home, has he?”
“Hey, Declan,” Sarah said, feeling the exhaustion course through her shoulders. He held Dan’s bridle and she felt the reins snake from her fingers as Declan drew them over the horse’s head. Now if she could just dismount without collapsing in a heap on the ground.
“Feck me, he’s got the lass!” a man yelled. “He’s found her!”
Sarah clung to the pommel while people seemed to pour from the nearby cottages and from around the center cookfire. She heard her then, the mother, in a keening howl of relief and thanksgiving, her arms outstretched as she ran to her child.
Well, good for her, Sarah thought as tears stung her eyes. Thank God for her.
Hands reached up and gently pulled Sarah from the saddle. She let Mike carry her to their cottage. She knew the horses would be taken care of and now she and Mike needed to be alone and far away from rejoicing mothers and the sounds of laughter.
“Oh, Mike,” she said when he set her on her feet in their living room. “Hold me, please.”
“It’s alright, lass,” he murmured into her hair, his arms strong and supporting around her.
“It’s not at all,” she said, the sobs finally erupting from deep inside her. The hopeless agony of her loss filled up her world and blotted all other thought and feeling.
“Today’s Thanksgiving Day,” she said, her heart breaking.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
It was the moment Sarah dreaded most. The moment she opened her eyes after that split second before she remembered.
John is gone.
She turned in bed to see that Mike was already up and away. She knew he woke to his own terrible moment when he remembered about Gavin. They shared that. That horrific, unbearable pain that they both had but could not be assuaged or made better. Last night they had held each other, their boys both lost, and wept. This morning they began their own separate journeys of pain.
The light came in through the window so she knew she’d slept late. She sat up in bed and stared at the cold cup of tea that Mike had placed on the bedside table. She touched the hard china cup. So civilized. So pathetic. So useless. It took every ounce of her strength not to throw it against the wall. She curled her fingers into a fist and hit her chest hard. She coughed and welcomed the spreading pain. For just a moment it helped. Just not enough.
She stood up and dressed. They would need a plan. They would need to pack. There was
no question that they were leaving again. Immediately. Today. Now.
The days would be hard on the road but she welcomed them.
Every step she took and every night slept in a cold ditch would be one step closer and one night closer to finding John. She had to believe that. It was the only thing she could believe in. She stood up and felt a brief dizziness. She reached for the windowsill to steady herself. And Mike won’t use the coming baby as an excuse not to go. He wouldn’t dare.
It was raining. But then it was always raining. It didn’t matter if it was hailing and snowing. Today they left. Today they began the first day toward finding their boys. She went to the kitchen and found an insulated food bag. It had a shoulder strap on it but it could be doubled up to serve as a saddlebag. She’d fallen asleep last night going over in her mind the things they would need.
Water. Fruit. Dried meat. Guns. Matches. Flashlights. Knives. There was money for when they made it to Dublin. Until then, they’d sleep in the fields and eat what they could catch along the way. If there was no game, they’d eat their stores or go hungry. It didn’t matter. There was only one thing that mattered.
The door swung open, startling her and she dropped the bag. An apple rolled under the table.
“There you are, love,” Mike said as he entered. “You’re not going to believe this.”
Sarah frowned and joined him in the living room. Mike stood next to a muscular elderly man with white hair and a sunburned face.
“Archie,” Sarah said with surprise, recognizing Mike’s former father-in-law. The old man had been sent packing two years earlier after some nasty business that nearly ended with Mike and Declan hanged with their own rope. In the aftermath, Mike and Archie had made a kind of peace because of Archie’s connection to Gavin, his grandson, and his only family.
“When did you come?” she asked. Her eyes went to Mike’s to see if she could tell what he was thinking. This won’t delay things, will it?
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