“I do, Mike.” She placed her hand on top of his and looked into his eyes, full of love and care. “Mind yourself in the village. Come back to us safe.”
He nodded and kissed her, then left the room. He knew none of them would ever again take for granted a parting without thinking it might be the last time they saw each other again. Too many times in the past it had happened just like that.
Gavin and Sophia were in the kitchen, quietly sipping tea at the table. It was hard to believe there was no bread, no milk for the tea, and no stream of people outside needing Mike’s advice or guidance. They were in a ghost town.
Mike’s thoughts flitted back to the image of poor Kendra. He had prepared the body last night for burial. Why was she killed? Why her and not anybody else? Why only her?
He had already besieged himself with these same questions over and over again all night long until he’d fallen asleep exhausted and uneasy. Sarah was right about that too, he thought, as he glanced out the kitchen window to the camp center. The place didn’t feel like home any more. It felt like a crime scene.
**********
The village of Ballinagh was two miles away by road and less than a mile cutting directly through the woods that separated it from Ameriland. Since they’d taken the main road in yesterday and found no evidence of recent travel, Mike led John and Gavin through the woods in hopes there would be a clue to where the compound people had gone. His thought was that if they left on their own accord, they’d likely go the main road, but if they were fleeing, they’d head into the woods. That would definitely be the case with the gypsies of the camp.
Both boys were quiet as they moved through the woods. It had rained in the night and only the sounds of leaves squelching underfoot broke the morning silence.
When Mike and Sarah left last fall, the inhabitants of the village of Ballinagh appeared to be in the process of moving out and finding refuge in Ameriland. Because they’d left immediately after the altercation with the druids outside the compound walls, Mike couldn’t be sure the blighters hadn’t come back to try to finish the job of taking the compound. But whatever had happened in the compound, it had happened so fast there had been no time to leave clues to tell Mike what had happened.
Would he find the village deserted too? Had whatever happened in Ameriland been repeated in Ballinagh? Mike found himself nearly jogging through the woods in his impatience to reach the town and find answers. John and Gavin kept pace with him. They were concerned, Mike knew. But the prospect of losing a beloved auntie—however painful the blow—was something both lads were prepared for. They’d faced worse in their young lives.
As they approached, Mike put a hand out to hold Gavin back. He and John looked at Mike questioningly.
“Let’s wait and watch a moment, lads,” he said. While waiting was just about the last thing Mike felt like doing, after four years of living in a world with the unexpected around every corner, he knew it was necessary.
The woods opened up abruptly to a narrow country road which would carry them the rest of the way into town. The long ditches that flanked the road were choked with gorse and broom. Although no cars had travelled this road in four years, there should have been pony cart tracks and horse prints in the damp verge bordering the road. There were none.
Not a good sign.
“We’ll split up,” he said and they both nodded. “You two stay together. Go around the back of the town. Mind you’re not seen. Meet me at the end of town. Off with ye.”
He watched them jog away, bent over and silent. He couldn’t help think as he watched them go how the disappearance of the two of them had been the catalyst for Mike and Sarah’s heartbreaking journey to find them that had finally led to their reunion. He knew both boys felt that they were somehow responsible for the loss of the compound. And that was Mike’s fault because he couldn’t help think that if he had been there, whatever happened wouldn’t have.
Mike said a quick prayer for their safety and then turned away. The town looked deserted from this angle but that didn’t necessarily mean it was. With no cars and little commerce, Ballignah had struggled to survive. In the last year or so, Mike had started regularly sending food and medicine from the compound to the village. Cars still sat parked in front of storefronts. Tires had been slashed or stolen years ago and the car interiors plundered for whatever valuables they’d once possessed. The street looked truly apocalyptic, Mike couldn’t help but notice, with the ravaged cars hunched in their spots like threatening monuments to another time.
He kept to the south side of the street and moved slowly. If there was anyone in town, they’d be watching from the picture windows that faced the main street. It was a time of warranted fear and Mike wasn’t surprised not to see evidence of a living soul out and about. The general hard goods store that used to be the main gathering place in town was one of the first buildings he came to. The windows had long been smashed out and its shelves looted. There were other shops more intact and more likely to house people. He kept his eyes sharp and continued down the store fronts.
When he heard the faint strains of guitar music, he stopped and his heart leapt to his throat. The gypsies had often played their guitars around the compound center campfire. He didn’t remember anyone else playing music except them. Had Declan’s lot regrouped at Ballinagh? Could it be as simple as that? He held his breath and listened to the strumming. It was faint but definite. It seemed to be coming from one of the buildings facing the street. He took a few more tentative steps in the direction of the sound and then stopped again. Now he heard voices.
The domiciles in the village had all been perched atop stores and pubs before the bomb dropped. Since then, and especially since the stores were plundered almost immediately, people found comfort and a sense of safety—whether accurate or not—in living higher up. Mike glanced at the windows of the apartments across the street but they were dark. Some of them were broken out. It was hard to believe anyone could live in a place with no way to shut the wind and the rain out.
A woman’s laugh rang out, high but muffled as if a hasty hand had clapped over her mouth. Mike froze. He heard voices again, louder this time, although the words were still indistinct, and then the woman’s voice rising above them, angry and insistent.
He knew that voice.
Chapter 3
Sarah eased herself down onto a wicker chair on the porch. The morning rain pattered on the wooden deck. Not unusual for this time of year in Ireland, she thought, pulling the collar of her cardigan up. The weather was crap. Overcast, cold, and with the constant threat of rain.
Not unlike how I feel at the moment.
Sophia sat on the steps at Sarah’s feet. She wore a shawl that she’d found in one of the cottages and wrapped it tightly around her. She was staring at the gate as if wanting to see the very moment that Gavin returned.
“What part of Italy are you from?” Sarah asked. “I guess you’re not used to Irish weather.”
Sophia smiled but didn’t look away from the gate. “I come from the north,” she said. “It’s nice there.”
“Nicer than this.”
Sophia turned to Sarah, her smile broadening. “Not without Gavin it isn’t.”
“You really love him.”
Sophia laughed as if the answer was so obvious it must be a joke for Sarah to even ask.
“You know, Mike was a little worried about you in the beginning,” Sarah said. She and Sophia had gone over this ground a few hundred times when they all lived together in Rosslare but she knew Sophia found it soothing to hear the story of her acceptance into the family. And she very much looked like she could use some reassurance about now.
“Gavin has used bad judgment with girls in the past,” Sophia said, still smiling. “Da thought I must be the same.”
“You can’t blame him. One doesn’t usually stumble onto the love of one’s life in the middle of nowhere,” Sarah said.
“You did.”
Now it was Sarah’s t
urn to laugh. She dropped a hand to her belly and rubbed the outline of the baby moving within.
“You’ve got a point there,” she said. “But it was a long time coming and at the cost of terrible pain and loss.”
“I know.”
Sophia’s smile was gone now and Sarah imagined she must be thinking of her father and how he had died. Sarah’s eyes dropped to Sophia’s hands with her missing finger. In the months they had spent living with Mike and Sarah in Rosslare while they were waiting for John, Sarah had grown to love the girl. She was strong and had a sense of humor—all of which came in handy when being married to Gavin. But she was tender, too, and sentimental. It’s the Italian in her, Gavin often teased. But she made a good addition to the family and Sarah was delighted for all their sakes that Gavin had found her.
They deserved happiness, Sarah thought fiercely. And she knew she would do whatever was necessary to get that and keep it—for all of them.
“You are having theories?” Sophia asked.
“About where everyone went?” Sarah glanced in the direction of where Kendra’s body was found. “Maybe one or two.”
Sophia tore her eyes from the gate opening.
“Tell me.”
“Well, I think we’ve all accepted that our people didn’t leave willingly. The fact that Kendra was killed in the attack and they weren’t able to return to bury her tells me that.”
“That is what Gavin thinks too.”
“But Kendra’s death tells me something else,” Sarah said. “She gave her life when everyone else seems to have walked away. That tells me she was fighting to protect something valuable. Something worth her life.”
When Sophia looked at her in confusion, Sarah dropped a hand to her abdomen. Sophia’s eyes grew round.
“I don’t understand. Gavin said she was childless.”
“She was. But I knew her and she was ferocious about protecting the children in the camp. I think she was killed because she was trying to protect the kiddies. So the threat has to do with the children. That’s what I think.”
Sarah felt the tears stinging her eyes as she remembered Kendra, so brave, so determined. How was it possible that someone with so much life was just snuffed out?
“But would not the mothers and fathers be doing the same thing? Why are they not dead?”
Sarah wiped the tears from her eyes. “A mother, as you’ll learn some day, can only go so far in a fight because ultimately she needs to be alive to protect her children. Kendra had nothing to lose. She wouldn’t give up.”
“So they killed her.”
“I think so. Whoever they are.”
Sophia shivered. “I am so sorry for this woman. No family and to die alone.”
“I know. But we were all her family. And we will avenge her.”
Sophia snapped her head around. “What means avenge?”
By the way she asked it, Sarah guessed Sophia knew exactly what the word meant.
“Our new world is more than just finding a peaceful place to grow crops and raise our children, Sophia. We have to create and follow a code of behavior—now more than ever. We’ll get our people back and we’ll punish the ones who drove them out. We’ll find the ones who murdered Kendra, too. Trust me we will.”
Until she’d spoken the words out loud, it hadn’t occurred to Sarah that it was truly how she felt. The persistent feeling pulsing beneath her breastbone wasn’t indigestion or the chronic worry she lived with day in and day out, or the unsettled feeling of the mystery of what happened to everyone. It was the relentless, unholy fury of knowing that somebody had taken the life of one of their own.
And for that somebody—no matter where they were or who they were—there could be no mercy.
**********
Mike walked down an alley off the main road and in the direction of the music. He dropped to his knees and crawled to the edge of the last storefront and peered around the corner.
Across the street, a bicycle was propped up against the door of what used to be a nail salon. The door to the salon was open and the music and the laughter were loud and clear.
A sudden flash of movement caught Mike’s eye at the end of the alley. He felt a rush of irritation when he saw John and Gavin standing at the opening, watching him. They were supposed to be on the other side of the street and meet him at the edge of town.
He held a finger to his lips and pointed at the salon door. Gavin nodded, his eyes going to the bicycle. Whoever was in there wasn’t concerned about being overheard, that much was clear.
Mike got to his feet and walked across the street so that he was now on the same side of the alley as the opened door and the bike. He watched John and Gavin follow suit. If anybody inside had a gun, this might be a terrible idea but giving people advance warning was also usually a pretty bad idea. He stood with his back against the wall and waited until Gavin and John were in place on the other side.
“I can take it off or you can,” a girl’s voice said coquettishly. “The choice is yours.”
Before Mike had a chance to react, he saw Gavin’s face drain of all color, then pivot to face the opening and fling the door open.
“What the feck?” Gavin shouted from the doorway. Mike heard the girl scream and the shocked gasp from whoever else was inside.
Shit! Mike pushed past Gavin into the nail salon with John right behind him. A man stood facing them, a large knife in his hand. His face was purple with rage and it looked to Mike like he wasn’t interested in talking his way around the situation. The man shifted his weight to the balls of his feet, ready to launch himself at Gavin who still stood, gaping at him from the doorway.
“Steady on!” Mike bellowed, holding up a hand to the man. “We mean ye no harm.”
“Then bugger off!” the man snarled. He was bigger than Gavin but shorter than Mike by at least four inches. Mike watched him size him up as if trying to determine if he could take him in a fight. He was younger than Mike but not enough to make a difference.
“We will as soon as we have a wee word with the lass,” Mike said, nodding in the direction of the girl who stood behind the man with the knife.
“I don’t know them!” the girl shrieked. “Tell ‘em to feck off!”
“With pleasure, luv,” the man said, tossing his knife from hand to hand. Clearly meant as some sort of demonstration of confidence, it always surprised Mike when an idiot did something like that. He took two steps toward the man and slapped the knife out of his hands. The girl scrambled for it and snatched it off the floor.
Mike grabbed the man by the shoulders and slammed him against the nearest wall. He twisted him around and hammered his face into the wall then yanked his arm up high behind his back. The man squealed.
“Give Gavin the knife, Regan,” Mike said, keeping the pressure on the man’s arm.
“Why should I?” Regan said. “You can’t come in here and feck with me like you—”
Mike heard her scream and glanced over his shoulder to see that Gavin had taken the knife from her. She stood in front of him, her fists at her sides and her eyes blazing as she looked at Gavin. She was wearing low slung jeans and a lace bra. Her blouse lay in a puddle of stained polyester on the floor between them.
“I’m going to let you go,” Mike said to the man. “And if you behave yourself I won’t have to stuff your balls down your throat. Sound good?”
The man grunted and Mike released him.
“Sit over there where I can see you,” Mike said, pointing to a broken chair in what used to be the salon reception waiting area. He turned to Regan and put his hands on his hips. “Where are your parents?”
“None of your business! You’re not the boss of me here,” she said hotly.
“Are you living here?”
“Go feck yourself!”
Gavin shot a hand out and gripped her by the shoulder.
“You had the priest lure me into the woods so the fecking druids could sacrifice me,” he said angrily.
“N
ot now, Gav,” Mike said. But it was clearly the exact right thing to say as the fight went out of her immediately. She looked at the floor.
“I didn’t want to,” she said.
“They were going to kill me, Regan,” Gavin said harshly.
“I didn’t know!” She looked at him, her chin trembling. “And besides, I’ve been forgiven for that. By Herself.” She looked over at Mike. “Wasn’t I?”
Gavin looked at Mike in astonishment. “She’s off the hook for trying to lure me to me death?”
“It’s complicated,” Mike said tiredly. “And we’re not going to sort it out right now.” He turned to Regan. “I’m going to ask you again. Where are your parents?”
Regan licked her lips. “Me mum’s upstairs.”
Mike nodded. “And this plonker?” he said indicating the man in the chair. “Who’s he?”
“Nobody,” she said and looked at the floor.
Mike watched her for a moment and then took the knife from Gavin and handed it to the man.
“If that’s your bike outside, I suggest you get on it.”
“I didn’t get what I came for,” the man said truculently. “And she took me money.”
“Regan, put your shirt on and give him his money back,” Mike said, gritting his teeth to prevent himself from saying more.
She hesitated, then pulled a few coins out of her jeans pocket and handed it to the man. The fury began to build in Mike the moment he realized what had been going on. But when he saw how little she was willing to sell herself for, he wanted to punch something really hard.
“Now get the feck out,” he said to the man in a low voice. The threat was feral and real. The man hesitated only an instant before grabbing up his guitar from the floor and exiting the store.
Mike looked at John. “You and Gav wait outside.” When Gavin looked like he’d argue, Mike gave him a severe look until he stomped out with John behind him.
“Does your mother know you’re doing this?”
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 50