by Megan Chance
It was so hard to live as if there might not be a future. As if what I felt didn’t matter.
“You mother worries so for you,” Lot said gently, nodding to where Mama stood gazing out the French doors. “I have told her that she should be proud.”
“Tell me why you think I should choose you,” I said. “Why shouldn’t I believe the old stories?”
Lot sighed. “We ruled Ireland long before the old gods came and wrested it away. And even after, we learned to live with them. We had children together. Many of those children served Ireland well. We have never been the monsters the Fianna claim.”
“Then why do they hate you so?”
“’Twas a way to hold onto their power. Victors must reassure their subjects that they are ruled by the best and strongest and most just. People must believe their kings are good. I know you have a fondness for Diarmid, but he is Fianna, and in the end, their own people turned against them. Now we have the chance to make Ireland a sanctuary, one where want and worry are unknown.” Again, her glance slid past me, to my mother.
“And what of the plan you have to save the veleda? You really think you can bring all three of us back?”
Lot’s purple eyes glowed. “I can be very convincing, and I have grown very fond of you and your mother.”
“What of my brother? And my grandmother? You don’t even know them.”
“I wish only to bring you happiness.” Lot’s smile was sweet and sincere. “If their lives are your condition for choosing us, I will see it done.”
“What are you two whispering about?”
I turned to see my mother. She met Lot’s gaze as if she and the goddess shared a private joke.
“I’m telling your lovely daughter how little she has to fear,” said Lot.
Mama nodded as if she were comforted, but I knew she dreaded Samhain as much as I did. I hadn’t told her what Iobhar had said. I didn’t like to be cruel, but neither did I want to give her false hope. And I’d promised Patrick to say nothing.
The room was bright and warm. Lucy flushed beneath Miogach’s gaze, and Bres laughed low as he talked with Daire Donn and Patrick. The world felt safe and easy, but I was overwhelmed. I rose. “If you’ll excuse me just a moment . . .” My tears were falling before I was halfway up the stairs. It wasn’t until I stood at my bedroom door that I realized why I was crying.
How could I choose against them? What if Lot could do what she’d promised? The Fomori believed in Patrick’s fight. What if the old stories were lies? Worse, how could I choose against Mama, or Patrick and his family?
I couldn’t. And yet . . . The Fianna. Diarmid. Aidan. How could I choose against them?
I thought of Iobhar’s test, the visions in the cave. Irish dying in Ireland. Irish dying here. Iobhar said I would see the truth once the ritual began. But what if the truth was as messy and complicated as I suspected? No matter what choice I made, I would destroy someone I loved. The burden was unbearable. If I lived, my choice would change everything for me. If I died, it would change everything for those I left behind. How could I do this? How could I possibly do this?
Take this from me, I prayed. I don’t want it. Give it to someone else, anyone else—
“Grace?”
Quickly, I wiped the tears from my eyes and turned to Mama, trying to smile.
She saw through me. She held out her arms. “Oh, my darling.”
My tears turned to sobs. She held me tightly, and I breathed deeply of her lilac scent, which I hadn’t smelled for more than a year. Instead, she’d smelled only of cheap lye soap. And now here was the perfume again, a reminder of everything Patrick had given us.
It only made me cry harder. Mama soothed me until I was done.
Finally, she drew away. “I’ve been afraid, and because of that, I’ve let you take on far too much. But I won’t let you take this on alone, Grace. You will make the right choice, and you and Aidan will survive. The curse is not your fault. The world would not be so cruel as to punish you.”
“Diarmid says this kind of magic is meant to be cruel. That it wants punishment.”
“But not yours,” Mama whispered. “I suppose I always knew the veleda was split. Or at least, I suspected it when your grandmother began to fade and Aidan fell away. And there were . . . other things too.”
“What other things?”
“Well, I knew about the curse, if not what it truly meant.”
“You knew?”
Mama sighed. “I told you about Grandma following that boy to America? Her leaving was what brought the curse upon us. The veleda is bound to the Fianna, to Finn’s grave. She is not to leave Ireland. But Mother did. She might have gone back, but then she met Father, and I was born. Even then, she spoke of returning. But the Irish were coming here to escape poverty. Nearly all of the Knoxes emigrated, and Father had no wish to return to a life of struggle. When I fell in love with his cousin—your Papa—and Aidan was born, Mother abandoned any idea of Ireland. It was the past. Her family was here. She would not leave us.”
“The broken vow,” I said.
“Mother knew her duty, but she denied it. She couldn’t foresee what it would cost. How could she? It didn’t matter unless the Fianna were called, and why should that happen? It was only a legend. Who might have imagined it was real?”
“Do you think she’ll die during the ritual?” I whispered.
Mama looked sad. “I don’t know what will happen, Grace. But you aren’t like my mother. You won’t throw away your future, or your family’s, for a hollow love.”
“What if it’s not hollow?” I asked hoarsely.
She tucked a tendril of hair behind my ear, but she wouldn’t meet my gaze. “Be true to yourself, my darling, and you will have nothing to regret. That’s all I ask. Now . . . should we go back downstairs? Before the others worry?”
“Yes.” I grabbed her hand, squeezing it. “I love you, Mama.”
“I love you too. Perhaps more than you will ever know.”
October 31—Samhain
Grace
The night before Samhain, I lay awake listening to the music of the world, all the different melodies clanging and blending, weaving and cresting, and it was comforting to hear it, to know that there would always be that music, no matter what I did, no matter what choice I made.
Dawn came with a burning red sun, half-hidden beneath dark-blue clouds, striating the sky with orange and rose. The old rhyme came to mind: Red sky at morning, sailors take warning. Red sky at night, sailor’s delight.
Take warning.
It’s hard to know what to wear on your last day alive. In the end, I decided on the watered blue silk Iobhar had glamoured for me. A gift from an archdruid seemed appropriate. Beyond that, I could hardly think. “You and Aidan will survive.” Mama had sounded so certain, as if it was the one thing she knew above all to be true, and I hoped she was right.
But then again, what was the point of surviving, if what I loved was gone?
Perhaps Iobhar’s guess would come to pass, and the worst thing to happen would be the Fianna and the Fomori learning to live together. There had been more unlikely miracles, hadn’t there? I remembered the battle in my backyard, swords drawn, lightning blasting, anger thick in the air. Perhaps not.
Patrick and Mama sat at the dining table. The newspaper was folded before Patrick. He said, “The longshoreman’s strike started.”
“What has that to do with anything?” I wasn’t the least bit hungry, but still I spread gooseberry jam on a piece of toast. After all, it might be the last time I tasted it. The last time I sat at this table and said good morning to my mother. The last time I saw the red of sunrise fade into an overcast blue or smelled eggs and oatmeal or noted the fine dust from coal ash on the hearth—
Stop.
“It’s meant to divert attention from what’s really happening during the ritual.” Patrick’s voice broke into my thoughts. “The strikers are Fianna soldiers. Our own set out this morning to meet them. Th
is is the battle, Grace. The winner will be the one you choose.”
I put down the toast, no longer caring if I never tasted gooseberry jam again.
Mama took a careful sip of her tea. Her hand was trembling. “You must watch over Grace and Aidan, Patrick. I want no harm to come to them.”
“It’s my only goal, to keep them safe.”
“You won’t be fighting?” I asked.
“If I have to fight to protect you, I will,” he said gruffly. “You need only worry about your part in the ritual. I’ll worry about you and Aidan.”
I wished . . . well, how much easier life had been when the most I’d had to worry about was bill collectors and losing the house and Aidan’s drunkenness and Mama’s distraction and wondering if Patrick would propose . . .
Not small things, but they seemed small now. I could not even remember who I’d been then, and even stranger, I didn’t think I wanted to be that person again. But if I was no longer that Grace, who was I?
I spent the rest of the day near Mama, leaning into her constant touch, taking comfort from her as if I were a child. When Lucy asked me to help her untangle ribbons, I told her I’d love to, and I meant it.
“Is something troubling you, Grace?” she asked suspiciously.
“Nothing,” I said, taking the knot of ribbons from her. “I’m surprised you want my help.”
“I’ve decided to forgive you. I see he’s abandoned you too. What fools he made of us.”
I took an embroidered length of satin and unwound it.
“And I’ve decided perhaps I might like gray eyes better,” Lucy went on.
Gray eyes. Miogach. Those gray eyes had disconcerted me at first, but then they’d become gentle, shining with good humor. I thought of Diarmid saying that Miogach was the worst of them, the greatest liar, and Grandma telling me that Finn had been too arrogant in his kindness to understand Miogach’s grief and hatred over the death of his father, the King of Lochlann, at the Fianna’s hands.
Neither black nor white. I let my hands and the ribbons fall listlessly in my lap. Mama touched my arm, and when I looked at her, I heard her words again: “You will make the right choice, and you and Aidan will survive.”
The hours slid by far too quickly. I spent the last of them with my grandmother. “I don’t know what’s going to happen tonight, Grandma. But I love you. And I forgive you, too, for the curse. I understand.”
I closed my eyes, listening to my grandmother’s music, that awful, jangled sound, and for the first time, I heard the notes I’d searched for, the vater’s music, there at last. The notes were delicate and yet insistent. I heard the strength in them, and I felt reassured. Not just madness. The Prophet was in her too. Whatever happened would happen. I had done everything I could.
Patrick and Mama waited outside the door. I heard her tap. It was time.
I left my grandmother and flung myself into my mother’s arms. “You’ll live, Grace,” she whispered. “And when you do, I hope you can forgive me.”
“Forgive you for what?” I asked.
“For letting you take on so many burdens.”
I hugged her. “I love you, Mama. If I don’t come back—”
“Sssh. You will.”
“We’d best hurry,” Patrick said.
I gave my mother a final hug and kiss good-bye.
“Patrick, keep her safe,” Mama said, and I saw a desperation in her eyes that made me want to turn back again. But Patrick had my arm, propelling me forward, downstairs, out to the carriage. Waiting with it were Daire Donn and Lot.
I looked at Patrick.
“They insisted,” he said. “They wanted to be certain you got there safely.”
“Safely? But you’re my protector.”
“I’ve told them nothing of that. It might worry them because of Aidan.”
As we approached the carriage, my stomach dropped, my mouth went dry. There was no turning back.
“We’ll bring the vater separately,” Patrick said to them. “She can’t be moved in the carriage. I’ve hired a wagon and a driver I trust.”
How well he lied. I hadn’t known he had the talent. What would the Fomori do—or the Fianna—once they realized that my grandmother would be nowhere near the ritual, but safe in her bed at Patrick’s house?
If this worked, it would be worth their fury. It would be worth every lie I’d ever told.
Lot said, “You’ve hired a guard as well, I hope.”
“It’s taken care of,” Patrick assured her.
We got into the carriage. As we drove toward the waterfront, I looked out the window, taking it all in, every passing scene, every building and person and horse and carriage. It won’t be the last time you see it, I told myself. This has to work. It has to.
The carriage jerked to a stop. “Can’t go no farther, sir,” called down the driver, Leonard. “There’s a mob ahead.”
“This is it, then. We walk from here.” Daire Donn’s eyes danced with excitement. “Are you ready?” he asked me.
“I am,” I said, but who could ever be ready for this?
Ahead of us was a jam of stopped carriages, delivery wagons, and drays. I heard shouting and gunshots.
Patrick’s face was sharp with tension as we got out of the carriage. “Stay close, Grace,” he whispered.
I hadn’t thought my dread could get any worse, but it did. A band of threatening clouds gathered, darkening the last hours of the day. “What time is it?”
Patrick didn’t even take his watch from his pocket. “Two hours until sunset. No more than that.”
I gripped his hand, and he squeezed back, and we followed Daire Donn and Lot, weaving through the stopped traffic to a swarming mob of people.
All I saw was a swirling, moving riot. Men and women, gang boys and policemen pitched in battle already. Fists cracking and clubs thudding. Screaming and shouting. Police cursing as they dodged rocks and struggled to keep back the crowd. I didn’t see any of the Fianna—or the other Fomori.
“Quickly now,” said Daire Donn, pushing through. The world smelled of blood and smoke, garbage and sewage and the river. I saw a boy stabbed, dead before he hit the ground; a policeman battered with his own club; blood running from gashed foreheads and noses and cheeks. We were pushed and shoved about; Patrick’s grip on my arm was so tight it bruised.
Diarmid had said that no one loved battle once they were within it, and I understood that now. This was terrifying and horrible. Cries of pain and anger filled my ears, along with the caws of ravens, though when I looked up at the sky, I saw none. Purple-tinged clouds boiled in a building storm. Aidan.
Daire Donn led us out of the mob and behind a warehouse fronting the river. My boots slid in the mud of the riverbank; only Patrick kept me from falling into the water. Lot skirted to the foot of the pier beyond, reaching out to help me climb onto the rickety wharf.
She glanced at the sky. Blue lightning ricocheted across the purple clouds. Tethra. “’Tis nearly the hour.”
There was another warehouse on the other side of the pier, its great doors open, and beyond them, the fight raged. Now I saw Balor towering above the others, brandishing a long-bladed knife. The riot flooded into the street. There was Finn, screaming orders, his golden-red hair streaming.
The river rushed a murky, muddy green littered with flotsam—boards and twigs, more garbage. Lot gave me a little push, forcing me to take a step. When I looked down, I realized why. I now stood with one foot on the riverbank, the other foot on the pier over the river. The borderland. Neither, nor. Both.
“Keep her here!” Daire Donn shouted. “I’ll light the pyres.”
“The pyres?” I glanced nervously at Patrick, who gave me a nervous look in return. My stomach was in knots. The world went dark, the sun behind the purple-black clouds, streaks of blue lightning. “Where’s Aidan? He should be here with me. What’s he waiting for?”
“Sunset,” Lot said. “Do not forget, we need Diarmid too.”
And Iobhar
. I tried not to look as terrified as I was. I didn’t see any of them.
Then, a terrible scream. Furious, unending, circling and circling until there was nothing else to hear. I covered my ears, cowering as ravens filled the sky, a cloud of shivering, glittering black, screaming frenzy and hatred and fear, raising panic. There was Ossian in the midst of it, his pale-blond hair swirling around his head, as he fought Miogach. Beyond them a mass of ravens swirled up through the crowd, feathers ruffling and jerking as they preened, shining feathers—
No, not ravens. The crowd parted, and Iobhar stepped through, his feathered cape moving and shifting, his black hair gleaming, haloed with a silver sidhe glow.
He was here. It is time.
He glanced at me, at Lot, at Patrick. His mouth curled in that familiar cruel smile. “Where is the rest of the veleda?”
“Aidan’s here,” I said. “This is his storm.”
“And the vater will be here shortly,” Lot said from beside me. Her hand gripped her skirt—the only evidence of her tension. “She’d best hurry.”
Iobhar lifted a brow, and I shook my head slightly.
He looked toward the horizon. I followed his gaze to see the fiery ball of the sun just touching the line between earth and sky. My heart pounded so hard, it was all I could hear, above even the screaming and the shouting. Iobhar raised his arm, sending a huge bolt of red lightning whipping and stabbing through the clouds.
There were more screams; the crowd parted as if compelled, and my brother staggered from it, looking dazed. When he saw me, his gaze cleared. He came to me, hugging me hard before he let me go again, taking my hand firmly in his.
“We need the vater.” Lot sounded almost desperate. “Where is the vater?”
Again, Iobhar raised his arm. Again, the lightning struck, and this time it blossomed, turning the clouds red, spreading fire in the sky.
And then . . . Diarmid stalked from the mob with an already bloodied knife in his hand. His expression was forbidding, his cheek bruised, and there was a cut across his jaw, another at his eyebrow. He looked filthy and bloody and frightening, but his gaze on me was tender as a caress. I saw in it the hope I shared. I felt Patrick stiffen beside me.