Reunion

by Jennifer Fallon

  He glanced over his shoulder. Darragh stood in the shadows by the door.

  "It has to be done, Darragh. I don't have a choice."

  Darragh took a step further into the room. Ren saw himself reflected in his twin's eyes. Darragh's face was filled with doubt and anguish.

  "I still think they're innocent," Darragh said.

  "How can you say that? You saw what they did."

  "They didn't know. Didn't understand ..."

  "They are death, Darragh. The death of billions upon billions more."

  Darragh shook his head. "I can't believe ..." He didn't finish the sentence. Or couldn't.

  Ren didn't respond, turning back to stare down at the twin girls he had come to murder.

  Darragh took another step closer. "I won't let you do it. You don't have to do it. You're not a tool of the Matrarchaí. Neither of us are. We don't have to do her bidding."

  "Even if she's right?"

  "She's dead. What difference does it make?"

  "I will end this."

  "I won't let you."

  "How will you stop me?" he asked as he raised the blade. One of the girls was stirring - they were too alike to tell which was which. She opened her eyes to stare up at him, her face framed by soft dark curls, her expression disturbingly alert and aware for one so young. Her eyes were strange ... blue with no pupil and no whites at all. Just a pool of blue terror that had already killed once and would kill again and again until they'd achieved their goal. Her sister remained asleep, still peacefully sucking her thumb. Which will be harder? he wondered. Killing the one who is asleep and ignorant of her fate, or the one staring up at me with that sleepy, contented smile?

  Am I strong enough to fight her off if she tries to stop me?

  "I'll kill you if I have to, Rónán, to stop this."

  Ren stared down at the twins, dismissing the empty threat. "Even if you could get across this room before the deed was done, Darragh, you can't kill me without killing yourself, which would achieve precisely what I am here to prevent."

  He moved the blade a little, repositioning his grip. The bedside light danced across its engraved surface, mesmerizing the baby. He was happy to entertain her with the pretty lights for a few moments. Better she remain distracted. Once the babies realized why he was here ...

  There was a drawn-out silence, as he played the light across the blade. Behind him, Darragh remained motionless. There was no point in him trying to attack. They were two sides of the same coin. Neither man could so much as form the intent to attack without the other knowing about it.

  The girls would be dead before anybody could reach the cradle to stop him.

  "There must be another way." There was note of defeat in the statement, a glimmer of acceptance.

  "I wouldn't be here if there was," Ren replied, still staring down at the baby he was destined to kill. "You know that," he added, glancing over his shoulder. "You're just not willing to accept the truth of it yet."

  Darragh held out his hand, as if he expected the blade to be handed over; and for this night to be forgotten, somehow. Put behind them like a foolish disagreement they'd been wise enough to settle like men. "They're just babies."

  "They are Partition and all the destruction that goes with it."

  "But they're innocents ... Dammit ... they're your own flesh and blood!"

  "Tell that to Brydie. And all the others."

  Darragh had no answer for that. Perhaps he realized now, why the walls were glistening.

  Ren gripped the blade tighter and turned back to the cradle, steeling his resolve with a conscious act of will. It didn't matter who they were. It's what they were. That was the important thing.

  It was the reason they had to die.

  "They are abominations, bred to cause chaos and strife."

  "Maybe we can save them."

  "I see the future, Darragh. So do you. And I dare you to deny the future you see isn't just as filled with chaos and strife because of what these children are, as the future I perceive."

  Silence greeted his question, as he knew it would. They had both seen the future, just as the Hag had seen it. They had seen the destruction, the pain, the devastation.

  Turning back to the babies, Ren reached into the cradle with his left hand to pull back the blankets covering the children. The twin who was awake grabbed his finger. Her frightening blue eyes smiling up at him, she squeezed it gently. Behind him, his brother watched, too appalled to allow this, too afraid to stop it.

  "Help me or leave," Ren said, feeling Darragh's accusing eyes boring into his back. "Just don't stand there feigning disgust, as if you had no part in bringing us to this pass."

  "Perhaps the future we see isn't ours."

  "Are you kidding me? Look around you, Darragh. These walls are dripping with blood." Ren was a little amazed that he felt so calm. It was as if all the anguish, all the guilt, all the fear and remorse, all the normal human emotions a man should be battling at a time like this were a burden being carried by someone else, leaving him free to act, unhindered by doubt.

  If that wasn't a sign of the rightness of this deed, he couldn't think of anything else that might be.

  He extracted his finger from the soft, determined grip of the baby girl, her skin so soft and warm, her gaze so trusting and serene, it was heartbreaking.

  But not heartbreaking enough to stay his hand. He raised the blade, transfixed by the dangerous blue on blue eyes staring up at him. And then he brought it down sharply, slicing through the swaddling and her fragile ribs into her tiny heart without remorse or regret ...

  He was quick and, he hoped, merciful, but the link between the sisters was quicker.

  Before he could extract the blade from one tiny heart and plunge it into another, her twin sister jerked with pain and she began to scream ...

  * * *

  Ren jerked awake to find the Hag kneeling over him. He was sweating and shaking. The Dream was back with a vengeance - more real than it had ever been before.

  She was in the guise of the crone again. Ren sat up and looked around. He was still in the stone circle, surrounded by the impenetrable mist.

  "It came again, yes?"

  "What?" He was still shaken to the core by how real the nightmare had been. More real than this strange place with its odd mist and old woman who could change into a beautiful young woman at will.

  "The vision. You Saw the future."

  Ren shook his head. He wasn't sure if he was denying the dream or the truth of it.

  "It was different this time."

  "The nearer to the event, the more it will resolve."

  "It used to happen in this realm, all caves and candles and firepits. The dream I just had ... there were electric lights and central heating. I think it was in my old realm."

  "Situations can alter," the Hag said, helping him to his feet. "Your destiny does not."

  Ren shook his head again. "You don't understand ... it's not possible anything like that could happen there." He shook off her help and put his head between his hands, as if he could drive out the lingering memory by applying enough pressure to his skull. "Jesus, why am I even having that frigging dream?" He turned on her, then, eyeing her with deep suspicion. "Did you do something to me? Something to Darragh? I haven't had that nightmare in years."

  "Something has changed. As I warned you it would. You cannot stop this."

  "It was so frigging real ..."

  "The closer your destiny gets, the sharper the vision, the more accurate the dream."

  "I'm not your puppet," he said, still shaking his head to deny her and dislodge the memory of his nightmare. "You can't make me kill those kids."

  "I won't have to," she assured him. "And that's what really frightens you, Rónán of the Undivided. That you are not being forced to do anything. Even in your vision, you are doing what is right of your own free will."

  She was terrifyingly close to the truth, Ren realized. It appalled him that he could contemplate murdering h
is brother's children, but it horrified him even more that - in his dream, at least - he seemed so convinced it had to be done.

  Maybe I go mad. Maybe that's why the Hag is here. To drive me mad.

  "It's not free will if it's destiny," Ren pointed out.

  "And if it's destiny and you have no choice in the matter, then you have no need to feel guilty about it either," she replied, with infuriating calm. "I have a gift for you."

  "What?"

  "A gift. You need the power to wane in a magic-less world to free your brother. My Sight tells me you must do this thing to fulfill your destiny, so I prevailed upon the Brethren to help."

  "Help how?" He didn't like the sound of that. He knew what the Brethren wanted which made anything they did to help suspect.

  She untied a small leather pouch from her belt and handed it to him. With some trepidation, Ren opened it and tipped the contents into his palm. The rubies once set into Kiva's necklace tumbled out, infused with so much magic they were glowing.

  "They will start to lose their magic the moment you step through the rift," the Hag told him, "but as you intended to swallow them, your body should protect them for a time and slow the loss. However long it takes the jewels to pass through your physical body, we estimate you only have about three hours to find your brother and get him out before the magic is no longer concentrated enough to enable waning. If you intend to wane yourself from one place to another, you will be able to do it a few times, but if you take another person with you it will drain their power completely, so you can only do that once and you must be very certain of the place you are waning to. Transporting another person is dangerous enough in a realm filled with magic. It is a risk beyond reckoning in a realm as depleted as the one you intend to try it in. After that the rubies will be depleted. You will have to find a stone circle and open a rift the usual way if you wish to return to this realm or any other."

  "We don't have Marcroy's jewel any longer."

  "You won't need it," the Hag said. "My Sight tells me you will find another way out of that realm."

  She waved her arm and the mist began to clear, revealing the stone circle and a surprisingly bright day. Ren didn't know how long he'd been trapped in the Hag's mist, but the sun had risen and he was hungry. Thirsty, too, and as he looked down at the glowing jewels in his palm, he realized he was going to have to find something to drink in order to swallow rubies.

  The Hag seemed to have thought of that. As the mist cleared, he noticed a basket on the ground beside her, filled with cheese, cold meats and a skin of wine.

  Ren began to wonder if he should refuse to rescue Darragh at all; the Hag - and presumably the Brethren - seemed far too encouraging for it to end well.

  As if she knew what he was thinking, she smiled and morphed back into the hauntingly familiar young woman she had been last night. "You still do not understand, do you?"

  "I don't understand why you're helping me."

  "I am helping you, because I have seen that I must. I have role to play in this. And some responsibility, too, perhaps. Either way, I can no more deny my destiny than you can yours."

  "That's okay for you, lady. Your destiny apparently involves delivering a picnic basket."

  "You will see what you need to know before the time comes, Rónán," she promised with a smile. "You only fear it now because you do not know the truth."

  "So why don't you tell me the truth and save us both some grief?"

  The Hag shook her head. "Even if I told you, Rónán, you would not believe me. You must learn some things for yourself for the lesson to have any value."

  She leaned forward then, and kissed him on the cheek. "I am glad to have met you, Rónán of the Undivided. I will cherish the memory of you."

  "Have you Seen that, too?" he asked, more than a little annoyed with her vague answers. "Are you so sure we'll never meet again?"

  She nodded. "By the time you have fulfilled your destiny, only one of us will be alive."

  "Which one of us is going to die?" Ren asked.

  But the Hag vanished, leaving him alone in the stone circle with his handful of enchanted rubies and without giving him so much as a hint of the answer.

  Chapter 38

  All the time she'd been blind, Hayley wanted nothing more than to see her family again. Now that she could, she found it almost unbearable. Every time she looked at her father's grey hair, or the crow's feet that creased the corners of her stepmother's eyes, it drove home the tragedy of her return.

  As for her little brother ... Neil didn't bear thinking about. It seemed like only a few weeks ago that she and Ren had taken him shopping for new shoes at the mall with instructions not to buy him anything with Hobbits on them. Now he was an adult. Studying physics of all things.

  He was, effectively, older than she was.

  Hayley was relieved when he apologetically left for Geneva. She didn't know what to say to Neil. Or how to look at him without wanting to burst into to tears. She had a suspicion he felt the same.

  For several days after Kiva's visit, Hayley kept the business card the actress had given her in her pocket. She would touch it whenever things started to pile up on her; imagine herself calling the number and explaining to the mysterious Mother who she was and what had happened to her. The agency would send someone, she fantasised, and they would make the world right again somehow ...

  But she never actually called them.

  She watched her stepmother Kerry with new eyes, however.

  Never had Hayley thought to question Kerry on her family history. Perhaps she'd almost reached an age when she might have grown curious about it, but fate intervened and left her blinded and then sent her to another reality so she'd never had the chance, or even the urge, to question anything about her stepmother's life before she married Hayley's father. Hayley had always been told that Kiva and Kerry were cousins. Kerry worked for Kiva because when you're a celebrity, family are often the only people you can trust. Her stepmother had met Hayley's father on set when she was working for Kiva, just after Hayley's mother, Charlotte, died and just before Patrick found Ren in the loch. Hayley had heard the story so many times as a child, it simply had to be real.

  Now she knew the truth - assuming Kiva was telling the truth - she looked at her stepmother with a far more critical eye and began to see things she'd never noticed in the past.

  There really was no familial resemblance between Kerry and Kiva. And their relationship was far more one of equals than employer and employee, even taking family ties into consideration. Now she thought of it, Hayley could recall any number of times Kiva allowed herself to be overruled by Kerry. Hayley assumed it was just Kiva not wanting to be bothered with details, preferring to defer to her older cousin's wisdom. It made more sense really, to know that in the strange organization to which they both belonged, Kerry had seniority and Kiva deferred to her out of respect, rather than laziness.

  Hayley had taken to walking a lot since her return. Sometimes it was just around the block, other times she walked for miles, not really caring where she ended up. A couple of nights after Kiva's visit, she had to call her father to come get her - she had her very own iPhone now - because she was utterly lost. There were maps on the phone they told her, but she hadn't figured out how to use half the apps Neil had loaded for her before he left. But walking got her out of the house and gave her a chance to think. Not that her thoughts were very pleasant companions. They were full of dark fantasies about how she would get even with Ren for ruining her life. How she would call the number on the card Kiva gave her and join the Matrarchaí, travelling through realities and taking her vengeance on every version of Ren Kavanaugh she get her hands on.

  And sometimes she just wanted to go back to Tír Na nÓg and listen to the beautiful music, be one of the beautiful people, have no cares in the world and pretend this reality didn't even exist.

  It was this impulse that drove her back to the Castle Golf Club and the stone circle where she'd emerged from th
e other reality. She'd been back a few times now, taking a cab to the course and climbing over the brick fence on Woodside Drive when there were no cars going by. She would cross the course on foot, hiding in the rough if any golfers happened by, until she reached the stone circle and then she would wait ...

  Hayley wasn't sure what she was waiting for.

  The chances were good nobody would ever come through the rift again. But Hayley couldn't stay away, just in case. Ren was back in this reality and probably looking for Darragh. Will he come through here or are there other stone circles he could use, scattered over the world? She supposed there were. Ireland and England were dotted with them, and there were thousands of circles in Europe.

  Why would he come through this one?

  Hayley shivered, and not just because of the bitter wind. It was dark already, even though it was still only early evening. She'd left a note for Kerry and her father, saying she was catching up with friends. They'd be pleased. That was what a normal girl would do. That showed she wanted to get on with her life.

  Hayley figured that "I'm meeting with old friends' would prove to Kerry that she knew nothing about alternate realities or the Matrarchaí, suspected nothing about them and believed the story that she was suffering from amnesia, which was why she couldn't remember a single damn moment of the past ten years.

  Nobody seemed to want to address the fact that she hadn't aged a day. That was just good genes, she'd heard somebody remark at the Gardaí station.

  Lucky me.

  Hayley zipped her jacket up to the top. It was new. It still smelt like the store. All her clothes were new. Everything she'd owned before she stepped through the rift was gone. Given away to charity, they told her. Her dad had kept a few keepsakes. There were photos of her scattered about the house, and some of the trophies she'd won playing soccer and basketball. There were a few books she'd owned. A certificate she'd been awarded at school for being a good citizen. And the medal made of cardboard colored with a yellow crayon that she'd won in a spelling competition when she was in the first grade.

  It was quite terrifying, really, to see how little of her was left. Another few years and she would have been completely forgotten.