I laugh and let myself be herded outdoors, glad to be spending time with my brother. He’s been shunning me a lot these days, and while I know he’s frustrated with being guarded all the time, I will not fail my father again. I don’t think I would be able to handle it if something horrible were to happen to him. He is the most important person in my life; the one person I wouldn’t be able to go on without. He doesn’t know this, though. So I try my best to take his occasional silent spells and avoidance in stride. I nod to the guard posted at our back door and do a few stretches while my brother pulls the winter hat over his wavy black hair and adjusts it to his liking with the corn muffin sticking out of his mouth. His hair is getting to be a bit long; it’s almost to his shoulders now and I don’t know how I didn’t notice. I’ll have to cut it for him soon, I guess. One more thing my parents always took care of that I didn’t think about before they left.
The cold air bites at my exposed face and neck and I start jogging in place to get my blood circulating. “You ready there? You know, you really shouldn’t eat while we’re running. One of these days it’s all going to come back up on you.”
He shoots me a huge grin, pushes the muffin the rest of the way into his mouth, shakes his head and with his mouth full to bursting says, “That sounds like a challenge to me.” Bits of half-chewed muffin fly out of his mouth and I back up to remain clear of the splash zone.
Laughing, I shake my head at him and set off. “Come on, then. Let’s see how far we get before you’re begging me to slow down.”
Eir is walking while I jog before we even reach the path in Central Park where I run every day. I don’t mind going slow if it means I can have his company for the morning. It soothes the endless loneliness I’ve felt since my parents left, and I treasure each moment. So I go at half speed and enjoy this momentary peace between us while taking in the winter scenery. The city really is a beautiful place to live when you stop and look around once in a while. The air is crisp and clean, the sun is just starting to rise overhead and everything looks brand new and ageless simultaneously.
We carry on in companionable silence for some time and I realize this might be the happiest I’ve been in months. We’re rounding the first bend in the path by a gnarled old oak tree I admire every morning, when I see a russet colored something on one of the thick branches. I slow to a walk and approach the tree calmly.
“What are you up to, Fi?” Eir asks, sounding puzzled.
“Don’t you see that? What is it?” I ask him. I watch amber colored eyes open and close slowly as they watch my every move; eyes that seem to hold an unusual intelligence for an animal. The hairs on the back of my neck are suddenly standing at attention.
Eir is by my side, looking up into the tree with me, and then he leans down and whispers, “It’s a fox. It’s not going to hurt us. Can we keep going, please? I’m starting to not be able to feel my toes.”
I let him drag me away from the tree, only looking back once as we continue down the path. He keeps his arm slung over my shoulders, holding me to his pace, and I let him get away with it for the time being as I find myself still distracted by the fox in the tree behind us. I remember Sean almost stepping on what Uncle Seamus called a fox in our backyard what feels like forever ago. I can’t put my finger on what it is about it that has my interest piqued. I can’t help but feel the answer should be obvious, but it’s eluding me.
We haven’t gone very far when I hear a rustling sound and glance back to see the fox from the tree behind us on the path. It stops in its tracks; eyes locked with mine when it sees me looking. This is most definitely not normal fox behavior in my opinion, and I stop walking and turn around. “Shoo!” I yell at the fox, getting annoyed with its pursuit. But instead of fleeing, it sits down on the path. The fox continues to sit on the path, looks up at me calmly with its too keen eyes and I take a step forward.
Eirnin takes hold of my elbow and drags me back toward him. “Fi, what is your deal with the fox?”
“Something isn’t right about this animal, Eir — don’t tell me you can’t tell...” I trail off. I pick up a rock from the ground and fling it towards the offending creature, but Eir tries pulling me forward at the same time I release and it veers off course. I hear what sounds like the fox equivalent of laughter and sputter, “Is it laughing at me now?” I look up at my brother to see him barely containing a smirk. The fox is still sitting on the path studying me. Thoroughly unsettled and feeling slightly insane, I let my brother pull me forward and pick up my pace again; doing my best to put the fox and its odd eyes out of my mind.
Pulling ahead of Eirnin, I hear him sigh and mutter, “Damn it, why am I being punished if you’re angry with the fox?” But he starts to run, keeping pace with me.
When we get back home the sun is completely up and the temperature has risen a few degrees, but we both head straight for the coffee as soon as we’re indoors. I head to the pine table with my coffee and help myself to one of the remaining muffins; motioning for Eir to join me. He sets his mug on the table across from me and then collapses into the chair. “I still don’t understand why you put yourself through this every day voluntarily. My legs feel like rubber,” he whines theatrically at me.
“The rubber feeling would go away if you did it more often, Eir. Give it a week and I swear you’ll love it,” I tell him, only half kidding. I know my brother well enough to know there is nothing on this planet that could make him abandon his bed every morning to run around the park with me.
“I don’t see that happening, sis, sorry.”
I laugh with him, and not for the first time wish we had more days like this one. Far too many days pass with tension and silence between us, when we barely even see one another. I can’t help but wish my parents were here so things could go back to normal between my brother and me. He seems to have tuned into my mood and catches my momentary wistfulness. “Don’t go getting melancholy on me now, Fi. I promise you we are going to see Mom and Dad again. I don’t know when, but they are alive and we will find them.” I want so badly for him to be right about this, but the facts are stacked against any kind of happy outcome for my parents. He’s so earnest I cannot find it in my heart to deny him hope. I try to smile and nod at him but his face falls, and from the hurt look he gives me I can see he knows what I’m feeling once again. I’m not surprised when he leaves the house without speaking. The back door slams behind him; the reverberations shuddering through me as that familiar loneliness creeps back in his wake.
A few hours later I’m still sitting at the kitchen table with my face propped on my hand, nursing my fourth cup of coffee and wallowing in self-pity, when my cousin Sean pops his head in the back door and calls my name. Seeing me at the table, he comes in the rest of the way and observes the long braid of my hair falling over my shoulder and the fact that I’m still wearing my running clothes. “Eir?” he asks and I nod sullenly. He sighs and pours himself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot on the counter before joining me at the table.
“Well there’s no time for moping now, Fianna. I have news from the market people who arrived last night,” Sean states in his usual churlish manner. I straighten in my chair, smarting from his remark about moping. Sean has never been the kind of person who could abide dealing with people’s feelings; especially those of the female variety. I believe this is the main reason he hasn’t found anyone to make a life with yet. He disagrees.
“Well don’t leave me in suspense, Sean. What news?” I say; trying to keep my tone even and interested when all I want to do is retreat to my bed and hide under the covers for a few years. He looks to be weighing his words now, which is very out of character for him. A spasm of fear streaks through my insides and sets my pulse racing. “What is it, Sean? What did they say?”
“Calm down, woman. Nothing concrete, really. There are just a lot of rumors going around out there. The Winter Courts have been spreading the word that they found an unmarked human couple and did away with them. They say the humans were
looking for information on closing the gates that they had no right to…” he trails off uncertainly.
Stay calm, I tell myself. Don’t let anyone see the pain. You are a Dolan, you are strong. No crying. I take a deep breath. We’ve known this was most likely their fate for a long time, but it doesn’t stop the shaking that has started inside me and is now causing hot coffee to splash over my hand and the table. I put the mug down and place my hands flat on the surface of the table. I will not think about them, I tell myself. I will not think of having to shatter my brother’s hope and belief in happy endings. I cannot catch my breath. I look into my cousin’s eyes and see pity, and that is simply more than I can take. I leave him sitting at the kitchen table where my parents used to spend their mornings, and I take off out the back door to find somewhere I can breathe and not see their faces everywhere I turn.
I run aimlessly, losing all track of time, and when I finally look up I find myself back at the same oak tree where I spotted the fox that morning. It feels like another lifetime. It’s late afternoon now, and the cold is much more pronounced now that I’m still and the sun is disappearing. I stuff my bare hands in the long sleeves of my shirt and hug myself for warmth. I am cold, yes—but I’m still not ready to go home and face my brother or cousin or anyone else, for that matter. Sighing, I settle myself at the base of the old tree with my back leaning against the rough trunk and try to find some serenity.
I don’t know how long I sit there staring off into the gathering dark, getting colder by the second, wishing for some sort of numbness to take me over from the inside out but eventually I hear footfalls close by. Glancing up in time to see a familiar figure lower their much taller frame to the ground beside me, I feel both better and worse.
“Thought I might find you here, lass,” my uncle says in his lilting voice, and I close my eyes to hold in the tears. I’ve never realized before how similar my father’s voice was to his brother’s. Pulling in a shaky breath, I look into my uncle’s face and see he’s not faring any better than I am.
“You talked to Sean,” I say, surprised by the lack of any sort of emotion in my voice when I feel like I’m being ripped open inside.
My uncle slides his arm around my shoulders, hauls me into his chest and gives me a squeeze. “I did,” he says simply, and I hear him try and clear the tears from his throat.
“Eir and I are orphans now, Uncle Sea. How can they both be gone? I don’t know...” Overcome with grief, I press my face into his chest and let myself finally cry, knowing that Uncle Seamus understands better than anyone else how I’m feeling right now. He squeezes me tighter, presses his face to the top of my head and I can feel his tears falling in my hair as he gives vent to his own grief.
“I know lass,” he whispers. “I know.”
How long we sit there weeping together I don’t know, but silvery light from the moon is shining in the darkness when we finally leave the sanctuary of the oak tree. My limbs feel leaden with the effort to keep myself moving forward and I’m grateful for my uncle’s strong hand on my elbow, leading me on. He hugs me at the back door and reminds me for probably the tenth time to let him know if Eir and I need anything at all. I kiss his cheek and nod, dreading what I must do next.
I feel reasonably composed when I open the door to my kitchen and find my brother and Sean waiting there for me. One look at Eir’s face lets me know that my cousin has already shared the news he relayed to me earlier, which means he has seriously overstepped his boundaries once again. I feel frustration bubble up; my emotions already ragged.
“Eir—” I start, ready for him to fight me again, but he’s out of his chair and at my side before I can say anything else. His arms go around me and he holds me tighter than he has since he was a little boy. I hang onto him for dear life; trying to find my voice again to tell him we’re going to be okay. I can’t lie to him, though. So we stand there like that for a while, just holding onto each other while Sean watches silently from the table.
We finally break apart and I sit heavily at the kitchen table; bracing my elbows on the table top and dropping my head into my hands. The magnitude of the responsibility that is now permanently resting on my shoulders seems to settle on me and I massage my temples to try and dislodge the pain poking at me from behind my eyes. I feel Eirnin hovering behind me, worried and wondering how he can help. I breathe deeply and dry my eyes on my shirt sleeves before raising my eyes to his anxious blue gaze.
“Do you think you could put the kettle on for me? I think I’m frozen all the way through to my bones.” Nodding and seeming glad for the task he puts the kettle on, pulls out the tea and sugar and then looks over his shoulder at me.
“Have you eaten anything today?”
“Uh, I had a muffin this morning. I’m not really hungry though, Eir.” He makes clucking noises at me and starts building a peanut butter and strawberry preserves sandwich. I don’t bother arguing with him. He looks so proud when he brings over his masterpiece I can’t help but grin. It’s possibly the most gigantic sandwich I’ve ever physically seen. He’s cut the homemade bread into slab-like pieces and slathered them with the homemade peanut butter and preserves; the filling seeping out from the edges of the sandwich. I laugh outright and look up to see him grinning from ear to ear at me. “You’re eating half of this, right?” I ask him. “I’ll never be able to finish this by myself, Eir.”
“Lightweight,” he mutters; grabbing a knife to slice the sandwich in half at an angle and then stuffing half into his mouth. With the sandwich dangling out of his mouth, he carries my tea to the table and sets it carefully in front of me before dropping back into the chair he vacated when I came in. I’m surprised to note he didn’t drip preserves or peanut butter all over the floor. “Eat!” he orders me with his mouth full, and I nod and pick up my half sandwich gingerly, hoping to avoid wearing it.
Once Eirnin is settled in his room for the night, Sean goes into the pantry and comes back out with a bottle of whiskey that my father and uncle distilled themselves. Without a word, he goes to the cabinet and brings out two tumblers; setting them on the table and settling himself across from me. He fills both glasses three quarters full, slides one to me and raises his in the air; waiting for me to mimic him.
“May the strength of three be in your journey,” he says, his voice low and gruff, and I nod and toss back the mahogany liquid in my glass without tasting the flavor my father was always so proud of. I push the memory of his smiling face away and pull the bottle closer, refilling my glass to the brim this time.
“Go dté tú slán,” I whisper with my glass in the air, and Sean echoes the sentiment. I drain my glass again. The world is starting to get a little fuzzy and I find I like that just fine. I refill my glass again and sip this time without toasting. If I keep talking I’ll be a soppy mess once more, and I cannot cry in front of Sean. I owe my mother that much, at least. If there is one thing that was drilled into my head from the Ahearn side of my family, it’s that showing emotion makes you weak. My mother’s sister, Ailene — Sean’s mother — spends her days in a drunken oblivion since her husband’s death twelve years ago. I’ve never seen her or my mother shed a single tear, though.
“We can pay them back, Fianna. I have a plan,” I hear Sean say, and I glance up at him with my brows drawn together in confusion.
“Whatever are you talking about, Sean? Who are we paying back?”
“You can’t be drunk already, good heavens.” He lets out a heavy sigh and shakes his head at me; pulling the whiskey bottle back across the table. “The Winter Courts. We can pay them back for killing Patrick and Maeve,” he says, and sounds like he means it.
“It won’t bring them back, Sean. What would be the point? And what could we possibly do to them anyway?” I snipe at him; draining my glass and pulling the bottle away from him again. He surrenders the whiskey, I fill my glass again and he makes a disgusted noise at me.
“There is plenty we could do to them, Fianna. Don’t be so dim! How many bra
ts do they have? Kill one of their daughters — show them how it feels to have their family torn apart! That will teach them!” He is close to shouting now, and in an effort to keep my brother out of this insanity I put my hand out to him; making shushing noises, meaning to calm him, but instead my fingers connect with the half empty whiskey bottle and push it off balance. Sean grabs it before it can hit the table or the floor, and then sets it just out of my reach to avoid further incidents. “They should be made to pay for what they’ve done, Fi,” he says, quietly now.
That’s a statement I find I cannot argue with. I agree wholeheartedly that someone should most definitely be made to pay for my parents’ death. I think of my brother, an orphan at the age of sixteen. He’ll have no one to help him through life now except me, and at the moment I’m not feeling like much of a prize. Rage and hurt coalesce into a stone in my chest and as I take another gulp of my father’s prized whiskey, I hear myself say, “Tell me about your plan.”
Chapter 4—Flint
April 2102
I have been trying to find a new stalker spot on one of the giant trees for about two hours when I realize I have slept everywhere, almost every which way by this point in my lingering. If I have counted my time correctly, it has been two hundred sixty-three days since I first arrived; approximately eight months and twenty days of wondering how to approach the five-feet, two-inch ball of muscle and rage hidden behind long black hair and big green eyes called Fianna...
I will admit it is probably a bit paranoid on my part to genuinely fear for my life when I consider the possibilities of speaking to her. I’m not meek by any means. I’m at least half a foot taller than her and possess the ability to send her up in flames in half a second if I needed to.
Resistance Page 4