A Bittersweet Garden

by Caren J. Werlinger

Briana’s mouth curled into a tiny smile at Nora’s icy tone. She cut a bite and chewed slowly.

  “I think,” she said thoughtfully as she cut another bite, “that you are a kind of shape-shifter, like a boggart.”

  “A boggart.” Nora stabbed a forkful of corned beef. “I thought boggarts become the thing people fear. So that’d be a first. Thanks.”

  Briana seemed to ponder that as she chewed. “You’re not that,” she said with a firm shake of her head. “Only you become whatever the person near you expects or needs you to be.” She picked up a chip and jabbed it at Nora. “I need quiet, so you were quiet in the car. Today, you met a complete stranger and were fine in her company for a few hours. Now, you’re in a city full of people, and you can mix and mingle with them like you’re one of them.”

  She narrowed her eyes as she bit into her chip. “The question is, what do you become when you’re on your own. When it’s just you?”

  Nora stared at her. Even over the noise in the pub, she could hear her pulse pounding in her ears. How the hell had this woman—this irksome woman she’d only known for a few weeks—how had she just summed up everything in Nora’s life that had led her to Ireland?

  Kieran took Nora by the hand and dragged her to his room to see his birthday presents.

  “She’s nice,” Cara said, refilling Briana’s coffee cup.

  “She is that.” Bri eyed her sister suspiciously. She checked that their mother was out of hearing in the dining room. “And just because you made me invite her for breakfast, don’t think there’s any more to it.”

  Cara’s eyes, the same blue as Briana’s, widened innocently. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Briana snorted and took a sip of her coffee.

  “Where did you say she’s from?” asked their mother, Victoria, bringing a stack of plates to the sink.

  “Near Washington, DC. But her grandparents were born in Cong. That’s why she’s visiting.”

  “Well, that’s nice you’ve got a new friend, isn’t it?”

  Briana felt her cheeks redden and caught the wicked grin on her sister’s face. Glancing at the clock, she jumped up.

  “We need to get back.”

  “Can’t you stay a wee bit longer?” Victoria asked with a little pout.

  “No, Mum. I’ll come back soon.”

  Briana ignored Cara’s cough from behind her. She went down the hall to find Kieran and Nora sitting on the floor with Shannon as Kieran read one of his new books aloud. His dark head was bowed and one stubby finger traced along as he read.

  Briana waited until he was finished. “Well done, little man!”

  “Time to go?” Nora asked.

  Briana nodded, but Kieran slapped his book shut.

  “No! I have more books to read!”

  She picked him up and kissed his cheek. “We’ll be back so you can read the rest of your books to us.”

  Her eye caught Nora’s, and she felt a bit nauseous at the way Nora’s slow smile made her stomach do somersaults.

  Nora got to her feet and followed Briana out to the kitchen.

  “Thank you all for having me over,” she said. “It was nice to meet you.”

  Victoria took her hands. “You come back with Briana any time.”

  It took a few more minutes for Kieran to say his goodbyes to Shannon, but at last, they were in the SUV and on their way. Shannon stretched out, exhausted, across the back seat.

  “Your mom and sister are sweet,” Nora said. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to meet your dad and brother-in-law.”

  Briana shook her head. “Their Sunday tee time is sacred. Much to my mother and sister’s disapproval. What my mum and sister don’t know is how much money they bet every weekend.”

  Nora chuckled.

  A light rain fell as Briana wove through Dublin’s streets toward the M4 expressway. She pointed out landmarks as she drove. Nora’s head swiveled to look around.

  “This was nice,” Nora said, settling back in her seat as they left the city. “But I’m ready to be home.”

  The word caught Briana by surprise. She glanced sideways at the graceful way Nora’s hands rested on her thighs. In contrast, her own callused hands with their short nails were strong but hardly graceful. She double-checked and was glad to see that at least they were clean. Sometimes the deep dirt and grime of the stables was hard to scrub off.

  “Tell me more about your life in the States,” she said. But then she remembered the look on Nora’s face in the pub last night when she’d started probing. “If you feel like talking.”

  Nora turned to look at her. “No quiet and music this time?”

  Briana felt the corner of her mouth tug into an unwilling grin. “Not this time.”

  “This boggart thing is hard to keep up with, you know.”

  “Yeah, about that. I’m sorry—”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Briana couldn’t bring herself to ask what she really wanted to know. “Tell me about your family and work.”

  “Well, you know my grandparents were born and raised in Cong. My granddad says he made a pest of himself with the film crew when they came. He was fascinated by electricity. He married my grandmother when they were just eighteen and they moved to the States in ’58. He became an electrician and eventually had his own company. They got a lot of work in the building boom in DC when the Metro came along.”

  She paused, but Briana said, “Go on.”

  “Okay. My dad, Patrick, was the second oldest, like me, but he was one of six. Three of my aunts and uncles are scattered all over the country now, but two others stayed in the DC area, so we had plenty of cousins to play with when the family got together. My mom is Mary Kate. My oldest sister is Mary Fran, and I’m just a year younger. Then there was a four-year gap before Judy and Amelia came along. They’re all married. I’ve got two nephews and two nieces so far, and Judy is due in the fall.”

  She stopped again, the rhythmic slap of the wipers the only sound.

  Briana waited a moment and then prompted, “And your work?”

  “You know I work in one of the libraries at the University of Mary Washington. I went there for my undergrad degree, then got my MLS at Catholic University. That’s when I learned I could only take so much of DC. Then I went back to Mary Washington. It’s a small school. I like it there.” She sighed. “And that about sums up my life.”

  “Not all of it.”

  Nora’s voice had a bit of an edge to it as she said, “What do you want to know?”

  Briana hesitated. This was obviously cautious territory. She never did this with Quinn or the others at the stables. Of course, they knew each other’s whole life histories, so no one ever needed to ask.

  As if you have anything for them to ask about.

  “Your sisters are all married. What about you? I mean, I know you’re not married now. I suppose. But… has there… have you…”

  Briana’s voice trailed off. Nora was smiling at her obvious discomfort.

  “You’re not very good at this, are you?”

  Briana squirmed. “This being?”

  Nora laughed. “This whole talking to another person thing.”

  “No, I’m not,” Briana admitted. “Dogs and horses are my usual companions.”

  “Okay. I’ll let you off the hook.” Nora took a deep breath and then spoke quickly. “I was with someone. We never lived together. She lives and works about an hour away, so it was always a weekend relationship, maybe a week or two together in the summer. Then she met someone else and decided she wanted to see if it could work. So we ended. Kind of.”

  Briana frowned. “What does that mean? Kind of.”

  Nora didn’t answer immediately, and Briana wondered if she was pushing too hard, but then Nora said quietly, “Her new girlfriend has a girlfriend. So she was only available during the week. Meaning Amy still expected me to spend every weekend with her.”

  “Wait, wait.” Briana gaped a moment as she tried to m
ake sense of this. “She was shagging someone else who was shagging someone else, but she still expected you to…”

  “Not that,” Nora said quickly. “We hadn’t… It had been ages since we’d been physical. It was…” She paused.

  Briana waited.

  “I had become just a weekly habit,” Nora said. “Better than being alone. And I guess I kind of used her the same way.”

  Briana wasn’t sure what to say. “How did you get away to come here?”

  Nora reached into the back seat to scratch Shannon. “I wanted to for the last couple of years, but I had an old cat I couldn’t leave. How pathetic am I? I stayed with an ex who wasn’t an ex because I couldn’t leave my cat.”

  “Not pathetic,” Briana said, glancing over a couple of times while keeping her attention on the road. “Loyal, I think.”

  Nora smiled a little sadly. “Loyal sounds nicer. But the end result is the same. For too long, I have lived my life either in response to someone else or according to someone else’s expectations. I settled for what was secure, what wouldn’t lead to an argument—first with Mary Fran when I was growing up, then with Amy. I can’t tell you how good it feels to be doing what I want to do for the first time in my life.” She was quiet for a moment. “You were right.”

  Briana frowned again, thinking. “Cara would argue with you that I’m never right, but what about?”

  “About my being a boggart. It felt like a slap in the face when you said it, but you’re right.”

  She turned to look out the window, so Briana almost missed it when she said, “I didn’t used to be. I was hardheaded and independent when I was little. I was just thinking about when that shifted. And that’s another thing I’m after changing this summer, finding that part of myself again.”

  Briana didn’t know what to say.

  Nora shifted to partially face Briana. “Your turn.”

  “What?”

  “I just bared my soul. Your turn.”

  Briana’s face burned with what she knew must be a brilliant blush. “Well, there’s not much to tell. I don’t have an ex.”

  “No one?”

  “No one who lasted longer than the time I was at a race meet.” Briana gripped the wheel harder. “You said I looked like a jockey. I was. For eight, no, nine years.”

  Nora sat straighter. “That’s really dangerous.”

  Briana snorted. “It is dangerous. But the riding isn’t the most dangerous part. Crooked jockeys who stick your horse. Trainers and owners who dope the horses to hide their injuries. The horses destroyed by being over-raced and treated like machines.”

  Her jaw clenched. Even after all these years, it was so damned hard to think about. Harder to talk about.

  “My mount that last season was an up-and-comer, a beautiful three-year-old who could have been brilliant. We’d had a bad takeoff over a big brush fence, and he strained one of his hocks—a hind leg. His next race was only two weeks later. The trainer swore to me he was sound. But I could feel it. Just a slight hesitation.”

  Her chin quivered. “But I asked, and he gave. He wobbled on the fourth jump. I should have pulled him up right then. At the fifth—”

  Her voice broke. Nora reached over to lay a gentle hand on her shoulder. Briana angrily swiped away the tears running down her cheeks. It was a couple of minutes before she could continue.

  “We’d both broken a leg, but I couldn’t leave him. I’ll never forget the look in his eyes.” She sniffed. “I left racing after that. When my leg was healed, that was when I found Quinn and Sheila.”

  Nora squeezed and then dropped her hand. Briana missed the warmth on her shoulder and wished she’d put it back.

  “Thank you for telling me,” Nora murmured.

  Nora found herself watching Briana surreptitiously from her peripheral vision for the remainder of their drive back to Cong. They lapsed into familiar quiet, the music on the stereo the only sound. She suspected Briana had told her something she normally guarded very closely, a part of her that she didn’t share with many. Sheila had said Briana was a puzzle, and it seemed a few more pieces had fallen into place over the course of this weekend.

  As they approached Sióg Cottage, Nora weighed whether to invite Briana in, but she had a feeling it wasn’t the right time. Briana would need to be alone after the last couple of days, and she was ready for some solitude herself.

  “Thank you again,” Nora said as Briana braked to a halt in front of the cottage. “It really was a nice weekend.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Briana tugged Nora’s bag from the cargo hold and carried it to the door. Nora reached for her backpack and gave Shannon a parting scratch under the chin. As she turned toward the cottage, she caught a flash of movement from the upper window.

  Briana stepped back and followed her gaze. “What’s wrong?”

  “I thought—” Nora shook her head. “It was nothing.”

  “Are you sure? I can come in with you.”

  Nora couldn’t have said later what made her decline when she very much wanted Briana to come inside, but, “No. It’s okay,” she heard herself say.

  She waited as Briana got hesitantly back into her car and reversed it, waving before she drove away. Nora turned the key in the door and cautiously pushed it open. When she stepped inside, the cottage felt chilled, and there was that scent like lilac again.

  Over at her desk, where the window was firmly shut, her journal and blank book weren’t where she had left them. They lay flopped open on the floor, looking as if something had whipped them off in a fury. Her loose pages were strewn all over, and her pens were likewise scattered across the room.

  Upstairs, things were in similar disarray. All the pillows had been swept off her bed and were lying in the corners.

  “Well, someone had a hissy fit, didn’t she?”

  Chapter 6

  Wait!”

  Nora called out, scrambling over roots and rocks as branches tore at her hair and clothing. Up ahead, only just visible through the trees and underbrush, was a flash of pale yellow, the only color in the forest. Behind her, a woman’s voice wailed in the gloom, calling desperately.

  A soft rain fell, making the roots slippery with the moss that covered them. Nora’s foot jammed in between a root and a rock, and she sprawled flat-out, her hands grasping the ferns and dark soil of the forest floor.

  She lay there, breathing hard. The sound of the woman’s voice became fainter, and a scent came… lilac.

  Nora rolled over, letting the mist fall onto her face as she panted.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she found herself staring up at her bedroom ceiling. Outside her open window, rain dripped from the roof. She pressed her hands to her eyes and realized her face was wet with tears that had run into her hair. Her hands smelled of dirt and greenery.

  She sat up and clicked on the bedside lamp. The room was empty, the bed tousled as if she’d been tearing at the sheets all night. Her clothes from the day before lay in a pile, and her muddy hiking shoes sat askew in the middle of the room as if she’d kicked them off and left them where they landed. The palms of her hands were smeared with what looked like dried dirt—a familiar enough condition lately, working with Sheila at the nursery. But she hadn’t gone to bed with dirty hands.

  She went to the bathroom where a glance in the mirror had her looking like a raccoon, with dirt rubbed in around her eyes. She rinsed her face and scrubbed her hands till her palms were raw and pink. She dropped her pants to sit on the toilet and realized her ankle hurt. Lifting her pj leg, she saw a scrape where there hadn’t been one.

  Shaken, she finished in the bathroom and stumbled downstairs to put the kettle on. While it heated, she opened the back door and tried to calm the racing of her heart. There’d been other dreams—nearly every night in the week since she got back from Dublin—but none so real as this. The beautiful woman with the black hair and tormented eyes had appeared in most of them, but never had Nora woken with signs that she’d
been out of her bed.

  When the kettle was hot, she made herself a cup of strong tea and sat at the table, her head cradled in her hands. This was getting out of hand. She had no idea what these dreams meant or, more importantly, how to stop them.

  Do you want to stop them?

  That question echoed in her mind as some part of her yearned to find out what it was the woman sought, why she had come to Nora. It felt—she could barely let herself even think it—but it was almost as if she was meant to be here, that the ghost had been waiting for her to come.

  “And if that’s not fanciful, I don’t know what is,” she muttered to the empty kitchen.

  She lifted her head. Maybe she hadn’t only come to Nora. Maybe there was someone who did know what these dreams meant. She needed to know more about this cottage.

  She waited impatiently for dawn to come. It was going to be a sloppy ride. She dressed in her still-damp clothes from her nighttime adventure and pedaled through the rain.

  She was grateful to see a light burning in the kitchen window when she got to the Donnelly place. She leaned her bike against the house under the eaves and knocked timidly. Quinn opened the door.

  “What in the world?” He tugged her inside.

  “Who was—?” Sheila stopped mid-sentence as she stepped into the kitchen. “What’s wrong? You look like death warmed over.”

  Nora gave them a half-laugh, suddenly feeling foolish. “I shouldn’t have come. I’m making a mess all over your floor.”

  “Nonsense.” Sheila dragged her farther into the kitchen. “You think these flagstones haven’t seen their share of wet and mud? It’s why we put them in.”

  She took Nora’s dripping rain jacket and hung it on a hook alongside several others.

  “Sit.”

  Quinn left, reappearing a moment later with a clean towel that he wrapped around Nora’s shoulders. She smiled her thanks, rubbing the towel over her damp hair.

  Sheila plunked a mug of hot coffee down in front of her. “What happened?”

  Nora’s gaze flicked back and forth between Sheila and Quinn. Sitting here in the brightly lit, cheerful kitchen, the very real feelings of her dream began to fade. She definitely felt stupid. “You know the reputation that cottage has?”