Early on I had told Donovan he ought to take the book back home with him every time he left here, but he’d insisted on leaving it.
“You might want to work on it sometime when I’m not around,” he had said. “I’m really relying on you, Aren. You have a much better feel for words than I do. I’ve always been more of a numbers guy.”
I wasn’t sure I was all that good with words. With my speech impediment, I’d always had trouble getting a whole sentence out, after all. But I’d had to remind myself that wasn’t really my fault, since one of the spells placed on me by the witches’ council caused it. So I’d agreed to keep the book, although not without both of us placing wards on the apartment so no one with mystical energies could get in except the two of us. As far as we knew, no other witches were aware that we had the book, but an ancient, powerful artifact like that would be extremely tempting if anyone else found out about it. Witches might be law-abiding where humans were concerned…but they had been known to steal from each other.
I had also suggested that Donovan scan the book’s pages and put the images on flash drives so we could work on them that way and store them on a website as well, but he didn’t want to take a chance on damaging the book’s fragile binding.
“Besides,” he had said, “I’m not sure it would even scan. The spells on it might prevent anything from registering.”
“Eamon couldn’t have anticipated today’s technology a thousand years ago.”
“No, but he might have placed a spell on the book rendering the words invisible to anybody who wasn’t supposed to see them.”
“We can see them,” I had pointed out.
“That just reinforces my theory that we’re meant to do this, Aren.”
I couldn’t argue with that idea. We had settled for making extensive notes on the computer for every page we translated. Working with the ancient Middle Irish was a little like cracking a code. Every page we finished gave us more information and made it easier to translate the next page.
With everything that had happened tonight, I wasn’t really sleepy. The incident at the club had left me too wired for that. Also, I knew that if I tried to go to sleep, I’d probably just lie there staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out exactly what Donovan meant by that comment about how we could use a break from each other. I didn’t want to do that, so I opened the book and munched on cheese and crackers – being careful not to drop any crumbs – while I flipped through the first few pages we had already figured out.
Even though the writing was still the faded, twisting scrawl it had always been, now that I knew what it said it was almost like reading a regular book. I knew the story, I guess you could say. Those opening remarks were about Eamon himself. He was more than a warlock. He was a warrior, and he was also a priest of sorts, probably what we would call a druid now, caught in an uneasy middle ground between the old ways and the new religion, searching for a way to reconcile them with each other. I didn’t know if he ever found the right path for him, but I could sympathize with his struggle. Everyone has issues with what they believe in.
I must have been more tired than I realized, because I started getting sleepy almost as soon as I finished my snack. Stifling a yawn, I tried to concentrate on what I was reading as I sat forward on the sofa and reached out to carefully turn the book’s brittle pages.
It didn’t work. Something seemed to pull me back. The soft sofa cushions swallowed me. Matilda snuggled warm against my side. I tried to keep my eyes open, but it was hopeless. They closed like they were being forced down. I was asleep.
And when I woke up, there was a guy with a sword in his hands and a desperate look on his face standing on the other side of the coffee table from me.
Chapter 5
Clearly I’ve watched ‘way too many movies, because honestly, my first thought when I saw him standing there was Dream sequence!
I mean, it all adds up. I was upset about what happened at the club, stressed out over Donovan’s decision to avoid me for the weekend, intrigued by his discovery that his mother had hired private detectives to find out something about a falcon, and just basically tired.
Throw in the fact that just before I fell asleep I was looking at the ancient book and thinking about the warlock/warrior priest who wrote it, and the conclusion is inescapable.
Dreaming…duh!
It’s just that it seemed so real.
Matilda’s hiss made me look over at her. Her back was arched, and she was even fuzzier than usual because all her hair was standing on end. She was angry and scared about something, and she was looking right at the guy with the sword.
So either my cat was dreaming, too, or my cat was in my dream with me, which certainly seemed like a more reasonable explanation. I was still convinced that none of what I was seeing could possibly be true.
The man wore some sort of sandals with long laces that wrapped up his bare calves nearly to his knees. A long, forest-green tunic with a broad leather belt cinched around his waist came nearly to his knees. A gray woolen cloak was fastened around his neck and hung down behind him. The sword he carried had symbols of some sort etched into its gleaming blade. The handle was wrapped with strips of rawhide and was long enough that he could use both hands to grip it. He probably needed both hands to swing it since the sword looked heavy.
A rumpled thatch of sandy hair hung around his head to his shoulders, and he had a close-cropped beard. Bright green eyes peered at me. He was an inch or two over six feet and powerfully built, although he wasn’t big and muscle-bound. He reminded me more of a wolf, or a panther.
All those details imprinted themselves on my brain, even though I wasn’t completely aware of them at the time. I was more concerned with the fact that a stranger was in my apartment, although even then I still thought it was a dream.
He said, “Aren, I don’t have much time.”
Somehow I knew that he was speaking in another language, although I heard him in English. Of course I would be able to understand him, I thought. It wouldn’t be much of a dream sequence if everything he said was gibberish, now would it?
“You must listen to me, darlin’.”
Where did he get off, coming in here and calling me darling?
“I know what ye mean to do, and ‘tis a good thing. Ye must be very careful, though. These are powerful forces ye be dealin’ with. Ye must be ready for anything to happen…anything! That’s why I protected me book so well – “
“You’re Eamon,” I said.
“O’ course. Who did ye think I might be?”
“Oh, I knew it had to be you,” I said. “Who else would come to me in a dream like this?”
He looked a little sad as he shook his head and said, “Oh, ‘tis no dream, lass. No dream at all.”
With that he turned swiftly and brought up his sword. Another man appeared, leaping at him. The second man had a sword, too, and it came whistling down as if he meant to cut Eamon in two with it. I let out a little yelp of fear for him.
Eamon was ready, though. His blade met the other man’s and blocked the attack. Steel rang against steel, and sparks flew. I jumped back on the sofa as my instincts made me flinch from the violence. Matilda yowled, scrambled up the cushion as best she could with no claws, and launched off the sofa to take off for the kitchen at a dead run.
The swords flashed back and forth almost faster than my eyes could follow them. The racket was deafening. I saw sweat dripping off Eamon’s face, he was fighting so hard.
The other man was wearing armor of some sort. Chain mail, I think. He had on a helmet that partially hid his face, but I could tell he was big and ugly and mean-looking. He was doing his best to kill Eamon.
But even in the middle of that desperate struggle for his own life, he took the time to glance back at me and cry, “Find the falcon, Aren! Find Cearul! He’s the key to everything!”
Turning his attention away from what he was doing, even for a second, proved to be a big mistake. The other guy hammered
down with his sword, staggering Eamon. His opponent kicked one of his legs out from under him. Eamon went over backwards, and as he did the other man swung his sword so hard that it knocked Eamon’s sword out of his hands with a huge clang. I cried out and ducked, thinking that the sword was coming at me, but it disappeared.
That was when I noticed the hazy circle around the two men, like a bubble that enclosed them. Objects were able to move in and out of that bubble without popping it, though. Eamon’s sword had just done that very thing.
That left Eamon down and defenseless, and with a growled oath, the other man swung up his sword for the killing blow.
“No!” I cried. I thrust out my hands, not really thinking about what I was doing, and beams of blue force burst from them.
I had seen my father do the same thing when he was protecting me from Donovan’s mother, so I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised that I had the same power. I’d just never had any idea until recently what I was really capable of, and I still didn’t know everything.
Or again, maybe I could only do this in a dream.
Either way, the blue force slammed into the man about to kill Eamon and blew him backward like a proverbial sledgehammer had hit him. He disappeared. For all I knew he might be back in a second, though.
Eamon scrambled to his feet. He looked back at me again and smiled.
“I won’t forget this, Aren,” he said. Then he cried, “Cearul!” as he leaped after the other man.
I would have sworn I heard the sudden flapping of wings.
Then it was all gone. Eamon, the other guy, the hazy circle…vanished as if they had never been there.
But I wasn’t waking up.
I couldn’t.
I was already awake.
o0o
It took a few minutes for that realization to sink in. I still wanted to believe the whole thing was a dream. Logically, that made sense.
The problem was that logic hadn’t really been playing that large a part in my life lately. And the encounter with Eamon just seemed to be too solid, too tangible, if you will, not to be real.
I didn’t pinch myself or anything like that to make sure I was awake, but I did stand up and walk around the living room, looking for any signs that Eamon had really been here in my apartment, fighting for his life against some big bruiser who wanted to kill him. I didn’t find any, but that didn’t convince me I was wrong.
The book, I thought as I looked at on the coffee table. Somehow the book Eamon had written a thousand years ago had drawn him here momentarily. He had known who I was and what Donovan and I were trying to do. Was it possible that back there in the dim past, Eamon had possessed the ability to look into the future?
Well, why not?
That seemed to be my motto these days as more and more unbelievable things happened.
I heard Matilda meow and looked over to see her peeking cautiously from the kitchen door. “It’s all right, baby,” I told her. “The bad men and their swords are gone now.”
I went over and picked her up. Again, something solid to let me know I hadn’t dreamed the past few minutes. She settled down in my arms and started to purr.
I was debating whether to call Donovan and tell him about this when somebody knocked on the door. The distraction was almost welcome until I asked myself what might be on the other side of that door. Did they have dragons in ancient Ireland? Wasn’t there some legend about Saint George and a dragon? And of course there was the business about Saint Patrick and the snakes. What if he dumped all the snakes that used to be in Ireland right on my doorstep?
That was just crazy, I told myself. Snakes couldn’t knock on a door, and a dragon would be too big to get into the hall. With Matilda still in my arms, I went to the door and looked through the peephole. I could barely see the top of somebody’s head covered with curly white hair, so I knew the person knocking was old Mr. Clarke, who lived down the hall.
I opened the door and said, “Hi, Mr. Clarke.”
“Are you all right, Aren?” he asked with a concerned look on his face. “My wife and I heard all sorts of racket coming from here just a few minutes ago.”
“I’m f-fine,” I told him. I thought fast and went on, “I was d-doing some cleaning, and I accidentally pulled a whole b-bunch of pots and pans down from the top shelf in the kitchen. I’m sorry it made so much noise. It even scared p-poor Matilda here half to death.”
“Oh,” he said. “They didn’t fall on you and hurt you, did they?”
“N-no sir, I’m all right.”
“Well, good. We didn’t know but what we ought to call the police – “
“You d-didn’t, did you?”
The quickness with which I interrupted and asked that question may have made him a little suspicious, but he said, “No, I told her we ought to find out what was going on first. I don’t like getting mixed up in other people’s business. I’m retired, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” I said, even though I didn’t see what that had to do with anything.
“All right, then, if you’re sure you’re okay.”
“Th-thank you for checking on me. It’s nice to know that p-people are looking out for each other.”
“Well, this is Texas. We’re known for being friendly. Good night.”
“Good night,” I told him. I kept smiling as I eased the door closed.
As if I’d needed any more convincing…! Knowing that Mr. and Mrs. Clarke had heard the swords clashing as Eamon fought for his life was the last bit of proof I needed. Eamon had transported himself and a little bit of his world into this time period to warn me to be careful and to tell me to seek out Cearul. I still didn’t know who or what that was, but I rolled the word over my tongue, repeating it several times so I wouldn’t forget it. To me it had sounded like “Cyril” or “Carol”, but not exactly. I didn’t know what the spelling was, but the next time I was working on the translation I would be watching for something that might be it.
But that wasn’t going to be tonight, I told myself. I was still tired. I must have had a little nap earlier, when I dozed off on the sofa, but it wasn’t enough to get rid of the weariness that gripped me.
I thought about calling Donovan to tell him what had happened, but it was pretty late and the story would keep until the morning, I decided. It was all too complicated to go into tonight.
So I set Matilda on the sofa, wrapped up the book, and left it on the table. I made sure the door was locked again and headed for the bedroom. Matilda followed me, as usual, and jumped up onto the bed before I could even crawl into it myself. Sleep seemed to claim me as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I may have dreamed that night, but if I did I don’t remember a bit of it.
Chapter 6
For a minute when I woke up the next morning, I allowed myself to stretch and luxuriate in the feeling of waking up in a comfortable bed between clean sheets. I was ready to get up and face the world.
Then I remembered everything that had happened the night before, from the crazy incident in the club to my encounter with a time-hopping, sword-wielding 11th Century Irish warlock.
That was enough to make me sit up and forget about lingering for a few extra minutes in bed.
I scooped Matilda from her nest of covers. She gave me a dirty look for disturbing her, but she would forgive me as soon as I fed her breakfast. When we went out into the living room, I saw that we were the first ones up. That was no surprise. It was Saturday, so Taylor and Beth would probably sleep in.
On my way to the kitchen, I stopped in front of the coffee table and looked closely at the floor again. Surely a couple of guys couldn’t have a sword fight right here and not leave some sign of it, I thought. But that was what had happened.
Unless I’d imagined the whole thing. It was no dream, but I supposed it could have been a hallucination. You’re awake for a hallucination, right?
Then the rest of the memories came back to me. Matilda had seen what was going on, too, and it had r
eally spooked her. And the Clarkes had heard the commotion. Some of the other neighbors probably had, too, they had just minded their own business. There was such a thing as mass hysteria, but I didn’t think it would include a cat.
So it was real, and I had to tell Donovan about it, but we were taking a break from each other, he’d said. True, he had also said that if I needed to talk to him, I should call. Later, I told myself. I would call him after breakfast.
I got coffee brewing and started mixing up the ingredients for some blueberry muffins. The baking distracted me and gave me a few welcome minutes of relaxation.
Something seemed to be calling to me, though, and I knew what it was. As soon as I had the muffin tin in the oven, I went into the living room and sat down with Eamon’s book.
That was how I’d been thinking of it all along, but now the feeling of connection with him was even stronger as I unfolded the cloth and laid my hand on the ancient leather cover. Before now if anybody had asked me what Eamon looked like, I probably would have guessed Gandalf or Dumbledore, even though I knew good and well that real-life warlocks bore little or no resemblance to literary and cinematic “wizards”. But I definitely would have figured he was old and had a white beard.
Now I knew better. Maybe he had ended up that way, but the Eamon I had seen was in the prime of life, as much warrior as warlock. That must have been the age at which he had written this book, I mused, otherwise he wouldn’t have looked like that when he came here to warn me about it.
My laptop was sitting on the table, too. I opened it and then opened the book. The file with our notes came to life on the screen. I started skimming through it, looking over at the book from time to time. I was sure there were plenty of people in the world, university professors and such, who could read Middle Irish. Well, maybe not plenty, but certainly some. Donovan and I had even briefly considered trying to find one of them to help us. But that might have meant having to explain things we didn’t really want to explain, so we had decided to go it alone, at least for the time being.
Misadventures of a Tongue-Tied Witch: Boxed Set Humorous Witch Series Page 17