But the stars fastened themselves to Sully as if he were the velvet sky. He was oblivious to his own nature. Adara knew this was the very thing Arlen must have been drawn to. Her son still carried the secrets of childhood. He and Sully spoke the same, mysterious language, one she wanted to learn.
“Are those your words, Sully?”
“No. I’m not sure where I heard the song, but it has stayed with me, like a prayer really.”
“Is that how you feel? Like people…like someone could break you?”
“When a person cares deeply for another there is always such a risk.”
“I used to feel that way about Gillean. I was afraid he would take his love from me and I would simply die.”
Sully understood. “You were young.”
“That I was, and there is no easy way to rid oneself of such a powerful tie. I was so enmeshed in his life that I needed to believe the best about him—that he meant it when he said he was sorry.” She lay against his chest once more. “Facing the truth of the matter—that the man I loved, my husband—could hurt me so horribly, so publicly, it was just easier to believe in his redemption rather than face the humiliation.”
“I believe that love and redemption can only come when the truth is embraced by the heart. Most people prefer to walk through fire than take on such a challenge,” Sully observed.
“And I am guilty as charged,” she lamented.
“As am I.”
“I want to tell you something.” She fixed her eyes, gray like the stony admission she was about to reveal, on his. He didn’t look away, but placed his hands on her head, like a blessing.
“Ya don’t have to tell me anythin’. I’m nobody’s judge.”
“But, I need to. This is my only remaining tie to Gillean, and I must be free from it.” Her cheeks blushed with the rush of how good it felt to finally detach from the burdensome anchor, and a bit fearful of what Sully would think of her youthful misjudgment. “I don’t want to keep any more secrets. Please, let me share it with you.”
“Of course.”
She set her chin over her folded arms, keeping her eyes on him. “There was a woman, a former lover of Gillean’s, who was quite important in the business world.”
Sully’s eyes shifted like a flame flashing from low to high.
“Gillean and I were only married a few months, and Ena, his mother, was relentless in her badgering. She kept at Gillean to give up his music, insisting how ashamed he would feel if he could not support his wife and the children that would surely come. I didn’t expect him to support me. As far as I was concerned we would support one another. But I knew his mother’s words whittled away at his conscience. His father was such a well respected man in his field, and Gillean’s brother was a successful professor as well. I knew these things must have taken a toll on Gillean’s confidence.”
She paused to sweep the hair falling over her eyes and took up her confession. “And so I decided I would help him. I would find a way to assure his family that we would never want for anything, and my husband would at last be able to share his music with the world.”
“Because you loved him,” Sully said, without anger or difficulty, only compassion.
“Because I thought that love meant letting go of who I was, what I wanted for myself, and placing Gillean above all else. That was the true nature of our relationship.”
She exhaled, releasing the shame of her arrested development at her own hands. “He put to me once during our first year together, that if I wanted to leave him, he would let me go. He said he could never give up on his music. He was ready to suffer for it, but didn’t expect me to. That was a lie.”
“He had already asked ya to give up yer dancin’.” This time there was an edge to Sully’s voice.
She looked away.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’s not me place. Please, carry on.”
The certainty she had denied for the last two decades was almost too much to bear. “He had every reason to believe I would never leave him. I didn’t think either one of us could make our way in the world without the other. He needed my faith in him, and I needed a purpose. I made the choice to give up my dancing for him. And I made the choice to seek out his former lover and ask for her assistance. I went so far as to tell her that if she wanted to—” Embarrassment prevented her from continuing. She looked to Sully’s face. There was no appearance of judgment, only empathy for her. “I told her if she wanted Gillean once again as her lover in exchange for helping him, I would not object—as long as she made things happen for his career. It was one of the most difficult and humiliating things I have ever done, offering the man I loved to another. And do you know what?” She laughed at the ugliness of the memory. “This gorgeous, worldly woman looked at me for the inane child I was, and told me she wasn’t interested in used goods. But she liked Gillean’s music enough. More to the point, she believed she could get a tidy cut of the profits, so she did make things happen. A few weeks later he received a call from a major record label. They wanted to produce his first album. And the rest, as they say, is history. I suspect the woman took her cut in secret, because Gillean never knew about her involvement. I have never told him what I did.”
She temperately touched her fingers to Sully’s face. “I wanted you to know this because, since I have met you, I understand what love truly is. It’s not about giving up who you are and allowing another to overshadow your light. Love is light. Please say you understand what I did for Gillean, even though it was because of my own weakness. I honestly thought it was love back then. But now I acknowledge the inherent dependency of our union. I treasure the children he and I created. At long last I can show them what it means to be an individual. They will be strong because of what I’ve had to learn. And they will be better people than their parents were.”
Sully’s eyes were like the rolling sea before a storm, turbulent and tormented. “Why aren’t ya wearin’ yer weddin’ ring?” His tone carried a note of disappointment, dejection even, as though he regretted the fact.
Adara’s spirits sank. Her reply echoed with a hollow disappointment of her own. “You still believe I belong with Gillean. After what I’ve told you, you think I should stay with him. Is it because you feel I deserve to be punished for what I did?” She didn’t wait for his answer. “No matter what you believe, no matter how much you feel you owe Gillean your allegiance, I don’t. And I’m not ashamed. I want to walk the road with you, because you will allow me to be who I am.” She sat up, her nightshirt exposing a freckled shoulder as she turned her back to him.
“You should know, regardless of your answer, I will not return to Gillean. I hold no animosity for him now. The lyrical dreamer he once was will always be with me, but I am not, nor will I ever be again, Mrs. Faraday.”
The words came from Sully just as the candle by the bed burnt out, releasing a high wisp of smoke into the air like a dying breath. “You’re a truly a beautiful soul, Adara. If ya mean to take yer leave of Gillean, be careful. Don’t be so quick to take up the path of another, flawed being. I only ask that ya take some time to be sure of yer choice.”
She glanced over her shoulder, an uncertain smile budding across her face. “And if I said I wanted to be with you, would you have me?”
“Let’s sleep now.” He settled her down against the pillows and lay beside her. “We’ll share the dreamer’s sky for the time bein’. Everythin’ else can wait for the sun.”
She nestled her body against his. “I’d be happy to meet the sun with you.”
Rain
Sully jolted awake. His earlier encounter with Ciar had evaporated into a vague, disturbing impression of a hellish dream. He could recall neither detail nor personality, just the overwhelming sense of something threatening. Trembling with residual emotion, he turned to check on Adara. She was sleeping peacefully. Keeping watch on her, he carefully moved up from the bed. Putting on his boots with some difficulty, his hands stiff and sore, he reached fo
r an old sweater of Charlie’s.
Sully needed to think. He ached for Adara, because she believed herself to finally be free, but she was walking into yet another life of lies. His love for Gillean would only continue to grow with the passage of time. He needed to be tranquil within himself. He had to find a way to push his great love aside so that both Gillean and Adara would be safe. He had to make a commitment blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back because of Ciar’s ‘test’. He knew only too well what failing one of her trials would mean.
His hand on the door, he watched Adara sleeping. He went to her and stroked the fine hair fanning out over her pillow.
“Please make the right choice for yerself.” The words came soft as a wish.
Still caught between the world of sleep and wakefulness, her eyes were closed. “Sully…” She breathed.
He passed his hand over her face, like casting a spell. “Sleep now. I’ll be back shortly.”
She offered a drowsy smile, and let him go with the confirmation of her trust.
He made his way to the Vale, the sacred place of poetry and lovers. Taking deep breaths of air scented with pine, lavender, and the potent remembrance of his soul mate, he captured the pre-dawn sky with his accusing glance. Somehow, without even being aware of the process unfolding, this once damaged child—the flawed, repentant spirit, now wounded man—found himself submerged deep within the inviting, exhilarating ocean of love. It was inconceivable that what he and Gillean shared could be wrong. It was a most adult realization lying next to Adara. Her warmth against him, her delicacy and affection were keenly felt. She was a fellow traveler, a lost soul, a Starling searching for safe haven. He cared for her in this way.
But his pathos for Gillean was altogether different. It existed paradoxically both within and outside of the sensual. Their bodies were the vessels of only one expression of the many stratums of their unity. The hunger for Gillean’s person was the desire to consummate their union on the physical plane where they now existed together at last. The flesh was a means to delve deeper into everything that existed beyond the body.
Sully reckoned most people searched their whole lives hoping for such a connection, but he felt cursed by the powers to never truly embrace the life he had taken on. Given what Adara had shared with him about her own tumultuous past, it seemed she too was cursed. She mistakenly believed she belonged with Sully. He performed a mental sweep, trying to clear away all reservation from his mind. He had to surrender himself totally to his deal with Ciar. Life for him began and ended there.
Semi-darkness clung to the land. The moon took its time relinquishing the sky. Sully exhaled white bursts of breath that quickly disappeared into the chilly air, like the hope in his heart. The stillness of the land was punctuated by the absence of the morning birds’ calls. They sensed the arrival of rain which started to fall in generous drops. He stopped walking and pulled Charlie’s sweater over his head like a shroud. He listened as the rain pelted leaves, grass and wildflowers, offering its life-giving fluid. The rain also offered Sully the opportunity to release his tears freely. They were brusquely washed away like the dirt from his boots. But, the water left a muddy residue, the emotion that remained after the tears. He knelt down and scooped up a handful of soft earth. One tiny violet sat in his palm. He tossed his offering onto the imaginary grave before him which contained the life that could have been with Gillean.
He stood and shouted into the wind, “I’ll do what ya ask of me! But he will always be my music!” he informed the resolute moon.
As he reached the intersecting lakes, an all-encompassing mist, hot and sticky, wafted up from the waters. The land, water and sky were depleted of their recognizable features, seemingly becoming odd shapes of abstract art. The mist continued to thicken until he could see only a few inches in front of his face.
Disoriented, he relied on his feet to navigate the ground. Shaken by the eclipse, he stumbled over a thick root protruding from the forest floor. It was then he saw a figure among the tress. He squinted, trying to identify if what he saw was a person or a phantom.
The form did not move, but communicated an overt vibration of destruction.
“Who’s there?” he called out, attempting to sound fearless.
It moved forward, the mist obediently falling away to expose the woman.
“Top of the morning, little boy.” She stepped over wet leaves with bare feet. “Up and pining before the dawn? You must have had an eventful evening.”
His heart sank. She imprisoned all the loveliness of nature by her mere presence. The very air around them carried the stench of decay.
“So you were here earlier, in the cottage, weren’t you?” he demanded. The malignant dream had a face now, hers.
“You can’t stop thinking of me, can you?” she teased. Waves of blonde hair clung to her supple body, making her appear like a rejected siren regurgitated by the sea.
“I’d say yer the one obsessed with me.” He shoved numb hands into his pockets. “How is that, when yer supposedly so consumed by Gillean? I wouldn’t think you’d have the time or the interest for a little boy.”
“Oh, I’m indeed pleased with my singer, and he with me, but I’m a woman of varied interests, and I have other things to tend to. You see, these other areas may well be of benefit to the whole Faraday clan. That is, if you are still thinking with your conscience these days and not some other part of your anatomy.”
“There is nothing about you that interests me. I’ve made my deal with ya, kept up my end of it, and the next time you intrude on my life will be the last.”
“HA! HA! Bravo! All that testosterone has made a man out of you.” She clapped her hands together, the sudden sound scaring off a gathering of grouse. “This hasn’t got to do with you, but with the family you profess to love so greatly.”
“Bugger off, Ciar. You and I are done.” Despite the undoubted power and menace that Ciar exuded, he turned his back on her.
Before he had moved a single pace, Ciar was standing only inches in front of him catching him as he lost his balance. “You’d better watch your step. You’re coming dangerously close to voiding our deal.”
He righted his footing and took a step back. “You’re header mad.”
“I told you I would be back to reveal the other half. Now is the time.”
“I don’t intend to make Adara a pawn in your sick game.”
“Don’t screw with me, Sully. If you refuse to do as I say with regard to Mrs. Faraday, you know what will happen to Mr.”
“I’d never screw with you darlin’. I meant to keep me word, but yer bein’ here shows me that ya just want to jerk me around some more.” He spat into the rain.
“After all this time, you still don’t know me. I like that.” She smiled. “To the contrary, I came here to tell you that you can be done with this whole business once and for all.”
“You’re a liar.”
“Or, I can continue to hover about your life. Our deal didn’t preclude me from making contact with you. You can’t do a damn thing to stop me, and you know it.”
He tried to step away from her again, forcing her out of his way. She was impervious to his feeble attempt to be rid of her.
“I know of your doubts about the rightness of your decision.” Her words caught him like a viscid web. “The remnants of that idiotic angel conscious of yours tells you one thing, but your soul is still wondering, still feeling the connection to Gillean. This is your way out, your chance to do the ultimate good for him, Adara, and their children.”
With his head raised, he demanded an answer from the ominous sky as much as from her. “What do ya want from me?”
“That’s quite the Irish temper you have acquired as well.” Her black eyes revealed her delight at his outburst. “I should think you would be angrier about what is on the way than anything I would exact from you.”
“And what is on the way?”
“Here’s what is going to happen to Gillean Faraday.
” She took her hands from behind her back to display a stunning diamond positioned on her left ring finger. “He will divorce his wife; and his marriage to me—the spectacular, much younger artist—will become fodder for every form of media in the UK for starters. He will become totally dependent upon me for support. You and I both know the bloke needs someone ever ready to sustain him. Then, I will make absolutely certain that he won’t be spending any time with his children.” She scraped the ring against Sully’s bearded cheek, drawing a thin, red line against the raised skin. “And you know how much I despise children. I can convince a man to—”
“Gillean gave ya that ring? He said he wants to marry ya?” Sully spoke over a rush of bile in his throat.
“Of course he did! I told you before, he’s a done deal.”
“What of Adara and the children?”
“They will have so much alone time they may have trouble remembering what the old man looks like. Ah, well, they’ll get enough of him in the tabloids for a while anyway.” She breathed on the ring and polished it seductively.
Sully was horrified. He hadn’t fully considered what effect Gillean’s remaining with Ciar would have on his family. Sully doubted that even Gillean had a clue at this stage.
“It’s all making sense to you now, isn’t it, lad?”
Sully remained steadfast. “You can forget about any further involvement from me. I did what ya asked. Gillean is free to do as he likes. There is no sequel to our deal. Yer over the bend if ya think I will continue to be a bargaining chip for ya. And I sure as hell won’t let ya anywhere near Adara and her children.”
“We are both of the same mind on this.” Her spiteful grin broadened. “As I said, I have other matters to attend to, matters which have nothing to do with Gillean Faraday. Besides, he is beginning to bore me. There’s no challenge in blind adoration. This is the last time I will come to you. You can be sure that what I have to offer is something you want.”
“You have nothin’ I could ever want.”
He tried to find calm within the rhythm of the rain, but the woods were silent as a tomb.
Blackthorns of the Forgotten Page 20