Scintillate

by Tracy Clark

  I am led again to this home of the Triple Spiral, like a compass pointing me to my true North. Could Gabriella have been right? Is this just one of many places in the world that was a base for people like me? It’s not what we know about it that intrigues me. It’s what we don’t. Who built it? What are the true meanings of the markings in the stones? Why did the inhabitants mysteriously disappear, sometimes for hundreds of years, before another group would settle, only to also disappear? A theory is that the tomb was a solar temple for a prehistoric race of supernatural people. Doesn’t seem so far-fetched right now. Our Irish mythology taunts me like King Nuada, the Silver Hand…Silver. Could the legends have only told part of the story? Too often in history that is the case. There are so many signs telling me this was once a place of people like me. And too many like me have vanished. I feel I’m on the edge of a discovery. One that could answer all of my questions.

  The passage gave me chills. I shared her feeling—on the edge of discovery. I looked around at the green valley below. Satellite mounds dotted the fields in the distance. The river Boyne meandered past the great mounds. Ireland stretched out beneath me in all directions. The beauty of it created an alchemy inside me, transforming my curiosity into a deep affection. Ireland struck me as wild. A restrained wild, though. Not the messy abandon of a jungle. A tame fury simmered under every green blade.

  Seeing auras was considered supernatural. When I pulled the word apart, examined it, I thought it meant natural but different, extraordinary. It didn’t mean it wasn’t real. From my inquiries online, I learned that auras were considered real by many people, doctors and scientists included. All over the world, people conducted research to prove and measure and study their existence. So that couldn’t have been my mother’s big discovery.

  No. There was more to this. Being what Giovanni called Scintilla was just one part of the puzzle. If Scintilla was one race, were there others? If so, my hunch was they had white auras.

  “What happened to you, Grace Sandoval?” I whispered into the wind.

  Giovanni found me atop the tomb. His aura was so strikingly beautiful, it made me see mine in a new light. If only everyone could see the beauty radiating from our bodies, the truth of who we are, and how our energies merged, maybe the world would be a nicer place.

  “Come, Miss Cora,” Giovanni said, waving me over. “They say we can go inside the tomb now.”

  We went together to the doorway, first climbing stairs to get over an enormous oblong stone with spirals carved in its surface that was blocking the entrance, and then ducking under a flat lintel stone over the door. A slit above the doorway made it possible for the sunlight to penetrate deep inside the chamber for twenty minutes every winter solstice.

  I’d finally found my way here.

  Inside, a large pillar stone welcomed us, and I sucked in a breath. The actual triple spiral! This iconic stone saw sunlight only once per year on the solstice, and our guide said it was possible the original inhabitants believed it to be a connection from our realm to other realms of existence. It was pure mystery and magic. I wanted to sweep my fingers over the pattern that curled like tender new fronds, but a few people in front of us blocked our way. I remembered vividly how the picture of it spun in my mind’s eye along with the other images when I unearthed the key. And I also vividly remembered the first time I saw its pattern tease me from under Finn’s shirt.

  “What does it mean?” Giovanni asked.

  “It’s called the triple spiral. It’s known over the world as a Celtic symbol, though that’s completely misleading because the people who built this place were here three thousand years before the Celts arrived. It’s older than the Great Pyramids and older than Stonehenge. There are all kinds of theories about the triple spiral, but no one knows for sure. Some say it celebrates the sun since so many of the stones are astrology-based. Others call it the triple goddess: maiden, mother, and crone.” My face heated. “And I might have slipped into know-it-all mode.”

  “Creator, destroyer, sustainer,” offered an elderly woman from behind us. “I’ve read that interpretation as well.”

  “Life, death, and eternity,” said someone else in a voice hushed with awe.

  “A tale with no beginning and no end,” I whispered to myself.

  Giovanni’s hand rested between my shoulder blades as we walked through the narrow passageway toward the small chamber room. I didn’t know if it was the place or his hand causing the strange sensation, as though my heartbeat had shifted, settling closer against my back, beating hard against his hand.

  “There is Viking graffiti in these tombs,” Giovanni said, pointing excitedly. “Do you see?”

  “I see,” I said, smiling.

  We entered the narrow cruciform passageway that led to a ceremonial chamber where cremated remains had once been found. The winter solstice event was simulated for us with lights. I shuddered in the cool cavern. The hair on my arms stood on end. “You can feel history blowing on you here.”

  The sun gifted us with its presence when we walked outside the tomb. I turned to Giovanni. “What did you mean the other day when you said I may not know what I’m capable of?”

  Giovanni sucked his bottom lip when he concentrated. “How do I say it?” His blue eyes squinted as he searched for the words to explain. “People, they go around giving and taking of energy.”

  “That much I do know.” Even before I knew about auras, I could sense it. It seemed to me it was the most widely used form of communication, whether the people were aware of it or not.

  He frowned slightly. “Did you also know the Scintilla are a source? We,” he said, holding his head up proudly, “are the spark that ignites the flame.”

  “I don’t understand.” But I’d heard similar words… A mighty flame follows a tiny spark.

  Giovanni looked around. He zeroed in on a grandmother who was struggling with a very unhappy toddler currently in full meltdown mode, screaming, arms and legs flailing on the ground. “Watch,” he said, leaving me leaning against a tree as he strode over to them.

  I could not hear what he said to the woman or the child. But I could clearly see his silver aura flow out of his body and swaddle the little girl in its glow as he chatted with the elderly woman. The kid suddenly stopped crying and looked up at him like he was Santa Claus. Then his energy shifted a bit and wound around the elderly woman as well.

  “Oh, gracious!” the old woman said. “I was at my wit’s end. You have the magic touch with children, sure enough. How can I ever thank you?”

  Giovanni patted the girl’s head and walked back to me with a conceited smile. “You see?” he asked. “You can give them the spark. It’s what they want. Their greedy bodies take it like candy.”

  I thought of the man in the park, who didn’t give of himself. He took. Ruthlessly. “It seems like a violation to tamper with people’s auras,” I said.

  Giovanni’s brows pinched together. “It is not a crime to make people happy, Miss Cora. I’ve spent most of my life alone on the streets around the world, and I’ve learned you can get nearly everything you need—food, money, a place to sleep—in exchange for the one thing everyone in this world wants most: to feel good.”

  “But aren’t you manipulating them?”

  “Such an ugly word. I consider it currency, not manipulation. You should be asking how to do it. Not judging me for giving of myself. It’s my choice who to give to.”

  Just as I was ready to tell him about the man with the white aura and argue about people’s choice to receive or to be taken from, the bus pulled up in front of the waiting area, and we had to run to catch it. Giovanni and I sat next to each other, but he was brooding and silent for the drive. Twice now, I’d upset the one person who could tell me more about myself. But when we got off the bus he surprised me by asking me to walk with him.

  “I’m sorry,” I admitted as we stood outside the back of the visitors center on a small footbridge over a stream. “I shouldn’t have judged. It’s jus
t that I’ve seen very violent attacks on people’s auras. What you’re doing is definitely not the same thing. You do what you have to do, and you make people happy. My best friend, Dun, does that, and I don’t even think it’s conscious.”

  Giovanni tilted his head in a charming, inquisitive way, and when he accepted my apology with a bright smile, I found myself thinking, he hardly needs special energy to make people feel good.

  “Finn is picking me up, but if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to you again soon. I have so much more I want to ask. You showed me how you can give of your aura, but can you teach me how to block energy or”—my throat closed around the words—“stop someone from taking energy against my will?”

  Concern and something like understanding registered in Giovanni’s eyes, and he nodded gravely. “The people with the white auras…you wish to protect yourself in some way. I wish I could tell you how. I don’t know the answer to that, but I will answer as many of your questions as I can.” His hand ran from my elbow to my wrist. “Please call me. I’m desperate to see you again,” he said, his tone pressing, his stormy eyes insistent. I couldn’t look away. “You scared me to death when you disappeared yesterday. You have no idea how rare you are.”

  “That she is,” Finn’s voice said from behind Giovanni.

  Finn strode toward us with an almost predatory gait. His tiger eyes never left Giovanni’s face. The yellow-green aura was a color I’d never seen on him. Distress but with something else mixed in. Jealousy?

  I walked over and took his hand. Finn curled me into his arms. His warmth was different. Infused with the fire of possessiveness. I mumbled an embarrassed introduction, then moved back to Giovanni to say good-bye. Finn’s gaze raked my back.

  “Thanks for everything, at the library and today.” I held out my hand formally, which Giovanni took, giving it a jolt of energy. I gritted my teeth. “I’ll call you.”

  Giovanni stepped forward and, much to my dismay, kissed each of my cheeks. Little circles of residual energy swirled on my skin. He whispered urgently in my ear, “Careful. You are not safe with him.”

  I stepped back. Blinked.

  Giovanni nodded curtly to Finn as he passed us and tramped through the glass doors leading to the visitors center. His silver aura disappeared into the crowd.

  “It’s my own fault the lads are swarming, really,” Finn said with a soft nibble to my bottom lip. “Leaving you alone like that. I don’t know what those flippin’ eejits in your town were thinking, but to the wider world you are enchanting.”

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “What you heard him say was soooo out of context.” The memory of the physical charge between Giovanni and me rushed through my body. I flicked it away. “We just have a lot in common.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  I stopped Finn in the parking lot and turned to face him. “You know, I don’t give my heart to just anybody. Your accusing me of being fickle is an insult.”

  He nodded. I was warmed by the sight of his love, tinged with a little bit of insecurity. It was easy to forgive his jealousy when I could see his attachment to me, his fear of losing me. I wished he could see my attachment to him. I wished he could see how silver strands of energy from my body coiled and reached for his heart. I ran my fingers over the outline of his jaw and then behind his neck, pulling his mouth to mine. He kissed softly at first, almost reluctantly, until I bit his bottom lip and opened my mouth to a deeper kiss. His fingers dug into the small of my back.

  The kiss was everything true, a claiming and a declaration.

  Mine.

  Yes. Yours.

  Thirty

  A

  t the hostel, Finn parked the car and offered to walk me in. The lobby was relatively empty but for a twenty-something couple on a dingy couch, looking at something on their phone. I fished my key from my pocket and turned to say good-bye to Finn. There was everything but good-bye in his eyes.

  “Food?”

  I laughed. “We just ate!”

  Finn drifted into my atmosphere, nibbled my bottom lip, and whispered, “Dessert?” in a voice as dark and tempting as chocolate.

  “I could go for something sweet,” I answered with a mock air of indifference, while my heart beat double time.

  He kissed me again and sucked my bottom lip into his mouth just slightly. “So could I,” he growled.

  I snagged his hand and led him to my room.

  Our impatient kisses delayed us at my door. Neither of us could suspend our need to close the gap, emotional and physical, between us. The bold girl I liked so much rose up in me again. I held Finn’s narrow face between my hands and kissed him hard. His hands clutched the small of my back, gathering my jacket in his fists as he pulled me against him. Being pinned to the door by Finn’s body was as heady as being pinned underneath him in my room that night back home. A small shred of me knew that unlocking the door and taking Finn into my room was reckless.

  Freedom is its own kind of open door.

  I fumbled the key into the hole, and we tumbled inside, wrapped in each other.

  Cold hit me. A breeze that had nothing to do with air vents or open windows. The chill ran over my back like a bank of white clouds.

  I slipped from Finn’s grasp.

  “What is it?”

  Nothing seemed out of place. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but perhaps I was looking with the wrong sense. I reached out with my subtle body, my aura. There was a ghost of energy in the room that hadn’t been there that morning, the residual fingerprint of someone else’s energy, lingering malice. I could feel them as if I’d walked through the vapor of their aura.

  “Something’s off in here,” I said, unable to fully explain it to Finn. “I don’t feel safe.”

  His eyes scanned the place for anything out of the ordinary. His chest expanded and fell with a testing breath. “I can’t say why, exactly, but this place does have a bad vibe,” Finn said.

  I scrambled around the room, gathering my things, throwing one article after the other into my suitcase and shoving it closed while Finn watched me with a disconcerted expression.

  “It reminds me of when my uncle Clancy took me to visit my grandmother in the hospital. We stood over her bed, and I swear I felt it when her spirit left her body. There was…a drift in the currents of the room.”

  I shuddered. “Spoken like a true sailor.”

  He crossed the floor, gathering me in the warmth of his arms, into the cocoon of his heartbeat. “If you don’t feel safe here, luv, you shouldn’t stay.”

  “Hence, the packing.” I slung my duffel over my shoulder, plans formulating in my head. “Giovanni will let me stay with him until we figure out what to do.”

  Finn’s eyes widened. A touch of anger and protectiveness flared from him and wrapped me in an unwelcome cloak of dull green and lifeless yellow. “That wasn’t my first notion,” he said. “You want to stay with some tosser you barely know rather than with me?”

  “I—honestly, it hadn’t occurred to me that I could stay with you.”

  I thought of Ina Doyle. I wasn’t welcome in her son’s life, so how would she like me being in their home? “What about your mother? Do you really think it will be okay? For just a night or two? Just until I can figure out what’s next?”

  “I’ll call Uncle Clancy. I’m supposed to drive him home when the pub closes. We can pick him up, and he’ll drive with us to my house. He’s got a way with my mother.” When he held the sides of my face, I gripped his forearms. Our eyes locked. “I don’t know what’s got you so spooked, but I don’t ever want to see fear in your eyes like I see right now. Let me take care of you.”

  He didn’t say what I’m sure we both thought. Let me take care of you…until our time is up.

  Thirty-One

  A

  bout thirty minutes out of Dublin, the lights of the city gave way to dark country roads with occasional roundabouts and road signs written in both Irish and English. Finn, Clancy, and I rode in silence.
I sat dazed, looking out the windows. Two things were definitely in abundance in Ireland: rock walls and pubs.

  Finn had called ahead and told his mother I’d found myself in some very unsavory lodgings and that he’d invited me to stay with them. Uncle Clancy took the phone and spoke of how they had to help. After all, I was a young girl on my own.

  We slowed, then pulled into a driveway with an enormous wrought-iron gate. A large iron sun adorned the top. “Ag éirí grian mainéar,” Finn said. “Rising Sun Manor.” The gate opened to a long, winding, uphill drive lined with dense trees and brush. I had an irrational flash of fear when the imposing iron gates swung closed behind us.

  My father must be sick with worry by now, I thought, then tried my best to unthink it. I had to focus on my mother for the short time I’d be in Ireland, for the short time I’d be free to find her. I didn’t know how my dad did it all those years. I knew I wouldn’t be able to live the rest of my days with the pendulum of unanswered questions swinging through my heart.

  Finally, Finn’s house came into view, stately and impressive. Like a summer cottage for royalty. Maybe that explained Finn’s mother’s disapproval. Perhaps I wasn’t good enough for her son. I never imagined Finn living like this. The spiked hair, tattoos, and leather straps on his wrist. The guitar and the blues. The way one penetrating look from him could shoot fire through me. He had the same tame fury simmering inside him as his country: cool green on the outside, intensity underneath. Finn’s fingers tapped a silent, restless tune on my thigh. His face was an impassive mask as we drove up to what Dun would gleefully call the O’LottaDough Mansion.

  I realized there was so much I didn’t know about Finn Doyle. But I could see that he had a good heart, and that allowed me to disregard Giovanni’s paranoid warning. I knew what I knew. Finn was good inside and, right now, I was grateful for the refuge he could provide.

  Clancy explained that the house had been built on a site where a castle once stood, but it had burned down centuries ago, leaving remnants of a cracked stone foundation and a tall circular building with a peaked roof. They had used the shell of stone, incorporating it and the tower into the home now known as Rising Sun Manor.