They danced through a second song, not talking, just being part of the music, two bodies on the dance floor. Thoughts floated through her mind, none of them sticking longer than a moment. She wondered what Jonas might think to see her dancing with a good-looking Manx giant, far too tall for her and with far more piercings than she would normally look at twice. It crossed her mind that Fin really wasn’t her type, although it would be helpful to know a local who actually knew something about the Isle, which could, in theory, prevent her from failing her independent studies. If all she liked about him was the attention—which is nice, she admitted—she’d probably better make that clear from the beginning. A person could always use more friends.
But then she looked up at him, saw his eyes closed as he felt the music more than heard it, watched as the lights that sprawled across the dance floor caught in his hair and his ear studs. Just a little while, she thought as her stomach squeezed. I’ll pretend for just a little while.
A claw grabbed Fin’s shoulder and jerked them both out of the music as he spun, pulled downward so that his face was almost even with Rain’s. Behind him was a middle-aged woman only slightly taller than Rain, her red hair streaming around her shoulders, and her face contorted in fury. Her fingernails dug into Fin’s shoulder, and he hissed.
“Do not forget your place, above-grounder,” the woman snarled. “Playtime’s over. Get back to work.”
She shoved him forward, and Fin stumbled off the dance floor toward a door in the back corner of the room Rain hadn’t noticed before. As she watched, it seemed to fade, an effect of the swirling lights on the dance floor. Rain stood still, frozen in the presence of the red-haired woman who looked her up and down. Rain didn’t breathe until, after a moment, the woman appeared satisfied. The anger bled away, leaving a brilliant smile in its place.
“He’ll use you just like he used the others,” she said, her tone confidential, almost pitying. “You can’t trust someone like him.”
“No,” Rain said automatically, and for half a moment, she believed it was true. It had only been pretend, after all. He must have approached her because she looked lonely, because she was an easy mark.
“It’s no fault of yours, dear,” the red-haired woman said kindly, and her words wrapped around Rain like a shawl against the chill. “There are many evil people in the world.”
“Hard to know who to trust these days,” Rain said, and as the words left her, she remembered that Fin had said them before they danced, that he had told her she was safe. And as the woman left her, apparently satisfied, Rain thought of the sadness she suspected was lurking behind Fin’s carefree expression.
Jonas was still at the bar, though he’d lost his companions. Rain stopped next to him, sliding a cocktail napkin in front of her.
“Looks like you caught a good one tonight,” Jonas said cheerfully, “until that bitch snagged him.”
“Tell me you have a pen,” Rain said.
Jonas pulled a pen from inside his jacket—he never danced enough to get over warm—and handed it to her. “I hear he’s a bouncer here,” he continued. “Very pretty, if I may say.”
“Mine,” Rain warned him, handing the pen back. “No touch.”
Jonas squeezed her hand as he took the pen. “You ready to call it a night?”
Rain looked toward the back corner of the room, where the door had been, where Fin had stood. “Am I ever.” She slid the cocktail napkin across the bar to the bartender with a five-pound note and asked him to deliver it to Fin. She headed out with Jonas to the streets of Douglas to catch a taxi.
The National Folk Museum at Cregneash was hidden in the countryside on the center of Spanish Head, a long hike from Port St. Erin on a foggy day—and they were all foggy—but one Rain was used to making by now. It took less time to go straight there than it did to hike around the Head, like she’d done the first few times. There was supposed to be a stone circle somewhere along the cliffs below the Head, and she’d skirted the edge of the cliffs, looking downward, as much as she could through the fog without risking a fall.
Cregneash looked like a traditional village, rising out of the fog, surrounded by nothing with only one small road passing through it. A good half of the buildings had thatched roofs. The stone walls surrounding them fit together without mortar in the traditional fashion. Rain sat on the wall outside the museum entrance, waiting. The prior evening played over in her mind, the way that she had felt content dancing with a stranger, and how that moment had been stolen. She rubbed her hands up and down her arms, though it wasn’t cold. Rain had decided that if there was someone not to be trusted, it was that woman, who reminded her of nothing so much as fire—beautiful but destructive, and quick to burn. She also thought she remembered a look of abject terror on Fin’s face—something that could not be caused by a woman with good intentions.
When Fin drove up on a motocross bike, Rain was suddenly conscious of her legs, swinging back and forth against the wall because her feet didn’t touch the ground. She shoved off of the stones—carefully so she didn’t knock anything out of place—and approached while he was still removing his helmet. Even here, outside the lighting of the club, his hair had a metallic shine to it.
“Surprised to see me?” he asked, tentatively, watching her face as she watched him.
Rain shook her head, in part to break her gaze and in part because she wasn’t surprised. “I had a feeling you were the kind of guy who couldn’t deny a lady’s request.”
He tucked his helmet under one arm and offered her the crook of the other. “Lady, are we?”
“I don’t know about ‘we.’” She slid her fingers along his elbow, shivering at the touch, despite the fact that his heavy jacket was between them. It was leather, but not in the style that bikers in the U.S. wore—almost more like an old B-movie flight jacket. “I’m kind of hoping you’re not.”
He laughed, and the worry she’d seen lurking behind his expressions at the club was nowhere to be seen. They started forward, in tandem, through the museum entrance. “I thought you Americans didn’t hold with titles.”
“Figured it out, did you? Was it my accent, or my good looks?”
She snaked away from him and walked over to the desk, pulling out the exact change for a new four-visit pass. Janeice, an older woman who had probably been working at the museum longer than Rain had been alive, tapped the pass she’d pulled out as soon as Rain had walked in the door.
“Needing a new one, then?” the curator asked, in the process of taking the money and handing over the pass. “It’s good we see you so often. You’ll soon know more than me!”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Rain said, holding the new pass out to be stamped. “Punch one for my friend, too?”
Janeice looked over Rain’s shoulder and her face, already pale, whitened. She whispered something in Manx—which Rain had learned the curator spoke fluently—shaking her head. “Oh, no, miss. MacLeirrs never pay here on the isle.”
Fin stepped forward, looking completely apologetic as far as Rain was concerned, but Janeice held her breath. Rain squeezed Janeice’s hand, noticing for the first time how frail the older woman was. “It’s all right,” she said, though she had no idea what was wrong in the first place. “You can charge me twice or not—either way, it won’t be him paying.”
Janeice handed her back the pass with only one entry punched. Fin said something in Manx behind Rain, and she turned, staring. No one their age spoke Manx fluently, from what she’d been told. It was one of the greatest regrets of the island. He finished, smiled at Rain—again apologetically—and walked toward the outside door. Rain looked back at Janeice, surprised to see all the tension gone from the woman’s face, her cheeks their usual rosy shade.
“I’ve not seen a MacLeirr here in years,” she whispered. Rain squeezed her hand again and followed after Fin.
He was waiting for her outside, leaning against the wall and looking out on the thatched roofs. With his shoulders shrugged and his knees bent,
he gave the impression of trying to make himself small—something that would be impossible for someone his height. Rain leaned next to him, purposefully not looking at his face.
“And I thought I had questions before,” she said.
He snorted, shifting his weight in such a way that he gained three inches. “My family used to be very important on the island,” he said tersely.
“Used to be?”
He shoved off the wall and strode forward; Rain had to match two of her paces to each of his. “It’s a long story. Politics. Not as interesting as you’d think.”
They wandered through the village, not really talking, just watching the workers—all in the costume of Manx villagers generations gone by—as they went about their speeches and demonstrations. The tension drained out of Fin as they walked, and soon he was joking with the parents and young children stopping to visit. Despite what Rain thought were obviously edgy looks, the parents seemed comfortable around him, and the children gave every appearance of wanting to use him as a jungle gym. Instead, he taught them the Manx words for grass and tree and house and sent them on their way to the next cottage.
“Does everyone like you?” Rain asked as they watched a family go.
“Not everyone.” Fin stood his full height, hands on his back. “If everyone likes you, you’re not being yourself.”
“I wonder if Jonas knows that…” He looked down at her and she grinned. “My roommate. The popular one.”
Fin nodded in recognition. “Surely there’s someone who doesn’t like him.”
“He’s terribly likable.” Even when Rain was irritated with him, he was hard to dislike. “But so are you, Fin MacLeirr.”
“Finbar, actually,” he said, starting off toward one of the cottages.
“What does it mean?” she asked, hurrying to keep up with his long strides. “I assume it’s Manx.”
He nodded. “Wave crest.”
“Finbar MacLeirr,” she said, trying out the sound. “It suits you.”
He raised an eyebrow as he looked down at her. “And how would you know, Lady Rain?” She just grinned. “Speaking of which, your own name is still a mystery.”
Her grin fell. “You have to promise not to laugh.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“It is.” She took a deep breath. “But you have to understand that my parents missed out on being real hippies by just a few years, and they were very committed to civil rights and equality when they got married.”
He brushed some of her hair away from her shoulder, and she thought how drab her brown hair must seem when he looked at his own metallic, silver-gold hair every day in the mirror. But rather than moving his hand away, he tangled his fingers in her unspectacular locks. “I’ll take it all into account,” he said.
“Rainbow,” she blurted. “Saltperson.”
His lip twitched and she crossed her arms over her chest. “You promised not to laugh.”
“So I did,” he said, but his voice quivered just enough that she knew he wanted to. “Saltperson?”
“It used to be Saltman, but they thought that was too gender biased.” She groaned inwardly. And wanted to curse their children forever with explaining their last name. Thanks Mom and Dad.
“It suits you,” Fin said, letting her hair loose, slowly, so that it fell against her shoulder in clumps. She shivered.
“Thanks.”
Fin ducked into the doorway of a cottage and stood at the back of the room, staying out of the way of a group of children crowded around a basket-weaver. Rain waved at him, just slightly, as he looked up from his weaving. He nodded back, continuing to explain the difference between the pattern in Manx baskets as opposed to European or American Indian styles as he wove his fibers back and forth. The children were fascinated, and after letting them watch for a bit, the weaver set them up at a table with some fibers of their own to give a simple pattern a try. Parents loomed over their children and the weaver stepped aside, settling back on his normal seat.
“Nice to see you, Rain,” he said. “On foot again?”
“Always,” Rain answered, pulling up one of the small stools. “Thanks again for the ride to Castle Rushen last week.”
“A pleasure.” The weaver tightened the fibers in the pattern, pulling the bottom taught. “It’s hardly out of my way.”
“I suppose they put you to work there a few days a week, too?” Fin asked, and the weaver looked up at him, expression turning from annoyance at the question to delight in recognition.
“Well if it isn’t Fin MacLeirr,” the weaver laughed. “Glad to have you here, boy. Been too long.”
“It has,” Fin agreed, taking the weaver’s suddenly outstretched hand. “I haven’t gotten out much lately.”
The weaver’s face darkened, but just for a moment. “Well, since you’re out, and in the company of my fine friend Rain, I should take the opportunity to invite you both to a bat barbecue we’ve got going on Friday next. Up at Billown. Caves up there are fabulous for it.”
Rain blanched. “You don’t eat them?”
Both men laughed at the question. “We watch ’em come out of their caves at dusk,” the weaver explained. “Whole clouds of them! It’s something to see. And then there’s food, because what’s a gathering without a bit to eat?” He looked from Fin to Rain, and then back to Fin. “You’ll come?”
Rain looked up at Fin hopefully, knowing too well that she was showing all her cards. She wanted to go, and she wanted to see Fin again. Fin smiled and nodded, but the worry she’d noticed back at the club had returned. “It’s a date,” he said, and her stomach flipped.
They met and ate at Billown, watching the bats swarm out of their caves in thick clouds. The locals cheered, gossiped, talked, and shared recipes. Only two hours after they arrived, when there was no arguing that dusk had faded well into night, Fin gave his apologies.
“Work,” he said, before Rain could protest.
“For that witch of a woman?” Rain crossed her arms in front of her chest, but Fin just laughed.
“If you only knew the half of it,” he said, reaching out to touch her hair. She shivered. “Cold?”
“No.” She thought back to that first night, remembering the door, far from the entrance. “Jonas heard you were a bouncer.”
“Of sorts,” Fin said neutrally, pulling his hand back and glancing over her shoulder, avoiding her eyes.
“For a back door no one uses?”
His look was sharp, as bright and dangerous as the studs in his ears. “You shouldn’t have seen that.”
“But…”
He reached out for her again, putting firm hands on her shoulders. “Rushen Abbey, Saturday afternoon?” He flashed her that carefree grin, but it no longer hid his worry so well.
“Saturday afternoon,” she agreed.
They toured the island together, always during the day. They visited the Old House of Keys, the seat of government formed by the invading Norse, who had given the isle something akin to democracy and their first centralized government. Fin took her to several of the Norse sites in the north, showing her small collections of crosses that weren’t large enough to make the heritage map. He’d obviously studied them, and he knew the people in the parishes well enough to find her experts. She took notes, finding that her independent study had changed from homework to a reason to travel with Fin. She even became accustomed to riding on the back of his motocross bike.
“Do you race?” Rain called over his shoulder one day, squeezing around his chest.
“No,” he hollered back. “The big race here—the TT—stands for the Tourist Trophy.” His voice was muffled through his helmet, but she could hear his amusement. “You could give it a go if you wanted to borrow my bike.”
He took a turn faster than he needed to and Rain shrieked. That, apparently, was answer enough.
One night, at home, while she was typing up notes on her laptop, Jonas wandered in and perched on her bed. He watched her, never interrupting wi
th words, just waiting for her to invite him to talk.
“Yes?” she said finally, not looking up from her keyboard.
“You really like him, don’t you?”
She sighed, hit save, and swiveled around in her desk chair. “What is it, Jonas?”
“I don’t think Brianna and Cole have bothered to notice how often you’re gone these days,” Jonas continued, ignoring her question, “but when a good looking guy like that keeps arriving on that bike of his, I’m aware of it.” He smiled broadly to counter her glare. “Seriously, Rain, you never mope at me anymore. I’m beginning to miss you.”
The blush crept up around her ears. “That’s really sweet, Jonas.”
“You miss confiding in me, too, right?”
Rain laughed, and realized that she actually had missed it. She started telling him about their travels and discovered that sharing her good dates was a lot more fun than moping about her non-existent ones.
“It’s weird how many people he knows, and how much they respect him,” Rain said after awhile. “Something about his family. Have you heard anything about the MacLeirrs?”
Jonas’s eyes got big. “You are positively the worst mythology student ever.”
Rain swiveled back and forth in her desk chair. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“What’s Manannan’s last name?” Jonas quizzed her.
She sniffed. “He’s a god. He doesn’t have a last name.”
In response, Jonas settled into poetry stance, his eyes half-closed as he began to recite. “Manannan Beg Mac y Leirr/Little Manannan Son of the Sea,/Who blessed our island,/Bless us and our boat, going out well./Coming in better, with living and dead in our boat.” His eyelids fluttered and he looked at her again. “It’s a prayer, recited into the twentieth century by fisherman along the Isle.”
“The whole thing about Manannan the god also being Manannan the necromancer, right.” Rain stretched her arms out behind her, leaning the chair back. “So the MacLeirr family must be associated somehow.”
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