by C E Dimond
All in all, it was a relief, especially to see the Coven. They didn’t hate me. Or maybe that was still too much to hope for. After all, we hadn’t had a discussion about that yet.
The undead comment had unmistakably come from the loud mouth of Caine O’Connor and I could help but let out a small smile.
“Didn't think you could get rid of me that easily, did you?” I asked in jest, my voice far weaker than I’d expected it would be.
Joking aside, I was really wondering what had just happened. My mind spun back to the ritual on the hill, the ground giving way beneath me, my father disappearing.
Was he truly gone? Was it over?
I knew it wasn’t over, not by a long shot. Now, we had to deal with the revelation that Cormac, was not the big bad wolf. I wasn’t sure how the Coven would take that news.
In fact, as my eyes look over them. I wasn’t sure who I could trust anymore.
Then I remembered another person who had been with us on the hill.
Where was Izzy?
“Good job Prince Charming” Caine commented next and one look from Eamon quickly silenced him.
I looked at them in confusion but, decided it wasn’t a comment I needed to worry about now.
I needed to see my sister.
“Where’s Izzy?” I asked, and they all gave each other varying looks. They were sharing the type of looks when they were deciding to share or not. That caused a sheer sense of panic to shoot through me. “Izzy! Where is she?”
Declan stepped forward and helped me to sit up.
“Shh it’s okay. Come on, she’s laying down in another room, she is fixed up, but she hasn’t woken up yet.” He admitted.
He helped me to my feet, and though I felt initially unsteady, it only took a few steps for me to start to get my bearings back.
Declan stayed by my side, keeping a strong, protective grip on me as we made our way out of the room.
Sure enough, in the room next to mine Izzy was, what appeared to be peacefully asleep in the bed.
I let go of Declan’s arm then and took a few unsteady steps until I was sitting down on the bed next to her.
“Iz,” I said softly. I leaned down and hugged her, resting my head on her shoulder. “Come on,” I whispered. “Wake up, I need you.”
Especially if Cormac was really and truly gone. Our father had been the thing that had brought us together, our McLoughlin legacy our source of bonding. If he had left us, we would need each other now more than ever.
“Don’t get all sentimental on me now.” I heard her say in a grumble and I gasped, sitting up.
Her green eyes had opened now, blinking against the bright light. I stared down at her and couldn’t keep the grin off my face.
“Stop looking at me like that,” She warned but soon offered her own smile.
She was all there was left now. She and I were what remained of the tragic tale of Cormac and Niamh, just the two of us.
22
We slept through the rest of the night, our strength had been drained and we’d needed it. A few hours after waking up, Iseult and I started to get our footing back.
By the time we were all seated around the kitchen table, a whole new mood had settled in around the country cottage.
Keilan and John had disappeared to continue the much-needed conversation about all things magical. She said she needed to explain, in a way that made some sort of sense, what had just happened.
To my surprise, when they returned, he still seemed calm. Calmer than Tyler had been when I’d revealed my own Witchy nature. There appeared to be something between them they weren ‘t ready to share, but I wasn’t going to press them on it. We had bigger problems to talk about.
After all the introductions were done, I was given a brief rundown of the events that I hadn’t been directly involved in; the cliff notes version at least.
Apparently, despite what I had seen in my dream travel, they had bought my mean girl act for a grand total of five minutes.
Eamon had eventually figured out my plan.
I lifted my eyes to watch him, but he had been avoiding my gaze since I had woken up. Eventually, they had figured out where I would be likely to go for answers. They had already been landing at the Dublin airport when Declan had gotten the call from Keilan about Cormac taking me.
“I’m glad,” I admitted.
I was glad, both that they had known me well enough to figure out my deceit, and that they had cared enough to follow me.
It had sure taken them their sweet time to come to an agreement though. How long had they spent believing that I had genuinely hated them?
“I can’t believe you guys all just hopped on a plane to go after somebody,” I admitted. They could have just sent one person to fetch me, not unlike they had the first time around.
“You're not just somebody.” Eamon finally spoke up.
It was the first time he’d said anything since I'd woken up. Then, he actually looked at me, our eyes meeting.
“We're connected...” he said.
I suddenly realized I wasn't breathing. My breath had caught in my chest at his words.
“All of us...” he added quickly, “We're a team, it's how we make sure we stay strong," he said.
Then, his mood changed in an instant. That was the usual. He stood up from the table and turned his back on me.
I lowered my eyes to my hands and my gaze shifted to my exposed wrist. The mark I had shared with my father was fading from my arm.
I sat in silence then and listened to how they'd gotten to me just in time to help Keilan. Then how in the forest, I'd collapsed and stopped breathing.
That was what had landed me here, wherever here was.
From the brief tour I’d had from the bedrooms to the kitchen, I could tell it was a large, old cottage.
From what I had seen out the kitchen windows, we were on a farm somewhere. It was standing alone in the Irish countryside, with nothing around it for miles.
Apparently, it was something they had kept in the families in case they ever had cause to return to the Island. Evidently, it seemed like I had given them the cause.
To be honest, after the very basics had been explained to me, I found that I wasn't really listening anymore. I could barely concentrate on their words, the cottage, or anything going on around me.
Instead, my mind had fallen back to the tomb. If I had been here passed out, barely breathing, then how had I also been there?
Was it real? Or just a dream, a vision while I slept?
This power was beginning to weigh on my nerves. I could no longer tell what was real, and what just my imagination.
Had I traveled there like I had traveled to Broadhaven?
Had this just been another mysterious spell casting I couldn’t explain?
I stood from my place at the table and without a word, wandered up to stairs back to the bedroom I had woken up in. They had to understand. I was still tired, and there was a part of this whole story I didn’t feel I could explain just yet. I was grieving the father I had never gotten the chance to know.
In my temporary bedroom, I sat at the window staring out at the now setting sun as I thought everything over in my mind.
Hearing a knock on the door I turned my head to see Declan standing there.
“Hey,” he said, so soft, so simple, but it was enough to make me smile.
“Hey,” I returned quietly, my smile staying put as he crossed the room to take the seat across from me.
I stared at him for a moment, thinking about how I had been trying to steal knowledge from the Cavanaugh book. If Izzy’s plan had worked, I would have been in his home, rifling through his legacy.
I wanted to apologize, but I didn’t exactly have anything to apologize for, not for that at least. I let out a thoughtful breath before I asked him the inevitable.
“What happened?” My voice had fallen to a pained whisper.
He smiled at me with his inherent kindness and shrugged his shoulders
gently.
“I was sort of hoping you could tell me,” he admitted. “I feel like there's a lot that happened to you that we weren't exactly caught up on,” he continued.
I nodded, thinking he truly had not even the slightest idea how accurate that statement was.
Taking another breath, I started the story.
I told him everything; he was the only one I felt I could be completely honest with. I knew, somehow, that he would never judge me.
I told him how I'd ended up there, the legend, our bloodline, the tomb. I told him how I'd found it but, at the same time never physically stepped foot there. That much seemed like it should have been obvious. After all, he had been witness to the fact that I’d been lying there on the bed, completely out cold.
“So, the whole time that you were out, you were there? This... tomb place?”
I nodded in confirmation and he leaned back in his chair, brushing his wispy blond hair out of his eyes.
“So, I guess when Eamon kissed you, he pulled you back before you could do anything there,” he finished thoughtfully.
My mouth fell open, and I just stared at him for a moment before blurting out.
“When he what?” I asked in shock, and he soon looked like he wanted to take what he'd said back.
“When he- No, I mean- nothing, I thought... I thought you, knew. You know, the whole prince charming comment? Nothing, never mind” He said smiling nervously, before he added, “It was just on the forehead.” Which put my nerves only slightly at ease. After all, kissing someone while they were asleep, was so not okay.
“Try not to let all of this consume you. Just get some rest. I’ll tell the same to Iseult, and we can figure out the whole Fionn legend tomorrow okay? Together.” he said and pulled me up to my feet. He quickly gave me a hug before he turned and started to head out from the room.
With a nod, I mumbled goodbye before I glanced back over to the window.
With a new-found sense of serenity, I watched the sun finished setting over the lush green horizon in the distance.
As the darkness began to stretch across the lands beneath it, I suddenly realized they had all been wrong.
The magic hadn't died here, it just needed to be reawakened. And, perhaps not the way Cormac had intended.
Fionn hadn't woken from his magical sleep, because my sacrifice had never been made. Whether my father sounded the horn was irrelevant, because the blood of his blood had never been paid properly. Either I, or Iseult had screwed up the spell in some way. That was the only explanation.
In the end, Fionn could not return without it. We were safe, for now. Except, the one man who might have been able to help me navigate this minefield was now gone.
I traced the fading triquetra with the tip of my finger as I thought about my father. I would have to find another way to revive the magic, a way that would benefit all of us.
“Up the airy mountain, down the rushing glen, we dare not go a hunting, for fear of little men...” I whispered, remembering my father’s bedtime story, tears forming in my eyes.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and with a gasp; I turned quickly to see Eamon was now standing there.
At first, I’d thought Declan had come back. Instead, I was staring opened mouthed at Eamon. After just learning that it was possibly his kiss to my forehead that had pulled me back from that darkened tomb, I wasn’t sure what to say.
Luckily, I didn’t have to speak. His somewhat vacant look seemed to change to a concerned one. When he saw the tears in my eyes, he offered my shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
“Hey, at least it's all over now,” he said quietly.
I nodded and offered a hesitant, unconvincing smile. It wasn’t exactly over. I still had to explain everything I’d learned to the rest of them, but now didn’t seem like the moment to start trying to breach that subject.
So instead, silence passed between us and I could feel the awkward tension between us growing stronger.
“Finn I-” he started, but he stopped before he had really started to say anything at all.
It seemed like neither of us knew what to say, and for once we were just existing in one another’s company.
I looked at his eyes I could see there was a sadness there, one I’d never really noticed before. Or maybe it was just one that I’d been too busy to notice.
I was about to ask about what Declan had told me, about the kiss, when I suddenly flinched in pain. My blue eyes clouded with pain and confusion as I glanced down at my hands. The once fading scar on my arm started to burn furiously. I pulled up the sleeve of my sweater to reveal it once more.
The fading triquetra was burning brighter, redder and far more painful than I'd ever experienced it before. It was almost as painful as the first time it had burned into my skin.
I screamed out in pain as the flashes returned of the moment I’d first been scarred. Cormac, holding my arm trying to prevent me from falling to my death from the cliffs.
I couldn’t see before me; I could only see that moment. My father, his dark eyes staring down at me in fear.
I didn't even realize that I'd gripped onto Eamon to steady myself.
“What’s wrong?” Eamon asked and suddenly I was pulled back to the moment. My visions vanished and my tear-filled eyes were staring directly at him.
My heart was racing, and at that moment I knew. This pain meant only one thing.
Our eyes locked, and he seemed to know, before I even had to say it.
“Eamon,” I croaked out, “It's far from over.”
TO BE CONTINUED
FINN’S ADVENTURE CONTINUES IN
A Lost Legacy
ASCENDING
References
http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~mallorybrody/Eire/Ulster/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
C.E. Dimond is an Irish-Canadian Young Adult author who was born in Winnipeg, Canada
She has always been a writer, from poems in her Grade 6 diary to short stories in the back of her math notebook. She has always loved to create stories and finds herself constantly creating new characters.
Find more of her work and connect at
www.cedimond.com