 
# WAIL

Copyright 2012 by J.S. Wayne

Cover design Copyright 2012 By J.S. Wayne and Kierce Severn

Cover Art and Author Photography Copyright 2010 Bill G. Fish

Country of First Publication: USA

ISBN10: 1479330868

ISBN13: 978-1479330867

This work is an act of fiction. All persons, places, and events in this work are either a product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Smashwords Edition

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A Semper Press Book

# Contents

Wail

Dedications

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Chapter Forty

Chapter Forty-One

Chapter Forty-Two

Chapter Forty-Three

Chapter Forty-Four

Chapter Forty-Five

Chapter Forty-Six

Chapter Forty-Seven

About the Author

Other Books by J.S. Wayne

#  Dedications

I owe a heavy debt of gratitude to a great many people and organizations for the existence of this novel.

To the founders and writers of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for their mad and intrepid vision, in particular the Sexy Turkey Hatters for inspiring the baby shower scene with a series of dares and off-the-cuff "wouldn't THAT be funny!" observations;

To Erin McCorkle, Stephanie Hale, Laura Craig Sinclair, Jenna and Yolanda for permitting me to use their names for my own nefarious ends in this novel. I hope y'all enjoy it!

To my literary heroes, Jim Butcher, Kim Harrison, and Dean R. Koontz, for first starting and then stoking the fire that put me on this insane, quixotic quest. All of these authors have created worlds in which I've passed countless hours of pleasure, terror, suspense, and excitement, and Kim Harrison deserves a particular nod here for making me ask: "Why HAVEN'T more authors written about banshees?"

To Ali Katz, KevaD, H.C. Brown, Bryl Tyne, and Bianca Sommerland, among a field of far too many to name, including the membership of ERAuthors.org: Y'all are some of the craziest, coolest, and finest people (and writers) I've ever had the privilege of knowing, and I'm grateful to count you all as my friends.

To Bill Fish and my family for believing in my dream years before it became a reality;

To the faculty and staff of Southern Utah University, for their support and assistance in every facet of my writing endeavors and the furtherance of my career;

To my devoted fans and readers, who make it worthwhile to get up every day and do the things I have to do so I can do the thing I love to do most: Tell the best story I know how.

And last, but by no means least, to the girls of House Unicron, past and present: Skwirly, Sparrow, Kitten, Dolphin, Otter, Firefly and Mouse. All of you helped to make me and my House what we are today, through so many twists and turns. Some of us still feel the love. Some do not. Regardless, I thank you, one and all, and most especially those who have stayed the longest and served me and House Unicron best.

Nobilitas servitio penitus perfectam caritatem et fidem et fiduciam.

In Loving Memory of Thor

Beloved Friend Taken Too Soon

#  Chapter One

The barrier dividing where Heather had been from where she now found herself, collapsed with a sickening, twisting sensation.

Warm, comforting peach and cream paint gave way to hard, deep gray stone and strident vermillion tapestries. Heather found herself staring up at a handsome woman with coppery red hair through a wave of dizziness that made the entire scene ripple and shudder around her.

With a clarion call of urgency in her tone, the woman rapped out something in a melodic tongue that Heather couldn't understand. The apparent command was heeded in seconds as the soft patter of footfalls hurried out of the room. Heather sank back into the surprisingly soft bed, and agony encircled her abdomen as a powerful contraction, a thousand times more excruciating than the worst menstrual cramp she'd ever endured, forced a cry from her.

A cool, damp cloth brushed her forehead, wiping the stinging sweat out of her eyes. She panted, trying to resolve the dichotomy between lying in her warm bed next to Mike and then finding herself here. The other woman spoke briskly but softly, her movements calm and assured as she knelt at the foot of the bed.

Vertigo swept over Heather as she realized that she couldn't see the woman over the bulk of her stomach. A dream, she thought. I'm having a dream.

The comfort the thought brought her was short-lived. Pain howled through her body and she screamed, the sound echoing back from the unforgiving stone walls. Who feels pain in a dream?

Rather than subsiding, the pain rose, staining her vision crimson. Her screams grew sharper and louder as "her" body fought to deliver the child within. Darkness teased at the edge of her vision, and the rubicund haze shifted to a misty monochrome. She didn't think of herself as weak, but there was no question that her strength was waning.

One final, searing burst of agony sheared her senses, and she felt herself tumbling as the woman hissed a pungent-sounding but unintelligible oath...

* * * * *

She was chopping herbs with a crude, sharp knife. Her apprentice would be here soon. Little Brannagh was as dear to her as her own child would have been, had she had any. She often wondered what the future had planned for Brannagh, but had not dared to ask. After all, life was uncertain and too often harsh, and she could not bring herself to shoulder the burden of such foreknowledge.

The drumming of hoofbeats approached, swelling rapidly to a thunder. She looked up and flinched as the knife missed the bunch of thistle and instead scored a deep wound across her palm. The wound immediately welled with bright red blood, and she looked out the window, trying to gauge if she would have time to bind the wound.

The men approached at a full gallop, a plume of dust rising behind them. At their head was a magnificent black-swaddled figure she knew well. The broad shoulders and blue eyes made her breath catch with desire even as a shiver of fear clawed at her spine.

They must not have seen Brannagh. She had often scolded Brannagh for her woolgathering ways, but now she was grateful for her pupil's apparent inability to keep accurate track of time. No good would come of a girl that age being here for what she instinctively knew was coming...

* * * * *

Rough-hewn wood pressed into Heather's bare breasts, stomach, and thighs, digging tiny splinters under her skin. The acrid scent of the cold liquid they had flung over her to revive her stung her nose, and she tried to flinch away from the post and the caustic stink. Her wrists and ankles were bound to the post, and all she managed was to push herself closer to the unyielding wood.

Beneath her feet, the sharp points of bundles of sticks poked and prodded into her soles, and tears welled up as she wondered what crime she had committed to deserve such cruel treatment. A droning male voice rang out, and she turned her head as far as she could to try to see her tormentor, shaking her head slightly to get the loose tendrils of fiery hair out of her eyes.

The man was wearing a dingy white cassock and carried a flaming brand as he chanted words that she thought were some form of Latin. Next to him stood the man in black, his bearded mouth set and grim; his eyes were flat and lifeless.

She cried out, words that made no sense to her and hurt her throat with their guttural pronunciation. A raucous chorus of laughter sprang up, and the priest turned to the man in black, offering him the torch.

The man in black accepted it and stepped forward with a slow, ominous stride. He flung the torch onto the woodpile, and Heather could only watch as the brand sailed through the air with unnatural sloth.

A stake, Heather thought numbly. I'm to be burned at the stake.

The torch clattered onto the kindling, and flames immediately sprang up, sending a choking plume of heat and smoke into Heather's face. She screamed out more of those unintelligible words, her mouth moving seemingly of its own accord, as if some other presence had taken control of her body.

The first lapping tongues of flame touched her feet, and she screamed again...

* * * * *

Heather gasped as her eyes opened into peaceful, welcoming darkness and bit back the scream that clawed at the base of her throat, demanding release. After a few long minutes of staring at the ceiling in a bid to slow her racing heartbeat, she slipped into her pink fuzzy bathrobe and shoved her feet into gray bunny slippers. The hardwood floor was far too cold to be bearable without them. Padding out the door, she stole an uneasy glance back into the bedroom. Her husband, Michael, formed a large lump under the covers. A pillow covered his face. As she watched, he shifted in his sleep and began snoring.

At least I don't have to listen to that, she thought, shutting the door softly. She padded downstairs and started the coffee maker, then began raiding the fridge, rounding up the makings for breakfast. In short order, hash browns were sizzling on the stove, steaks were on the broiler, and cracked eggs sat in a bowl, ready for the skillet. She sat down at the table with a cup of black coffee and watched it steam in the cool morning air, breathing in the homely mélange of mingled cooking scents.

It was not her habit to be up at four in the morning, but she wanted Mike to have a good breakfast before the shuttle from the Navy Reserve Center in Quincy arrived. She kept sneaking looks at the clock, the second hand moving her husband inexorably further away from her. Pressing that thought out of her mind, she took a sip of coffee.

For some reason, nothing tasted right the last few days. She wondered if it was her body, which seemed to be in a constant state of rebellion lately, or her mind, which kept nagging at her. Briefly, she thought of the pregnancy tests she'd purchased at the Wal-Mart last night when she picked up the makings for this morning's meal. She had managed to sneak them into the house past Mike, who had an inconvenient habit of picking up on every secret she had.

It wasn't that she was a bad actress; Heather was well-versed in the feminine arts. But Mike just seemed to have a nose for detecting uncomfortable bits of information that she didn't necessarily want him to know. Take last year, for example; she'd planned a two-week vacation in Cancun, Mexico, and Mike had learned of it less than a day after she booked the tickets, despite all her clever end-runs.

God, she didn't want him to go!

_Goddamn Al-Qaeda and Afghanistan,_ she thought bitterly. _Why couldn't they just stay in their own sandbox, and let us play with our own toys over here?_

Mike, of course, didn't even try to contest or question the orders, and she felt vaguely ashamed for wishing he would, even in the privacy of her own thoughts. The orders had come a month before, and she had known when he'd opened the door, just by the grim look on his face, what had happened.

Thankfully, Mike hadn't been willing to let them sit and brood. Instead, he demanded they pack as much fun and as much of each other into the time they had left as possible. From a weekend in Atlantic City, where they'd spent far too much money and way more time in their room than she'd planned, to a beachfront carnival the week before, on a day when the weather had been unusually cooperative for the Eastern Seaboard in March, he'd made sure she was thoroughly exhausted and too busy glowing with happiness to worry about this day.

Inevitably, though, the day had come. She pushed herself to her feet and began stirring the crisping potatoes in the pan. Salt and pepper quickly joined them, followed by a quick check on the steaks. They were cooking up nicely, and she flipped them, checking the clock to ensure that she remembered to put the eggs on after she turned the meat again.

She had realized days before that her period was three weeks late. Her cycle had always been clockwork-regular, but in the stress of Mike's impending departure, she didn't give it a moment's thought until she stumbled across the tampons she kept in the back of the cabinet under the bathroom sink.

The one thing she didn't want to do was give Mike any reason to feel guilty or more worried about leaving than he already was. And so she kept her peace, hiding the digital pregnancy tests away in her panty drawer, the one place she could be certain he would never look, like a filthy secret. The guilt she felt for the deception was offset by the relief she felt that he wouldn't have any more reason to feel bad than he already did.

Overhead, she heard the alarm go off, followed by the unmistakable sound of Mike getting up. When two hundred twenty pounds comes in contact with a hollow, hard surface, it makes a fair amount of noise, and Mike never moved silently around the house. His steps crossed the bedroom. A pause. Then five quick footfalls. Another, longer pause and a whoosh of water through pipes. Then the shower began running, and Heather deduced he'd stopped to relieve himself.

She turned the steaks again, stirred the potatoes one last time and pulled them out, and scrambled the eggs with brisk efficiency. Pulling a loaf of rye bread out of the breadbox, she loaded up the toaster and depressed the tray. Butter and jelly quickly found their way onto the table, along with silverware, and she began to dish up the meal.

Her stomach flipped over, and she cradled her belly at the sick, sliding feeling. God, please don't let me be pregnant, she thought. It seemed like such a cruel joke; she and Mike had tried so hard, for so long, to have a child. If there could be any more left-handed, horrible gift than the timing of this...whatever it was, she couldn't think of it.

Bravely, she resolved to finish everything on her plate when Mike got downstairs. Maybe the coffee's just not agreeing with me, she thought. I wonder if it would help if I add some cream and sugar...

No sooner did she think it than she was already looking for the Coffee-Mate and the sugar bowl. Moments later, the coffee was doctored to taste like very sweet Bailey's, and much more agreeable to her palate. Taking a careful swallow, then a larger, more courageous one, she let her eyes slide over to the window.

Marblehead, Massachusetts is situated right on the coast, a relative stone's throw from Boston. Heather and Mike lived on the inland side of town, not that Marblehead is a large town by any means. It was close enough to the Atlantic that she could open the windows and smell the salt from the sea, and the windows in the kitchen faced east, to give her the fresh morning offshore breezes and let her greet the morning.

Upstairs, the shower cut off, and she heard Mike rustling around. Probably took his utilities into the bathroom with him, she decided. When he came down, he would be fully dressed and ready to go. The sea bag he had packed the night before was lying carefully upright next to the door; his digital-print desert camouflage field jacket hung neatly on a hook above it. Next to his bag were his desert boots, their tan jarring next to the olive drab of the bag.

Looking at the tableau, the name tag on his jacket caught her eye: Hansen. She knew it was family tradition, but another pang of guilt shot through her at her refusal to take Mike's name on their wedding day. Mike had understood, and even thought it quite charming. Now, in the face of his leaving for such hazardous duty, she wondered what the big deal was.

_Why didn't I just do it when I had the chance?_ She wondered, looking out the window at the clear sky above the naked trees. The weather outside was cool, but not cold, by most standards; the thermometer in the corner read forty degrees. Jacket weather, here. The stars shone bright and calm in the firmament, unrivaled this morning by the moon. It would be a pleasant day.

The thought irritated her. Why couldn't the weather be drab and gray, to match her mood? Better yet, why couldn't a hurricane or nor'easter blow up and spare her this heartache? Why should there be a lovers' sky outside, when her own lover was leaving for a place he may never come back from?

Her lower lip quivered, and she took a deep, calming breath. She couldn't let Mike see her like this. Her field of vision shifted, and she caught her reflection in the window.

She was a lovely, pale woman, with long, honey-colored hair and hazel eyes. Gone were the braces and glasses; she now wore contacts instead. Her hair was disheveled from sleep and she wasn't wearing so much as a breath of makeup. In her bathrobe, she suddenly felt as frumpy as if her hair had been up in curlers and she'd had a cigarette sticking out of her mouth. She wished she'd gotten up a little earlier and made herself at least look human. Her annoyance with herself ratcheted up another notch.

Too late now; Mike was coming down the stairs. Automatically, she turned to face him, as she always did. He was the reliable sun around which she orbited.

His black socks looked ridiculous and disembodied for a moment, and then the rest of him appeared; all six feet, two inches of him. His close-cropped blond hair offset his blue eyes to perfection. His shoulders, if it were possible, were broader than they'd been in high school. A small, crooked smile, the one he only gave her, brightened his face.

"Good morning, beautiful," he boomed, sweeping her close for a kiss. When they parted, she looked up into his eyes.

" _Ugh,_ my God, Mike, I look like a train wreck," she said.

"Not to me you don't," he retorted, curling a brawny arm around her. "Do I smell coffee?"

"Fresh-made, fifteen minutes ago," she replied, disengaging herself and heading for the coffeepot. Moments later, his red cup with the gold eagle, globe and anchor ensign was filled to the brim, and she shooed him away when he came to get it.

"Sit down, Devil Dog," she ordered. "Breakfast, coming up."

He snapped to attention, which looked silly in his stocking feet, and whipped off a parade-ground perfect salute. "Ma'am, yes ma'am!" he barked as if he had been on a parade deck, instead of in his own kitchen.

Mike was the perfect tonic for her bleak mood; she laughed. "Sit, you goon." As he did so, she piled a heaping plate in front of him and set the coffee down to the side. "Does this look okay?"

He looked up at her. "I know what I'd rather have," he leered.

"Sorry, bucko, I'm not on the menu this morning. If we'd woken up earlier..."

"We'd be waking the chickens," he grinned. Seizing his knife and fork, he tucked into his meal with gusto. Heather tried to follow suit as best she could, but only managed a half-hearted effort. Her eyes kept stealing toward the clock. Mike noticed immediately, of course.

"What time did you say the shuttle's coming?" she asked, keeping her tone carefully neutral.

"Oh-six-hundred," he answered, "and we're wasting time thinking about it."

"I know," she said, levering a forkful of eggs into her mouth. They didn't taste right either, but she didn't dare put any more condiments on, for fear they might upset her already-sensitive stomach. Swallowing them down bravely, she sighed and said, "I just wish this damn war would get over with."

He looked into her eyes. "I know, baby. Believe me, if there was any way I could _not_ go, I wouldn't. But I don't have a choice."

"Yeah, yeah, Semper Fi and all that," she answered. It came out a little sharper than she'd intended, and she immediately felt bad. She'd always loved the look of him in his dress blues; they'd been married while he was wearing them. But suddenly the sight of his desert utilities made her want to scream. It was almost as if the clothing deliberately mocked her despair by pointing up the fact her husband was in a very dangerous occupation.

Mike recoiled as if slapped. "Honey, you _know_ it's not like that. And the signing bonus I got when I re-upped made a sizable dent in the mortgage on this place. We should have it paid off...when?"

"Next year. August," she said, stabbing her steak with a little more violence than was strictly necessary. "I understand all that, Mike. But I just can't help hating that you have to go and do this. And I swore I wasn't going to act this way," she finished, her eyes misting.

"Act what way?" he demanded, scooting his chair out to rise to his full height.

"Act like some weepy little wifey who can't stand the thought of hubby leaving," she snapped. "Jesus, Mike, the _last_ thing I wanted to do was make you feel guilty."

Mike came to stand behind her and wrapped his immense arms around her. She knew he could snap her in half like balsa wood if it ever occurred to him to do so; but Mike was the essence of a gentle giant. It would genuinely never enter his mind to hurt her, or anyone else, without a very good reason.

Not that he wasn't a fighter, she thought, rubbing her hand absently up his arms to where the smooth skin stopped and the rough material of his utilities began. He was just as capable of holding his own in a brawl as anyone she'd ever known. But he didn't want to fight, and usually his sheer size and bearing made the prospect of an altercation unappealing to bullies.

She looked down at Mike's arm, and saw the staff sergeant's chevrons that he wore proudly on his sleeve. She knew he loved his job as a munitions expert, and understood that he had a very important job on the battlefield. That didn't make it any easier, though.

"You're not making me feel guilty," Mike insisted, canting her chin up so that she was looking her in the eye, albeit upside-down. "I know you. That's your way of telling me to come home safe."

His voice grew very firm. "And I intend to do exactly that," he finished, leaning down to give her a full, hearty kiss.

Just then a horn blared from outside. Mike jerked away as if he'd been branded. "Goddamnit," he spat, looking at the clock. "Those fucking squids are early."

Ordinarily, Heather would rebuke him gently. She didn't approve of invective as a general rule, and indulged in it only on very rare occasions; generally, when she was furious, injured, or very ill. But today, she felt like she could out-cuss any one of the sailors Mike had just disparaged. So now she simply stood up and allowed him to pull her off her feet for another kiss. Setting her down as gently as he could, he hurried over to the door. Shoving his feet into his boots, he shouldered into his jacket. The zips on the sides of his boots were quickly secured, and he hefted the heavy bag as if it weighed no more than a newborn baby. Tossing it over his shoulder, he opened the door, then turned back.

It wasn't like Heather to rush him, but she did now. The force of her leap into his arms, combined with the inertia of the bag, pushed him out the door and onto the porch, where they were illuminated by the headlights of the navy-gray government van waiting in the drive, behind Mike's overly macho black Chevy Avalanche. Heather could hear muted laughter, but didn't care as she pressed her lips to Mike's as hungrily as if she was trying to devour him.

The horn bleated once, quickly, and Heather allowed Mike to pry her off him. "You'd better come home safe, leatherneck," she muttered, trying to memorize his face as best she could before he left. The light breeze that wafted around her was cold as it played on her bare legs and under the bust line of her robe, but she noticed the discomfort as if it was being experienced by someone else and otherwise ignored it.

"I promise I will, baby. I love you. I'll write as soon as I can," he promised. One more light peck, a quick brush of his thumb over her right cheek, and he was hurrying down the drive, waving as he went. "I love you, Heather," he shouted at his full Marine command volume. The door opened, he got in, and the instant the door shut, the van was in reverse and pulling away. Dimly, she could see Mike still waving through the window.

"You'd better, Mike. I love you too," she whispered, touching her cheek where he had.

It didn't matter that the breeze was chilly. It didn't matter that the stoop was hard, and dirty, and rough against her knees as she folded onto it.

All that mattered was the warm sting of the tears as they flowed freely from her eyes, and the aching loneliness that she felt.

#  Chapter Two

Nude, Heather slumped onto the floor of the bathroom, biting back a banshee shriek of anguish. The pregnancy test lay beside her on the floor, the word PREGNANT proclaimed in the digital window in a bold type that even Stevie Wonder could read. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment, then reread the instructions.

" _Use first thing in the morning. Hold the tester in your urine stream for three to five seconds and withdraw. Result will displayed within sixty seconds. Consult your doctor for confirmatory testing."_

_Couldn't get much easier than that,_ she thought, her head whipping back and forth between the paper and the elongated plastic device that looked like an overgrown thermometer. She'd followed the directions to the letter, and now she prayed that the result would fade. _Did these things have a sense of humor?_ She wondered with a flare of hope. _Do they ever go, "Just kidding?"_

Even as she thought it, she knew the answer. _It's a machine,_ she thought sadly. _It's designed to do exactly one thing. It doesn't_ have _a ha-ha readout._

Fresh tears traced down her face, and she couldn't choke back a sob of pure misery. _How could this have happened?_ She thought frantically. _I'm dreaming. This is a horrible nightmare and I'll wake up to Mike laying beside me and I'll make love to him and go to work. Wake up. Wake up! WAKE UP!_

But she wouldn't wake up, despite her insistence, and knew that she already was awake. Her left thigh was beginning to cramp from the awkward position she was sitting in, the floor was cold against her buttocks, and her head ached too ferociously for this to be a dream.

She folded onto her side and wept, pouring out all the grief and uncertainty she hadn't showed Mike. But the harder she wept, the more poison she cast away, the more another, even more insidious venom filled her heart.

Guilt.

Finally, exhausted and cried out, she managed to make it into the shower. The hot spray felt good against her chilled body, and she wished that she could somehow make it reach her equally cold heart. She felt frozen and off balance, like a poorly-conceived ice sculpture. She went through the motions of washing mechanically, not lingering. It was just a task to be done. Her hands, which usually thrilled to touch her own body in these private moments, flying along her smooth flesh as she duplicated the latest thing she and Mike had tried, now felt like lead. It was a monumental effort to make them move even the slightest amount.

In five minutes, she was done, and wrapped herself up in a towel. Drying off briskly, she wrapped herself back in the soft terrycloth robe Mike had given her two years ago, put her hair up in the towel, and went downstairs barefoot. It seemed impossible that the house could feel any emptier, and she turned on the radio on the counter before pouring herself another cup of coffee. As she doctored it, she listened with half an ear.

" _WKLB, Marblehead. It's 6:27 am, and I'm your host, Marty Jenkins,"_ the announcer said in his flat, nasal Boston accent. _"We just had a special request for this one, to Heather from Mike, who says he already misses you. Here's Juice Newton, with Angel of the Morning."_

The first strains of the song pierced Heather's heart, and she sagged into her chair as if Atlas had suddenly grown tired of his burden, shrugged it onto her, and said, "Now it's your problem." Her coffee sat beside her, untouched, as Juice Newton sang.

The lyrics made her ache as if someone had stabbed her right in the chest, and suddenly she felt as if she couldn't breathe. As the song worked its way through the bridge and the first blush of dawn began to light the sky, she realized that she couldn't go to work in this state.

After the song was over, she sat there long enough for the first rays of the sun to turn the off-white walls a triumphant gold. The station had segued on to something mindlessly upbeat, but Heather didn't have the energy to change the station. She wondered how Mike had found a private moment to make the call, or if he'd just called the station in front of God and everyone. _That would be so like him,_ she thought. _He never did give a damn what anyone thought when it came to me._

The thought teased a fragile smile onto her lips and pulled her out of her paralysis. Finally, she picked up her mug and took a sip. _Cold—blech._ With a grimace, she walked across the kitchen and poured it down the sink, then picked up the phone and dialed a number she knew by heart.

Two rings. Three.

An answer.

"Erin, it's Heather," she said. "I—I can't come in to work today."

She listened.

"Yes, he left an hour ago. But that's not it. I'm...pregnant."

The scream that burst through the earpiece made her wince.

"It surprised me too." A second later, "Yes, I'm sure. I need to make an appointment at the clinic for follow-up testing."

Silence. Then a question.

"No, he doesn't know. I took the test after he left," she answered.

A moment later, she put the phone down and grimaced. She really wasn't in the mood for company. But she was going to get it, one way or the other, like it or not.

* * * * *

At the same moment, closer than the walls of Heather's own kitchen but across a veil as impenetrable as the deepest recesses of space, these events were being considered.

To an observer, it would seem like a perfectly normal, charming little cottage, the kind one might expect to see anywhere in Ireland or Scotland. Rough ceiling beams, fieldstone walls, a rough-hewn table and chairs, and a quaint little diamond-paned window. The view through the window was one of a cliff overlooking the sea; the waves appeared to lap gently in toward land from this commanding height. Down on the beach, though, they would be towering breakers, no less than twelve feet high.

Gathered around the table were seven young women. The youngest was somewhere in her middle teens, the eldest on the sunny side of thirty, to look at them.

Their appearances deceived.

One of the women spoke, in an ancient Gaelic dialect.

" _What is happening, Adan?" she asked, directing the question at the youngest-appearing of the women._

Adan sat with her fragile little hands clasped around a cup of tea; her pale blonde locks fell down to obscure her face. After a long silence, she spoke.

" _She knows."_

A murmur of consternation ran around the room. None of them wished for what was coming.

All of them knew it would come anyway.

" _We have to warn her," a raven-haired, plain-featured woman in her twenties insisted._

" _If we can, we will," Adan assured her. "I am already working toward that end."_

" _We must not fail," she pressed. "If we cannot get through to her before she learns of this..."_

" _I_ know, _Rowan," Adan snapped. "I_ said _I am working on it. Now be silent and_ let _me."_

* * * * *

Erin McCorkle hadn't lost any time. Heather was more than her favorite employee and partner; she was also Erin's best friend. Less than fifteen minutes after Heather's call, Erin was sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee with Heather.

She had enough tact not to actually tell Heather that she looked like Hell. But her face said everything her mouth wouldn't.

Heather had been sitting there for fifteen minutes, recounting the events of the morning. When she got to the song dedication Mike had made for her, Erin giggled and pressed her hands together. A hopeless romantic, she dreamed of finding a big teddy bear like Mike for herself. It was too bad that all she seemed to find were dreamers, cheaters, and liars, Heather reflected.

Erin was a large, heavy-set woman with long hair dyed what on most other women would have been a most improbable shade of maroon. Erin somehow managed to make it work, though. Her eyes were her most expressive feature: a cheerful blue-gray when she was happy, fading to menacing steel when she was angry. The two had been friends since kindergarten, and Erin had often had cause to be angry on behalf of Heather, who was picked on relentlessly by many of the more heartless kids.

In all fairness, Heather had been a bit of a bookworm, but that didn't meant that she deserved the abuse that a lot of the kids had heaped on her. Erin, loyal as a bulldog, had often intervened, sometimes even going as far as to get in flat-out fights for Heather.

Heather was grateful for Erin in ways that she could never adequately explain. In many ways, the two were closer than sisters. On the outside, they were the original odd couple; inside, they were like two halves of a whole. They had no secrets, and Heather didn't even try to keep any. So she spilled the whole story, while Erin sat, looking alternately delighted, horrified, and somber, as the tale mandated.

When Heather finished, silence fell between the two women. In the background, the radio chattered on, this time playing something with an aggressive beat and a howling guitar. Somehow, it seemed out of place in this context. Erin bobbed her head absently while she sat, silent, her lips pursed.

Suddenly, Erin's head shot up, and her whole body went rigid with excitement.

"I've got it!" she cried.

Heather started. "Huh? Got what?" she queried.

"You need a party." Erin's eyes glinted with mischief.

"Oh _no_ you don't," Heather retorted. "I am _so_ not in the mood for a party. I just want to be alone, watch chick flicks, and go to work tomorrow."

Erin chuckled with mocking menace. "You're so cute when you think you have a choice," she purred.

Heather's lips twitched in an expression that seemed to be stuck halfway between laughter and exasperation. "I _do_ have a choice," she insisted. "I could lock the doors, hide the spare key, and pretend I'm not home."

"Oh, girly, you only _wish._ I've got the spare on my key ring, remember? You gave it to me when you two went to A.C."

Heather groaned. She'd completely forgotten about that. Erin had come over to get the mail and water the plants, and Heather had been too distracted to get the key back. A thin, desperate hope occurred to her.

"I don't suppose that a year of servitude would convince you, would it?"

The corners of Erin's eyes crinkled.

"Not on your life, honey," she smirked.

Heather sighed. Erin really wasn't trying to be thoughtless; her heart was usually in the right place. But Heather realized that the futility of trying to reason with Erin when she got an idea in her mind was only eclipsed by the futility of trying to get Erin to understand that sometimes, people really did mean what they said.

Hoping that something else might present itself and take Erin's focus off her for a while, she said grudgingly, "If you must."

#  Chapter Three

Erin left soon after, with a cheerful, "See you tonight!" After she closed the door behind Erin, Heather sat in the kitchen by herself, drinking tea and considering the rest of her day. Soon, she had obtained the number of the clinic from the phone book and left a message to arrange the earliest possible appointment she could manage. Then she went into her downstairs office and pulled out a large expandable file folder.

Just because she wasn't going to work, she reasoned, didn't mean that she couldn't _do_ any work. Professional genealogists didn't often make a great deal of money; Heather was fortunate enough to be one of the few who could do it as a full-time occupation, as opposed to a mere sideline. Part of that was because of her innate curiosity about other people: she specialized in ferreting out information about people's families and ancestors that few others could.

Heather was one of those rare people blessed, or cursed, with a mind that could run on multiple tracks at once. While she correlated, studied, and prized information from the folders and papers on the table and the laptop in front of her, she reflected on what had brought her to do this for a living.

Her mother had been surprised when Heather had announced her intention to go to college to be a genealogist. Bonnie had correctly pointed out that it wasn't generally a field that paid well, by most standards, and that she should have a back-up of some kind. Heather had acquiesced to the wisdom of this, and had acquired a minor in education. She had supported herself as a substitute teacher while she and Erin had built McCorkle-Kelly Inquiries, a subsidiary arm of the New England Historical Society and one of the most lucrative private genealogy firms on the East Coast. Erin had put up most of the start-up money, which made her the senior partner on paper. In practice, it was more or less irrelevant; the two women shared the duties of running the firm, doing the books, and all the other administrative trivia it took to keep any small business in the black and out of trouble with the Internal Revenue Service.

"But _why,_ Heather?" Bonnie had pleaded the day Heather told her of her intentions. _"Why_ do you want to go digging around in other people's lives?"

The question had given Heather pause for a moment. But then she realized exactly what it was about the field that drew her.

"Well, for starters, it's always fascinated me," Heather had told her. "Our own family is so clannish and fussy about it, you'd think that the family tree was dragged here, roots and all, and replanted in America so that no one could tell that we had ever been anywhere else."

"I've always wondered about that myself," Bonnie confided, "but Great-Gran always said that her own mother would never talk about 'the auld sod.' She said it was in the past and would sure and to God stay there."

"And no one else has wondered?" Heather had pressed.

"Of _course,_ they've wondered," Bonnie had said, surprised. "But the ones who knew anything took their secrets to the proverbial grave. It's possible we might have some cousins in Ireland who might know something about the subject, but beyond that..." And she'd offered a little, dismissive shrug.

The phone rang, jarring Heather out of her reverie and back into the present.

"Hello?" she asked.

It was the clinic. Could she come in at two?

"Of course," she said. "Is Dr. Simpkins available?"

Maureen Simpkins, M.D., was her gynecologist. According to the nurse, yes, that was who the appointment was scheduled with.

Heather felt a flood of relief. Dr. Simpkins's associate, Dr. Larch, was a very tall, cadaverous-looking man with no bedside manner and cold hands. Many of Dr. Simpkins's patients rescheduled rather than see Dr. Lurch, as they called him behind his back, more than once.

"Thank you," she said. "See you at two."

The nurse offered a brief pleasantry and Heather hung up. Looking around at the scattered papers and files on her desk, she was vaguely surprised at the amount of work she'd gotten done...and the time. It was nearly twelve-thirty. She'd been working for almost four hours.

She stood up and her back muscles protested. Giving a deep stretch and feeling a few vertebrae pop back into position, she packed up the files and closed down the laptop. Then she went upstairs to get her briefcase; it was a cool day, but clear, and a walk would do her good. She popped on her slim, trendy little sunglasses before she could overthink it. Quickly donning a light windbreaker, she tossed the whole file into her briefcase, slung her purse over her shoulder, and sauntered out the door, locking it as she passed.

* * * * *

Heather felt better than she thought she had any right to as she strolled west down Ash Street toward Ocean Avenue. The wind was from the northeast and carried the sea smell she loved. In only a couple of blocks, she caught the first tantalizing glimpse of the ocean, slate-blue in the brilliant sunshine. A few hardy seabirds wheeled and called to each other in the air, amusing her with their aerobatics.

On the next street she took a left. Two more blocks carried her to the offices of McCorkle-Kelly Inquiries, a small, tidy office in a cute little strip mall. Erin had been lucky enough to snap it up three years earlier, when the commercial market had tanked and the owner became desperate enough to put it on the market at half the previous asking price.

Erin had ambitions of getting into larger quarters eventually, perhaps even working out of her house, where she wouldn't have to commute the three blocks to work every day. She often joked about being able to see clients in her pajamas. But they both knew it was only a joke; the bluebloods who availed themselves of McCorkle-Kelly's services tended to be the epitome of uptight, wealthy, WASP Boston Brahmans. They seemed to share one unique characteristic: a surgically removed sense of humor.

Heather walked into the office and took a look around. From the outside, it didn't look any different than any other retail space in a strip mall. On the inside, it was a very different proposition. Erin had gone to a certain amount of expense to hire in an interior decorator with a background in _feng shui._ The decorator had played up the Irish connection boasted by the firm's founders. After all, a fair percentage of the Boston area shares Celtic blood. The result was a calm oasis of emerald green, muted gold, and overstuffed, comfortable furniture. Oak paneling prevailed where the walls weren't painted, and the armchairs and couches provided for clients were squashy and inviting. Over in the corner, a few potted plants clustered around a small, gurgling fountain.

Erin sat behind her desk in a wing chair upholstered in maroon velvet. She was scowling at a file so intently that she didn't even hear the door bump closed behind Heather. Heather walked up to the desk and rapped twice on the faux wood surface.

Her boss's head snapped up in surprise. "What are _you_ doing here?" she cried.

"I wanted to drop off these files for Mrs. O'Callaghan," Heather said. "I have a doctor's appointment at two, and I know she'll be looking for them if I don't."

"Hmm," Erin said, eyeing the file Heather produced. She pursed her lips in thought for a moment.

"Why don't you ditch the satchel and let me buy you lunch," she said after a moment. "Chinese sound good?"

Heather considered for a moment.

"Sounds great," she smiled.

* * * * *

Over a leisurely lunch at Fat Tai's, Erin launched into a long and involved story about a client who wanted them to provide evidence that her roots went back to Charlemagne. Heather had been listening with half an ear. Part of her mind was off wondering where Mike was now, another part was trying to find excuses to ditch out of the planned festivities for the night, and yet another part was puzzling over something her mother had said; it was niggling at her severely, but she couldn't seem to quite shake loose what it was that was bothering her about it.

Finally, she gave it up when she realized that Erin wasn't speaking anymore. Instead, she was staring at Heather with her chin propped on doubled fists, her eyebrows raised in an appraising manner. "What?" Heather asked self-consciously, surreptitiously brushing her chin to see if she had sauce on it.

"Just wondering about you," Erin replied flatly. "This morning, you were all sobs and sighs, and who wouldn't be? Fast-forward five hours, you're a totally different person. What gives?"

Heather frowned. She hadn't really considered her buoyant mood beyond the fact of its existence. At first she'd thought that it was just an it's-a-nice-day-out, look-how-much-work-I-got-done good mood, but Erin was right. Something was a little...off kilter.

"I don't know," she said slowly, taking a slow sip of green tea from the porcelain cup in front of her. "Could it be hormones? I know that a lot of pregnant women have mood swings."

Erin's eyebrows arched incredulously. She raised a hand in a "stop" gesture and started ticking off points. "One: you've just now realized you're late. Hormones don't kick in that quickly. Two: pregnant women's moods swing, sure, but they don't generally do a complete one-eighty. If I didn't know how crazy in love you are with Mike, I'd suspect you were glad he's gone so that you could have a fling with some Romeo you met. Three: you are the single most emotionally stable person I know. The one time that I know of that you and Mike fought, you were in a funk for three days. I had to put on that ridiculous YouTube video with the three parakeets singing opera to get you out of it. Remember?"

Heather did. It had been a stupid fight, as most marital squabbles are. This one had centered around whose turn it was to get the oil changed in the truck. Mike, in a huff, had made himself as scarce as chicken lips. Heather had broken down in tears. Erin had brought wine, cake, and movies. But nothing Erin could do would coax the stubborn depression off Heather's face. Impressions, shadow puppets, sock puppets, goofy riffs on Broadway numbers; Heather had sat through it all like a mannequin. Even after Mike finally came home late that night and they talked it out, Heather had ghosted around her home and the office like a depressed shade.

Finally, after three days, Erin had finally had enough, and brought out the big gun.

It succeeded where all else, even Erin's formidable comedic talents, had failed. To this day, it was still one of her favorite Internet clips. Her lips curved into a smile just at the thought.

Still, she took Erin's point, and said so. "What do you make of it?" Heather asked.

"I'm not sure," Erin said thoughtfully, her eyes roaming over Heather's face. "But I know what I'm going to do about it."

Heather heaved an exasperated sigh. "You're just not going to let this go, are you?" she demanded.

"Oh, no, no, _no,"_ Erin said, all huge eyes and drama to match. "I'm having much, much too much fun watching you squirm. Besides, look at you. You're ten years out of high school. A successful businesswoman with a husband that makes half the female population of Marblehead cream themselves every time he walks out the door."

"Erin!" Heather shushed her, looking around to see if anyone nearby had heard that salvo. Luckily, their section was fairly deserted, except for an old man sitting in the corner, reading the Boston Globe.

"What about the other half?" Heather heard herself ask in a gushy voice, and wanted to cower into a crack in the floor and pull it in after her.

"The other half would like nothing better than to see you dead," Erin said blandly.

"What a horrible thing to say!" Heather gasped. "I've never done anything to any of them, except maybe Allison..."

"Who got exactly what she deserved, marrying that loser. You wouldn't know she was the captain of the peep squad to look at her now, would you?"

Heather laughed. The old, insulting nickname they had for the cheerleaders had been well-earned; Allison had once done a pep rally without her panties. But time marches on for all, and to be fair, although it was unkind to mock someone's size, Allison had brought it upon herself. Her superior, because-I'm-me-and-I-deserve-the-best attitude had been thoroughly knocked out of her by her husband, Bruce Vincent, along with three teeth. She'd gained at least a hundred and fifty pounds in the last ten years. At their ten-year reunion the previous summer, Erin had managed to have a great deal of fun with Allison's dubious choice of attire.

"She looks like a Macy's Parade float. Or a beached whale with a really pretty handbag," Erin had stage-whispered to Mike and Heather as Allison wallowed by on high heels that looked far too slender to support her, sporting a royal-blue dress that would have been an acceptable option for a woman with fifty pounds less to go around and her hair primped up in a 'do which hadn't been popular since _The Breakfast Club_ was in first-run movie theaters. Erin's own size made her the butt of similar humor, but somehow it was a lot funnier when it was directed at someone like Allison. Erin had been that way since middle school and had tried every diet, pill, herb, and supplement known to man. It never made a difference. Allison had just gotten lazy.

Heather had swallowed a giggle, while Mike had given a full, loud belly laugh that drew glances from across the room. She'd had to admit Erin had a point about one thing, though. The little black sequined clutch Allison was carrying was to die for.

"Anyway," Heather pressed. "The point is, I've never done anything to any of them for them to want me dead."

"Are you sure?" Erin gave a lazy, wicked wink. "You _did_ marry the man who every woman in town wants to make babies with," she added teasingly.

Heather stood bolt-upright so quickly that her purse was flung off her lap. The contents exploded everywhere. Eyeliner rolled into the kitchen while lipstick skittered under a waitress's shoe, coins flew around like shrapnel from an airburst, and the checkbook sailed through the air and landed with an audible splash in the egg drop soup on the buffet.

As she scurried around, apologizing profusely to everyone in earshot for the disturbance and any damage or harm done while snatching up random items and returning them to their prison, she was also muttering under her breath. _"Oh, no, I'm going to be late for my appointment, and I just know they're going to make me reschedule, I can't believe I could be so_ stupid," and furthermore and thus and so and on and on. Erin finally swooped to the rescue. Grabbing Heather by the shoulders, she said, very slowly and clearly, as if addressing a simpleton, "Calm... _down."_

Heather blinked twice and got a grip.

"Now," Erin continued in the same tone of voice, "I'm going to pick up your stuff. You're going to very carefully go into my purse and pull out my wallet. Then you are going to tiptoe across this restaurant like it's rigged to blow the moment you make a sound, pay the cashier, tip the server, and wait for me at...the...door." She ended this set of instructions with a goofy, cross-eyed face.

"Yes...I...understand," Heather said slowly and mechanically, making an effort to return Erin's comic face with an equally silly expression.

"Then get it done, girly," Erin mock-snapped, and swatted Heather on the butt in a comradely gesture as she walked by, causing Heather to jump and shoot her a startled glance. Looking after her, Erin shook her head in feigned disbelief and set about salvaging what she could of Heather's things.

* * * * *

Heather walked out of the clinic clutching a veritable cornucopia in a white plastic bag, emblazoned brilliantly, if ironically, with a Levitra logo: prenatal vitamins, pamphlets, phone numbers, website addresses for every conceivable need and then some a pregnant woman might have, and a little calendar to track important milestones. Dr. Simpkins had been compassionate and caring, answering every question that Heather had and even some that hadn't occurred to her to ask.

All except one.

As she strolled down the street, peering around at the stores to see if she felt like doing any browsing or munching, she wondered about her conversation with Erin earlier. It seemed that a lot of the conversations she was recalling suddenly had hidden meaning. Dr. Simpkins had confirmed what Erin had surmised.

Whatever was up with her mood swings, it certainly _wasn't_ hormones.

#  Chapter Four

At six fifty-six, the doorbell rang. Before Heather could do more than blink, Erin barged in, surrounded by a coterie of women, all carrying wine, snacks, chocolate, and...baby items?

Heather stood up and whirled around, feeling overwhelmed. Two minutes ago, she'd been listening to smooth jazz and sipping chamomile peppermint tea. The double chocolate chunk rocky road with the extra fudge had apparently unsettled her stomach a little, and the tea was helping. On the kitchen table was her notebook and "special" purple gel pen. She only used it to write love letters to Mike.

Now, instead of blissful peace and the mellow air of jazz, her living room was suddenly alive with wall-to-wall, hot-and-cold running women. Delores from the beauty parlor was seated on the couch next to Frannie from the supermarket. Ellen, who worked at the local gym, was standing in the corner talking animatedly with Yolanda. The word "zoo" kept coming up, which seemed a trifle odd to Heather, as neither of them worked at a zoo nor did either of them have children. _Maybe they're setting up a running date,_ she thought. _Both of them do love to jog._ Gladys Snow from down the street was hovering in a corner, her eyes taking in everything around her. Erin had also brought Lydia from a well-known local restaurant, Stephanie Hale from the marina, and Jenna Thompson from the pizza parlor.

The women had invaded and mercilessly subjugated her home to their whims; in a trice, the kitchen table was cleared of Heather's work and relaxation and instead coated in a detritus of chips, dips, sauces, and cookies. The counter was swiftly overrun by different kinds of soda and several bottles of wine. The smooth jazz was switched off and something with a hard, driving, sinuous rhythm replaced it.

The coffee table, meanwhile, had become the repository of a plethora of unexpected gifts. Toys, diapers, bottles, pacifiers, fuzzy little stuffed animals, clothes...Heather had to wonder if they'd stopped and robbed a Babies "R" Us before coming to the house.

She suppressed an exasperated urge to scream. It was typical of Erin to think with her heart more than her head, but this seemed a little over the top, even for her. Her own husband didn't know about the pregnancy yet, and half the women in Marblehead were lining up to congratulate her! It was rare that Heather considered performing violent acts, least of all on her friends. But given the high-handed behavior of her partner and boss, she was seriously weighing the pros and cons of simple, straightforward homicide right now.

As the women filed past Heather to put down their offerings, each had offered her a hug, congratulations, and a whispered word of advice:

"Don't name the baby after a season," said Delores.

"Never have a baby on Friday," Gladys added.

"Always be patient," Jenna mumbled.

"You're going to be covered head to toe in butt paste for about three months. Have fun!" Ellen said. She'd never made any bones about her distaste for babies and their bodily functions. Privately, Heather wondered whether she'd ever see Ellen once the baby came.

"Pink is the new black," Lydia caroled. Heather had to think about that one and what possible relevance it had to babies. The implications made her dizzy.

" _Don't_ let Gladys do the knitting," Stephanie suggested conspiratorially. "Last time I let her make something for Annabelle, I thought she was knitting a sweater for a giraffe."

"I heard that, missy!" Gladys shrilled from the next room.

"I know," Stephanie giggled. "I made _sure_ of it!"

Heather couldn't help but laugh.

Someone's MP3 player had been docked into Heather's stereo, and Johnny Cash came on. Yolanda, a cute black lady, was standing in the middle of the living room.

"I don't think this is quite appropriate for a shower," she announced in her thick Brooklyn accent, hands on hips. _"Ghost Riders in the Sky?_ Really?"

Erin and Jenna suddenly suffered a raucous fit of laughter. Linking arms, they began high-kicking in time with Johnny, massacring the lyrics. Heather could have sworn they were singing "Ghost chickens in the sky," but that would have been just too weird for her tolerance right then. So she pretended they were singing something else.

_Anything_ else.

"And that reminds me!" Ellen grinned. "For the hostess, and guest of honor, we have the very special... _HAT!"_

Everyone stopped their laughing, carousing, squabbling, and spatting and turned to look. Ellen dug into her neon pink duffle and pulled out what looked for all the world like a dead turkey. She advanced on Heather, holding out the feathered monstrosity with both hands. To Heather, it looked like she was strangling the strange object while trying to keep it away from her. Reflexively, she backed away.

"To our lovely guest of honor, Heather, who becomes the fifth of us to have a baby since the tradition started, we present this Sexy Turkey Hat!"

"Oooh, no, you don't," Heather sputtered. "That—that—that _thing_ is not coming anywhere near my head! It looks like a possessed poultry. And a _diseased,_ possessed poultry at that! There is no way in Hell I'm putting that on!"

Erin, who could move quite quickly and stealthily when properly motivated, ran up behind Heather and efficiently placed her in a wrestling hold. "Get it on, get it on!" she shrieked as Heather tried, ineffectually, to break away. In short order, Heather was properly adorned, and the party got well and truly under way. Drinks were poured, munchies were served, and everyone began chattering gaily away about the "blessed event."

"Do you know what you're going to name the baby yet?" Stephanie asked.

"I, uh, we haven't really thought about it, yet," Heather stammered. "First we need to know the sex."

"Well, the sex is what got it here!" Lydia chuckled, holding up a glass of what looked like cola, but probably wasn't, considering how flushed her cheeks were. Heather looked around at the beverages lined up on the counter. Sure enough, mixed in among the bottles of soda and wine, she was able to pick out a bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold, Jack Daniel's, and it looked like someone had brought vodka as well. She just hoped that no one got _too_ drunk, or if they did, that they'd made prior arrangements for alternate transportation and places to crash. A brief flare of annoyance shot through her as the music suddenly seemed to blare even louder.

"So what does Mike think about it?" Jenna asked.

And there it was: the two-ton pink elephant plunked itself down next to Heather and got cozy. Her good mood evaporated like candle wax in an inferno, and she felt her smile collapse into a tight line. "He doesn't know yet," she said softly.

Jenna recoiled with a horrified look. "What do you _mean_ , he doesn't know?" she demanded.

"I only found out this morning after he left." Her guilt suddenly spiked. Well-intentioned or not, she abruptly found herself wishing she'd taken the test before he left. Even though she believed that she'd done the right thing, the second and third thoughts that had been niggling at her in the morning came rushing back with full, crushing force.

"So you suspected something _before_ he left." It wasn't a question; Jenna seemed to genuinely be trying to understand to understand where Heather's intentions had lain.

"I started get worried day before yesterday," Heather confessed. "But I couldn't put that on him, on top of everything else. I just want him back, safe and sound. Giving him one more thing to worry about..." She took a deep breath. "I didn't dare. He needs to have his mind fully focused. When he gets back, hopefully he'll forgive me."

Jenna looked slightly mollified. Although she hadn't intended it as an accusation, she clearly realized that she'd stomped right on a very raw nerve with her question. The other women looked as taken aback as Jenna. No one seemed to know what to say. To escape the awkwardness, Erin hurried to the kitchen. In a few moments, she was back, holding a wine glass filled about halfway with red wine. She proffered the glass to Heather.

"I don't think that's a good idea," she demurred.

"Don't be silly," Erin pressed. "A half glass won't hurt you. In fact, I was reading in _What To Expect When You're Expecting_ that the vitamins in it are actually good for you and the baby. It's when you start drinking it by the bottle that it starts to be a problem. Besides, you need to relax," she added, _sotto voce._

The logic seemed unassailable. It seemed like every week there was something new on the news about the benefits of alcoholic beverages when consumed in moderation. Heather took the glass and sniffed. The wine had a fruity, slightly woody bouquet. Taking a small sip, she carefully "chewed" it as she'd been taught in a wine tasting class she'd taken. The flavor was robust and perfectly balanced between sweet and dry, and she could make out notes of oak, grape, and what she suspected might be cherry. It was delicious, and she took a heartier sip. Then, feeling a little more at ease, she looked around and zeroed on Yolanda, who was holding forth about her latest writing project.

Yolanda had moved here to Marblehead to get away from the frantic pace of New York. Erin had introduced them, and they'd since become close friends. It was not unusual for Yolanda to come over on a weekend and bring steaks, chicken, or fish for Mike to grill. Heather had often offered perspective on Yolanda's rough drafts, something that Yolanda referred to as "beta-reading." She wrote erotica, and very hot erotica at that. Some of the stories had made her blush outright, while some of them had given her inspiration for new things to try with Mike. Right now, Yolanda was talking with Ellen about her latest writing disaster.

"...swear there's a litter of vampire puppies living in my computer," the dark-complected woman growled, her tone one of amused yet rueful exasperation. "Funny thing is, they don't drink blood. They seem to be totally libervorous."

" _What?"_ Ellen asked, with the tone of someone being confronted with a picture of a duck-billed platypus for the first time. She seemed to suspect that Yolanda was playing some kind of a joke on her.

"They eat books," Yolanda clarified.

"Libervorous?" Ellen tried the word out for herself. "I'm not entirely sure that even is a word."

"If it ain't, it should be," Yolanda riposted, and tossed back a long swallow of what looked like a tequila sunrise. "Anyway, I wrote twelve thousand words yesterday. _Twelve thousand!_ That's a personal best for me, and some of the hottest stuff I've ever written, if I say so myself." She paused for a breath, then jumped back in. "So I turn on the computer this morning, thinking I'll do a little editing, and the whole damn thing has vanished from my hard drive! Not just what I wrote yesterday, but the entire goddamn _novel_ took a powder on me!"

"How upset were you?" Ellen asked, wincing.

"I'm thoroughly pissed off," Yolanda said, summoning a menacing glower. "I had all the stuff up to yesterday saved on my flash drive, but still...I was about three thousand words from done! Two hours, maybe. Now I have to go through and reconstruct all the work I did yesterday, plus finish it off."

Ellen made sympathetic noises; she had copies of every novel Yolanda had put out, plus a couple of anthologies of erotica in which Yolanda had been featured. Heather grimaced. She had no idea of the work that went into writing on that scale, but she knew that twelve thousand words sounded like an awful lot, especially for a single day's work.

Heather looked back and realized that Erin and Jenna had left the immediate area. They were now in the hallway, playing some kind of drinking game that involved two tiny, stuffed monkeys. Curious, she stood up and wandered that direction.

"Flying monkey!" Jenna called, and underhanded her monkey toward the office door, which was closed. It missed by a foot. Stepping to the side, she yielded the floor to Erin, who stepped up with her own monkey cradled in her palm.

"Flying monkey!" Erin announced, and tossed her own. The monkey sailed through the air, its sewn-on grin looking somehow perfectly apropos, and passed Jenna's by about eight inches, its head just a credit-card's width from the door. Erin bounced up and down on her toes and turned an evil grin on Jenna.

"Drink up," she invited, her tone dripping with good-humored sadism.

Jenna picked up her shot glass, full to the brim with amber liquid. She gulped down the contents and blew out a breath as the liquor hit her stomach. Tears swam in her eyes for a moment.

When she could talk, she hissed, "Double or nothing."

Heather laughed. With all the hijinks and shenanigans, she simply couldn't stay in a bad mood. She felt a rush of gratitude to all her friends, who'd dropped everything to be by her side tonight, but especially to Erin. She wasn't always the most considerate person when it came to her friends, but she always acted from the heart and meant well.

Quietly, she ambled over and asked Yolanda to turn down the stereo. Yolanda didn't ask any questions, but hurried in and turned the music off. Everyone seemed to look around all at once.

Heather raised her wineglass. "I want to thank all of you. When Erin first said she wanted to have a party tonight, I vetoed it. Strongly. But in hindsight, I'm glad she didn't listen. I needed this, and I'm so glad and lucky that I have such good friends."

Erin led a round of applause and swept Heather up in a hug.

"Anything for you, sweetie," she said loudly, and the women broke into laughter and clapping.

# Chapter Five

In the cottage, the seven were gathered around the rough table. A crackling fire roared merrily in the huge fireplace. Adan was sitting at the head of the table, as still as a statue. Rowan sat on her left, and looked around the table at the others.

Tabitha, the newest of them, was a pale, thin slip of a woman with hair the exact shade of copper. Next to her was Cavana, a sturdily-built, dark-haired and dark-eyed woman who appeared to be in her early twenties; out of all of them, she was physically strongest. She was the only one who could properly claim the title of "warrior," having fought in several skirmishes in her day. Across from Cavana sat Finella, arguably the frailest of all of them. Unlike Tabitha, who had the healthy pallor of growing wood, Finella always looked drawn, wan, and less than half a step from Death's door. Raichael, full-figured and beautiful, was the philosopher and thinker of the group. With one hand, she was holding Finella's hand; with the other she scrawled out a note on a piece of odd-looking paper with a brilliant yellow quill, too thick to be anything but card-stock. Clearly homemade, it wouldn't have looked odd to a scholar who specialized in the late seventeenth century. Sorcha, the last and quietest of this little sisterhood, looked over Raichael's shoulder and made suggestions.

Finally, Raichael squeezed Finella's hand as a signal to let go. Rising, she placed the paper carefully in front of Adan. "It's ready," she murmured.

Adan's long blonde locks stirred. A sweep of her hand moved her flowing bangs aside, revealing bright, intelligent blue eyes, a cute, well-formed nose, and a delicately shaped chin. She asked, "What does it say?" Unlike many of the women at the table, she had never had a formal education; it had been frowned upon for ladies of her station in her day. She felt a pang of regret about that. She'd had so many opportunities to learn, and had squandered them all. Now, she would have to rely upon her sisters.

" _It is the warning you requested. Tabitha gave me the right words. Would that one of us knew English," Raichael said resignedly._

Adan's face wasn't designed for a grim expression. She didn't precisely wear it well, but she did wear it with authority and a gravity that belied her apparent age. "It will have to do," she said. "I need silence for a few more minutes...and another cup of tea," she said, putting a rising inflection on the end of the sentence, turning it into a request. Finella hurried to refill it from the pot hanging over the fire.

She considered the letters carefully; although she couldn't read it, she could relay it. She just hoped that Heather would understand before it was too late, if she paid any heed at all.

Closing her eyes, she prepared to pierce the veil once more.

* * * * *

Heather sat back on the couch, the women gathered around her, and perused the presents she'd been given. In addition to all the baby things, there were three books: _What To Expect When You're Expecting,_ which apparently had been Erin's idea, based on the inscription on the inside cover; a thin volume with a lurid red cover entitled _Silk,_ by Yolanda; and a thick tome called _The Eternals,_ by Laura Craig Sinclair. She turned over the third book and began reading the synopsis there. The story seemed fascinating. She liked supernatural fiction, and the idea of angels not being exactly what popular belief held them to be intrigued her. She laid it aside and looked at Yolanda's offering, a collection of short stories and poetry. She opened the hardbound volume at random and read a brief passage.

The words brought a blush to her face. She put it down gently with a broad smile for Yolanda and decided that she'd wait until she was thoroughly alone before she'd read any more. Just the little she'd read had given her...ideas. Yolanda merely chuckled as though she knew exactly what Heather was thinking.

"We thought you could use some new reading material," Lydia trilled. By now, she was well and truly buzzed and beginning to slur a bit. "As much time as you're going to spending in doctors' offices and such, well, we figured you'd want something to read."

Erin turned suddenly and walked out the door. Before Heather could ask what that was all about, she was back, carrying a large backpack and a broad, flat wooden box. "Everyone into the kitchen," Erin commanded. "Now the real fun starts."

Heather looked quizzically at Jenna, who only shrugged. Apparently, she wasn't in on whatever this was. As if someone had pulled a stopper, all the women began to move. Heather pulled herself to her feet. _When in Rome,_ she thought.

By the time, she got there, Erin had laid out four candles on the kitchen table. In the center of the circle they formed, she'd placed a long board, about the size of a large cake pan, but flat. Letters and numbers were inscribed on it, along with the words YES and NO. Elaborate scrollwork and various arcane symbols that meant nothing to Heather adorned the edges. In the exact center of the board sat a triangular piece of wood with a small window cut in the middle.

Erin lit the candles and said, "Lights."

Ellen flicked the switch, and the kitchen was plunged into a golden, guttering twilight. Shadows swelled long and black on the walls as the women milled around. Erin sat down and offered the chair across from her to Heather.

"And now, the _piece de resistance,"_ she intoned, making her voice as faux-mystical and otherworldly as possible. "We're going to have a good, old-fashioned, spooky séance!"

Heather gave a faint shiver. She'd never done this before, and suddenly felt a deep sense of dread.

"I don't know—" She said weakly.

"Oh, relax. It's perfectly harmless," Erin assured her. "The worst that could happen is that we don't get anything." When Heather showed signs of resisting, Erin stood up and took her hand. "Trust me?" she asked softly.

"I do. But..."

"No buts. If you trust me, let's do this. Who knows? You may even like it!" Erin pressed.

Sighing, Heather allowed herself to be pulled into the chair. "Can I please take off the hat now?" she whined, pointing to her head, where the hideous turkey still roosted. Funny, but she'd all but forgotten about it until just now.

"Yes, yes, you can take it off," Erin said absently. She was moving her hands in seemingly random patterns, muttering just under her breath. Without any fanfare, Heather took off the offending headgear and sat, her hands suddenly a little shaky.

"Dammit," Erin said suddenly.

"What?" Heather demanded.

"We need a notepad and pen."

"Here." Lydia rifled through her purse and produced a large yellow legal pad and a black ballpoint pen.

"Perfect," Erin said approvingly. Slanting a glance at Heather, she asked, "Are you ready?"

Heather considered for a second. "I...guess so," she concurred hesitantly.

"Then let's get started," Erin commanded.

Taking Heather's hands, Erin's posture changed. She drew herself up straight in her chair and began to chant. "We call upon those spirits here present to come forth and speak with us, doing harm to none in your passing, your presence, or your departing. If you would speak, we call you to come forth and be heard." Her lips moved for a moment, but no audible words came out.

"We wait upon you," she finished.

* * * * *

Adan suddenly jerked erect, her hair flipping back out of her face. Her eyes were wide and stared at nothing. Before anyone could ask what had happened, she snatched up the paper in front of her as if rescuing it from a flame.

" _Be still!" she snapped. "It begins."_

Bending all her will toward the characters on the paper, she set to work communicating the message, while the women around her stood in a frozen, hopeful, terrified tableau. Glances were exchanged, but no one dared to speak; they knew exactly what price failure in this enterprise would mean.

All of them had already paid it.

The silence was absolute; in the window, the view of the ocean faded to a foggy gray. Even the fire seemed to hold its breath. Had anyone else been there to see, they might have thought they were looking at a picture. The flames on the hearth twitched and froze in mid-crackle.

The entire world became the paper in Adan's hand.

* * * * *

Both women had their fingers pressed lightly to the planchette on the Ouija board. The small indicator described sideways figures of eight while they waited. And then...

The planchette moved to the letter M. Heather looked a question at Erin. Erin gave a tiny shake of her head and a shrug, to say, _It wasn't me._

Then it moved to the letter B. Then E. The planchette began moving more rapidly, pointing out letters with frantic speed. Lydia had appointed herself recorder, and was dutifully copying down the results as they appeared. In short order, she had this: _MBEANISEANMBEANAMATACAITEAGUSDOTODHCHAITABHAIRAIRENACHBHFUILSICHOMHMAITHGOMBEIDHDOCHINNIUNINT._

Finally, the planchette stopped moving. Erin and Heather were left describing the same figure eights they had begun with. Erin was shaking; Heather was just confused. Erin said, "I think it's done."

The women removed their hands from the board.

* * * * *

Adan was trembling with effort. A light sheen of sweat had broken out on her face.

Finally, Rowan asked, "Did it work?"

Adan slumped, exhausted, and took a long drink of her tea. "I believe so. Only time will tell now."

Rowan glanced out the window at the mist beyond, and her eyes went distant for a moment. In an eye blink, the haze was gone, and the view restored.

" _If only_ all _our problems were so easily dismissed," she said ruefully._

#  Chapter Six

The party had broken up long before. Fortunately, her guests had taken it upon themselves to clear away the evidence, sparing her the drudgery of doing it herself in the morning. She had tried to go to bed twice, but the message from the board haunted her thoughts and refused to go away. Besides, the emptiness where Mike should have been lying kept catching her attention from the corner of her eye like a silently screamed accusation. Finally, she had given it up as a lost cause and padded downstairs.

Now, at three in the morning, she sat at the table with a cup of peppermint chamomile tea, staring at the recalcitrant message the Ouija board had delivered. They had debated for an hour over what it meant, or if it meant anything at all. Lydia, Ellen, and Yolanda were firmly in the camp that dismissed it as gibberish. Erin and Jenna were not so certain. Gladys and Heather seemed to be the most determined that the message meant something, even if they weren't certain what. The language plainly wasn't English.

Thinking, she called up a cryptology enthusiasts' website and perused it briefly. One of the most commonly used cypher forms is to break the message to be encrypted into five-letter blocks. She pondered that, then rewrote the message as the site instructed. When she was done, it yielded this:

MBEAN ISEAN MBEAN AMATA CAITE AGUSD OTODH CHAIT ABHAI RAIRE NACHB HFUIL SICHO MHMAI THGOM BEIDH DOCHI NNIUN INT.

There was something in the flow of the letters that seemed familiar. She wasn't a linguist, by any means, but she could at least recognize some of the more popular languages used in medieval heraldry. It wasn't Latin, and she was certain it wasn't Greek. Middle and old English were out, which narrowed the possibilities she could think of to only two: German or Gaelic.

She pulled a quarter out of the change jar and said aloud, "Heads, Gaelic. Tails, German." She flipped the coin.

Heads.

Replacing it, she brought up Google Translate on the Internet. It only took a moment to see that Gaelic wasn't listed, but Irish was. She thought for a second and clicked on the flag before typing _"MBEAN."_ The result came back in an instant: Woman.

Then she tried the next set of letters: _ISEAN._ This returned nothing. Skipping the repetition of _MBEAN,_ she tried _AMATA._ This yielded "time."

In minutes, she had the following:

Woman (something) woman time last (something) (something) cats (something) (something) (something) (something) (something) (something) (something) will (something) (something) (something).

She leaned back and thought for a moment, her eyebrows creasing as she tried to decipher the apparent gibberish on the notepad. Now, at least, she had a starting point. Luckily, she had a Gaelic dictionary in her office. In moments, she was back at the table, the paperback open in front of her. Laboriously, she began to deconstruct the message, writing out what she found as she went.

It took her two hours, and her stomach was growling long before she was through; but when she was done, she came up with:

mBean Is é an mBean am atá caite agus do thodhchaí. Tabhair aire nach bhfuil sí chomh maith go mbeidh do chinniúint.

Quickly, she keyed the result into the translator program.

Then sat back, a chill blowing through the very marrow of her bones.

On the screen was this message:

The banshee banshee past and your future. Please note that it also be your fate.

She pursed her lips. Had she made an error in the recording of the message? A quick review told her that this was not the case. Had she erroneously entered the information into the translator program?

No.

She thought for a moment and went back to the dictionary, translating each word by hand. Soon, a translation that made more sense, and seemed far more menacing, emerged:

Woman, the banshee is our past and your future. Take care that it does not also become your fate.

Feeling cold, Heather fed the English translation she had come up with into the translator.

mBean Is é an mBean am atá caite agus do thodhchaí. Tabhair aire nach bhfuil sí chomh maith go mbeidh do chinniúint.

The exact wording of the original message.

She hadn't smoked in years, but suddenly felt a drastic craving for a cigarette. She dismissed the idea as stupid at once, letting her eyes roamed the room, done in a pleasant and cheerful country style. Dapper ducks and cavorting cows formed the painted borders where ceiling and floor met the walls. The wallpaper was an unobtrusive rose-and-lilac print. The pale blonde wood counters and cabinets were all neatly secured and there wasn't a stray dish in sight, other than her teacup and saucer.

As grateful as she was for not having to police up the remains of the party, she also felt an irrational surge of anger rise up. She needed something to do, and her ruthlessly efficient friends hadn't left her anything to work with to distract her mind. Somehow, her kitchen didn't feel nearly as friendly as it had a few minutes ago. Instead of the bright light from the ceiling fixture, she now found her eyes drawn to the shadows and roving over all the doors and windows. She wished again for a chore, someplace to go, anything that might distract her.

_Anything_ to chase away the sudden feeling that she was being watched.

* * * * *

Adan's voice was thick with fatigue.

" _She understands."_

A palpable gloom fell over the room. None of the women wished for what was coming; at the same time, if they were to have any hope of stopping it, it would have to be now.

" _But will she act on the warning?" Raichael asked._

Adan shot her a glance full of annoyance. "And just how exactly do you suppose I should know that?" she snapped. "I can only do so much, and it was very nearly the death of me to get all this—" She picked up the paper and shook it emphatically at Raichael. "...Across to where it might, and I say might, do her some good! Do you know of aught else that I can do?"

Raichael held her hands out in a gesture of supplication. "Sister, I did not mean that you can, or should, do anything more. It is only too clearly out of our hands. Our daughter and sister must do what has to be done now. All we can do is watch, and gather our strength." A wistful, poignant note of hope crept into her tone.

" _Mayhap we will finally be free of this."_

Finella whimpered. Out of all of them, she was the only one who never speculated on what might happen after. She had never been quite right in the head, nor the brightest woman to walk the green fields of Ireland. The notion of moving on from this place of relative comfort, if dullness, held more terror for her than any of the others, who embraced the idea with a quiet longing.

" _Mayhap we will, sister," Adan answered, her tone soothing and apologetic. "Mayhap we will."_

* * * * *

The sun had risen hours before, and Heather hadn't slept a wink. This was not unusual in and of itself, as she was prone to attacks of insomnia. She'd had them last from a day or two to a week or more, sometimes so severe that she'd go without sleep for up to three days and then fall asleep on her feet at the grocery store or in line at the bank. The tossing and turning had bothered her more than anything. She resolved that if she wasn't able to sleep tonight, she'd call the doctor and ask what sleep aids she could safely use during her pregnancy.

Finally, giving up on sleep as a bad job for the third time, Heather wrote a terse email to Erin.

Erin, call me when you can. I found out what the board said. It raises more questions than it answers. I'm scared. Call me ASAP!

That done, she reflected on what she knew about banshees. The answer was, not much. She had always relegated them to the same mental dungeon with vampires, werewolves, and ghosts. Everyone knew there was no such thing.

_Are you quite sure?_ A quiet little voice in her mind whispered. You _don't speak Gaelic, and_ Erin _doesn't speak Gaelic, yet a message in Gaelic showed up on the board, apparently directed at you. Can you honestly stand there now and say there's no such thing as ghosts? And if not, what_ else _might be out there that "doesn't exist?" Hmm?_

She disliked the feeling of that thought intensely; suddenly, sundown seemed to be coming very quickly, never mind that it was not yet eleven in the morning. Heather had never thought of the night as something to dread before, but with that thought, it was as if a large, heavily bolted door in her mind had come unlocked. Behind that door lay all of her fears, phobias, and the little girl who needed the nightlight and for Daddy to check under the bed.

With one simple thought, all of those beings in her mind came rushing out to play.

Before she could think it over, she picked up the phone and called her mother. After all, it seemed unfair that all her friends knew she was pregnant before her own mother did. She suddenly felt very selfish. Dialing the number, she cradled the headset between her chin and shoulder and listened as it rang. Meanwhile, she brought up her web browser and input her three favorite email servers. The phone was answered before the last one finished loading.

"Hello?" She was in luck. Her mom was home. She thought quickly; it was Wednesday, Bonnie's day off. She'd have a Garden Club meeting at three, Marblehead Lionesses at six, and then cocktails at the Yacht Club afterward. Although she wasn't technically a member, the Yacht Club had opened its doors to various civic service organizations. Since Bonnie Kelly was a member in good and long standing, having been a Lioness since her early twenties, she was welcome anytime she chose to come in.

"Hi, Mom, it's me," Heather said.

"Heather?" Bonnie's voice suddenly got abrupt. "Is everything okay?"

"Well...in a manner of speaking," Heather answered.

"What's wrong?" Bonnie Kelly was many things; inattentive was not on that lengthy list.

"I...um...are you sitting down?" she groped.

A huff of breath on the other end was the only answer for four or five seconds. "I am _now._ What's going on?"

Heather felt her eyes misting. "Well...you're going to be a grandmother."

"You're kidding!" Bonnie's voice rose in excitement. "Oh, honey, that's wonderful! How far along are you? What does Mike think? Have you picked out names yet? What did the doctor say?"

If Heather had let her, Bonnie would have continued to fire out questions like a verbal Gatling gun. Before she became so inundated that she couldn't keep track, she gently broke into the rapid-fire interrogation. "Mom. Hold on. I'm about six weeks, Mike doesn't know, I haven't given any thought at all to names, and the doctor said everything looks fine so far."

She paused and gave Bonnie a chance to digest all that. Finally, Bonnie responded with the question Heather knew she would ask. "Mike doesn't know?"

Heaving an internal sigh, she ran through it again, bringing her mother fully into the picture. It only took a few minutes, thanks to the exhaustive amount of time she'd spent on it the day before. In some things, it seemed, practice really did make perfect. When she was done, Bonnie asked, "So...where do you go from here?"

Heather thought that over. The warning from that stupid Ouija board was like a needle in her mind; she needed to either draw it or ignore it, one or the other. The trouble was, she didn't think that ignoring it was an option. The word that bothered her most in the cryptic message was "our," implying that whatever was going on here, whoever had sent the message wasn't alone.

Then the obvious answer hit her: Erin had played a practical joke on her! She'd known _exactly_ what the board would say, because she'd set the whole thing up!

Feeling almost homicidal toward her best friend for the second time in less than twenty-four hours, she quelled the intense anger she felt rising. Instead, she focused on the purpose of the call.

"Do you know if Gran still has the trunk full of family memorabilia?" she asked. She distinctly remembered playing in the attic when she was a child. The huge steamer trunk, with its black leather-covered sides and slightly tarnished brass bindings, had captured her attention more certainly than all the toys she'd been permitted to play with. Gran had always told her, "It's just a box full of musty old junk. Someday I'm going to get rid of it."

She hoped that Gran hadn't made good on the threat; she had a feeling that the trunk was vitally important, prank or no prank. To her relief, Bonnie replied, "I'm pretty sure she still does. Your dad tripped over it at Christmas when we were putting the lights up."

Heather smiled in relief. After chatting with Bonnie for a few more minutes and verifying Gran's number, she hung up, after a promise to come over for lunch on Saturday, and redialed. After six rings, Gran's answering machine picked up. Heather left a brief message asking her to call and hung up, feeling decidedly out of sorts.

_At least there's laundry to do,_ Heather thought, and went upstairs to collect it. The sight of Mike's civilian clothes hanging tidily in the closet nearly undid her. Next to the jumbled, tangled-up mess most of her clothes were, Mike's side of the closet was a bastion of order. Even his shoes were precisely lined up. She'd actually seen him in there one day, kneeling at the door with a ruler in his hand, making sure that all the toes were in a perfect line. She'd teased him relentlessly about it until he finally got done. Then he'd swept her up and carried her, kicking and screaming with helpless laughter, to the bed.

They had remained there until it was time to make dinner.

She felt herself torn between amused arousal at the memory and sadness at the mute testimony his clothes offered that he wasn't there. She'd known exactly what being a military wife entailed; Mike had been deployed several times before, sometimes to places he couldn't always talk about to do things he couldn't discuss. But those had been short-duration, temporary duty. With the state of affairs in Afghanistan, Mike could be gone for months, maybe as much as a year or more.

Or maybe...

She suppressed the thought before it could go any further. Hefting the laundry basket, she turned to the hall and was halfway down the stairs when the phone rang, startling her. She half-ran, half-jumped the last six steps and caught the phone on the third ring. "Hello?" she gasped.

"It's Erin." Her tone was concerned. "What's the matter?"

"That was a cruel practical joke to play on me, woman," Heather grated.

This pronouncement was greeted with silence. Then: "What are you talking about?"

Heather gritted her teeth and counted to ten. "I'm _talking_ about the Ouija board last night. That was definitely not cool. In fact, I don't know where to _start_ to tell you how not cool it was."

Erin was silent for a long moment. "Sweetie, I didn't have anything to do with that. What did you find out?"

She didn't wait for an answer. "Better still, I'm on my way. I'll be there in ten minutes."

* * * * *

When Erin walked in, the washer was running. Heather was still immensely unamused and shot an edged look at Erin as she came through the door. "Now what's all this about?" Erin demanded, not even trying to avoid Heather's venomous stare.

Heather moved very slowly and carefully toward the table, using the body language that signaled to anyone who knew her that an explosion was coming. As if the chair was attached to a bomb, Heather lowered herself into it and gestured Erin to sit as well. Unlike Heather, Erin didn't move with any hesitancy whatsoever. The only look on her face was one of alarm.

Without speaking, Heather passed the notebook over to Erin. Erin started to say something, and Heather gave her a look that made whatever she'd been about to say die stillborn on her lips. "Oooooo _kay,"_ Erin said, and opened the notebook.

She perused it for just a few seconds, and Heather could see the exact moment that Erin found the final translation: Her face went pale, her brows knitted together, and her entire posture screamed genuine, unfeigned surprise. Erin looked over at Heather, confused.

" _I_ didn't do this!" Erin insisted. "I don't know enough about Gaelic to even _attempt_ it! My God, no one in my family has spoken Gaelic since the late seventeen-hundreds! And if I had, the message would have been a get-well-soon or something cute like that. _'Eat at Joe's,' 'hire a stripper,' those_ I might have done. But what does a banshee have to do with you?"

"I don't know," Heather muttered dejectedly. "If you didn't do it, then I guess we need to figure out who this was intended for. You—or me."

"Why us?" Erin queried.

"Because _we_ were the ones touching the board," Heather said baldly.

#  Chapter Seven

Erin took charge of fixing sandwiches for the two of them while Heather fired up the computer. When she was done, two teetering, towering club sandwiches had been neatly cut in half and reposed on Heather's everyday plates. A generous handful of chips was packed into the crevice left between the halves. Two glasses of soda later, Erin pronounced that lunch was ready while Heather finished checking e-mail.

Once she was done, she looked up and blanched at the size of the sandwich at her elbow. "My God, Erin! Do you think you could have made it _bigger?"_

"Probably," Erin laughed. "You're eating for two, and I haven't eaten since last night, so I figured I'd make them good-sized."

Heather conceded the logic of this with a smile. "So, where do you think we should start?" she asked, picking up her sandwich and taking a hearty bite. She realized as the first delectable morsels hit her tongue that she was famished.

Erin pondered for a moment. "Let's start with banshee lore and go from there," she said. An odd look crossed her face, and her mouth worked for a moment, but she didn't say anything.

"What?" Heather asked.

"Just...something," Erin said. "My family has exactly zero stories about a banshee being anywhere near us. Don't you think that's weird?"

"I don't know," Heather said. "Before last night, I wouldn't have taken the idea of a banshee seriously. For that matter, I wouldn't even have taken the idea of a ghost seriously. But now—"

Erin nodded. "Yeah, I know. I've seen some fairly weird things come out of that board, but this is a new personal best. Most of the messages I get are either in plain if bad English or complete gibberish. This doesn't meet either criterion, and I don't like the threat in that message. Not much creeps me out; this does, in spades!"

She took another bite of her sandwich as Heather typed "banshee" into the search engine. The first thing to pop up was a Wikipedia article.

"What do you think about this?" she asked.

Erin laughed. "My brother says that Google and Wikipedia are going to make him the smartest man on the planet. Go for it."

Heather did, and waited for the computer and the website to link up. When the page loaded, the two women pulled their chairs together, the better and more easily to peruse the information.

They didn't speak for long minutes, both of them trying to give the other the chance to fully assimilate what the article said. Finally, they reached the end of the article.

From what Heather gleaned out of the article, the banshee was allegedly a fairy woman who foretold the death of a member of certain noble Irish families. Although somewhat frightening, the banshee seemed to be a fairly gentle, harmless harbinger of death. Heather was particularly interested in this snippet: according to Wikipedia, only five Irish houses rated a banshee.

"Do you have any of those in your family?" Heather asked.

Erin thought for a moment. "I think I have a second cousin twice removed named O'Grady, and I might have had a distant relation who was a Kavanagh. Other than that, I don't think so."

The other three houses were the O'Briens, O'Neills, and O'Connors. However, Heather also noticed that the article stated that because of intermarriage throughout the centuries, the list of houses which might entertain a banshee had grown significantly longer. Pursing her lips thoughtfully, she typed in a new query:

Banshee Ireland Kelly

The result came almost immediately. The link was to Hubpages.com. Heather clicked it and they both began to read.

Unlike the Wikipedia article, this one came complete with pictures. The first was a white line drawing against a deep blue background. The banshee depicted was a gruesome figure, with flowing hair that reminded Heather of a classical picture of a Gorgon and teeth that put a bear trap to shame. Heather shuddered. Erin looked up after a minute.

"Not really breaking any new ground here, are we?"

Heather shook her head. "I notice that all the families they referenced started with O'. I think I remember someone telling me once that we used to be the _O_ 'Kellys before my great-great grandmother immigrated here. No one ever talked about it, so there's no way to know for sure, but there has been some speculation that she might have had my great-grandmother out of wedlock and left Ireland to escape the shame of it."

It was strange, she reflected. She'd always been so curious about other people's families, but not so much about her own, but she was beginning to understand how that could be. No one seemed to know anything worth knowing about her family beyond her great-great grandmother coming to America. Anybody claiming any curiosity about it was immediately told not to concern themselves with it.

Now that the issue had been forced, however, Heather realized that she could give no greater gift to the child she carried than a knowledge of where her people came from. One of her professors in college had a favorite saying: "To know where you are and where you're going, you first have to know where you've been." That wisdom had always stuck with her; and she knew that if anyone in the family had the skills and know-how to tease apart the crumpled pages of the family history, she was the one.

Erin's eyes lit up. Heather knew that Erin loved mysteries. Erin said, "I bet we could find lots of stuff if we can figure out where in Ireland your family came from."

Heather pondered for a moment, and was just reaching for the keyboard to type in yet another query when the phone rang. Automatically, in a gesture born of long practice, she seized the phone and answered it, her right hand changing direction as smoothly as if she'd been reaching for the phone the whole time.

"Hello?"

"Heather?"

"Hi, Gran!" Heather smiled. "I was just thinking about you."

"I just got in," Miranda Kelly panted.

"You sound out of breath," Heather noted, concerned.

"Oh, I went out for a jog. I heard there was an open-air exhibit at Independence Hall, and I decided I could do with a bit of exercise."

Heather shook her head in amazement. Gran was on the shady side of seventy, but more agile and active than many people thirty years her junior. "You're an inspiration, Gran."

Miranda laughed. "So I hear I'm to be a great-grandmother. Is it true?"

"I see you talked to Mom."

"Well, of course, and now here's yourself, trying to get in touch with me."

"Actually, I was hoping you might be available this weekend," Heather said. "I'd like to come by for a visit."

"That would be lovely, dear. You're doing all right?"

"Yes, Gran, everything's fine. I miss Mike, but I'm dealing."

"Oh, that's right. I forgot he left yesterday. Well, as long as everything's all right, dear, I won't keep you. How's four o'clock on Saturday? I've got a bridge game at eight."

"Four o'clock it is. Love you, Gran."

"Love you too, dear. See you on Saturday."

"Bye, Gran."

Erin had been watching this exchange silently. When Heather hung the phone up, she asked, "What was that all about?"

Heather grinned, the smile began to fade as she considered the implications of what she was about to do.

"A start to getting some answers," she replied.

* * * * *

At 3:15 on Saturday afternoon, Heather pulled out of the drive in the Avalanche, heading for Boston. She had forgotten that her grandmother lived relatively close. In less than half an hour, she was parked in front of Miranda Kelly's graceful Victorian rambler, located just west of Faneuil Hall. A vague twinge of guilt pricked her as she undid her seatbelt. She should have made this trip a hundred times before. Dismissing the guilty thoughts, she slammed her door behind her and headed up the walk, frowning up at the gray overcast. A chilly breeze was blowing, and Heather wished she'd had the foresight to bring a heavier coat. Judging from the chill bite of the wind, she was going to need it before the day was over.

The door opened before she even got her first foot on the stoop, and her grandmother stood there with her arms open.

"Oh, it's so good to see you, child. My goodness, it feels like ages," she smiled, folding Heather into her arms for a surprisingly fierce hug. "Well, come in, you'll catch your death out here in that flimsy thing," Miranda clucked, eyeing Heather's thin windbreaker with a measure of disdain.

Miranda was a slender, well-built woman. It was clear to see that she'd been a great beauty in her time, and for her age, she was still striking. Her deep green eyes were enhanced and complimented by the white hair she kept tied back in a simple ponytail. She was wearing jeans and a cable-knit, eggshell-colored sweater. On her left hand, she still wore her wedding band, even though her husband, Tom Porter, had died years before in a construction accident.

Heather dimly recalled the circumstances: a girder on the thirtieth floor of a new skyscraper had been improperly secured. Tom had been up there setting brackets for a wall frame when a freak gust of wind caught the cable of a crane carrying a heavy load and pushed it just enough off course to make it bump the girder. By itself, it might have done nothing but cause Tom to wobble a bit. Unfortunately, when the load bumped the steel beam, the impact had sheared off the anchor bolts that were holding the beam in place. Tom had fallen to his death.

Of course, the city got involved, and an immense class-action lawsuit ensued. Miranda's share, with Tom's life-insurance policy, had ensured her a goodly legacy and a very comfortable retirement. The house, which mere months before Tom's death had been a burden almost too heavy for their combined finances to carry, had become Miranda's pride and joy, and it showed. The flowerbeds were all carefully tended. Most of them were already starting to show the first shoots of perennial flowers such as tulips. The lawn was equally impressive, and was mowed to Miranda's highly exacting standards. She maintained a yard service and kept in constant contact with the owner. She'd sent many a grown man packing with just the force of her stare. Only a few had ever managed more than one visit to her property.

Although her standards were high, the rewards for following them were equally great. She was well-known to be generous with cold beverages and hearty meals for the men who did well for her. As a result, there was a certain amount of prestige involved in being one of "Miranda's boys."

She was liberal with her money, but didn't broadcast it, although her charitable donations to the arts and to various children's organizations had established her as one of Boston's premier philanthropists. But when one saw her at the supermarket, she wasn't dripping with jewelry and carrying a five-hundred-dollar handbag. Her shopping was all done off-the-rack, and she had no patience with any store where any item other than a coat or a good pair of boots cost more than twenty dollars. She also had nothing but disdain for those who held a media event every time they wrote a check, and her quiet, understated way of giving made her a welcome sight at any charity function she elected to attend.

"Give so that the right hand doesn't know what your left hand is doing," she often told Heather growing up. Heather had watched her live this advice so often that it was almost second nature.

"So what would you like to eat?" Miranda asked, seeing her into the dining room. "How about some pie? I made a Key Lime that's out of this world, if I say so myself, and there's coffee."

Heather groaned lustfully. "If you were a man, and not related, I just might marry you."

Five minutes later, a huge wedge of Key Lime pie on her plate and a cup of coffee in front of her, Heather broached the subject of the trunk.

"Good heavens!" Miranda cried, surprised. "What on earth do you want with that heavy old thing?"

This was the moment of truth, Heather realized. It would be here that she learned whether her grandmother would be her ally or enemy in this quixotic quest she'd set for herself.

"The truth is, Gran," she said hesitantly, "I want to know where we come from. I want to be able to tell my child who we are and where we've been. Whatever our family has done, I want my baby to be able to take pride in the good and learn from the bad. But I, _we,_ can't do that until I know what there is to know."

Miranda considered all of this for so long that Heather felt her heart sink. Finally, she sighed.

"I read a little bit of it, a long time ago, you understand. It's not all pleasant, and some of it can't be read at all by anyone I ever knew. Middle Gaelic is, in the main, a lost language, after several hundred years of occupation by the English. There are some scholars who might be able to give you a rough idea, but they may never know the full story. But what there is, and can be read, some of it gave me nightmares. Some of the wildest ghost stories you ever heard."

"Like what?" Heather pounced, and hoped that Miranda didn't hear the same eagerness in Heather's voice that she did.

"Well, let me think," Miranda said carefully. "There was something about an old family curse, something that only happened every five generations. Whatever it was, your great, great, great grandmother came over with your great grandmother."

Heather said, "Wait. You put an extra 'great' in there."

Gran shook her head. "No, child, I did no such thing. Your great-great-grandmother died in childbirth."

Heather gasped. "But...the father would have come too, right?"

Miranda leaned back in her chair and eyed Heather narrowly. "You are far, far too curious. Are you really sure that you want to hear this?"

Heather leaned forward eagerly, her body language practically shrieking, "Tell me! Tell me!"

Miranda took a deep breath and sighed. "There was something about your great-great-grandfather beating a priest. Apparently, he beat this priest half to death and left him...well, I dislike the word 'retarded,' but I'm afraid that's the best that comes to mind. By all accounts, they hanged him for it."

"Where did this happen?" Heather asked.

"County Donegal, Ireland. They now call the place Malin Head. I'm afraid the old name is quite unpronounceable to me," she answered slowly.

" _Why_ did he do it?"

Miranda seemed to collect herself. "According to what I read, he couldn't get the priest to come when it appeared the birth had taken a turn for the worse for the mother, Tabitha. Now mind you, I can't be sure I read this correctly, but from what I understood of it, the priest was down south taking care of a wealthy parishioner at the time. Seamus MacCumhail seemed to believe that if the priest had been there, she might not have died."

Heather frowned. "But a priest isn't usually trained to give birth, unless they're a missionary or something."

"And that was the rub. Seamus put it about that a banshee was responsible for Tabitha's death, but that the priest was also to blame. He couldn't take his vengeance on the banshee, so instead he took it upon the priest."

"Is that why we go by Kelly and don't take our husbands' names?" Heather asked. There was no longer a question of if she could get at the trunk. She was determined to have it by hook or by crook now.

"It may be part of it," Miranda allowed. "Part of it is because we're all, every last woman of us, stubborn and headstrong. Your mother cried when the two of you were at loggerheads over what you would do when you went to college."

Heather smiled wistfully. "I know. And now?"

Miranda laughed. "Now she couldn't be prouder of you. A business partner at your age, making good money, with a strong, handsome man, and now a baby on the way!" She gave a joyous laugh. "Ah, dear, the time does fly. I remember you when you weren't but a baby your own self, and now here you are, a woman and a mother to be!" Shaking her head in wonder, Miranda looked down at the table. "Where does the time go?"

_Where indeed?_ Heather thought. "You see, Gran, that story you just told me is why I need that trunk. I need to know it all, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Otherwise, how can I tell my baby our history?"

_How can I protect us from it?_ She wondered but didn't say out loud.

Miranda gave a little nod and stood up. "If you're finished..."

The slice of pie was long gone. Heather drained the last dregs of her coffee and rose as well. Ten minutes later, the trunk was safely nestled in the Avalanche, and Heather gave Miranda a big hug and a kiss.

"You keep me up to date, you hear?" Miranda demanded, returning the hug with that peculiar fierceness that only grandmothers can. "And if you hear anything really juicy, I want to be the first to know!"

Heather laughed and waved as she opened the door and mounted the truck. A few minutes later, she was on the highway, headed back toward Marblehead and a long night of research.

# Chapter Eight

The following Saturday Heather found herself with some time on her hands. She and Erin had decided to close up shop early for the weekend. Erin had a blind date with a friend of Yolanda's and hinted strongly on Friday morning that she was tempted to spend a little extra time primping. Heather, for her part, was all for this plan, as it meant that she could run over to the Languages Department at Harvard University without compromising work to do so. She had scheduled an appointment with a Dr. Fitzkillian to discuss getting the materials her grandmother had given her translated. She'd tried Google, but the results had been mixed; apparently it didn't work as well with dialectic Irish Gaelic.

She navigated her way across the campus, following the directions the department secretary had provided without difficulty, and soon found herself face to face with Dr. Fitzkillian, a strikingly handsome man in his late forties. A large man of Black Irish stock, he had powerful shoulders and just the hint of a gut, testifying to a lifelong love affair with beer. His hair was jet black on top and silver around the sides, lending him an air of erudition coupled with virility. When she knocked at the open door of his office, he stood up and smiled.

"And you'll be Heather then," he boomed, his strong Killarney accent bidding fair to make her clothes spontaneously vaporize. Mentally she chastised herself; what the _hell_ was up with her hormones these last few days? God, maybe she needed to make a stop at the toy store or something. He came around the desk, moving with an unconscious athletic grace, extending his hand. "May I call you Heather?" he asked, with understated Old World gallantry.

She smiled as he took her hand in a firm yet gentle clasp. "Of course you may."

"Then I'm Fintan," he said grandly, ushering her to the large, high backed chair in front of his desk. "I believe you were asking about getting some documents translated?"

"My compliments on your memory, Fintan," Heather said. Her experience with academicians had led her to believe that the absent-minded professor stereotype existed for a very, very good reason. But Fintan Fitzkillian didn't give her that impression at all; he seemed to be possessed of one of those minds that caught and color-coded information almost effortlessly. "I'm afraid there's quite a bit of material."

"Not to worry," he assured her. "I'm afraid our department is rarely as busy as we would like to see it. I daresay I have a couple of undergrads hanging about with nothing to do but swill beer and try to lay for anything that will hold still for ten seconds...pardon the indelicacy," he hastened to add, reddening slightly. "Anyway, as I was saying, I'm sure it'll be no trick to turn up a couple of undergrads whose grades could do with some _up_ grading, pun _very_ much intended."

She laughed. Fintan put her immediately at ease, and in tan slacks and a pale blue dress shirt with a gray sweater vest, was about as far from the college professors she recalled as he could get. She was glad that she'd dressed for business in a colorful broomstick skirt, hot pink blouse, and flirty boots. "Well, if you can find someone with the time, I feel sure that my materials will be safe in your care."

"As if they were given me by my own dear mother," he assured her. "Now, where might we find these mysterious missives?"

* * * * *

Fintan gaped into the back of the Avalanche with a look of slight dismay on his face.

"That's...quite a bit of material," he said, unconsciously echoing Heather's earlier observation. One eyebrow seemed to seek his hairline as he contemplated the large trunk in front of him.

"Can you do it?" she asked.

"Oh, aye, we can _do_ it. I assume there's a time element?" he asked, leaning against the truck in an attitude that put his wide shoulders and large arms on good display.

"The sooner the better," she said, "but I don't want a rushed job."

He studied her for a moment. "You mean you'd like it rushed but don't want it botched." The statement was made as baldly as if he'd just declared that water was wet.

"My very thought," she affirmed.

"Well then, you'll not be wanting any C students, I should imagine. Luckily, the spring break is upon us next week; I should be able to scare up a small legion of helpers who'd like to matriculate _before_ they die." He smiled wickedly, the expression causing her stomach to perform a lazy somersault in response. Heather had a distinct feeling that she'd be reading Yolanda's work a lot in the next few days, and a stop at an adult novelty store was very much in order. Along with buying out the store's entire stock of whatever size batteries her new best friend took.

She looked into his eyes, trying to be civilly flirtatious without playing the vixen. After all, she was and always had been a loyal wife and saw no need to change that. "I have every confidence that you'll handle these efficiently," she said, hoping her tone didn't betray her fluttering stomach.

Fintan laughed in his loud, infectious way. If a rumble of thunder could sound friendly, it would sound much like his voice. "And what to my wondering eyes should appear—" He broke off and put two fingers in the corners of his mouth, drawing in a deep breath. The whistle that emitted a split second later would have bats in three states calling their therapists; Heather winced. "Hey, you lot!" he yelled, calling to a group of four well-built young men laughing and joking on their way to the Barker Center. They stopped and looked around. "Yes, _you!_ I need all of you over here, sharp-like!" He clapped his hands for emphasis.

The four students hurried over and stood in front of Fintan in a ragged line. "What's up, Professor?" one of the four, a kid of average height with glasses, asked.

"Ah, Scotty boy, I need you, Mark, Geoffrey, and Bill to carry this trunk up to the language lab. And believe me when I say that if it or any of its contents are damaged in any way _en route,_ graduation will be the very least of your worries, and I'll feed what's left of you to her—" Fintan jerked a thumb in her direction to leave no question of which "her" he meant. "—after _I'm_ done with you. Clear?"

Scotty drew himself to his full height. "We're on it," he said, scratching his red goatee with one hand. "C'mon, guys. Excuse me, ma'am," he said, brushing past her as politely as he could. In short order, the boys had vanished into the building with the chest, looking for all the world like a group of pirates hauling unearthed treasure back to their sloop.

Fintan made a sweeping gesture.

"Shall we?" he asked, and offered his arm to escort her. She giggled and took it.

* * * * *

"Now listen up, you lot!" Fintan thundered, standing in front of the table on which the trunk had taken up residence. "I know that all of you ragamuffins would like to get out from under my cruel, slave-driving thumb, and today's your lucky day. Your final exam is sitting right here on this table," he said, patting the trunk fondly. "Do this correctly, and _quickly_ , and you'll not be bothered by me again. Fuck it up," he added, when the boys seemed to get a little too comfortable with the situation for his liking, "and you'll be asking your parents to write _another_ large check so that you can repeat your final year. Anyone not absolutely, crystal clear on what is at stake here?"

Silence.

"Well then, let's get cracking. Madam, if you please," he said, stepping aside with a motion that stopped just short of a full-fledged bow. Heather stepped up and turned the thumb latches on the chest's lid.

Inside was a hideous jumble of loose papers, books, and various detritus. Fintan picked up a blackened bit of something and stared at it for a moment. "A fossilized apple core," he determined after a moment. "I don't guess _that_ needs any translation," he mused, tossing it idly over his shoulder and into the metal garbage can, where it made a loud clang as it ricocheted off the side. The laugh the students gave was better than the joke deserved, and Heather realized that this charming man made his students very nervous. "Well, don't just stand there gawking," he snapped. "Get this trunk unpacked!"

They might have been young, but they knew how to handle old documents. In moments, the chest was stripped bare. The small garbage can was filled half full of unidentifiable whosits, some of which might have dated from the last Ice Age, and the four draftees were trying to sort the loose papers into some semblance of vague chronological order. They were working very rapidly, too, under Fintan's constantly watchful eye. Occasionally, he'd lean over and glance at the top page of a pile to make sure they were staying within the time frames each student had assigned himself. Scotty was working on a pile at the opposite end of the table from Heather and Fintan, his quick, sure hands tearing efficiently through his pile. Geoffrey, on the other hand, was not nearly so talented or fortunate.

"No, Geoffrey, look at the date," Fintan barked, stabbing a thick finger at the ancient paper. "This says 1892, and you're putting it in a pile that dates from the nineteen forties. Are you not paying _attention?"_

"No sir, I mean, yes, sir, I _am_ paying attention." Geoffrey seemed to be in a big hurry to get back in his professor's good graces.

"Slow down a bit, Geoffrey," Fintan ordered. "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast."

"Sir." Geoffrey ducked his head and got back to it.

In less than twenty minutes, the papers were all neatly sorted. The corresponding books stood at the heads of the piles. Fintan went through and checked the work.

"Good job, lads. I think we've got it. Now," he waved a hand at the pile nearest Heather. "This bit here seems to be in English, so we pulled it out and put it to the side, right?" She nodded. "From here back—" He indicated a pile and made a pushing gesture. "—is where all the Irish Gaelic materials are. The English I don't believe you'll need any assistance with, and so we'll put that right back in the truck for you. Won't we, lads?" A rousing chorus of assent came from the students. "So that leaves all of this," he finished, moving both of his arms in a wave that included the remaining stacks of papers.

"How old is this stuff?" Heather asked.

"At a quick glance," Scotty volunteered, "it looks like the oldest writing in here dates from the late fifteen-hundreds. I may need some help, Professor."

Fintan nodded thoughtfully. He pressed his lips together in silent consideration.

"We'll also be needing special security. These documents are priceless, one of a kind, and irreplaceable," he said after a moment. "I'll call Security and set it up. Scotty, who's on your wish list to play Santa's little helper?"

Scotty thought for a moment and barked out two names, neither of which Heather felt confident of how to pronounce. Fintan tipped his back and looked at the ceiling for a moment, apparently deep in thought. After a moment, his chin came down and he met Scotty's eyes. "I think, for this, you'll find Liz Leary to be a better choice."

Scotty processed that and shrugged. "You're the maestro," he said carelessly.

* * * * *

Heather left soon after, with a promise from Fintan that she would be kept fully apprised of his and his students' progress. She drove back to Marblehead with her mind on autopilot, wondering what dire secrets she was about to uncover. Stopping at a small beachfront café that she knew, she ordered up a light dinner: chicken alfredo with broccoli and a house salad with Italian dressing. A glass of white wine later, she felt fortified and relaxed. The food was just as good as she remembered it being, and her only regret, by no means a small one, was that she was dining alone.

The sky out to sea was beginning to turn from pale blue to deep violet and the first stars were just winking on when she walked out of the café and across the street to the beach. The beach was deserted, and the wind off the ocean was cold on her bare legs. She stopped at the sand line and pulled off her boots, tucking them carefully under her arm. The cool, dry sand under her feet made soft crunching sounds with every step she took.

A steady line of shallow breakers pounded the shoreline, leaving tide pools in its wake. The soothing susurrus of the sea invited reflection and she accepted, looking out to the east by northeast, on a line that she thought led eventually to Afghanistan, and Mike. She wished he could have called before he left the country, but she knew he would be having the endless briefings, drills, and other minutiae that were part and parcel of his job. It seemed so odd to her, standing here on the deserted beach, with not another person to be seen in any direction, that Mike would be at the opposite extreme. He would be in such close quarters to other people for so long that a claustrophobic would suffer a complete nervous breakdown.

She mentally composed a letter and filed it away for later writing and sending. Then, the next round of stars beginning to shine above her, she carefully put together a prayer, for Mike and all the other soldiers both in his unit and elsewhere, and sent it winging on its way. That done, she began to trudge through the chilly sand to a small rock with a flat depression that several thousand people knew as a great place to sit and watch nightfall over the ocean.

Her thoughts turned, inevitably, to her baby, and the unseen presence that seemed to plague her. She picked up stones and pitched them into the surf inattentively as her mind probed at the mystery she'd found herself entwined in, wondering just how she'd come to be in this situation.

It was really quite ridiculous, she thought. She didn't even _like_ ghost stories. Mike would occasionally want to watch a horror movie, and she'd go along for the sake of making him happy, but she personally hated them. She'd rather watch a romantic comedy or a mystery; for that matter, she'd rather watch porn. And now here she was, living the very stories she despised.

Why was it, she wondered, that a banshee should have anything to do with _her?_ She believed Erin's assertion that she'd had nothing to do with the Ouija board's message; her reaction had been too spontaneous and looked too real to be faked. Besides, she reasoned, Erin simply wasn't that good an actress. Every thought she had showed up on her face, generally right before it emerged from her mouth. So that let Erin out. But if not Erin... _who?_

Heather knew for a fact she herself had nothing to do with it. And since she and Erin were the only ones who touched the board, the obvious supernatural explanation was the only one she could think of. She shuddered. The very idea that she was seriously giving any credence to this was beyond insane. This had to be a side effect of hormones. Anything else would be too absurd to even contemplate, she decided as she stood up from the rock and began to stroll sedately back to the sidewalk.

#  Chapter Nine

Exhausted, Heather poured herself into bed around midnight. She'd written draft after draft of her letter to Mike. Draft after draft had found its way into the garbage.

What could she say? _Dear Mike, just wanted to let you know I'm pregnant. Oh, and just in case the clearly impossible happens, the banshee did it._ She had actually written just that in one of her early drafts, and then torn it into confetti. She had swept up as much as she could find, but had no doubt that when she got down to serious housecleaning in the morning, she would find paper in places that there shouldn't even be places.

Finally, she'd settled on:

Dear Mike,

_I know that right now you're what feels like a million miles away. I just want you to know that we love you, and that every beat of my heart is for you. If you only knew what I'd give to have you here, safe and sound, where we can love you and be with you every moment of the day. When you come back, don't you even_ think _about re-upping. Because when you come back, you're_ ours, _Devil Dog._

Forever and Always Love,

Heather

She tapped the end of the pen against her teeth thoughtfully, wondering if she was tipping her hand too much by using the plurals. Then again, there was a chance he might not notice. With a quick shake of her head, she dismissed the idea. If anyone would notice, it would be her charmingly perceptive husband. There wasn't much doubt that the next letter she got from him would include some very pointed questions that she wasn't looking forward to answering.

Sighing, she sealed the letter and sprayed just a little White Shoulders on the envelope. It was a tradition of hers when writing to him from such a distance. Then she sat there and considered her next move.

It seemed there wasn't a great deal she could do until Fintan Fitzkillian got back to her about the contents of the trunk. At the same time, she couldn't just sit around doing nothing for the next thirty-six hours until she went back to work. By Monday she'd be a basket case for sure. Grimacing, she stood up and prowled into the living room, raking everything in sight with her gaze.

The houseplants were starting to droop just a bit. In the press of everything else demanding her attention, she'd neglected to water them. The thought of a task, no matter how mundane, cheered her. Going back to the kitchen, she rummaged in the pantry for the watering can, kept on the floor. She filled it up and took the cheap plastic container back into the living room, where she carefully doused the greenery. The watering can wasn't quite empty when she finished, so she went outside and gave the azaleas lining the walk a little sip rather than waste it. When she came back in, she was covered in gooseflesh from the cold. Putting the can back, she went back into the living room again.

_The Eternals,_ the novel that Lydia had brought her, was sitting on top of the TV. Picking it up, she thought for a moment, then decided she wanted some hot chocolate. With marshmallows.

In minutes, she was kicked back in her dusty rose recliner with the comforter off her bed resting across her lap and legs. The heater was running, and it warmed her skin as efficiently as the hot chocolate warmed her insides. The sweet drink made her feel better, too; it reminded her of long-ago Christmas Eve nights with her family, cuddled up in her father's lap while he told her all the traditional tales and poems. Sometimes, they'd put on a movie: _A Christmas Carol_ was always her favorite. She missed those days of innocence, when Santa still came and a fresh blanket of snow on the ground made her feel like the world was somehow renewing itself under that mantle of white.

As she began to read, the musings went away, to be replaced by immersion in the world the author had created. A world where fallen angels could redeem themselves, even the most evil of them, seemed like a good place to live. The heroine was as conflicted and contrary as any human she'd ever met, and some of her decisions and antics made her laugh out loud. Others made her wince in sympathy.

Heather wasn't entirely sure when sleep claimed her. All she knew was that she suddenly sat as upright as the angle of the armchair would permit, glancing around.

She'd turned off all the lights before she sat down to read, and the only one remaining burned on her right side, its eggshell-colored shade casting soft light and buttery shadow across the room. For some reason, her pulse jumped and her eyes roamed around uneasily. An insistent sense that she wasn't alone strummed her nerve endings like guitar strings.

Then she saw the figure.

It was almost shapeless, hovering just beyond the reach of the lights. Only wisps of fiery red hair poked out around the distorted, pale oval of its face. As her eyes focused and adjusted to the dim light, she realized that the nose was slender and aquiline, the cheekbones high and pronounced. The figure wore a cowl two shades darker than the blackness behind it, and a fold in the hood covered the mouth.

Heather's mouth went dryer than grave dust and she couldn't utter a syllable. She tried to twitch her fingers and couldn't so much as manage that. Her heart hammered in her chest as if trying to pound its way right out of her, through the ribcage if necessary. An icy sweat broke out on her palms, brow, and chest; she felt a cold trickle of moisture running between her breasts under her no-nonsense bra. She tried to draw a breath, and felt as if she was suddenly trapped in a vacuum.

As her panic mounted, the figure turned its head fractionally to the left. It was disturbing, because when it did so, the face she thought she had seen shifted ever so slightly. Now those green eyes began to glow with something that resembled a cat's eyeshine; the face warped until it was no longer a face at all, but a skull. The ambiguity of what she saw reminded her of one of those optical illusions where two or three pictures were contained in one, like the young princess who is also an old crone. A cold, clammy hand of fear wrapped itself around her stomach.

The figure continued turning, slowly, and seemed to melt into the shadows as it did so. Before it vanished altogether into the darkness, Heather thought she heard a low, feminine, malicious whisper.

" _Go luath."_

She didn't have a clue what it meant, but if the metaphorical poison dripping from that single word had been actual, a single drop could have killed an entire city. Terrified, she felt herself released from her paralysis and sprang to her feet as if she'd sat on a tack. Reaching into the drawer on the lamp table, she withdrew Mike's home defense plan.

The Colt 1911 .45 caliber handgun, he had told her, was the most reliable sidearm ever made. It was so well-crafted that the basic design hadn't changed in over a century and had been a favorite of the US military and law enforcement for years. This model was tactical black, with a ten-round magazine and, as she learned when she pulled the slide back a hair, one in the chamber. The brass glinted against the dark backdrop, and she knew that the weapon was loaded with Federal hollowpoint ammunition.

This particular bullet was designed to mushroom on impact with a solid surface. It would leave a hole the diameter of a large ballpoint pen on the way in, and one the size of a large orange on the way out. Inside the target, it would carve through organs, blood vessels, even bone up to a point, causing devastating and usually lethal damage as it passed.

Heather wasn't particularly worried about the well-being of the intruder. A rage as hot as her terror had been cold sublimated her fear. In a flash of insight, she appreciated the truth of the stories of ninety-five-pound women who had lifted cars, cranes, and other seemingly impossible objects off their children successfully. Her left hand fell to cover her womb, a gesture as old as the human race itself. She raised the right hand, clutching the handgun, and she swept the room with its barrel, hoping no one she cared about tried to walk through the door right now. As fearless now as if she'd channeled the divine huntress Artemis, she stalked toward the kitchen, the weapon held close into her side like Mike had taught her to minimize the chance that an assailant might be able to take it and use it on her.

Her left hand blurred away from her abdomen to flick the light switch and right back again. To an outsider, she might have appeared to be suffering from some kind of stomach cramps. The barrel flicked from right to left in a fast, tight arc, covering the room in the span of a few seconds.

Empty.

Her heart was still thudding, but the galloping pace was beginning to subside. Adrenaline reaction swept through her, and she suddenly felt very, very tired.

Now that she'd verified that there was no imminent threat, however, her mind began working over the last few moments. She kept pausing on that odd word that the intruder had whispered just before vanishing. It didn't sound familiar to her at all; it certainly wasn't English. Somewhere in her subconscious mind, an internal calculator drew a line between the cryptic message from the séance and the word she'd just heard. Then another.

It seemed that the threat might have been more valid than she first thought. She was sure getting an awful lot of exposure to Gaelic for someone who had been born and raised in America, she thought.

Reaching into her purse, she found the business card that Fintan had given her earlier in the day. On the back, he'd scrawled his cell phone number. The oddly European sevens he'd described, with a line firmly bisecting the upright diagonal, somehow inspired confidence in her. Although it was surely madness, she suddenly felt, with all her being, that if anyone would understand it would be Fintan Fitzkillian.

She picked up the phone and dialed.

He sounded surprisingly alert for...midnight? She realized as she thought to look at the quiet clock with its rotating underarms in the clear glass casing on the mantle. After a moment, she croaked, "It's Heather."

"What's up?" he asked, sounding far too chipper and aware for this time of night. A sudden image of him at a quiet bar with a date suddenly intruded, and she was caught unaware by a surge of jealousy. Quickly tamping it down, she said in a more normal tone, "I hope I'm not interrupting anything."

"No, not at all," Fintan assured her. "I was working on one of your books. I think I've found something here that might interest you. I was going to wait until morning, but since you've called—"

"Would you be willing to meet?" she heard herself asking, and closed her eyes in embarrassment. She was acting absolutely shameless, and Mike barely gone a week! What the hell is your problem? She asked herself.

"Certainly," Fintan replied with alacrity. "I've nothing to do, and would be grateful of some company. I could come to you, if you'd like."

It would certainly spare her the trouble of a drive. With a tiny pang of remorse, she said, "That would be wonderful."

"And where do you live?" he asked.

"Marblehead. 219 Ash Street," she answered. "To get here—"

"No need," he assured her, cutting her off genteelly. "I've a GPS rig in my car."

"Oh," she said, deflating. "Then I'll see you when you get here."

#  Chapter Ten

Fintan didn't so much occupy a space as _own_ it, Heather thought to herself as she brewed coffee for the two of them. He and Mike were a lot alike in that regard. She wondered if they would remain on close terms after this was over. She suspected the two men would like each other.

_Or,_ her contrary inner voice asserted, _Mike might very well try to kill him._

Sitting at the kitchen table with a thick legal pad and one of the more recent diaries she'd left him, Fintan looked very odd. Although she knew him to be a scholar, the sight of him sitting there in old, ratty jeans and a T-shirt advertising a UK rugby team with loafers and no socks made him appear to be a handyman who'd decided to snoop around. The dark, wiry hair on his forearms added to the impression of muscular but not overbuilt masculinity. He seemed to feel Heather's regard from across the room, and turned to look at her. Following her gaze, he laughed.

"I put in a lot of time at the gym," he said, "and one of my hobbies is restoring old houses in my off time. Keeps me in trim and gives me time to think without having beautiful women shove trunkfuls of books in my face," he finished with a distinctly teasing note.

"I'm sorry, Fintan," Heather apologized. "I wish I'd had a better solution."

"Nonsense," he said firmly. "I was only having you on a bit. I love a good mystery, and you've enough material for three or four right here. D'you mind if I ask some personal questions?" The look on her face made him backpedal swiftly. "Purely for my own edification, you understand. All answers held in strictest confidence; just you and me and the wall. And we can even leave the wall out of it, if you'd rather."

"Fine," she acquiesced, "but first I get to ask you one."

"Go on then," he invited. "I'm an open book."

"What does your wife think of this?" she asked. "She can't be happy with you charging off at this hour to help a damsel in distress."

"Oh, I've not been married for many a year," he said without a trace of self-pity. "Better that way, really. I'm not exactly husband material, with my constant poking and prodding and so on. Colleen wanted babies, and I always had my head stuck in some musty old book, as she put it. So she went off one day and found someone who'd give her babies and no grief about it. I found out when she was three months along and the divorce papers hit me."

Heather felt a pang of empathy. "That seems pretty cold," she observed.

"In all fairness to her, all the signs were there," he said calmly. If he still harbored any feelings about it one way or the other, he didn't show them. _"I_ was the one too preoccupied with my work to notice. One day she'd simply had enough. To be honest, her leaving was a relief."

"Why's that?" Heather asked, realizing that she was looking far too deeply into his hazel-green eyes for strictly casual interest. _What is it with this guy, anyway?_ She wondered. _And what has gotten into you?_

"I loved Colleen very deeply, but I've never been a very...physical person. In _that_ way," he added as her eyes flicked down to his well-developed forearms again. "I like to meet people on a mental level; that's what attracts me. I've known postgraduate coeds that most men wouldn't give the time of day, because they weren't...exactly model material." Heather recognized that as man-code for "coyote ugly." "But their _minds,_ you see. Their minds were lovely, bright, shining things, like brilliant jewels in a cheap pig-iron setting. And that was what attracted me. I didn't give a fat damn about making love with them, but I could talk to them for hours on any subject at all."

"What happened?" she asked.

"One of my students came on a little too strong. She mistook my love of her mind for lust for her body," Fintan answered. "I'm just Catholic enough that I believe such things should only happen between a man and his wife."

_Phew!_ Heather thought. _Eye-candy; but_ safe _eye-candy._

"She wouldn't take no for an answer, and one day she quit school. Simply vanished off the face of the earth. I never did find out what happened to her." He stared off into the distance, his expression slightly pensive, as if thinking of conversations that never occurred and discoveries and insights that were never gained.

"Coffee's done," she announced, because she had no reply for that. "How do you take it?"

"Black, two sugars," he said. Heather quickly prepared his and then doctored her own and sat down across the table from him.

"I never did get to ask my questions," he pointed out.

Heather blushed. "I'm sorry. That was very rude of me," she demurred, her eyes seeking the floor.

"Not at all. I'm just a boring subject. May I?"

"Of course," she said, still looking at the floor.

"Your last name is Kelly, yes?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Yet your husband's name is Hansen?" he said, flipping to a new page in the legal pad. Quickly, he wrote the date and time, then Heather's address and name. Heather suddenly had the uncomfortable feeling she was being interrogated.

"Yes. It's an old family tradition, dating back to the early eighteen-hundreds, I believe. No Kelly woman in my line ever takes a man's name."

"What else do you know of your family?" he asked. His eyes seemed to pierce right through her.

"Not much," she confessed. "They immigrated here in nineteen hundred, just after the New Year. My great three times grandmother brought my great grandmother over."

He nodded. "And she dropped the O' from her name aboard the ship and chucked it overboard, it would seem."

"Right," Heather said. "She knew that there was a lot of anti-Irish sentiment in America at the time."

"Indeed," he mused aloud. "And yet, she kept the Kelly, knowing that. Why did she not keep...or lose...the entire name?"

"That's something I'm hoping you can tell me," she retorted.

"I can indeed," Fintan said bemusedly. "That, and a good deal more."

"Well, don't just sit there like a bump on a log," she said urgently. "Tell me, already."

"Two more questions first," Fintan said, taking a sip of his coffee. "First: why did you call me tonight?"

Heather felt that Fintan had missed his calling by going into academia. He'd have made one hell of a detective.

"I had a nightmare," she said, eyes downcast, knowing even as she said it that the answer was inadequate.

"Must have been some nightmare," he observed, clearly leaving her room to change the story.

"What does _'go luath'_ mean?"

His face, before unflappable, had now gone a little pale. _"What_ did you say?" he asked in a thunderstruck tone.

" _Go luath,"_ she repeated hesitantly, hoping she was remembering it correctly.

Fintan's eyes found something far distant from her kitchen and zeroed in on it like twin sniper scopes. _"Go luath_ means 'soon,'" he answered absently.

"Why do you look like that?" she asked, alarmed. His head swiveled around with agonizing slowness to meet her eyes.

"Because _'go luath'_ is a word that recurs far too often for coincidence to cover in this journal, yet you say you couldn't read anything of it, and you certainly wouldn't know how to pronounce it properly had you not heard it from _somewhere._ More than that, this journal speaks to some very odd goings-on in your family. So, I ask again: what prompted the call to me tonight?"

Heather found herself telling him everything; her quiet reading in the recliner, the sudden jolt as her sleeping self realized she wasn't alone, and the chilling, cruel certainty in the one word that the apparition had spoken. She told him about sweeping the downstairs with the gun, which had taken up residence in her purse, and the chain of reasoning that led her to believe that the word was Gaelic.

"Back up," Fintan said. "You're still omitting a fairly crucial piece of the puzzle, and I need to know what it is. Because by itself, your story doesn't hold water right now. There's more to it."

_He might be many things, but Fintan is no fool,_ Heather thought. She felt ashamed that she hadn't told him the rest, but really, how _could_ she? It sounded insane even in the privacy of her own thoughts!

Rather than answer, she held up a finger, signaling him to wait. She turned and left, returning thirty seconds later with the notebook she'd used the night of the séance. Without comment, she opened it to the correct page and tossed it on the table.

Fintan read the message and the permutations that had led to it, his face grim. When he was done, he looked at Heather, his expression a taut mask.

"Where, _exactly,_ did you get this?" he asked.

Heather felt her face grow warm.

"My friend held a séance for me," she said abashedly. "It wasn't my idea; it was just supposed to be some harmless fun. Then this came out." She flipped a hand at the paper in case he was in any doubt as to which _this_ she meant. "And I realized I don't know nearly enough about my family and why I would get such a warning. So I went to see my Gran, who I knew had all this stuff. When I realized I couldn't read it and that the translation would take forever if I tried to do it myself, I contacted you."

Fintan mulled that over, his hands cupped around his coffee cup. "What did you say your friend's name was?" he asked.

"Erin McCorkle," Heather said hesitantly.

Fintan grunted. "Well, d'you want the good or the bad of it?"

"You pick," she sighed. It seemed she couldn't have one without the other.

"The good of it is that you were right. That message _is_ meant for you. The bad of it is, that message is meant for you."

Heather pursed her lips thoughtfully. "But why? What do I have to do with a banshee, for God's sake?"

Fintan said politely, _"Bean'sidhe."_

"What?" Heather asked.

" _Bean'sidhe,"_ he repeated. He pronounced it _"bawn-CHAY."_ "That's how it's properly pronounced," he said. "If you're going to know about it, you'll at least be able to say it correctly."

"What else do I need to know?" she asked.

Fintan scowled, the expression according ill with his friendly, broad features. Then he opened his own notebook.

"A lot more than you do now," he growled. Pushing it across the table almost defiantly, he stood to refresh his coffee while she began to read.

#  Chapter Eleven

November, 1899: Cionn Mhalanna, Ireland

Agata O'Kelly listened to the wind and rain outside. It was brewing up the kind of storm that no one around here had seen or heard since she was a lass; she hoped that the fishermen of the village had managed to beat the storm in from the sea. Not so fortunate was her son in law, Seamus McCumhail, who had been forced to brave the storm to seek the aid of the local priest.

Tabitha shrieked in agony as another contraction contorted her spine into an unnatural bow. Agata recognized the signs of an incredibly difficult labor, but for her immortal soul, could think of nothing more she could do to comfort her daughter now. She hadn't the knowledge to perform a Caesarian section, and what she knew of herbs and the healing power of liquor had not been sufficient to quell Tabitha's pain. Tears in her eyes, she flinched as a particularly powerful strobe of lightning made the entire coast pulse with light. The thunder that followed a split second later caused the iron and copper kitchen wares hanging over the hearth to rattle and ping in an unmelodic harmony.

_Where's Seamus?_ She thought angrily. Although Agata recognized that her anger was fueled in no small part by the dual worry she carried, that made it no less great. Her nerves felt more abraded by every woeful scream. She couldn't bear the waiting another second, she felt. But she did, and did, and did, whispering words of comfort and solace to her beloved daughter. Through it all, she somehow managed to keep from giving rein to the tears she felt in the back of her throat and stinging at her eyes.

Agata had never been a particularly affectionate or demonstrative woman to her daughter. She had grown up in the aftermath of far too many deaths from famine, illness, and hunger for any of that. But now she began to worry that she might have tried too hard to make her daughter tough enough to withstand the harshness of the world and not hard enough to teach her that it was all right to laugh, and to feel joy. One had to take their pleasures where one could find them.

_No time for if-onlies now, woman,_ she scolded herself when the specter of all the things she might, could, and should have said and done to and for her daughter raised its head. _Take care of_ now _now. Call it a lesson learned and do what you may later to put it right._ She pressed the cool, wet, soft cloth to Tabitha's sweat-soaked brow as her daughter panted.

Rapid hoof beats were coming up the road toward the house. Despite the mud, the rider seemed to be moving with some urgency. Agata listened carefully; no, she'd not been mistaken. Only one rider. She hoped it was the priest.

The hoof beats neared at a frantic pace, then stopped. A few seconds later, the front door burst open, letting in a gust of bitingly cold wind and a spatter of frigid rain. The man who'd just exploded in turned and shoved the door closed with a loud grunt of effort against the wind.

Turning, he doffed his hat to shake the raindrops off it, revealing long auburn hair and a bristling beard. His blue eyes were wide and alarmed, his wide mouth twisted in an expression that boded ill for anyone who dared cross him right now. He was wearing rough, homespun trousers and a thick woolen sweater. His thoroughly soaked green felt hat was placed on the hat rack with little fanfare, and Seamus McCumhail came to stand by Agata.

"How fares she, mother?" he asked, his wild Irish brogue thick with stress.

"She's no' well a'tall, Seamus," Agata spat in answer. "And where's the priest, then?"

His thick eyebrows knit. "Gone to Ballyshannon, he has."

"And ye know this how?" Agata asked.

"'Cause I went to the rectory, didn't I? And Brother Sean said Father Kevin was gone down to Ballyshannon, of all places, after Hugh Flannery. I said, now isn't _that_ a fine thing, Father Kevin gone to the south part of County Donegal in God's own flood t'look to the soul of a man has himself enough money to buy Heaven itself an' two poor souls here in his own stable needin' lookin' after, damn his eyes. Old man Flannery's been dead three times this month already, t'hear him tell it. If our parish priest is so skilled and good as all that, maybe he should be walkin' on water or parting this damned storm. Maybe we should prayin' ta _him_ rather than Jaysus."

Agata rounded on him. "Ye'll keep that waggin' tongue still if ye canna keep such words off it," she snapped. "You and yer cursin' and caterwaulin' and yer own wife bearin' yer child!" Normally, Agata spoke as properly as any schoolmarm, but the tension and stress of the evening had "brought her Irish up," and her own heavy Ulster accent rendered her words nigh unintelligible to anyone's ears not born to it. "If ye'll do some good this night, comfort yer wife and let me do what I must!"

Seamus' face turned quite as red as his beard. For a man to be in the birthing room was quite unheard of, almost taboo. If word got out, he'd surely never hear the end of it.

Agata read Seamus' face and the thoughts behind it in less than a second and snarled, "Ye'll do it or I'll put it about that Fionn McCumhail's own blood is afeared o' a wee babe and 'er mother. Or is't the blood what makes such a coward o' ye?"

If his countenance had been florid before, it was now apoplectic. "Ye know as well as I that tis'n't proper," he sputtered.

" _Propriety be damned!"_ Agata spat, at the end of her patience. "There's no priest t'attend the poor lass or the babe, and so it's down to _us._ What about the midwife?"

Seamus answered abashedly. "She's down to the tavern, in her cups. Whiskey, as I hear it. They'd bundled her upstairs t'sleep it off before I arrived."

Agata pulled an exasperated face. "Probably best, then," she decided. "A midwife drunk's worse'n no midwife a'tall. Put yer head under the quilt and tell me what you see."

Seamus stammered, "But—Agata, I—"

"Now!" she roared. Without further argument, Seamus put his head under the quilt. "Bugger me!" he squawked a moment later.

"What _is't,_ ye hopeless waste o' breath an' skin?" she demanded, her patience worn down to the weft by Seamus's hesitations.

"I see a foot!" Seamus howled. He was no expert when it came to birth in human women, but he knew a fair bit about sheep, and knew that a lamb coming feet first meant no good thing. For a human woman, he suspected it would be worse.

"Damn!" Agata grated, shoving Seamus to the side. "Aye, it's too far out for us t' push back. It's drastic measures for us, then. Get a knife, soak't in whiskey, and put it in the flames on the hearth for a few moments."

"Wha' the devil for!" Seamus ejaculated.

"Seamus McCumhail, if ye dinna _do't,_ an' I mean _right this second,_ I'll curse ye from now until the stars fall from the sky, d'ye unnerstand me?" Agata roared.

With a look of stunned shock, Seamus held out his hands in surrender and hurried to get the sharpest knife he could find. Quickly, he poured a dram of Kevin Garrety's finest Irish _uisge,_ made not a mile down the road, onto the razor-edged steel. Thrusting it into the fire before the alcohol could evaporate, he waited until the blue flames produced by the burning whiskey settled to the usual red-orange. Although the knife quickly became uncomfortably warm, prompting him to flinch and unleash an oath which provoked a wrathful glare from Agata, he held on until the blade was red-hot and his palm was blistered from the scorching heat. Wrapping the hilt in a fresh, clean, wet towel, he proffered the glowing knife to Agata.

She handed him a stick. "Put this between her teeth and hold her for all yer carcass is worth, as ye value yer life _an'_ hers," she ordered, and unceremoniously hurled the quilt off Tabitha, leaving her naked to the breasts, her swollen belly and distended womanhood bare for any who happened by to see.

Another contraction wracked Tabitha, and she shrieked. Seamus winced and grasped her near hand all the tighter, pushing the stick between her teeth. "Hold tight, love," he whispered, his voice gravelly with stress and love and terror. "T'willna be long, now." Tabitha's eyes rolled and she panted around the stick, bearing down on Seamus' hand fit to grind the bones within to powder.

Agata stood at the foot of the birthing bed, knife raised like a Druid priestess. She was soaked to the elbows with blood and the natural fluids which accompany childbirth, and some of those fluids had transferred themselves to her face and neck. Seamus thought he'd never seen his mother in law look more frightening or more capable.

Agata paused for just a second with the knife poised. She knew that if she cut too shallow, it would do no good. Too deeply, and it might very well kill the babe and the mother too. Agata took a long, deep breath, and carefully measured her daughter's belly by eye, seeking the ideal place to begin the cut that would free the baby.

Tabitha's teeth clenched down on the stick, and her eyes squeezed closed at the sight of the knife. Her chest rose raggedly and a harrowing wail broke loose. But Seamus realized that it wasn't Tabitha's doing when he looked at her heaving chest and wild eyes.

It was coming from outside.

The sound was horrible enough just for being there, where no living being with sense to step one foot in front of the next would be on a night like this. Far worse, though, was the emotion carried in that haunting sound: rage, malice, and a savage vindication. Seamus jerked erect and cried, "What 'n God's name's _that!"_

Agata's face paled. She had never heard such a cry herself, but old stories, passed from daughter to daughter for the last hundred years and more, warned of the marrow-freezing sound of the vengeful spirit that plagued the O'Kelly women, and had since time immemorial, showing up only now and then to screech her horrific cry at some poor unfortunate lass.

"'Tis the _bean'sidhe,"_ she whispered in horror. "I'd hoped to go to my grave never hearing such a sound, but 'tis upon us."

Seamus' face went as pale as the stone behind him, and Agata said a quick prayer that the great oaf wouldn't faint as she scanned the room, seeking possible weapons. The knife? Perhaps...as a last resort. There was neither proper cold iron nor a good stout rowan wand to ward the door, and Agata cursed the lack as she muttered a prayer to every saint, angel, pagan god and goddess she knew to drive this evil from their door.

"Naught to use for a weapon, and no more time," she said with a calm that belied the quailing she felt in her spirit as the terrible wail rose again just beyond the door. "It's got ta be now'r never," she said, plunging the sullen red blade into Tabitha's abdomen.

Blood welled, but not nearly as much as Seamus would have expected, because of the hot blade; it cauterized the wound as quickly as it made it, slicing through the skin, flesh, fat, and the mysterious inner parts to lay Tabitha's womb and the tiny baby within bare.

As carefully but quickly as she dared, Agata pulled the baby free of her mother. She immediately noted that the child was female and not breathing. Swiping her fingers into the babe's mouth to clear the tiny airway, she turned the child upside down and gave it a swat on its little buttocks. A tiny cry quickly built to a scream that matched the horrible cries from outside the cottage for volume as the first, strong howl of a new life burst from the small lungs. The babe's color quickly changed from a pale, deathly blue to a vibrant, healthy red.

Rising and falling in ironic counterpoint to the babe's cries of protest at the ignominious circumstances of her birth, the _bean'sidhe's_ wails became louder and more malicious, if such were possible. Tabitha's breathing stuttered and stopped. Started again, a heaving gasp; her eyes flew open as if she'd been punched in the stomach, and her tiny hand, which had seemed so fragile in Seamus', gripped his hand so tightly he winced as the bones compressed together. Then the vise-like grip relaxed, and Tabitha's eyelids drooped to half-mast as one final, rattling exhalation emptied her lungs. Her body went terribly limp and still in Seamus' arms.

The bean'sidhe's hideous, ululating wail built to a mad crescendo and cut off. A low, mocking laugh came from the window.

Seamus knew Tabitha was gone as he looked to the window and saw a flash of a pale face, green eyes, and a few strands of red hair as a shadowy figure fled into the stormy, rain-swept darkness.

Agata held the screeching babe out to Seamus and said, "Your daughter, my son."

He looked at Agata with moist, burning eyes, even as his brawny arms folded around the squalling child in her homespun swaddling blanket. "We failed her," he moaned. _"I_ failed her."

"Neither of us did any such thing," she snapped, and Seamus looked as shocked as if she'd struck him. "We did all we could. The hand that was set against us was not of God nor man, nor of this world," she continued in a gentler tone. Her customary well-groomed diction reasserted itself as she pressed on. "You've your daughter to think of now. Had you given any thought to a name?"

Seamus's knees were still trembling from the stress and fright of what he'd seen and heard. It was a moment before he drew a breath.

"Erin," Seamus rasped. Swallowing to moisten his dry throat, he tried again. "Tabitha wanted her named Erin." He looked down into the squalling child's scrunched-up face and muttered something beneath his breath. A thundercloud seemed to gather upon his brow, but he held the baby with all the tender love of any father.

Agata hoped he wasn't about to do anything rash. Erin would need her father all the more for her mother being gone. And her father would need Agata.

"And how," she muttered to herself in a half-praying question to God and all His angels, "am I to keep Erin's great-granddaughter safe from this curse?"

#  Chapter Twelve

Heather looked up from the tablet. She felt haggard and worn out, as if she'd aged ten years in a span of a couple of hours. "But Erin's great-granddaughter is—"

"You," he nodded. "Exactly."

"So what does it mean?" she asked weakly.

"Maybe something, maybe nothing," Fintan said. "On one hand, most of the banshee legends suggest that they mourn all or none at all. On the other hand, there are other stories of curses on given bloodlines that assert themselves only every so many generations so long as the bloodline exists.

"The thing you have to remember is that the banshee, in most legends, is a fairly gentle harbinger of death, not a proximal cause. However, consider as well that all legends became that way because of factual events."

"Like what?" Heather asked. The color was slowly leaching back into her face, but she still looked very grim and wan.

"There is an old tradition in Ireland and Scotland of the _caioneadh,_ the wailing for the dead. It was done by a professional mourning woman—"

"Wait. What was that word?" she asked.

" _Caioneadh."_ He pronounced it _"queen-YAH."_ "Anyway, the legend goes that the five noblest houses in Ireland needed no mortal to bewail them to the grave. They had the _Sidhe_ to do it for them."

"The what?"

"The Faery," Fintan said. "These houses were so grand in stature that the Faery folk, or _Sidhe,_ themselves would show up to mourn the passing of the houses' sons and daughters. Originally, there were five."

"The O'Connors, O'Gradys, O'Neills, O'Briens, and Kavanaghs," Heather recited, not wanting to look as completely and hopelessly clueless as she felt at the moment.

"Indeed," he affirmed, inclining his head with a sidelong glance that betrayed his surprise. "But these families of necessity intermarried throughout the ages. So the list has gotten significantly longer."

"But even so," Heather pressed, "I've seen three different websites that list names of families who can expect a visit from a _bean'sidhe._ O'Kelly and its variants don't occur on that list anywhere."

Fintan thought for a moment. "Cursed houses in olden times were not generally recorded, for fear the curse might trace back to the one who dared. For that reason, it is entirely possible that the O'Kelly line might have been a sixth house that isn't mentioned simply because one of the bloodline did something so heinous that the act actually produced a vengeful _bean'sidhe._ And that would have been such a black thing that most would have done anything to try to hide their connection to the original family."

"By dropping the O' from the name?"

Fintan shook his head. "Tip of the iceberg. The Kellys were originally named _O'Calleigh."_

He paused and a very odd look appeared on his face. Then he yawned hugely. "What time is it?"

Heather looked over his shoulder at the clock. "It's four a.m. Fintan, I'm sorry."

"It's quite all right," he said, standing. "But I should be going."

"No!" Heather wasn't entirely sure how much of the thought that had just occurred to her was altruism and how much a selfish desire not to be alone in the house after what she'd just learned. She did know that no power on earth could stop her from voicing it.

"You could sleep here," she murmured.

He looked at her in shock. "But you're a married woman!" he gasped, plainly torn between his belief that such a breach was a mortal sin and wishing he could cast it aside and be damned to the consequences.

"Oh!" she blinked in surprise as the look on his face told her what he'd been thinking. "Oh, no, I meant that you must be tired and could sleep on the couch, if you'd like, rather than have to drive home tired in the dark," she babbled.

"I see," he said, with a whoosh of expelled breath suggesting mingled disappointment and relief. "Well, in that case, d'you have a blanket and pillow?" he asked, rubbing his face wearily.

"I'll get them for you right away," she said, and bustled away to see to it before he noticed the spreading blush on her face.

A few moments later, Fintan was making out a pallet on the couch, and Heather came up and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and smiled at her in a weary invitation to say what was on her mind.

"I wanted to thank you," she said.

"For what?" he asked. "For scaring you half to death and making it so that you fear to sleep alone in your own house? Or for being more than half willing to risk eternal damnation to do something I know no good can come of? Or, no, wait...for...oh, hell," he groaned. "I lost my train of thought. So which is it, then?"

Heather didn't bother to try to hide the flush on her face this time. "It's neither," she said. "I wanted to thank you for being a good friend, for telling me the truth, and for not taking chances with your safety or mine."

"Oh." He blinked in surprise. "Well, in that case, I don't suppose you'd mind if we just pretend I didn't say anything about the other bit?"

"I won't tell if you don't," she smiled. Impulsively, she leaned over and gave him a quick peck on the cheek. "Good night."

"Good night. Off to bed with you, now," he said, fanning the air just inches from her butt as she turned to go upstairs. She flicked the light switch off on her way, and the room was suddenly cloaked in shadow.

Heather watched him from the stairs for a moment. Then she stealthy crept up to her room and shut the door silently, wishing guiltily that she took her wedding vows just a little _less_ seriously.

* * * * *

The next morning, Heather woke up at nine-thirty out of a dreamless sleep. Her back was stiff, her head ached, and her mouth tasted like she'd been sucking on a thrice-used gym sock. When she stood up, her knees screamed a silent protest, and she gasped. Staggering to the bathroom, she winced as the lights from the vanity speared into her eyes.

"Talk about a morning after _without_ a night before," she muttered, and winced as pain shrilled in her temples. She looked over her shoulder to make sure that she had not, in fact, done anything outrageous like sleep with the sexy Irishman she'd invited over. To her intense relief the bed was empty. That meant that Fintan had behaved himself and stayed on the couch. The thought inspired very mixed emotions.

A cold shower followed by a scorching one made her feel better, and she tiptoed back to her room. She was just closing the door when she smelled frying bacon, cooking eggs, and brewing coffee from downstairs. So much for _stealth mode,_ she thought with a grimace. Going to the closet, she threw on a pair of jeans and a white T-shirt, not bothering with a bra. It was Sunday, and she had no plans to go anywhere or anybody she was interested in impressing. A pair of white flip-flops topped her Sunday look. Pulling her hair back in a ponytail, she hurried downstairs.

Fintan was at the stove wearing just his jeans, flipping an omelet. He caught it expertly and slid it onto a plate. Suddenly he stiffened and turned around.

Heather had thought he was attractive before; that was nothing.

Shirtless, he was startlingly muscular. Despite the slight paunch, he was clearly fit and looked capable of doing virtually anything up to and including picking up small cars. His pectoral muscles were well-defined, and beneath the beer-gut was a suggestion of serious abs. His chest was broad and nearly hairless except for a small patch in the center of his sternum. A thin dark line of hair ran from his navel down to disappear into his blue jeans, like an arrow pointing the way.

_That's some dirty mind you've got, lady,_ Heather thought.

Fintan's hair was sleep-mussed, he had a day's growth of whiskers, and she genuinely thought that next to Mike, he was the most attractive man she'd ever seen. In an abrupt flash of insight, she figured out that it was the similarity to Mike that attracted her so powerfully. Fintan and Mike both had that calm, capable air of being able to make even the most catastrophic circumstances seem like things which simply weren't that big a deal. As badly as Heather missed Mike, she realized that her gravitating toward Fintan was almost a matter of Fintan seeming like a surrogate for her husband, rather than any real desire she felt for him personally.

For Fintan's part, he seemed unable to do anything but stare. She couldn't figure out why; it wasn't like she'd made any effort at all to enhance her appearance. In fact, if anything, she'd gone out of her way to drab herself down so he'd stop looking at her that way. Unfortunately, it looked like her strategy had the opposite effect. He seemed to be visibly wrestling with himself not to throw her down on the tiles and have her, right then and there.

Fair was fair, she decided. She was having the same struggle, albeit for different reasons. Trying to sound nonchalant, she asked, "How did you sleep?"

Fintan smiled, and it did some very interesting things to her insides. "Like a rock," he said, giving a deep stretch of satisfaction to prove that he meant it.

"I'm glad," she smiled. "Making breakfast?"

He had the good grace to look sheepish. "If you don't mind."

"Not in the slightest," she assured him. "And coffee, too. Someday, you'll make someone a good wife," she joked.

"Har, har." Fintan turned away from her and back to the stove with an air of great, wounded dignity.

"So what do you have planned for today?" she asked as she made her coffee.

"Depends."

Apparently he was a man of few words in the morning. Heather decided the answer didn't convey enough information. "On what?"

"On you."

That was even more cryptic. "Not helpful," she observed pointedly.

"Well, do you want to know the rest of what the journal said?"

_Way to dangle the catnip,_ she thought. "Well, of course. But I thought..."

"That I might have something _else_ to do?" he asked, handling the second omelet with a dexterity and finesse that made her feel downright clumsy. "It's Sunday."

"I thought you'd want to catch Mass," she said, "what with you being a good Catholic and all."

"And what are _you?"_ he parried. The question caught her totally off-guard.

Fintan watched her flounder for a moment. Then he said, "Oh, come now, you know all there is worth knowing about me, and all I know about you is that you're a beautiful woman who seems to be in dire straits and doesn't talk about herself. So I think it's only fair that I should at least know what God or gods you claim."

Heather smiled. "You want the cook's tour? You got it, buster."

Fintan grinned. "Let's eat first. I don't like omelets when they've had time to get rubbery."

They sat down at the table. Fintan insisted on presenting her plate to her. He'd even set the table, she noticed. "Very domestic," she said approvingly. "Mike is good at a lot of things, but he's no Martha Stewart."

"Mike would be your husband," Fintan observed.

"Yes," she said, and her throat tightened a little. To hide it, she took a tiny bite of her omelet. _Damn, the man can cook, too!_ she thought, and took a more robust forkful.

Fintan proved to be quite adroit at teasing information out of her. Under his capable ministrations, she found herself opening up about things she'd never admitted to another living soul. She spoke of her and Mike's courtship, of how his quiet, steady way had driven her mad until she'd practically raped him, and how handsome he'd looked on their wedding day.

She recounted the entire saga of learning she was pregnant, her guilt about not telling Mike sooner that the possibility existed, and how afraid she was of how he would react.

"He's not a violent man, though, from what you've told me," Fintan said thoughtfully.

"No," she conceded, "he's not. My fear is that it will hurt _him._ That would do more to hurt me than if he ever decided he was going to hit me."

"I think he'll understand that, however misguided he may believe your actions, your motives were the purest possible," Fintan decreed in a tone of such perfect self-assurance that Heather couldn't bring herself to argue the point.

They chatted a little more, like old friends, and she finally got up the nerve to ask him a question that had bothered her ever since their first meeting.

"What kind of a name is Fintan?" she asked hesitantly. When his eyes met hers and his left eyebrow rose just a fraction of an inch, she hastily added, "Not that it's not a good name. It sounds...strong," she ended feebly. "I was just wondering where it came from."

"Well," Fintan said, and took a long pull of his coffee. "Fintan the Salmon was a very special, very wise fish. He swam in a very special pool, around which the trees of the gods grew. One of these trees was a hazelnut tree, hanging right over the water. The hazelnuts fell into the water and saturated it with their juices. It was these sacred nuts that gave Fintan his great wisdom.

"One day, Fionn McCumhail, the great Irish hero..."

"Wait!" Heather cried. "Is that the same Fionn McCumhail that Seamus claimed to be descended from?"

"One and the same," he affirmed. "Anyway, Fionn decided he would catch fish for the gods, to please them. One of the ones he netted was Fintan. While he was cooking Fintan, Fionn touched him with his thumb to see if he was thoroughly done. Fintan's skin burned him, and he put his thumb in his mouth. The moment he did so, it made him heir to all of Fintan's knowledge and skill. The fish got eaten nevertheless, of course, but according to legend, Fionn became a powerful warrior, seer, and healer."

"So what's the moral?" she asked, sensing that there was more to the story.

"You're never so wise or clever that you can't be caught or trapped," he grinned. "Sometimes, knowledge can be the greatest trap of all."

_If there was ever a moral that fit this situation, that's the one,_ Heather mused. _I love irony...when it's happening to someone_ else.

#  Chapter Thirteen

They decided that he would spend the day and then go home that night. Luckily, he kept an overnight bag in his trunk in case of emergencies, he said. He hurried out to get it, and Heather made a quick shopping list. By the time she was done, he was back, wearing a black turtleneck, brown leather jacket, and had somehow managed to shave. He looked like an endearing combination of poet and warrior, academic and rake, and she couldn't help but smile. Putting her coat on, they walked down to the corner store to purchase some essentials for the day.

Heather selected makings for chicken, pasta, and rice, with a light white wine for Fintan. She picked up club soda for herself to keep her stomach settled. Fintan picked up lettuce, tomatoes, and a jar of Parmesan cheese. He asked if she would care for a beer. After a moment's consideration, Heather declined, electing not to risk her baby's health.

The sky was gray and a mild breeze whispered along the street. Children were playing in the park a couple of blocks over. She could hear them laughing and see the tops of their kites hanging over the tops of the houses, dipping and waving gently.

The two walked down the street, not quite touching, but not far apart, either. Fintan's gaze never seemed to stop moving as he looked all around him.

"What are you looking for?" she asked. She had noticed that Mike did exactly the same thing no matter where they went. Gentle he might be; unaware he wasn't.

"Just a force of habit," Fintan said, and forced a smile.

Heather took two long strides to get ahead of him and swung directly into his path, where he had no choice but to stop in his tracks or plow her over.

"Not so fast," she ordered. "I told you the most intimate details of my life and you can't tell me why you keep looking around like you're expecting a sniper? What gives?"

His chest heaved just a little. "It's nothing you need to concern yourself with," he said. "Once upon a time, many moons ago, I was a member of _Sein Finn._ Some of the old habits die hard."

Heather scoured her memory. _"Sein Finn?_ Like, the Irish Republican Army?"

"One and the same," he nodded grimly. "I was much younger, then, and really believed in what we were doing."

"What changed your mind?" she asked. There was no judgment in her tone, only genuine curiousity. She remembered, growing up, hearing the constant reports of violence in Northern Ireland. To hear the six o'clock news tell it, bombs and bullets were a daily fact of life over there. It was hardly surprising to her that Fintan had been involved in some capacity.

"I saw one too many horrible things," he said in a tone that could have iced a margarita, making it clear that the topic was closed. Not just at that moment, but forever. "I resigned from the party, went back to university for languages, and now I am what you see today."

_I doubt that,_ she thought. She suspected there were hidden depths to Fintan Fitzkillian that no one had ever plumbed, although she had to wonder why she was so interested. After all, this...whatever it was could hardly go any further than it already had without making her life, which was already on treacherous footing, absolutely impossible.

To steer the subject away from the metaphorical quicksand, she asked, "So, when we get back, I'll do the dishes while you tell me the rest?"

"The rest of what?" he asked tensely, giving her a sidelong look. She could almost see the gears turning in his mind as he wondered whether she had somehow failed to get the message he'd been broadcasting for all he was worth.

"Agata's journal," she said. "You hinted this morning that there's more to the story."

Fintan's shoulders visibly relaxed. "There is at that. But it may not make for pleasant hearing," he warned.

"How much worse could it be?" she asked, trying for lightness.

The attempt fell flat.

* * * * *

When they got back to her house, Fintan began reading the journal, making occasional notes or stopping to check something on Heather's laptop. Finally, he began to speak. Heather listened, entranced.

"It seems that two days later, they had the funeral for Tabitha..."

* * * * *

Seamus McCumhail stumbled out of the tavern, his face puffy and eyes slitted against the late afternoon glare. Agata had taken baby Erin home, and he'd decided to drown his sorrows with ale. When that hadn't worked, he'd worked his way up to whiskey. He'd been drinking since one of the clock, and the clock began to toll six as the door swung to behind him. With every glass and every mug, his mood grew more dour and his countenance more forbidding, until none of his mates dared even to approach him for fear of the brewing storm of his anger.

He looked both directions and froze as he caught sight of the modest steeple of the village church.

He took one hesitant step. Then another.

And still another, his feet moving faster until he was shambling down the main street of Cionn Mhalanna at an ungainly run. He passed many of the townsfolk in his headlong dash, and he knew they would wonder where he was off to in such a hurry, and away from his cottage on the other end of town at that. But none tried to hail him.

After what seemed like a subjective eternity, he reached the door of the tiny rectory behind the church. His fist lashed out and hammered the door fit to rattle the door, frame, and the whole of the church it was attached to. His hand fell to his side; he had picked up a few slivers from the rough-finished door, but didn't feel them. At that moment, it was a trivial matter and unworthy of his attention.

Finally, the silence became too much for him. He drew a deep breath and cried, "Father Kevin! I've need of a word with ye, ye bloody skinflint!" After an interminable silence, he heard rustling within. Then the door opened, and Father Kevin Flannigan, clad in his priestly black, stood framed in the doorway. "Ah, Seamus, and it's that good to see ye, it is," Father Kevin said. "Sure an' t'God I wish I could say more for the circumstances. And how fares the wee lass?"

The muscles in Seamus' lifting arm jumped under his skin like snapped piano wires. Pushing his face close to the priest's, he demanded in a low, quiet voice, "An' now ye'll be askin' after me _child,_ when ye dinna care enough the other night for me _wife's_ poor soul to be where she needed ye?"

Father Kevin took a half step back from the door. Quietly, he said, "Ah, my son, I was called away, or God as my witness, I'd've been here."

"And how's Squire Flannery, then?" Seamus' voice was completely devoid of inflection. Father Kevin suddenly blanched as he realized the precarious nature of his situation.

"He's well enough, for now," Father Kevin said.

Seamus' impotent rage boiled over, and both his hands shot out to seize the priest's lapels in a grip that not even the strongest man in the village could have broken loose of. "So ye went down to Ballyshannon in that Christ-forsaken storm to tend t'his wealthy soul, and lost me wife's and bloody near me daughter's poor ones into the bargain!" he barked, his voice like a clap of thunder. "Sure an' I'd like t'know just _why_ it should be that way. Me wife went to her rest unshrived because you were down the county ta save the soul o' such a one as can buy the half o' Heaven worth havin'!" he screamed, pressing his nose and halitosis full into the priest's face.

Father Kevin's somber visage went quite pale.

"Seamus, the extreme unction was given," he said, his voice quavering with fear. "Tabitha went to her reward pure in soul and in the good grace of Christ..."

Seamus's hand lashed out and wrapped around the priest's throat. He lifted the other man off his feet and shook the priest fit to rattle every tooth in his head as he grated, "T'wasn't _Christ_ called her away, ye pious fool! T'was the _bean'sidhe!_ An' if ye'd been there like ye _should_ 've, me Tabitha'd be alive now an' me poor Erin'd not be an orphan!"

His rage had towered to such titanic proportions that it could no longer be contained. With ease, he hurled the priest across the room headfirst. Father Kevin hit the opposite stone wall squarely, his hands and feet windmilling desperately, and slid down bonelessly to lie in an insensate puddle. Seamus tromped after him, his boots thudding on the unfinished planks of the floor, ringing in his own ears like the inexorable drumbeats of doom.

He lifted Father Kevin to his feet, smiling with grim vindication as he noticed the open gash over the priest's right eyebrow weeping blood down his face. He tossed the limp man again as if he weighed no more than a fistful of rags. Again the priest sailed through the air to smash into the wall.

Around a mouthful of broken teeth and a bulging, bloody, swollen eye, Father Kevin tried to hold his hands up in a futile attempt to ward Seamus off, gurgling a plea that emerged from his split, cut lips as a series of bloody bubbles and unintelligible grunts. Seamus heard him, but lost as he was in the black and raging depths of his fury, it was simply not in him at that moment to grant absolution to the priest for his perceived sins.

Seamus fell to his knees and, rather than hefting the babbling priest again, simply began to smash his fists into Father Kevin. He paid no mind to whether he was hitting face, flesh, cloth, or wood. With every blow his rage, rather than dissipating, grew even hotter and brighter, urging him on to greater exertion. Finally Seamus spent the last of his righteous wrath and knelt, panting with the strain of the punishment he'd dealt the priest. Blood dripped freely from his hands, his own and the priest's commingled to form an abstract painting on the floor that could have been entitled _Suffering._

Finally, Seamus hauled himself to his feet. His drunk had evaporated, and he looked around at the carnage he'd wrought with dawning horror. Staggering out of the rectory, his eyes swept the deserted street, looking for any witnesses that might be out in the twilight. Seeing none, he rushed back to the cottage overlooking the sea.

Agata looked up from baby Erin, who was resting comfortably in her arms, as Seamus came in quietly. His hands still dripped crimson, and his face was as gaunt as a face that size could be. He sat down heavily at the table and folded his wounded maniples in front of him in an attitude of prayer.

Gently, so as not to disturb the baby, she folded the small bundle into her pram. The tiny face was squinched up and the precious little rosebud of a mouth puckered, perhaps dreaming infant dreams. Agata smiled down at Erin, and then moved across the room silently to sit beside Seamus.

"What have you _done?"_ she whispered, her tone seething.

Seamus' shoulders began to heave and tears rolled freely down his cheeks to vanish into his bristly beard. "T'was an ill thing, Mother," he said. "Surely God Himself'll not forgive me for this night's work."

None had ever been able to say Agata was slow on the uptake. There was only one man in the whole county he bore such ill-will. It only took her half a second to see the mute evidence written in blood on Seamus' skin and smell the whiskey on his breath to work out what had occurred.

"Will he live?" she asked heavily, still keeping her voice to the merest whisper lest it jar Erin out of her slumber.

"I dinna know, mother," Seamus whispered back. "I dinna know..."

His huge head nodded, then drooped onto his broad chest. Agata thanked God silently that the wet nurse had already been and gone. She'd return around midnight with her own babe-in-arms. With a swift economy of motion, she half-carried, half-dragged him to the bed. Then she settled back into her chair and took up the knitting she'd begun earlier, before Erin had awakened fussing. The darkness of the tiny room meshed perfectly with the bleak timbre of her thoughts.

* * * * *

The wet nurse, Meaghan McLean, arrived shortly before midnight. A slight woman, she didn't look nearly robust enough to have birthed seven children. But she had, and two sets of twins into the bargain. Her youngest was but six months old, and she carried the sleeping boy on her hip. Handing him over to Agata with practiced ease, she took off her walking cloak and began to unlace her bodice.

Stealing a glance at Seamus' reposing form across the room, she asked in a whisper, "So, have ye heard then?"

Agata felt a chill finger of ice trace down her back.

"Heard what?"

"There's word that Seamus beat Father Kevin half t'death earlier. There's talk in the village that if he dies, they're going to hang him."

Agata closed her eyes. _Ah, Seamus, ye damned fool,_ she thought. Her nails bit into her palms as she restrained an urge to curse aloud. "I know that Seamus came home lookin' like he'd had the better side of a fight," she allowed, "but I dinna know with who."

"T'was no fight," Meaghan asserted, her blue eyes wide and excited over her flushed cheeks. "T'hear my Thomas tell't, t'was more like a _slaughter._ Blood ever'where, and Father Kevin beaten that bad that even the Mother Superior despairs of him surviving'," Meaghan gushed.

Her tone was somber, but her eyes were bright with excitement. Little of any note happened in Cionn Mhalanna, and this would set tongues to wagging for years. The most interesting thing that had happened to this quiet little outpost of nowhere in living memory had been twenty years before, when Michael Corley had shot a regular customer of one of the strumpets who worked the tavern. He'd maintained he was in love with her and wished to make her a good Christian bride, no matter that Moira O'Grady wanted no part of the likes of him. Oh, she'd let him spend his money on her and his seed in her, but beyond that, she liked her life just fine, thanks all the same.

They'd hanged Michael Corley, too, and with less reason, to Agata's puritanical mind. But still... "I wonder if they might just put him in the prison for a while, t'cool off, like," she half thought, half prayed aloud.

Meaghan was pulling her bodice down to reveal her milk-swollen breasts. On her tiny frame, they looked caricaturish and out of place. The buds of her nipples were dark and taut. Meaghan took a seat and gestured for Agata to hand her little Sean. He nuzzled sleepily for a moment, and then his mouth found the source of his sustenance and he began to suckle absently. Agata took three strides to reach Erin's crib and raised her carefully into her arms. In a matter of seconds Erin had taken up a position that mirrored Sean's own.

The children seen to, and Seamus' snores rattling the walls, the women could talk at ease. Meaghan shook her head at Agata. _"If_ he lives, they _might,"_ she qualified. "And that's a mighty big _'might'_ sittin' out there. But if Father Kevin dies, there's no hope a'tall. They'll likely not even call in the county constable. It'll be up and a stretched neck for poor Seamus."

Agata bit her cheek to contain the vile words that were threatening to boil out of her throat. She could ill afford to aggrieve Meaghan; little Erin needed her services far too desperately for the nonce. But she made a note, the next time she went into town after eggs and flour, to inquire about any other women who might be willing to wet-nurse. Meaghan's empty little head was no hindrance to her full and overlarge mouth. Speaking of that, her lips were flapping again.

"So what's this rubbish I hear of a _bean'sidhe?"_ Meaghan asked. "Sure an' t'God the likes o' _yer_ family haven't got none of the Fae folk's ire. Yer no' important enough t' _rate 't_. So how's a _bean'sidhe_ figure into all this?"

Agata screwed her eyes closed as a phantom spike of pain shot through her temples. Tomorrow, whether she needed anything from town or not, she'd keep Seamus behind closed doors and march herself into the village. She knew full well that Meaghan needed Agata's money as badly as Agata needed Meaghan's milk, but the bald fact changed nothing. And she vowed to herself that she'd not have another gossip-mongering fishwife of a wet nurse. Indeed, if it weren't such a long while yet before dawn, she'd have Meaghan and her ill-favored little brat down the road with coals in her ears and a red mark across her constantly open mouth.

_Then at least she'd have something_ worth _talking about,_ Agata reflected.

Suddenly an atavistic, primal anger welled up in her. Who was this arrogant little bit of fluff to speak so on subjects she'd no knowledge of? What made her so high and mighty that she had the right to sit in judgment, surrounded by children and a drunken lummox of a husband who spent half the family income on ale and the dubious charms of the tavern wenches as she was?

Agata finally spoke, her voice low and ominous. "If I'd a _week_ t'explain it t'the likes o' ye, ye'd still not understand." Her raptor-like face turned to meet the younger woman's, and she was rewarded by seeing the wet nurse turn visibly paler. "I'll thank ye to keep a civil tongue in yer head while yer under my roof. Whatever Seamus has done or not, he is _still_ my poor Tabitha's husband and my grandchild's father, and ye'll not speak of him in such a way in my hearing or my house. Is that clear?"

Her voice dropped, if possible, lower. Her eyes became hooded and remote. "Make no mistake, let me hear aught of what we've talked of this night in the village, an' I'll see t'it it goes hard for ye," she said flatly. "I've no less need of ye than ye've o' me an' my coin, but ye'll not see another penny for petty gossip. I know there's at least three other women in the village as are expecting wee ones, and any of 'em right grateful for the chance to make extra t'feed their own."

Wisely, the wet nurse said nothing for the rest of the visit. She sat across from Agata, who had returned to her knitting with a vengeance. The elder woman gave no sign that she even recalled Meaghan's presence. When, finally, the children had not suckled for a while, the two women put Erin back down in her tiny crib and Agata held Sean while Meaghan redid the trusses of her bodice. Then, handing Sean back to his mother, Agata reached into Seamus' purse and withdrew two bright pennies. She pressed them into Meaghan's palm without comment. Meaghan folded her delicate hand around them and swallowed hard.

"Will ye have need o'me tomorrow?" she asked meekly.

Agata thought for a moment. On one hand, she didn't want this fool anywhere near her house again. On the other, she had Erin's well-being to think of. With a resigned sigh, she said, "I'll be in town in the morning. I'll be by t'call ye if I've need."

Meaghan seemed to belatedly realize she'd gone two steps beyond too far, and she opened her mouth to say something. Agata neatly cut it off with a steely glance and a frosty, "Fair night, Meaghan McLean."

Shutting her face with an audible click, Meaghan mumbled an insincere pleasantry and pulled her cloak over her slim shoulders and sleeping child. Slipping through the door like a ghost, she was gone, pushing the door almost silently closed behind her. Agata latched the entry and returned to her warm seat. But instead of taking up her knitting, she stared into the flames, her thoughts as dark as the fire was bright.

#  Chapter Fourteen

Heather sat across the table from Fintan, her chin reclining on a hand as she considered what she was learning. It seemed that her grandmother had been correct, and a far better source of information than she'd first thought. Somehow, it seemed incredibly important that she get Gran's take on what Fintan was telling her. Her greatest fear, though, was that Gran would think she was being foolish.

_This could very well be life and death,_ she thought.

What does that have to do with it? Getting out of bed is life and death.

Yes, but...

"Sorry?" Fintan asked absently. He was reading ahead in the journal, his expensive-looking ballpoint pen flying as he made notes.

Heather blushed. She hadn't realized she was speaking out loud. _You're losing it, girly,_ she scolded. _Having conversations with yourself is a sure sign that you're falling apart._ Aloud, she said, "I was wondering if you'd like something to drink. We've been here a while."

Fintan stood and stretched, blinking in surprise at the clock. The thick cloud cover had broken up, and golden late-afternoon sunlight played over the room. Arching his back, he winced as several vertebrae found their way back into their proper alignment with little pops and crackles. "Getting older," he observed with a grimace.

His mouth collapsed into a thin line as he looked at the clock. Clearly, he was engaged in far heavier thinking than was strictly good for him. He opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, and froze. The effect made him look somewhat ludicrous, and Heather was suddenly reminded of one of those silly singing fish that had been all the rage when she was in high school. Appropriate it might have been, given Fintan's namesake, but it still seemed somehow unkind. Heather turned away to hide her sudden smile, but when a small giggle burst forth, she lost it, progressing from giggles to a full-on fit of hilarity in almost no time.

Fintan tried to stifle his own laughter, as he clearly had no idea whatsoever what she found so funny. But despite his best efforts, the two were soon doubled over in helpless spasms of mirth.

Finally, it passed, and Fintan wiped his streaming eyes. Looking over at Heather, he asked, "What on earth was _that_ all about?"

Lie, Heather cautioned herself. "I don't know. I think I'm slap-happy."

Fintan thought for a moment.

"You need to get out of here," he announced. "I'll take you to dinner and be on my way home. No doubt my cat has ripped my house quite to shreds by now."

"You have a cat?" she asked, incredulous. Ludicrous, that she hadn't even considered that he might have pets. If she had, she'd have pictured him with a mastiff or Labrador, some large breed like that. It wouldn't have crossed her mind that he would have a cat if she'd been given a week to guess.

"Aye. Shadow," he grinned. "Had him from a kitten; runt of the litter. He's no bigger than a squeak, but he gets irritable when Da's gone longer than he likes," he smiled, jerking a thumb at his chest to emphasize who Da was.

"What does he do when you're gone too long?" she asked.

Fintan chuckled. "Shits on my pillow, believe it or not." Heather's face twisted into an odd look somewhere in the middle of horror, disbelief, and bemusement. "It's _true,"_ he insisted around a laugh. "The little monster'll leave a token of his regard on my pillow and then pull the covers back over the top of it, just as neat as you please. You'd never know to look at it, but I pull the sheets back and there's your tangible measure of what he thinks of me overnighting elsewhere."

The idea of this and the thought of the thunderstruck look that Fintan must have had the first time it happened were simply too much. Heather doubled over in laughter. Soon she was clutching her sides and moisture was leaking down her cheeks. Desperately, she tried to catch her breath. Then the image would reassert itself again, and she'd be washed away in crashing waves of laughter.

In the middle of the gales of amusement, a steady, calm voice wondered at her changeable moods. Was it being under an apparent curse? Was it the pregnancy? Was it Mike's absence? Any, all, or none of these?

Seizing onto the calmer voice, she rode it into sanity. Fintan, meanwhile, was not faring nearly so well. It took him a couple of minutes after Heather had finally worked her way down to calm to match hers. Even then, they dared not look each other in the eye, for fear of going off again.

As the laughter died, something else began to grow in the room. An odd kind of tension began to form; Fintan kept his eyes determinedly elsewhere than on Heather as he walked to the cupboard and withdrew a tumbler. Holding it under the tap, he murmured, "I'm a little dry."

Heather, for her part, couldn't seem to keep her eyes anywhere but on Fintan. Her throat tightened, just a little. She abruptly became very aware that she wasn't wearing a bra as her nipples brittled under her thin cotton T-shirt, causing the fabric to tent slightly but significantly. Her fingers itched to reach out and touch him. Just a comradely touch wouldn't be so wrong, would it? Quelling the urge, she shoved her hands in her pockets.

"What do you want to do for dinner?" she asked, trying to defuse the strange, heavy tension of whatever it was that hung in the air between them.

"You pick, I'll pay," he said.

"I'll pay," she insisted.

"You'll do no such thing," he parried. "I'm taking you out to dinner, and that's that. Now you can pick, or I'll have to guess, and I'll not be responsible if you don't like where we wind up."

Heather wondered if he had any idea that he'd just made a quadruple entendre with that simple statement. A vivid picture flashed into her mind of her in bed with Fintan, his mouth moving over her body expertly. She could hear his mellow brogue coarsened and rough with urgency, whispering endearments in Gaelic that he'd have to translate for her later as he urged her to frantic heights of sensation. Her nipples grew even more achingly erect and she felt moisture begin to flow freely from places she had no intention of giving heed to at this moment. After Fintan dropped her back at the house, she promised herself, she was due for a long session with her new toy in the tub.

Shaking herself out of her reverie, she asked, "How about surf and turf?"

* * * * *

Maddie's Sail Loft had a good reputation in Marblehead for being reasonably priced, with an excellent menu. The restaurant was located in the Historic District, only six blocks from Heather's house. When Fintan and Heather walked in at a quarter to six, there wasn't an empty seat in the house. Lydia was working the greeter's position, and did a double take as she realized that the large man standing next to Heather wasn't her husband.

Pasting on her most professional smile, she gushed, "Hi, Heather! Downstairs or topside?" Heather thought for a second. She didn't want Lydia to misinterpret why they were here. "Downstairs."

"Table or booth?" Lydia continued. Her eyes raked over Fintan, and narrowed slightly.

Heather didn't miss how the wattage of her smile dimmed, and quickly did a little mental arithmetic. "Lydia, this is Professor Fintan Fitzkillian, of Harvard University. He's been helping me out with those family documents I wanted to get translated," she said, mentally crossing her fingers that Erin had told her why Heather had been so absent from the usual weekend scene the core group got into.

Fintan, not missing a beat, extended his hand toward Lydia. "How do you do?"

Mechanically, Lydia shook it. "Lydia Howell," she said. "Nice to meetcha." Her left eyebrow hooked just a little in Heather's direction. The look spoke volumes. Heather met it with a slight shrug and shake of her head, to indicate that all was not what it appeared to be. She had pointedly chosen Maddie's rather than one of the pricier and more intimate dining venues because of its raucous atmosphere; she hadn't given any thought to the fact that because it was Sunday, Lydia would likely be working and would no doubt immediately get all the wrong ideas.

Wrong, she thought wryly, as long as I can keep my legs together.

"It'll be about ten minutes," Lydia said briskly. "Would you like a table or a booth?"

"Booth, please," Fintan asked before Heather could speak. "Is that all right?" he asked, looking at her for confirmation.

"Booth," she echoed.

"You got it," Lydia nodded. "Can I get you something from the bar while you're waiting?"

Fintan thought for a moment. "I'd like a double Jameson's Black Label with three ice cubes," he ordered. "Heather?"

"Club soda with lime," she said.

"Coming up!" Lydia bustled off to see to it. Heather asked, "What's Jameson's?"

Fintan put his hands to his chest in a comedic expression of shock. "Dear God, woman, you don't mean to tell me you've never heard of Heaven's own nectar?" he demanded, his eyes wide and twinkling.

"Sorry," she shrugged. "Guess I'm just a hopeless provincial."

"Well, you'll have to try a wee nip. One sip won't hurt...anything," he finished weakly, his eyes dropping to Heather's stomach. Abruptly, she was glad that she'd thrown her windbreaker over her T-shirt.

"I suppose," she said.

They stood there for a few moments, savoring the party atmosphere of the place. A basketball game was on over the bar, and a rowdy crew of patrons was gathered around the TV set. It seemed the Celtics were playing the Utah Jazz, and winning by a commanding margin. Every few seconds, a cheer or a groan would go up from the crowd. Heather and Fintan talked desultorily about nothing, keeping the conversation on a carefully neutral ground. Before they realized it, Lydia was behind them, drinks at the ready on her tray.

"Here you go, guys," she said, handing Heather her glass full of fizzy, clear liquid. Fintan's glass was filled almost to the brim with amber, the three ice cubes he'd specified tinkling softly as he plucked the glass off the tray and replaced it with a five-dollar bill.

"Thank you!" Lydia said, turning her smile on the Irishman at full power. "I've got a busboy clearing you a booth right now. Shouldn't be more than a couple of minutes," she tossed over her shoulder as she bustled away.

"Interesting woman," Fintan said in the direction of Lydia's retreating back, offering his glass to Heather. She eyed it doubtfully as she took it.

"I'm not much of a whiskey drinker," she confessed.

"Doesn't matter," he smiled. "You're just tasting. It's not any different than tasting wine, actually. You're looking for the color, the 'fingers' that the whiskey leaves as it runs down the side of the glass, and the aroma. Give it a try."

She swirled the glass as he directed, holding it up to the light. The tawny, smoky yet clear fluid spun in the glass. She stopped, and as the whiskey began to fall back into rest, it left thick pseudopods on the sides. Like with wine, the "fingers" slowly merged back into the contents of the glass. From the sluggish way they moved, she could tell that this was high-quality. She took a sip, and chewed.

It had a pleasant flavor, slightly sweet, but with a good body to it. She swallowed and enjoyed the subtle burn as it ran down to warm her stomach. A mellow, oaken aftertaste was left behind. Fintan stood watching her, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of her verdict.

"That's really good," she said, handing the glass back.

" _Slainté,"_ he said, raising his glass in a toast.

" _What's slawn-cheh?"_ she asked, mimicking his motion.

"It means 'to your health' in Gaelic," Fintan said. "And if I'm going to keep giving you language lessons, I'm going to have to start charging," he mock threatened, his eyebrow canted to just one degree from the perfect angle to make the statement an offer. Or insinuation. Whichever.

Thankfully, Lydia came back at that moment, saving Heather from having to think up a cogent retort. With her was a slight, short young man with prematurely thinning blond hair and a pencil-thin mustache. "Evan will show you to your seat," Lydia said. "I'll call you later," she whispered.

Heather only nodded, cringing internally at the thought of the grilling she was in the frame for later in the night. Evan said, "This way, please," as Lydia moved to speak to a young couple who'd just walked in. He had a slight lisp and an effeminate way about him. Heather guessed he was a favorite server among the women. With the men, probably not so much.

As they navigated between the tables and listened to the roars of the sports fans, Heather wished for a second that she'd requested topside seating, as she'd first debated. Despite her very good reasons for not wanting to get any more intimate with Fintan than she already had, and the fact that the upstairs portion of the restaurant invited that very intimacy, she still gave an internal sigh at the idea of having to shout at each other over the meal. Fintan had done his level best to put her mind at ease on that score; this, apparently, was purely her own hang-up.

_Or is it?_ That analytical voice in the back of her mind piped up. It treated her to an instant replay of that uncomfortable moment in the kitchen where she'd fantasized about the two of them wrapped up in love play. She felt her skin grow rosy and hot from the roots of her hair down to the crevice between her breasts, and thanked whatever deity looked out for damn fool women that the downstairs lighting was kept sufficiently low to prevent him from noticing. She hoped.

Evan steered them competently to the booth and held their drinks while they settled themselves. Placing menus on the table gently, he said, "I'll be back in just a few minutes to take your order," and backed away, giving Fintan a once-over that confirmed Heather's earlier impression.

Conversation came easily and lightly as they studied the menu, and Heather found herself wondering if she could afford to have one whiskey. The fine Irish liquor had aroused a craving she seldom had. It was odd how being told that one couldn't have something made one want it that much more, she mused. On the other hand, what harm could one drink cause? She tabled the idea for further research later. This hardly seemed the right time or place to experiment.

When Evan came back, Fintan ordered baked grouper, while Heather decided that she'd like a steak, medium, with the house salad and the famous home-made bleu cheese dressing. She remembered reading somewhere that seafood was risky to eat while one was pregnant, especially if it was undercooked or raw. Turning to Fintan, she said, "We're backwards, you know. I should have ordered lobster," she remarked, adding a teasing grin.

As Fintan was taking a sip of whiskey at the time, the joke had an unintended and unfortunate side effect. He choked on his drink. Coughing and sputtering, he thrust the thumb side of his fist into his diaphragm repeatedly until all the whiskey had cleared itself from his lungs. Wiping his eyes with the linen napkin under Evan's anxious gaze and Heather's embarrassed one, he nodded to Evan to signal he was okay and waited until the waiter hurried away to put in the order. Then Fintan very gingerly took another sip of his whiskey as if he'd suddenly learned the glass was spiked with nitroglycerin, set it down just as gently, and moved his lips close to Heather's ear.

His hot breath on the tender flesh did very interesting, if unsalutary, things to her pulse and other things as he murmured, "Next time, wait until _after_ I've done with my drink. Or is it that you _want_ me dead?"

Heather stammered an apology. Fintan leaned back against the oxblood leather of the booth expansively, taking the space and making it his own. "I've always understood it's a bad idea to eat seafood during pregnancy," he observed.

"Good thing I'm not eating seafood, then," Heather said dismissively.

#  Chapter Fifteen

Heather staggered through the briefest shower she could manage after Fintan dropped her off. As the hot water struck her skin a wave of exhaustion washed over her. Shaving her legs and scrubbing herself down efficiently, Heather stepped out of the tub and drew a towel around her body.

As she moved to wipe the steam from the mirror, her hand froze. A sudden visual of the spook movies Mike liked so much flashed into her mind. Deciding that she didn't really need to see herself that much right now, she left everything as it was and padded into the bedroom. She felt pleasantly relaxed and boneless as she slid a pair of sensible white cotton panties on. Then she turned on the light by the bed and pursed her lips.

_The Eternals_ sat there on top of _What To Expect._ A pang of guilt shot through her as she realized she hadn't so much as cracked the cover of the maternity guide since the party. _But,_ she reasoned, _I've got another seven months to become an expert on the subject. Besides, those guides never quite cover everything, do they?_

Dismissing the guide, she picked up _The Eternals_ and thumbed through it to locate her place. She'd always had an excellent memory for numbers, and it took only a few seconds to find the page she wanted. Settling in, she picked up where she'd left off, knocking off almost a hundred pages before she fell asleep.

Around two a.m., she came awake suddenly. Blinking in the light, she realized two things.

First, she could see clearly. She'd fallen asleep with her contacts in.

The flash of annoyance that accompanied this observation was quickly buried beneath a wave of queasiness that circled her stomach and pulled it taut. Clapping a hand to her mouth, she just made it to the bathroom.

Kneeling beside the toilet, Heather unleashed a torrent of partially digested food into the bowl. She couldn't have felt any more wretched if she'd been throwing up razor blades. The internal peanut gallery was going full-blast, treating her to all kinds of delightful images she could have done quite well without, thanks anyway. Her taking a bite of Fintan's grouper, feeling herself bending toward him like a plant toward the sun, and behaving like a perfect hussy into the bargain.

Her stomach heaved again, and she got her head down just in time. Her mouth couldn't have tasted any worse, and she was setting a new personal record for feeling like Hell.

_Hell of an introduction to morning sickness,_ she thought weakly as another abdominal convulsion bowed her spine and ejected what remained in her stomach into the bowl in a series of racking heaves that left her too weak to stand for a moment. _And here I was so eager for this. Idiot._

When she had finally emptied her stomach, she lay curled on the floor, her head pressed to the cool porcelain, for an indeterminate amount of time. Finally, she forced herself to her feet as her bladder announced that it, too, needed to be voided.

Well and truly empty, she went back to bed, not even troubling to brush her teeth.

* * * * *

When Heather awoke, for a small mercy, she felt a lot better. Her empty belly gnawed at her, and she pondered possible ideas for breakfast.

_Start small,_ she thought. _Tea and toast. If that stays put, then eat something heavier._

Following her own advice, she pulled out a teabag of plain old, boring orange pekoe and black tea blend and put it in a cup. The cup went into the microwave and two slices of dull, unembellished white bread found their way into the toaster. Heather turned on the radio as she waited for her Spartan repast to be ready.

" _...Traffic's heavy heading out of Marblehead this morning for your commute,"_ the male announcer said. _"If you're leaving town this morning, better plan on extra time to get in to work."_

" _That's right, Bill,"_ a sensuous female voice chimed in. _"Wouldn't want the boss jumping your butt, now would you?"_

Thinking of her boss...

Heather wondered why she hadn't heard from Erin. Picking up the phone as the morning show hosts bantered back and forth, she dialed Erin's cell phone. It went straight to voice mail. How odd.

Heather left a brief message asking her to call. "Nothing serious, just wanted to chat," she said. Then the microwave stopped and gave three long, shrill electronic tones to let her know the tea was done. She was halfway to the microwave when she heard the rasping click of the toaster tray popping up behind her.

Suddenly, she was so hungry that her tiny, frugal breakfast seemed hopelessly inadequate. But she forced herself to take small, slow bites and chew more than seemed strictly necessary in hopes of avoiding another round of vomiting like she'd endured earlier in the morning. As she did, she listened to the mindless chatter from the radio, which was now playing a jingle for a sporting goods store in Boston proper.

Although she tried not to think of it, every minute that went by and she hadn't heard from Erin was making her more and more worried. She hoped that the man she'd been out with Saturday night had treated her well. The demons of being a single woman in the twenty-first century rose up and gave her already over-sensitized imagination even more fuel to play with. Before she could become any more of a basket case, she slammed the lid shut on her mental Pandora's box and set about getting ready for the day.

* * * * *

When she walked into McCorkle-Kelly, she saw, to her intense relief, that Erin was already there. What she didn't expect was to see Fintan sitting directly across the desk.

"Oh, good, you're here!" Erin beamed, jumping out of her seat to give Heather a hug.

Perplexed, Heather said, "Um, can I have a word with you in the hallway?" Cutting her eyes to Fintan, she added apologetically, "Just for a moment."

Fintan smiled vaguely and waved them on, seeming to be entirely focused on the contents of the leather briefcase he had with him. Heather pulled Erin into the hall and shut the door softly.

" _Well?"_ she demanded.

"Well what?" Erin asked, her face just the slightest bit dreamy.

"Well, how did Saturday go?"

"Oh, it was wonderful!" Erin enthused, clapping her hands and bouncing on her toes like a little girl. "He was so sweet and so generous. When I got back to his house, I really wanted to jump his bones. He tried to tell me he didn't want to use me." She chuckled wickedly. "So _I_ used _him!"_

Heather laughed. "You're horrible. So he's a good guy?"

"No visible scars, amputations, add-ons, or mental twitches," she reported. "Aside from the fact he finds me sexually attractive, which points to a few issues on his part."

"Oh, stop," Heather said, swatting irritably at Erin's shoulder.

"Maybe he can fake an erection," Erin mused playfully. "Is that even _possible?"_

"You're terrible," Heather sighed. "So what's _he_ doing here?" she asked, jerking her thumb at the door.

"He wanted me to do some research. Apparently he came up with something interesting late last night while he was translating your papers. He seems to want to know if you're related to someone very specific."

"Who?" Heather asked, her confusion almost outweighing her anger that Fintan would end-run her this way.

"A Northern Irish duke in the early fifteen-hundreds," Erin said. "Apparently, he had something of a bad reputation. Local folklore called him 'the black duke.' Fintan thinks there might be a connection, especially given where your family hails from."

Heather paused. "What was his name?"

"Duic Donal Ó Ceallaigh." Erin laughed as an expression of pure shock flashed across Heather's gamine features. "You're royalty, baby!"

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, Fintan raised his eyes from the legal tablet in front of him. "It seems that quite a lot of the older documents we've been reviewing reference this duke, according to Scotty. So I made a call to a cousin of mine in County Donegal. Kathleen's a good deal more up on history in that part of Ireland than I am."

"You mean you don't know everything?" Heather raised her eyebrows teasingly in feigned shock.

"Not by an Irish mile," Fintan growled. Unlike her, he seemed to be taking this revelation in deadly earnest. "But Kathleen does, at least vaguely. Her trouble is that she's not a trained researcher. She reckons that the County Donegal Historical Society will have more information, and she's trained in Old Gaelic, which will be helpful. But she hasn't a clue where to start. They're working on modernizing the archives so that they'll be more—" He paused, clearly groping for _le mot juste._ "User-friendly," he finally continued. "Meantime, it'll mean a long, hard slog through the old records. She has a friend who is helping her, but she said that someone who knows what they're doing will be immensely helpful."

"What's wrong with her friend?" Heather immediately pounced on the slight emphasis he'd placed.

"Nothing much," Fintan said. "It's just that Ireland is a very conservative country, in some ways." He closed his eyes for a moment as if phrasing his response as tactfully as possible. When they opened, they were completely devoid of any expression. "Kathleen is a lesbian," he said.

"Oh, well, if _that's_ all..."

"You don't understand," Fintan growled in exasperation. "There's been a rift in the family for ten years over it. Me, I couldn't care less, but some of the older folks back home don't like it a bit. It's already caused a fair bit of strife, and may create some problems for you."

Heather was confused. It was a sensation to which she was quickly becoming accustomed, but she'd never lay claim to liking it. "What does her choice of bedmates have to do with me or anything else?" she demanded.

Erin looked a little sheepish.

Heather raised an eyebrow impatiently.

Finally, Erin cleared her throat.

"For the next as long as it takes," she said carefully, "you're on special assignment. Starting next week, you're going to County Donegal."

"You're directly out of your mind!" Heather snapped. "I can't possibly. I'm _pregnant!_ My ob-gyn is here. Besides, I don't have that kind of money! What will Mike say? Who's going to tend the house?"

She ranted and raved for several minutes, her list of objections growing so long Erin broke in and verbally contemplated calling Guinness and having them send over a tape recorder, thinking it might net a mention in the _Book of World Records_ for the upcoming year. The gibe earned her a furious look from Heather. When Heather ran down, Erin touched her shoulder tentatively.

"Listen, honey. Taking these one at a time:

"First, the travel and a reasonable per diem are coming out of the firm's account. Second, I don't think Mike will mind you traveling abroad, do you? You do have a passport, right?"

"Well, yes, but..." Heather started.

"No buts. This is work, and you're getting paid for it. Fintan already said he'd talk to—Kathleen?" she asked, looking toward Fintan. He nodded curtly. "Kathleen," she continued, "and get you set up with a good OB-GYN over there who can keep in touch with Dr. Simpkins." It wasn't a question. "It should be early enough in the pregnancy that you can travel without much difficulty."

"And I'll stay where?" Heather asked. She was getting pissed. Apparently Fintan and Erin had planned her entire foreseeable future for her without troubling to consult her, preferring to make it a fait accompli.

Fintan spoke. "Kathleen said she'd be glad to put you up," his face speaking volumes of what he thought of the idea.

"Oh," Heather said, her voice small. Now the pieces were all starting to come together. Although she wasn't entirely sure she liked the picture they were forming.

"What kind of per diem are we talking?" she asked.

"Kathleen said she won't charge for the room, but does ask something for board. Figure in a little for pocket money." Erin pressed her lips together, doing some calculations.

"Works out to about thirty-five and one half euro a day," Fintan said. "Fifty dollars to you, more or less," he added for Heather's edification.

Defeatedly, Heather sighed. It was a lot of money, and Lord knew it would come in handy with a baby on the way.

"When do I leave?"

#  Chapter Sixteen

Erin sent Heather home to start getting affairs in order. She said she wanted Heather in Ireland no later than the Wednesday of the week following. Miffed, feeling like she'd been sandbagged into this fool's errand, Heather trudged home, although the morning was bright and there wasn't a breath of wind. It was starting to get warmer, too. If the trend held, she could expect that before the first weekend in April, they'd have the first truly good weather of the year.

Heather checked her mailbox on the way into the house. The flag was down; the postman had come early today. Among the usual mix of end-of-month bills and junk mail, a small envelope emblazoned with the Marine Corps emblem caught her eye.

Her breath caught when she realized the writing on the envelope was Mike's clear, firm hand, a wave of heartache rippling through her. God, but she missed him.

Unlocking the door, she absently pressed the playback button on the answering machine, and folded herself onto the couch. The machine whirred and beeped.

"Hey, it's Erin," the machine said. "I was wondering if you'd like to go for lunch if you get wrapped up early enough. And...And I'm sorry." The machine clicked.

Then a long pause. Another beep, then:

" _Go luath,"_ said that same menacing but unfamiliar female voice from the night Heather had fallen asleep in the living room.

The machine beeped twice and stopped.

Chilled as if she'd been unexpectedly doused with ice water, Heather shivered. Breaking the seal on the envelope, she pulled out the letter within. It was written in neatly printed capital letters, for which she heaved a sigh of relief. His handwriting might as well have been Sanskrit for all the sense she could make of it.

28 Mar 10

Dearest Heather:

I can't tell you where I'm at, except that I'm somewhere in Afghanistan. Things are a real mess, but they don't want us saying too much. They'd rather the folks at home get their bad news from Fox News like everyone else, I guess.

I don't know how long I'll be here, or what I can expect. "Highly trained professionals," my ass. You can't really "train" for this, no matter how long or hard you try.

There's a lot of things that are new and different. I've been sampling the local cuisine. Can't honestly say I recommend it.

Read: _I got an epic case of food poisoning._

The guys I work with are pretty good. Solid professionals, and they do their job without a whole lot of bitching.

Heather translated: _Not one of these guys can pour piss out of a boot if the directions are printed on the heel, and they whine constantly._

The new lieutenant's decent. He's a Mustang, so he knows how things work. Good news for us; bad luck for him.

I miss you terribly, and can't wait to be back with you again. I've been having this weird dream that you were pregnant the last few nights. One of those recurring things. Weird, huh?

I have to go. I'll write when I can.

Love Always,

Mike

Heather put the letter down and thought for a moment. She was just standing to walk into her office when the phone rang.

She picked up. "Hello?" she said, a little uncertainly. Mike's letter had gone a long way toward dispelling the chill that had washed over her when she heard that second message, but she still felt a little raw.

"Mrs. Kelly, this is Donna from Dr. Simpkins' office. We're calling to confirm your ultrasound for this afternoon."

" _Damn!"_ she cursed with real feeling. "I forgot all about it. What time?"

"Two o'clock. We'd be glad to reschedule if necessary." Donna's apparent cheer didn't desert her. It occurred to Heather she was used to this sort of thing. Probably happens all the time, she thought.

Heather put a fist to her forehead and groaned. "No, that'll be fine," she said. "I'm sorry. I'm a little...off right now."

"Completely understandable," Donna said. "So we'll see you at two?"

"I'll be there," she assured the nurse, and rang off.

Going into the office, she looked around her; something didn't feel right. The shades were open as they usually were, and there didn't seem to be anything amiss. All her books were exactly where she had left them, and all her professional certifications and awards hung ruler-straight on the walls. It wasn't until she sat down behind the desk and reached for a fresh sheet of paper that she realized that there was already one lying on the blotter.

Picking it up, she studied it closely. It seemed to be nothing but a long line drawn in lurid red, bracketed at the ends, with odd hash marks coming off the interior in an array of angles and designs. Frowning, she wondered what it could possibly mean. She had been the only one in the house since last night that she knew of, and Fintan had never set foot in her study. She'd seen to that. So where had this come from?

Her mouth went thin and tight. She'd had about all of things not making sense that she could stomach. Suddenly Erin's suggestion of lunch sounded a lot better, her anger with her friend notwithstanding.

* * * * *

Erin looked appropriately sheepish when Heather walked into the Oceanside Diner at eleven thirty. To her intense relief, Heather noticed that Fintan was nowhere to be found. She felt bad about giving him the cold shoulder, but then again, he'd more or less invited himself into her life.

_No,_ she mentally corrected. You _invited him into your life and your problems when you asked him to translate those papers. And then you did it again when you had that whatever that was the other night and called him up to come save the day. So there's no use being mad at him. If anything, he should be mad at_ you, _Little Miss Not-Sure-What-You-Want._

_Oh, shut up,_ she hissed at her inner censor. Closing the gap to the table with quick strides, Heather slid into the booth across from Erin and said nothing.

"I know you're pissed," Erin started, "and I get it. But let me explain?"

Heather raised one hand noncommittally to signify Whatever.

Erin took a lusty swallow of water, as if her throat was suddenly unbearably dry. "I feel responsible," she said. "Ever since that stupid séance, it's like things haven't been quite right. I'm worried about you, and I know the pregnancy isn't making things any easier. But Fintan says, and I agree, that if there's any chance of you being able to beat this, it's in Ireland. That's why I'm financing this trip," she said, holding up a hand to forestall comment as Heather's lips parted. "I think if you find out what the skeletons in your family closet are and get them out in the open where you can bury them properly, it will be easier.

"More to the point, it'll get you out of the house. Lydia called me last night chewing my ear off because you were at Maddie's with Fintan. I explained the situation and told her it was none of her damn business, but I don't think that satisfied her. She called me twice more with variations on 'and then' until I finally hung up on her and turned the phone off. That's why you couldn't get a hold of me. Well..." She trailed off, and a slow, self-satisfied smile curled the corners of her lips upward. "That, and Jericho."

"So the mystery man has a name," Heather smiled back. "I was beginning to wonder."

"Oh, he's got a hell of a lot _more_ than a name," Erin said in her best _let's-dish_ tone. Whereas usually Erin's lurid descriptions would make Heather squirm, she now saw them in a whole different light. It was a chance for her to live vicariously through her best friend. Surprisingly, Heather found herself listening eagerly as Erin described the weekend in earthy, Anglo-Saxon language that would make a succubus cringe. Her own interludes with Studly Smurf, her slightly self-mocking name for her new toy, sounded positively pedestrian by comparison. Erin had apparently put Jericho through his paces and then some, trying things that Heather had seen in porno movies once or twice but never actually attempted for one reason or another.

"And then Ellen showed up, and the party _really_ got started!" Erin said, her eyes shining and shoulders slumped in remembered coital bliss.

"Ellen?" Heather exclaimed. "Where does _she_ fit in?"

"Oh, honey, you have _no_ idea," Erin purred. "We had a lot of fun."

Oddly, it had never occurred to Heather that Erin might be bisexual. They'd been nude in front of each other many times, while changing at the spa and so forth. Erin had often and vocally admired Heather's body, more than once bewailing the fact that she wasn't built more like Heather. Heather, of course, had always taken that as Erin's lack of confidence in her own body, and thought nothing more of it.

Now, her suddenly deviant mind found itself racing down corridors it had never yet probed. Bedroom fantasies tumbled through her mind with an ever-changing cast, trying combination after combination in her mind. Ellen, Erin, Fintan, Mike, all of them touching her in various lustful ways and then turning aside so that the next could get at her. She wondered, again, if she'd lost her mind. Although, she realized, the fantasies didn't seem as abhorrent as she might have expected. In fact, she found herself intrigued and seriously considering the possibility of arranging a most unusual and erotic homecoming for Mike. She even wondered if Jenna and Yolanda might be interested.

"...you, ma'am?"

Heather felt herself rudely jerked back to the present. "Sorry?" she asked.

The server, a brunette college girl with the tips of one ponytail dyed blue and the other deep chartreuse, popped her gum loudly. "I _asked_ what you'd like to _eat,_ ma'am," she repeated in a tone that clearly suggested she was employing great tact and diplomacy by not using the word "idiot" in place of "ma'am."

"Oh...I, uh, I'll have the turkey club with fries," Heather said.

"And to drink?" the waitress prodded, obviously wondering if Heather wasn't mildly retarded.

"Iced tea, please," she said. The server shuffled off, mumbling under her breath. Erin watched her retreat with contempt.

"If that little bitch thinks for one second I'm tipping—" She started, then stopped, apparently regaining control of herself. She cleared her throat experimentally and began afresh. "Let me rephrase: If that young lady's attitude doesn't improve significantly before she gets back, I'm going to have a word with her manager on the way out," Erin nodded firmly. "And speaking of a word, where did _you_ go?"

"I've been right here," Heather protested.

"Yeah, right. Nice try." Erin made an inhuman, obnoxious sound like a wrong-answer buzzer on a game show. "You were sitting here, sure, but your brain was somewhere else. And I'm guessing that somewhere else had more than a little to do with a bed," she asserted slyly.

Heather blushed. "Well, you know, it's funny. Ever since I started wondering if I might be pregnant, I've been uncontrollably, to say nothing of indiscriminately, horny."

Erin's jaw dropped. "So, you and Fintan..."

" _NO!"_ Heather gasped. "I have a feeling he'd like to, and I would too, but I can't bring myself to cheat on Mike."

"I think Mike would understand," Erin said. "You could always promise to make it up to him," she joshed. "I've always wanted to break off a piece of that, and you know it."

Heather rolled her eyes. "Me and everyone else in town," she said sarcastically. "But anyway, I don't think Mike would take it very well. Even if he understood, how could I look him in the eye? Besides, with me being pregnant, most guys would call that a turn-off, don't you think?"

Erin grinned. "Maybe not," she said thoughtfully. "There's an awful lot of pregnancy porn on the 'Net, and you really can't get any safer as far that goes," she continued, eyeing Heather oddly, like she might be on the menu.

"Oh, real nice, Erin. Put yourself in Mike's position. Would you think that was sexy?"

Caught off guard, Erin could only gape. Finally, she seemed to come to a decision. "I think, if it was with you, I wouldn't care."

Now it was Heather's jaw which dropped. Naturally, the server picked that exact moment to return with their beverages. Taking one look at Heather, she said, "The food'll be just a few minutes," speaking just a little more slowly than she might have otherwise before wheeling off to go brighten someone else's day. Erin's hand clenched as if by mangling her napkin, she might somehow employ it as a voodoo doll to make something similar happen to the server.

"What do you mean?" she asked.

Erin's face turned red, then white. "Can we just talk about something else?" she asked, her tone adopting a completely unaccustomed note of pleading.

"Oh, _no,_ you don't," Heather snapped. "You don't get to stop playing just because you're uncomfortable now. Might as well 'fess up."

Erin couldn't seem to make her eyes raise from the tabletop, her hands weaving themselves into a nervous basket in front of her. She said something so low that Heather couldn't catch it. "What?" she asked.

"I said, I've wanted to be with you for years," she repeated. "But the timing was always off, or you said or did something that made me stop just about the time I was seriously thinking about asking you, or, just, things got in the way. _There._ I said it. True confessions time is _over._ Can we _please_ go on to another subject?"

Heather sat silently, trying to digest this latest revelation. On one hand, her entire being should be repulsed by the idea. After all, her upbringing had firmly drilled the idea into her head that engaging in any form of homosexuality was a sin. Then again, she'd never been too upset by it when Mike insisted they find the lesbian scenes in their pornos. Mike enjoyed watching them, and the things he did to her while he did...Well, she'd rather have died than confess to him that she liked watching them too, but it did come with some awfully nice perks. Emphasis on the word "come."

She flushed a little and looked across the table at Erin, who was now nervously plucking at her pants leg in a sure sign of distress, and decided to take pity on her. "Look," she said, "why don't we put a pin in this for right now? It's a lot to think about, and I've got enough on my plate.

"How about this?" She asked as a new thought occurred to her. "When I get back from Ireland, I'll ask Mike what he would think about, er, that. Then maybe we can have a girls' night and just see where it goes," she finished lamely.

"No promises, no expectations, like that?" Erin asked, brightening a little behind the cloud of humiliation across her face.

"Exactly. As long as it doesn't get weird around the office, and, well, let's just see, okay?" Heather asked.

Erin reached out and touched Heather's hand cautiously.

"Okay."

* * * * *

Over lunch Erin spilled a great deal of information. Apparently Fintan had been quite forthcoming with her about what was going on. Erin reported that she'd been equally direct. She grimaced as she recalled telling him her side of the Ouija debacle.

"I could actually see him trying to keep from going off," she said. "He looked at me and said, 'Are you always this foolish, or were you having a particularly inspired night?' I swear, I didn't think that man had a cold bone in his body, but he very nearly froze me just by looking at me."

Heather nodded, taking a bite of her sandwich. She wished she dared put some sauce on it, to give it some zip, but the memory of her late-night commune with the commode put paid to that idea. "He can be intimidating," Heather allowed.

"Intimidating my ass," Erin retorted; apparently, she was back to her old self now that the cat was out of the bag as far as her feelings for Heather were concerned. "He was flat-out scary. I half expected him to start demolishing the place, he was so pissed off."

The thought of Fintan being so furious on her behalf warmed her in a way she didn't care to explore right at that moment, although she had a hard time making that fit with the relaxed but distracted man she'd seen before she left. Instead she asked, "What was he so angry about?"

Erin shuddered. "He said something about how some things aren't meant to be understood and that only a fool would treat them so lightly. He also said that I may be directly responsible for this."

Heather wasn't buying that for a moment. "Fine, so we were messing around with something we didn't fully understand. I knew that when we started. But all the research so far points to all of this being much older and in play a lot longer than either of us. So I don't necessarily think that he's right on that score," she added, trying to reassure her friend. Erin looked so crestfallen and hangdog that Heather would have done a lot of very humiliating things at that moment to make her feel better. But before she broke out the big guns, she was going to try subtler methods.

Erin made an unconvincing attempt at a smile. Heather persisted.

"Think it over. _I'm_ the one this thing's after," she said, editing out its name. Even the mere word had come to have frightening connotations in her mind, and she felt with a certainty that she couldn't explain that simply to say the word was to risk summoning the being it named. "And since I haven't pissed anyone off to that degree in this lifetime, Fintan may be on to something. Which takes you directly out of the hot seat."

"And lands _you_ in it," Erin riposted.

For that, Heather had no answer.

#  Chapter Seventeen

"Have you been keeping up on your prenatal vitamins?" Dr. Simpkins asked.

She straightened from the sonogram machine and handed Heather a printout. The look on her face suggested that she was not letting the topic or the printout go until she got a satisfactory answer.

"Yes, Doctor," Heather said dutifully. "I've got about a week's worth left. I've been walking as much as I can, keeping up on exercise, keeping the alcohol intake to a minimum."

"Good," she said. "Now, the baby appears to be perfectly healthy. It's still a little too early to differentiate the sex, but I'm a betting woman; I'll give you ten to one odds that you're going to have a little girl." Heather said nothing. It was rare for a Kelly woman to give birth to a boy before the second pregnancy. Indeed, she couldn't recall ever hearing of it happening. "What does your husband think?"

That question was getting very old, very quickly. "I haven't told him yet. I wanted to make sure that everything was as it should be before I wrote to him in Afghanistan to let him know he's going to be a daddy."

To her credit, Dr. Simpkins didn't even blink. "Well, I'm sure he'll be pleased," she said.

"So what are your plans for the next couple of weeks?" One of the reasons Heather liked Dr. Simpkins was because she liked to take time to make conversation with her patients. Unlike many doctors who wanted to see as many people as possible in a day and made the experience as personal as a trip to McDonald's, she wanted to take a little time and get to know her patients and what made them tick.

Heather, wiping off the conductive gel the doctor had rubbed over the area of her uterus, glanced over her shoulder. "I'm going to Ireland," she said matter-of-factly, as if intercontinental jaunts were an everyday occurrence in her world.

"Really?" Dr. Simpkins asked, surprised. "Why?"

Heather had just finished slipping back into her blouse and knelt to tie her shoe. "Family history research. I want my baby to know where she comes from." Dr. Simpkins started to ask a question, and Heather preempted her. "The archives are outdated and there's not enough information I can get at from here. So it's going to have to be Ireland."

Dr. Simpkins thought for a minute. "Then I guess I'd better stock you up on prenatal vitamins."

* * * * *

Heather looked at the sonogram sitting on the blotter next to the clean sheet of paper. The paper was as blank as her mind.

How am I going to start this? Dear Daddy...no. Dear Papa Bear...her lips twitched in disgust. Gah. Definitely no. Dear Soon-to-be Dad...

"Ugh!" she groaned, applying her forehead to the desk with a little more force than was strictly necessary. Rubbing her forehead ruefully, she picked up the pen and thought. Then she wrote:

31 Mar 10

Dear Mike,

I don't know if or when this will reach you, but I wanted you to know:

Heather paused, teetering on the razor's edge of scrapping the whole idea. Then, before she could change her mind, she scrawled:

I'm pregnant.

Seeing it there, staring her down on the page, made it real to her on a visceral level that even the sonogram had failed to convey. Frankly, it scared her a little. Swallowing a tiny lump that had risen in her throat, she continued.

_I suspected this before you left, but I didn't want to tell you right then and give you that much more to feel bad about. I took the test after—_ She underlined it three times to make sure he got the point. _—you left; the doctor confirmed it. I put in a copy of the first sonogram; Baby's first picture._ She drew a little smiley face; the lines looked wavy to her for a moment, and she realized why when a tear dropped onto the blotter next to the nascent letter. _We'll need to think of a name, and should probably focus on girls. Don't know for sure yet—just a feeling._

Erin is sending me to Ireland. I finally got off my duff and started researching the family history. I want our baby to know her place in the world and where she comes from. The deeper I dig, the more it seems that there're a lot of missing pieces that can only be filled in there. So it looks like I'm going to be hard to get a hold of for a little while, unless you don't mind Erin reading my mail to me over the phone.

_The good news is, she's paying for the tickets and giving me a per diem for food and such. So we're not out anything, plus she's paying me while I'm over there. I think she's planning on me turning up some things that we can use to market our services; you know how snobby some of these_ Mayflower _offshoots can be!_

I love you very much, Devil Dog, and so does your little girl. You have to believe me when I say I didn't keep this from you to hurt you. I want you back home, safe and sound, in my arms. Focus on that.

We'll be waiting.

Love,

Heather and Baby

She sniffled a little bit as she wrote her name carefully. Then she folded the letter carefully around the indistinct picture the doctor had given her and pushed the pale lavender paper into a matching envelope. Quickly, she addressed it to the APO address Mike had put on his letter and pressed a stamp onto the envelope. Before she could think about it, she walked outside and put the letter in the mailbox.

Going back to the office, Heather opened her satchel. Erin had given her a thin sheaf of papers covered with Fintan's precise European writing. Withdrawing the papers, she began to peruse them. In minutes, she was engrossed in the story Fintan had laid out for her.

* * * * *

Agata had been fortunate that Katherine O'Meara had agreed to take over wet nursing services from Meaghan. On her way out of the village, she briefly entertained the idea of handling the situation with Meaghan by simply not handling it at all. But that wasn't her way; Agata O'Kelly could be called many things, but she'd sooner burn in the hottest fire Hell could offer than be called a coward.

So she walked with a determined stride up to the McLean cottage and rapped three times sharply on the door. Thomas McLean, a rough-hewn, grizzled wood carving of a man with a heart and head to match opened it.

"Ah, so here's the murderer's mother in law," Thomas sang nastily. Agata grimaced and resisted the urge to clap her hand over her mouth as the stink of cheap ale washed over her. _Not yet gone nine of the clock and him in his cups as bad as Seamus was last night_ , she thought.

"My Seamus has murdered no one that I know of," Agata said sharply. She held out her clenched fist, in which was clasped a half crown. "Tell Meaghan I'll not be needing her services anymore."

"An' why is that, may I ask?" Thomas asked. The two were of a height, but Thomas was thickly corded with muscle. Agata knew if he decided to take his displeasure out on her, there'd be precious little she could do to stop him except pray that he'd grow bored or ashamed before he beat the life right out of her. All that taken into account, though, she was far too tired and impatient to back down from a drunken layabout the likes of Thomas McLean.

"Yer wife is far too free with her tongue and not nearly so clever as she thinks she is," Agata said bluntly. "We talked it over last night, an' she knew that if I could find a replacement, I would."

"Is that so?" Thomas's coarsely drawn features clouded over. "I'd think she'd've mentioned it t _'me,"_ he said tightly, his tone promising ill for his wife. Agata ignored the feeling of guilt that welled up. No one in the village would have bet against Meaghan not having a blacked eye or worse the next time she came in to make her purchases. After all, Agata reasoned, if the foolish slip of a girl could have learned this lesson before, none of this would have happened. Not that Thomas McLean _needed_ a reason to beat his wife or older children. Like as not, the simple fact that they were within view was sufficient reason to him.

Thomas held his hand open belatedly. Agata dropped the coin into his palm. "Call that severance pay," she said, "and it's good day to ye." Spinning on her heel, she started down the walk. Behind her, she heard the door slam and Thomas yelling his head off for Meaghan. She hesitated, wondering whether she dared try to intervene, but the thought was chased quite out of her head as the sound of hoof beats pierced the relative quiet of the morning.

The horses were coming fast; there was no sense in them coming this way that Agata could see unless...

"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," she gasped.

She would have astounded any of the village lads. In a trice, she was off and running at a pace that would shame a girl thirty years her junior, fear lending strength to her legs and stamina to her body. In a matter of seconds, she was on the main street and sprinting toward her cottage as if every devil Satan had ever spawned was at her heels. She didn't even bother looking over her shoulder. She could hear the hooves of the horses as clearly as her own pounding heart as she ran her desperate race.

She made the cottage scant moments ahead of the group on horseback, and burst through the door, slamming it shut as if it was her only chance of salvation. Seamus was still asleep and snoring. Erin woke up at the crash of the closing door and immediately began to howl. Seamus startled and sat up, bleary-eyed.

"Mother! What the devil's going on?" he asked fuzzily.

"Seamus, you fool, there's a posse coming to the house!" As if to lend punctuation to her words, the hoof beats crescendoed and stopped. Silence reigned for a moment while Seamus set himself to rights. Then a heavy hand knocked on the door.

Agata picked up the wailing babe, willing her breathing to slow down. _I'll be of no use to anyone if I faint, she thought, and wouldn't_ that _be a fine thing? Tearing through the village like a madwoman only to faint in my own house?_ Considering the irony of that, she stepped to the door. Before she could open it, it exploded inward, seemingly of its own accord.

Three men stepped in, all wearing what looked like soldiers' uniforms. Agata knew better: it was the county constable and his men. The constable, a skinny man with a hard countenance, stood clear of the door to let his men through. One of them, a man who looked as if there should be too much him for Agata's tiny cottage, carried a brutish-looking American coach gun, which he trained on Seamus the moment he saw him. The other, a ferret-faced, beady-eyed specimen, was holding a set of leg and wrist irons.

The constable spoke. "Seamus McCumhail, ye're under arrest for the attempted murder of Father Kevin Flannigan. Ye'll be comin' with us, an' no trouble, either!" Waving his hand imperiously, he put a hand on his saber as the man with the restraints stepped forward.

Seamus rose to his feet slowly, mutiny writ large on his face. Agata freed one arm from under Erin's head to motion a frantic negation. Seamus met her eyes and visibly wilted. His head came down and he put his hands out in an attitude of surrender. This, apparently, was not sufficient for the man with the shotgun.

"On yer knees!" he rapped out. Seamus flinched, but before he could move, the man reversed his grip on the weapon so that he had it by the barrel and smashed the hickory stock into the backs of Seamus' legs. Seamus collapsed to the ground like a poorly built house of cards and stayed on his knees, his eyes wildly flickering between Agata and Erin.

Agata gave a tiny nod. Seamus subsided. Wisely, he said and did nothing, very cautiously, as the irons were clapped around his ankles and wrists. Then the ferret-faced deputy ran a short chain between the chains of the manacles and gave them a tug, like a man pulling on the leash of a large, disobedient dog. "On yer feet," he snarled. "We dinna have all day."

Seamus rose slowly, carefully putting his weight on one leg and then the other to ensure he retained his balance. The smaller man tugged Seamus out the door. The chain was too short to permit him to stand to his full height, and he had to walk in an awkward, hunchbacked shuffle. Agata's heart ached as the men led Seamus out.

Over the clanking of the irons and the muted orders and curses from outside, Erin began to shriek. It was as if she understood, on some primal level, what had happened here and wanted to register her displeasure with it. The constable put his head back around the door carefully and gave Agata a polite tip of his high cap. "It's that sorry I am that we had t'disturb ye so, madam," he said, his manner as polite with Agata as it had been brusque with Seamus.

"What will become of him?" Agata asked, her eyes bright with tears that she'd never let fall.

The constable thought for a moment, plainly trying to decide the right tack to take. Finally, he shrugged.

"I dinna know, madam," he said frankly. "That'll be fer a magistrate t'say an' no' the likes o' me. But I can tell ye this much fer nothing," he whispered, his tone conspiratorial. "If I were tha' wee lass, I'd get used t'the idea o' no' havin' me da around, one way or t'other." Tipping his cap again, he pulled the door shut and barked out a sharp command. In seconds, the party was riding off toward the south as fast as they'd come. Agata shushed Erin as best she could; suddenly, she felt very old and frail indeed.

"It's sorry I am that ye were born into such a world as this one, my precious Erin," she whispered. The baby's howls gradually subsided into sobs. At last, Erin fell asleep.

Agata cradled the baby long after her arms went numb. The shadows had grown long on the wall and the last gloaming light of the dying day was gone before she finally put Erin back in her crib. Stretching and wincing as her joints protested the enforced inactivity they'd endured, Agata thought furiously.

Her face grim, she reached for a particular stone in the fireplace. It shifted easily in her grip, and she laid it on the mantle and peered into the small cavity left behind. To her relief, the secret remained safe; Seamus and Tabitha had never discovered it.

_God looks after fools and drunks,_ she mused. _But will He look after Erin and such as I?_

The stone didn't answer.

#  Chapter Eighteen

Heather woke up in a black mood. She felt grouchy and irritable without any good reason she could think of. She went to get in the shower, but the water wouldn't hit the right temperature no matter how much she fiddled with the taps. It seemed that her choices were scalding hot or ice cold, with no middle ground. She soaped up and washed rapidly, sparing no time for shaving. Stepping out of the shower, she noticed that her favorite towel wasn't hanging there. Uncharacteristically, she'd left it in the bedroom when she showered the day before. It wasn't like her to be so slovenly, and she gritted her teeth as she reached into the linen closet.

All the soft, fluffy purple towels she had kept in there were absent. A moment's thought reminded her she had taken them into the laundry room. Only Mike's abrasive white towels, which she hated, were in the closet. They seemed to stare at her, almost as if they were laughing at her. With a groan, she took the top one and began the unpleasant process of drying off.

The air in the house felt too cool by half, but she knew that if she turned the heat on she would only be sweating and crankier than ever in ten minutes. Her hair refused to cooperate no matter what she did with it, the waistband of her jeans was tighter than she could remember it ever feeling, and she gave serious consideration to calling in and spending the day in bed.

Finally, she managed to make herself presentable, if not precisely what she would call well-dressed. Even the minimal makeup she wore only seemed to point out a sudden rash of tiny blemishes that had broken out on her normally clear complexion. She looked pale and haggard in the mirror as she sat down to put on her earrings.

Carefully, she chose the jauntiest pair she owned. The silver, dangly, abstract earrings never failed to make her feel more perky, regardless of how lousy she felt. Today, though, they felt obscenely heavy in her earlobes. Shaking her head, she winced as the swinging pendulums tugged at her hair.

Switching them out for plain gold posts, she considered her choice of attire for the day. Her most relaxed-fitting jeans were suddenly far too form-fitting for her liking. The cute purple blouse she'd slipped on made her pallor more pronounced. Everything was too loud, too quiet, too hot, or too cold.

Feeling like a very out of sorts Goldilocks, she slipped a twenty-dollar bill, her bank card, cell phone, driver's license, and house keys into her pockets. It had the unpleasant effect of making her already snug jeans feel like they were painted onto her.

She wished she didn't feel quite so bitchy. It almost guaranteed that she'd pick a fight with someone before the end of the day, just to release a little pressure. She felt sexually frustrated, too, and forcefully shoved the idea away. The last thing she felt today was sexy, and the idea of taking fifteen minutes to handle that particular problem seemed like fifteen minutes longer than she wanted to spend in her own company. So, feeling worse than ever, she locked the door behind her and trudged down to the office.

In direct contrast to her bleak mien, the day was bright, warm, and cheerful. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs: _Where are the clouds? Bring on the hurricane!_ A mood like she was in demanded a solid, cleansing downpour. If her dour outlook got any worse, a good nor'easter with fierce thunder and lightning wouldn't be amiss. But sunshine and a gentle zephyr of a breeze from inland, with nary a cloud to be seen, seemed to mock her.

All around her, spring was well and truly sprung; the trees were beginning to put on their summer crowns of green, and the grass in every yard she passed by seemed to grow more deeply emerald with every breath she took. Most days, this would have lifted her flagging spirits. Today, the pleasant ambience only made her want to punch something.

Punch something, she mused. Prying her phone out of her pocket with an uncustomary amount of difficulty, which only increased her annoyance, she pressed the key combination that speed-dialed Erin. She sounded out of breath when she answered, "Hello?"

"Me," Heather said without preamble. "Is it okay if I come in a little late?"

"Sure," Erin replied breathlessly, and then giggled. An odd sound came through the phone, and Erin squealed, "Cut that out!"

Assuming that Erin wasn't speaking to her, Heather said, "I'll be there in an hour. I feel like hell and need to get my head on straight."

Erin laughed throatily. Apparently, in direct contrast to Heather's mood, she was having a very good morning. "Take an hour and a half," she chirped, and hung up.

Heather changed direction in mid-stride and started up the sidewalk back to the house. She needed to grab some gear.

* * * * *

Ellen greeted her at the gym. To Heather's surprise, she didn't feel the slightest awkwardness in her presence, even after what Erin had told Heather of her proclivities. Ellen quickly set her up with a locker and a lock and key to go with it. "If you lose the key, it's five dollars to replace it," she said to Heather as she set up the account. "Now, what are you looking for? Cardio? Toning?"

Heather gave her a smile that was perfectly in keeping with her mood and the Medusa mane of tangles her rebellious hair had woven itself into. "I want to beat the living fuck out of something," she snarled, and blushed. It was unlike her to curse so explicitly without good reason, and she figured her hormones had to be running amok to make her spit out such vituperation.

"No problem," Ellen assured her with a sympathetic smile. "Go ahead and get changed, and I'll meet you in the combat area."

Heather eyed Ellen's professional outfit skeptically. "You're going to leave the counter?"

"It's not a problem. Jason'll cover for me." Jason, Heather recalled from past conversations, was the owner's son. A living monument to ineptitude in just about every conceivable way, he knew his way around human musculature better than anyone she knew who wasn't a doctor. The problem was that he was also deadly dull, running on and on to anyone who'd listen about glutes and abs and bis and tris until the listener either dropped dead of boredom or remembered an urgent errand on the other side of town.

Ellen picked up the house phone and dialed a three-number sequence. After a brief pause, she said, "It's Ellen. Is Jason there? Thanks."

After a second, she said, "Jason, Ellen. Listen, can you cover the front for me for a little while? I need to take a new member on a tour." She listened for a moment. "No, Jason, I've got this one. You can't go into the ladies' locker room, remember?" A pause. "Not on your life. Her husband knows six ways to kill you with a paper napkin." Silence. "No, I really don't think so," she said, rolling her eyes at Heather. "Look, just get here, okay?"

She hung up before Jason could say anything else. "As soon as he gets here, I'll change out and work out with you."

Heather felt an uncertain look flicker across her face. Ellen must have divined what the look meant immediately and touched Heather's arm carefully.

"Relax," she said, holding out one hand palm up. "I'm not hitting on you. It's just a workout."

_Right,_ Heather thought, _just a workout._

Just then Jason muscled through the door. He was average height, with a shaved head and covered in tattoos. He wore a black sleeveless T-shirt that displayed his overly developed arms to maximum advantage, a pair of black Speedo workout pants with royal blue panels, and a skull earring in his left ear. He walked as if every eye in the place was on him; Heather simply thought he looked silly.

"This the one?" he queried, looking at Heather like most men would eye a particularly juicy steak.

"That's her," Ellen confirmed, "and her husband's a Marine."

"Wow," he said, drawing the word out to about eleven syllables to make the point that he wasn't impressed. Ellen cut Heather off before she could ask the scathing question about the mental side effects of chronic steroid use that was boiling up on her tongue by seizing her arm.

"We're going to change out. Back in a half hour," Ellen said, steering Heather gently but firmly toward the locker room.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, Ellen was wearing a pair of martial arts coach's gloves.

"Hit me!" she barked.

Heather thrust her fist into the flat glove. The look on Ellen's face was underwhelmed.

"You've gotta do better than _that,"_ she said. Her short blonde hair framed her heart-shaped face to good advantage. The haircut made her look like Tinkerbell's older sister. With her frosty blue eyes and slight frame, she looked capable but nonetheless odd standing on the dark blue mat in a pair of gray sweats and a red t-shirt that proclaimed, "I've kicked wholesale ass for a lot less than that!" with those silly-looking trainers' gloves on.

She held her hands up, palms out toward Heather. "Again!" she snapped. "And this time, _mean_ it!"

Heather took a deep breath, released about half, and smashed her fist into the glove as hard as she could. Ellen didn't even flinch.

"Haven't you ever punched someone before?" she demanded.

"Uh...no," Heather said hesitantly. "I've never needed to."

"Never been in a fight?" Ellen asked in astonishment. In this day and age, there weren't many people of either gender who could make that claim.

"No," Heather replied. "I always liked to kill 'em with kindness."

"Well, you're hitting about as hard as the average kitten," Ellen said. "Try this." Stripping off the gloves, she sidled over to the heavy bag. With an ear-splitting scream, she struck the bag once, twice, three times. The bag shuddered and swung with every impact of her hands.

Ellen looked over at Heather. "Come stand next to me," she said. When Heather had obeyed, Ellen looked her over as if sizing up an opponent.

"There's your first problem," she announced, moving to stand one step behind Heather on her left. Heather turned her head to see her. "Your stance is all wrong," Ellen continued. "Are you right or left handed?" she asked.

"Right," Heather said.

"Okay. Bring your right foot back about a foot." Heather complied. "Now turn it about ninety degrees to the right." Feeling ungainly and off balance, Heather did as instructed. "A little more." She cocked her foot until it was almost perpendicular to the set of her left foot. "Perfect," Ellen said. "Now bring your left foot straight forward just a hair more. You want them a little more than shoulder width apart." Heather moved her left foot about two inches. "Exactly."

Ellen then came to stand in front of her. "Now your hands. Get them up and drop your body weight until it rests on the back of your thighs," she ordered.

Heather thought that she couldn't have used a reminder of how ungainly she felt _less_ than at that moment, but she followed Ellen's directions as she continued to rattle them off. Finally, Ellen nodded approval and held out her hands again, bare-palmed.

"Now hit me, and turn your hips into the punch as you do." Ellen demonstrated, throwing a right jab to pass harmlessly just to the left of Heather's jaw. As she did so, her right hip and shoulder came forward in a sharp motion designed to lend extra power and speed to the strike. Returning to her palms-outward ready stance, she said, "Now."

Heather tried. To her surprise, her knuckles smacked into Ellen's left palm with a loud snap. Ellen's eyes crinkled slightly. "Good," she said, shaking her hand as if trying to get something slimy off it. "Just like that."

Heather said, "So I did it right?"

Ellen smiled and hurried over to get her gloves. "You sure did." As she pulled on the gloves, she shot Heather a rueful look. "But I'm wearing these from now on," she said.

* * * * *

In twenty minutes, Heather was dripping sweat. Her throat was raw from the battle cries she'd been giving to add power to her strikes. Every muscle in her upper body felt loose and relaxed, and she realized with a little jolt of surprise that her mind did too. Her cranky mood had vanished, to be replaced with something that almost felt like accomplishment.

Ellen laughed and gave her a quick hug. "You're a good student," she said. "You listen, you learn fast, and you're not afraid to get sweaty. I wish all the women who come in here were like you."

"Why?" Heather asked, genuinely curious. "What are they like?" For as late in the morning as it was, she noticed there was a definite dearth of patrons of both sexes. She also noticed that the men pumping iron on the main floor seemed to outnumber the women at least six to one.

"Most of the women who come here do it just so they can wear something tight and have men gawk at them without having to do anything about it," Ellen laughed. "You ought to see this place around six. It's a riot! All those women in Spandex and Lycra with their earphones on, and ten poor schlubs to every one of them with their tongues hanging out. Had this one girl come in last week, I think she's a dancer down at the Highland Tap Room in Boston. Redhead with the most unbelievable dye and boob job you ever saw." Ellen's hands moved in front of her own bosom to illustrate the woman's improbable proportions.

"So there she was in a one-piece that was so tight she might as well have been wearing nothing, pumping the Stairmaster like it was an Olympic event. Well, this guy, might have been a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, wearing glasses and a Green Lantern shirt, was staring at her so hard it was like he was trying to see right through her leotard. He put two hundred fifty pounds on the dumbbell and started trying to lift it."

"Did he get it up?" Heather asked, not even thinking about the double entendre.

"Oh, he was _up_ all right," Ellen leered, taking full, lecherous advantage of the opening. "Looked like he was smuggling a Ball Park frank in his shorts. Until the dork got the bar down over his chest and realized he couldn't raise it again. I've never seen a guy lose his wood so fast."

"Oh, God," Heather groaned, laughing. "Then what?"

"Well," Ellen thought for a moment, "Jason went over to help him out. Poor nerd's glasses were fogged over and I've never seen a guy's face so red. Didn't even shower. He walked right out the door and hasn't been back."

"What about the dancer?" Heather asked.

"Didn't have a clue. Totally oblivious. When she stopped her reps and saw everyone still laughing about it, she had to ask one of her fembot girlfriends what was so funny." Ellen smirked. "Missed the whole damn thing."

By now they were in the locker room. Heather paused for just a fraction of a second before pulling the hem of her ratty, sweat-soaked shirt over her head. She hadn't troubled to put on a bra, and she noticed that her breasts felt oddly heavy. Without thinking, she took one in her hand and hefted it experimentally.

Ellen froze across the aisle, in the process of stripping down herself. With a visible effort, she pulled her eyes away and asked noncommittally, "How's the pregnancy coming?"

Heather groaned and sank onto the bench. "It's _weird,"_ she groaned dejectedly. "Think of how it felt when you first hit puberty. All those hormones and mood swings and things. Now take that and multiply it by ten. My clothes don't fit right, my body feels off, and I have to work at it not to cry or hit something."

"Any morning sickness?" Ellen asked.

"Some," Heather said. Then it hit her that aside from that one bout two nights previously, she hadn't really had morning sickness yet to speak of. Quickly, she amended the statement. "Almost none. I threw up late Saturday night, but nothing since."

"You're lucky," Ellen noted. "My sister Jennifer got pregnant a couple of years back. Ate everything in sight and threw up eleven tenths of it. I think she spent a solid two months in the bathroom until she figured out that pickles and vanilla ice cream solved it." She was now fully nude, her elfin body on full display. Heather turned, getting ready to say something about the combination of pickles and ice cream sounding like the ultimate in disgusting. The words died stillborn as she looked at Ellen. Thankfully, Ellen was just turning away to get a towel out of her locker.

In high school, Heather'd always been the girl who had to go into a toilet stall to undress and dress. She had always kept her eyes carefully on the other girls' faces, never letting her gaze stray lower than their collarbones. Now, she caught herself studying Ellen's lithe frame as if she was a subject in a life-drawing class, her imagination treating her to a strangely erotic thirty-second movie of Ellen in bed.

Shaking it off, Heather made the comment she'd turned to make, and peeled down herself. The two women went into the shower area, laughing and chatting about "woman stuff" as they scrubbed up and rinsed off. It wasn't until they were both dressed that Ellen turned in front of Heather, barring her way out of the locker room.

"I really envy you, you know," she said quietly.

"Why?" Heather asked, befuddled. Granted, working in a gym wasn't most people's idea of a dream job, but then neither was her own. Ellen was cute, funny, and had no shortage of dates any time she wanted them. Knowing what Erin had told her about Ellen, though, Heather wondered how many of those dates had been with the opposite sex and how many had not.

"Because you can _have_ a baby." Ellen's tone was wistful, yet matter of fact. "I had an ectopic pregnancy when I was nineteen. When they went in to remove my Fallopian tube, the doctor found out that I had uterine cancer. I went through menopause eleven years ago, when they removed all my...stuff," Ellen explained. "The upside is I can have sex anytime, anywhere, and not have to worry about birth control. The downside is, if I ever meet someone I truly care about enough to marry, we'll have to adopt or foster." The look on her face was one of quiet tragedy, of a war that was lost long before and remembered now only with a tiny sting of sorrow.

It explained a lot about her snide attitude toward babies, Heather realized. What Ellen really felt had nothing whatsoever to do with her outer persona. She used sarcasm to hide the pain she felt when she had to watch everyone around her getting what she wanted so desperately, and could never, ever have. She took a second to ponder what she might feel like if she had found herself in Ellen's position, and concluded that she might very easily have behaved the same way.

"I'm so sorry," Heather said with real feeling, holding out her arms to offer an empathetic hug. "I didn't mean..."

"It wasn't you," Ellen interrupted. "It's just, you wouldn't believe what it's like watching some of the mothers-to-be come in for workouts, Pilates, and yoga. They don't see me here in the locker room while they talk about how their bodies are changing and how much it sucks. Sometimes, I go home and cry because I want to scream at them that they have no idea how lucky they are. _I_ have to take hormone replacement therapy if I don't want to become the Bearded Lady, and they bitch about twenty extra pounds that they'll lose right away when the baby comes." Ellen folded herself into Heather's arms and stood there for a moment, taking obvious comfort in her closeness.

"I wish I could tell them that I'd trade places with them in a hot second," she murmured into Heather's bosom. "I'd take the hormones, the cravings, the bitchy spells, and the weight gain. I'd take all of it with a smile if it would let me have a little boy or girl of my own."

Heather wanted to say, _Sure._ You _can have the pregnancy side effects, the irritability, and the banshee I've got hanging over my head._ I'll _take your cake job and your wild Saturday nights._ But the instant the snide thought entered her mind, she felt ashamed of it.

#  Chapter Nineteen

That sense of shame continued to plague her all through the morning as she fought her way through a rain forest's worth of paperwork left by one of the firm's more belligerent clients. This particular woman, Nancy Yates, seemed determined to prove once and for all that she was related to Nathaniel Hawthorne, the famed early American author. Heather didn't know her socially and doubted her ability to pick her out of a lineup. But her mother knew Nancy and had often spoken about her in scathing tones after Garden Club meetings.

"I swear, that woman!" Bonnie Kelly would declare, throwing her hands up. "To hear her tell it, her ancestors single handedly colonized the New World, won the West, _and_ wrote everything that's ever been worth reading in American letters!" She had fumed more than once over the dinner table.

Mrs. Yates' most irredeemable quality, other than her arrogance about her family history, was her innate and intense snobbishness. She had a tendency to look down on the other members of the Garden Club for their less "fortunate," as she put it, bloodlines.

"Well, that's wonderful that your ancestors were on the _Mayflower_ , dear," she had once said to Jackie Thompson, patting her hand condescendingly. "But they never _really_ did anything _after_ that, did they?"

Heather cringed when she came up the walk at ten minutes to nine and found Nancy waiting on the wrought-iron bench outside, her foot tapping impatiently in a white mule and a large box centered on her rather ample lap. Heather's post-workout good humor immediately began to deteriorate. She put on her best business smile and said, "Good morning, Mrs. Yates."

Nancy said, "Good morning indeed. Half the day gone and your office supposed to be open at eight, according to your sign. _Humph!"_ she sniffed, her nose so high in the air Heather imagined she could smell breakfast cooking in Boston. "You ladies could at _least_ keep to the hours you promise," she snapped. Heather sighed internally and unlocked the door, keeping any hint of her thoughts carefully off her face.

"Come in, please," Heather beckoned. "If you'll give me just a couple of minutes, I'll have coffee."

"Oh, a cup _would_ have been lovely," Nancy sniped, "but I simply don't have the time today. I would have, had you been here on time."

_I got it, you old bat,_ Heather thought churlishly. _Get to the point already, for Christ's sake._ In spite of her best intentions, she felt her back teeth lock together tightly to prevent the bitchy response she was now choking on from spewing out.

"I've just unearthed some evidence that suggests I'm related to Nathaniel Hawthorne," Nancy simpered, her attitude changing as abruptly as the sun emerging from behind a cloud. She produced a thin manila envelope from her purse and shoved into Heather's hand. "I'd like to verify that this is, in fact, the case so that I can tell the girls on Sunday."

_Oh, and wouldn't Mom just love that?_ Heather thought. Aloud, she said, "Well, I'll see what I can do."

"I know you will, dear." Nancy patted her hand patronizingly. The dry, cool skin of her fingers made Heather's flesh crawl as if s snake had just slithered over her wrist. Then the woman finally left, trailing a choking cloud of rose oil behind her as she walked out the door.

Now, nearly an hour later, Heather's head snapped up as the front door opened. Erin hustled in, her face alight with post-coital afterglow. "I'm so sorry," she said, plopping her purse on her desk and turning on her computer. "Jericho made me breakfast in bed, and, well..."

Heather grinned. Whereas two hours before she might have chewed Erin out royally for making her deal with Nancy Yates, she now felt relaxed and mellow enough that she felt nothing more than a minor twinge of loneliness at the thought of her morning versus Erin's. "Tell me everything!" she coaxed.

Erin didn't need coaxing. "Well, Jericho's so sweet. He gets up at five every morning and runs three miles on the beach. When he came back, he said he was going to cook breakfast before he showered. He made crepes."

"Really?" Now Heather was impressed. She'd tried to make the incredibly finicky French cuisine staple once. Emphasis on once; the endeavor had been an unmitigated disaster and resulted in a wholly inedible mess. Mike had kissed her and taken her out to eat instead. "So he can cook. That's a first for you."

"Tell me about it," Erin snickered. "After Josh, who has to be the only man alive that I know who can burn water, finding someone who can make crepes is like Heaven. I'm going to have to watch it, though. Otherwise he's going to have me so fattened up that I'll have to get a construction crew just to get out of the house."

Heather huffed out a bemused breath. "And then?"

"Well, we were eating, and Jericho thought it would be funny to get strawberry topping on my boob. One thing led to another...Well, let's just say I worked off breakfast a couple of times over." She wrapped her arms around herself and shivered expansively, miming smoking a post-intercourse cigarette. Heather laughed.

"So how was your morning? You sounded pissed off when we talked earlier," Erin asked, the lascivious satisfaction on her features fading to sisterly concern.

"Oh, it was nothing," Heather said. "I just woke up on the wrong side of the bed and had one of those days where everything seems like it's grounds for justifiable homicide."

" _Yuck,"_ Erin said with feeling. "I hate those days. So why the change in mood?"

Heather ducked her head back to her papers. "I went to the gym. Worked out with Ellen. She taught me how to hit," she mumbled.

"Ahh," Erin said. "Funny. I haven't heard from her since the weekend. How is she?"

"She's jealous of me," Heather answered. The specter of the haunted look in Ellen's eyes when she told Heather about her hysterectomy and the aftermath of it rose up, unbidden, to dance in front of her mind's eye again. "Did you know she can't have kids?"

Erin nodded. "Yeah, but she always seemed like she was okay with it. What brought that on?"

Heather gave Erin a brief précis of the discussion. Erin looked first surprised, then taken aback. By the end of Heather's recitation, she was listening raptly, ignoring the e-mail chime that kept going off every thirty seconds.

The pensive way Erin was holding herself made Heather curious. "What?" she asked.

Erin drew in a long breath and exhaled with a whoosh. "I just feel bad," she said mutedly. "I made a comment about Ellen being the perfect choice to have fun with me and Jerry, because she can't get knocked up. I didn't realize she was so sensitive about the subject."

Heather nodded. In a bid to get the conversation, and her mind, away from the idea of other people's bedroom activities, she said, "By the way, you owe me your immortal soul," adding a witchy cackle to the end of the sentence. The detour brought Erin's head around sharply in confusion.

"What? Why? Because Jerry and I..."

"No, no, no," Heather declaimed. "Because I had to deal with one Mrs. Nancy Yates this morning."

"Oh _shit!"_ Erin's eyes grew huge. "I completely forgot that old bitch was coming today. Did you find the Hawthorne connection?"

Heather shook her head. "So far I've got one letter from a third cousin twice removed in upstate New York alleging a connection, but not one shred of hard evidence to back it up. Frankly, if there is any family tie between them, it's probably three steps below 'obscure' on the 'who cares?' scale."

Erin chuckled. "Serves the old sow right, as many airs as she puts on. Next it'll be Queen Elizabeth or something." Sobering, she asked, "So what did Fintan leave you?"

The abrupt switch of topic to her own problem chilled Heather. "I think I've learned why my great, great, great-grandmother left Ireland," she said. "It seems that my great, great-grandfather beat up a priest just after his wife died having my great-grandmother."

Erin's mouth dropped open in shock. Although she was not Catholic herself, her grandmother was highly devout. As the family matriarch, she insisted that the whole family attend Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve every year. Erin would always go along dutifully, only to complain for the next three days to anyone who would listen about what "Catholic calisthenics" did to her knees and back. "Sit, stand, kneel, sit, stand, kneel," she'd say. "Why can't you just pick a position you like and go with it, for God's sake?" But Heather knew that, even if she'd never admit it, Erin loved the pageantry and the timeless feel of the Latin High Mass, for all that she couldn't care less about what a "good Christian" did or didn't do. It was an attitude that had put her and her grandmother at odds for years.

"What happened then?" she demanded.

"I don't know. When I broke off reading they were hauling Seamus away in handcuffs," Heather said evenly.

"Hmm." Erin seemed to be at a loss for something more to say.

The two women fell into companionable silence and worked steadily away at their respective projects for the better part of an hour. The gurgle of the tiny fountain in the corner, the turning of pages, and the click and clatter of computer keys were the only sounds. Finally, Heather broke the stillness.

"Ah-ha!" she cried triumphantly.

Erin started so violently that her wheeled desk chair went over, pulling her to the floor with it. Heather was immediately out of her seat and beside Erin, extending a hand and hurling apologies as quickly as she could.

Taking Heather's hand, Erin unfolded herself out of the tangle she and the chair had formed. With great dignity and care she restored the chair to its proper position. Then she very slowly sat down and steepled her fingers, Heather babbling variations on the theme of "sorry" the whole time.

When Heather finally wound down, Erin said with great gravity, "What...the... _hell_...was... _that?"_

Heather's finger and ear tips were red, she was blushing so violently. "I just found out that Mrs. Yates is full of shit," she said. "Nathaniel Hawthorne is one of the premier early American authors, and his family tree has been fairly extensively researched. Her third cousin or whatever it was had him confused with some guy who founded Hawthorne, Illinois. No relation of any credibility, so that's out."

Erin smiled. "You want to tell her?"

"Oh, not on your life, boss lady!" Heather demurred, holding both hands out. "That's all you."

Erin whimpered, "But I'm booking your ticket to Ireland!"

"Trade," Heather retorted heartlessly.

In the Otherplace...

Adan and Finella sat at the table. Raichael busied herself making tea on the hearth. The other women had gone to walk along the shore and discuss their course of action.

Finella said, "She must not come to Ireland. If she does..."

_Adan glanced at Finella sidelong. "I know. The_ bean'sidhe _is at her most powerful here. But we cannot move to prevent her."_

" _Why not?" Finella asked. Her fear of what would become of her if and when their imprisonment in this place was done had grown more and more pronounced. Truthfully, it was beginning to grate on Adan's almost infinitely patient nerves. She was heartily sick of this place, and as much as she loved her sister-daughters, she was ready to move on._

" _Because if we do, the_ bean'sidhe _will never stop," Adan said. "If you care not for anything else, at least have the good grace to remember what it was like for you. And me. And the others. Are you truly so cruel that you would forsake her, put our daughter through that, if it can be prevented?"_

Finella cringed. It was rare to see Adan's wrath aroused, but when it happened, it was always spectacular. From outside, a searing web of lightning in colors that would never grace the mortal world's sky spidered across the heavens, and the sky let forth with a soaking blast of rain. Startled protests from just outside the door arose in a plaintive chorus, and the four women tumbled in out of the elements unleashed by Adan's ire.

" _What the devil have you done_ now?" _Cavana snapped, waving her hands impatiently. Her saturated dress dried instantly, but her aggrieved expression remained. She bent the full force of her angry glare on Finella._

" _I dinna_ do _anything!" she gasped. "I simply said that Heather must not come to Ireland!"_

_Rowan and Raichael exchanged a significant look. "For this to play out as it must," Rowan sighed, "there is no choice. You forget: the_ bean'sidhe _is at her most powerful here." Her eyes narrowed. "But so are_ we."

Raichael spoke. "So we are going to try again?" she asked.

" _We are," Cavana said. "Are you certain you can do this, Adan? After all, we don't know what the consequences will be."_

_Adan brushed her hair back from her face. Her eyes were, disconcertingly, the same gray as the sky beyond the window. "I care nothing for the consequences if we act," she snapped, her patience expended. "I know what the outcome will be if we_ don't. _Any who does not have the resolve or the stomach to do what we must can rot here for all I care. For my own self—" She trailed off and her demeanor changed from defiant to wistful._

" _I'm tired," she said softly. There was such a powerful longing in her voice that none of the other women knew what to say._

So they said nothing at all, as the storm dissipated and artificial night fell.

#  Chapter Twenty

The tickets were booked. Heather hid in her office with the sheaf of papers from Fintan as Mrs. Yates argued with Erin in the other room.

"Fifty dollars for four hours to tell me that there's nothing to back up my claim?" she screeched, throwing a temper tantrum. "That's absurd. Give me my papers back!"

"Now, Mrs. Yates, just calm down," Erin soothed. She had a manner about her that could generally make even the toughest hard cases settle down and listen to reason. But Nancy Yates was a hard case in a league all her own. Erin's best upbeat, professional manner couldn't pierce the titanium armor of her determined wrath.

"Calm down _nothing!"_ she howled. If anything, the volume of her yelling was going up, not down. The shrill sound of it was giving Heather a frightful headache, and she felt a pang of sympathy for Erin, trapped as she was right in the middle of the storm. "I gave this task to you little fools because I believed you could actually _do_ something. As it is, I now have to go to another firm and pay them more of my hard-earned money to get the truth! I'm not paying you one red cent!"

Erin's voice became even more briskly businesslike, a sure sign that she was about to lose her temper. "Well, Mrs. Yates, if that's how you feel about, I can always call Brian Majors."

Brian Majors, of Humphrey, Majors, Wincott, was a well-known corporate attorney in town. Erin had retained him several times on various matters. A New England gentleman on the street and in his office, he became a thug in a six-hundred-dollar suit any time his feet touched a courtroom floor. He was well-known for his ruthlessness, his viciousness, and his incredibly long memory. The invocation of his name gave Nancy pause. She knew exactly what kind of a weapon he was. He'd made mincemeat of her husband many times over the years in various proceedings, and she'd had to bandage the wounds afterward. She hated Brian Majors with a passion most people reserved for dentists.

Erin gave her a moment to roll that around in her mind, then continued. "Or."

"Or?" Mrs. Yates echoed after a beat. Heather smiled. Erin was not playing nice at all.

"Or...you write me a check for the time spent on your inquiry. Fifty dollars, after all, is not an onerous sum considering the work in question. And we do guarantee accuracy." Erin let that sink in for a moment, then steamrolled on. "You are, of course, more than welcome to go to another firm and get confirmation of our findings," she purred in her most sweetly poisonous tone. "If they can prove us wrong, I'll refund every dime of your money and glad to do it. If they can't, then you've paid twice for an answer you should only have had to get once, and I will no longer accept commissions from you."

Erin was clearly about to lose all patience. Nancy obviously picked up on the none-too-subtle threat in her sweet tone, because she hastily backpedaled. "No, no, that's quite all right," she said. Scrabbling sounds from the next room told Erin that she was clawing for her checkbook. "I'm sorry, Ms. McCorkle," she said, sounding like she was choking on every word. "It's just that I'm so disappointed. It would have been so nice," she added ruefully.

"Well, you know that we won't lie to you, even if you don't like the answers. Now like I said, if you want to take this documentation to Sharon Wilson, I'm sure she'd be happy to give you a second opinion," Erin suggested. "Of course, she does charge significantly more for her services, and she's quite a bit slower to return results."

Heather bit down on her fist to stifle a laugh. Sharon Wilson, the former self-proclaimed queen of New England genealogy, had raised quite an unholy fuss when McCorkle-Kelly had first opened. She'd actually tried to get the city zoning commission to shut them down, citing a municipal code that stated that no business could bill themselves as an investigative firm without a private detective's license. Erin had fought the mess down, pointing out that McCorkle-Kelly Inquiries was not a detective agency as such. They were restricted solely to running down claims of lineage and had nothing to do with any of the myriad other services that a detective agency might perform, such as security or obtaining information for litigation purposes. Sharon Wilson had lost resoundingly, and continued to pay the price for her ill-well every time Erin and Heather showed her up.

Nancy Yeats had had her own go-round with Sharon Wilson as well. Yes, Nancy was highly annoying, and her determination to prove her self-worth by virtue of the list of famous people she could cite as dangling from her family tree was epic. Sharon Wilson, however, had been outright insulting to her. The fight had begun in private; it had ended outdoors with the two women using language so vulgar that a trio of sailors on leave had decided they had better find some business elsewhere. The police had been summoned, and a mutual restraining order had been issued forbidding each of the women from being within one hundred feet of the other.

"No, it's _fine,"_ Mrs. Yeats snapped, clearly wishing the conversation at an end. "Thank you very much for your time," she nearly growled. Two quick footsteps swished on the soft, deep green pile carpet. The door opened and closed, and she heard Erin's chair creak as she stood up. A second later, a shadow fell over Heather's desk.

At that moment, a cloud skittered across the sun, casting the office into momentary gloom. Opening her mouth to make some wisecrack, Heather suddenly froze. Superimposed over Erin's robust form, leaning against the door jamb with her arms folded, the spectral form she'd seen the other night stood in its dark cloak, only its toxic green eyes and the top half of its nose could be seen. The face that framed it was the same bleached yellow-white color as old bone, and stray tufts of fine red hair floated around it.

The points and hem of the cloak rustled as if stirred by an unfelt and unheard breeze, and Heather rose from her chair, her throat constricting in terror, eyes wide and staring as she felt the blood drain from her face. A frozen, numbing pain seemed to stab into her head, right between her eyes. She raised a shaking finger to point.

The horrible shape was gone.

Erin hurried into the office and got a firm grip on Heather's elbow. Easing her back down into her seat, she yelled, "What the hell happened?"

Heather tried to speak. Instead, she burst into tears.

* * * * *

It was almost ten minutes before the hysterical bout of crying wound down enough for Heather to speak coherently. The sun was back out and shining at full strength. In its golden light, playing over the cheerful Irish décor of the office, the waking nightmare she'd had seemed utterly ridiculous. But she had felt the _bean'sidhe's_ agonizing presence as surely as she now felt Erin's warm, soothing one. Heather had never given much consideration to what it might feel like to die, but if she was going to lay down money on what it was like, she'd bet on it feeling much like what she'd just experienced.

Erin listened without comment or criticism as Heather explained what had just occurred. Then she chewed the inside of her lip thoughtfully for several moments.

"I'm not going to ask if you're sure you saw what you saw," she began carefully. "But are you sure that this whole family history thing isn't getting to you a little?"

Heather felt her face flush as red as it had been pale minutes before. "I _didn't_ imagine it!" she cried. "It was the most horrible feeling I've ever had. It made me feel sick and weak and powerless. It was...it was like dying," she whispered. Swallowing, she forged ahead.

"I don't want to study the family history anymore!" Before Erin could say anything, she held up a hand to forestall it. "I don't care who did what to who when, why, or how. All I care about is that somehow, somewhere in the lore, is the answer to how this thing came to be. And if I know that, then maybe I can figure out how to stop it."

Erin considered this in great detail. Finally, she stood.

"Where are you going?" Heather asked. She heard a whining quaver in her voice, and hated it.

"I'm going to make a phone call," Erin said quietly. "I think Jerry might be able to help."

In the Otherplace...

Adan screamed.

The fire in the hearth blazed brilliant blue. Outside, the moon and stars vanished as if they'd never been. A chill wind howled through the abruptly empty space the cottage stood in.

_The other six women immediately dropped whatever activities they were wrapped up in. Cavata and Finella turned away from the knucklebones Finella had just cast. Raichael laid down a bundle of sticks carved with Ogham script, upon which everything each of the women knew about the_ bean'sidhe _was inscribed. Rowan stood from her chair by the hearth, where she and Tabitha had been reminiscing about their lives. Sorcha let her knitting tumble to the floor as she rose._

" _What is it?" Cavana, Rowan, and Sorcha demanded in one voice._

" _The_ bean'sidhe _has just visited her. In the daylight," Adan husked, her voice thick with pain._

" _I did not believe that was possible," Raichael noted, immediately picking up her story-sticks again with a motion that conveyed grimly focused purpose._

" _It is not. Or it should not be," Adan replied, eyelids heavy with weariness. She had not slept in a very, very long time._

" _What does it mean?" Finella quavered._

" _It could mean many things," Adan hedged. "It could be that her method of travel to her homeland is unsafe. It may mean that as she grows nearer to leaving her land, the_ bean'sidhe _draws more power. There is a chance that the_ bean'sidhe's _strength grows with the babe our daughter carries."_

" _Could, might, may," Cavana snapped. In direct contrast to most of her sisters, she believed the surest way to solve a problem was to grind it utterly into the dust. Preferably in a way that sent a clear message to the next who might care to try. "We hang far too many of our hopes on uncertainties and intangibles."_

Adan sighed and wiped her streaming eyes. "I agree, sister," she nodded, her voice melancholy. "But what other choice do we have?"

She stood from the chair. "I have been sitting for far too long," she observed. "I am going to take a walk. Rowan? I would be glad of your company."

The two women walked out the door. A merry blue sky played over grass greener than even the Emerald Isle could boast. The fire in the hearth burned down to a more natural red-orange. And five women turned stricken faces to one another, each wondering what new horror was about to come upon their kin and descendant.

#  Chapter Twenty-One

It wasn't until that night that Heather finally summoned up the nerve to call Fintan. Jerry had strongly suggested it, after Erin had explained in broad strokes what was going on. He'd hung up the phone abruptly, telling Erin he had to do some research, as she reported it later.

Fintan answered after three rings. "Hello?"

"It's Heather," she said.

"And how are you tonight?" he asked, his voice filled with concern.

"I'm fine," she replied, thinking that maybe repetition would lend her words an authenticity that she didn't feel. "I was calling to apologize."

A lengthy silence issued from the phone. Then: "For what?"

She closed her eyes. Did she really have to go through chapter and verse? Couldn't he just read her mind or something and move on? The stillness spun out between them while she tried to frame an answer that didn't make her sound like a complete basket case. After several heartbeats, she finally had something that sounded, at least in her head, plausible.

"Fintan, I didn't want to lead you on," she almost whispered. "That's why I've been so distant. It would be far too easy for me to throw everything away with you, and I can't do that."

Fintan processed this quietly. Then he said firmly, "You have nothing to apologize for."

Heather blinked. It was not the response she'd been expecting. "Yes, I do," she insisted.

"No, you _don't,"_ he snapped. "I knew full well you are a happily married woman. It doesn't change the fact that I find you attractive and fascinating. What it _does_ change is how I'll handle the situation."

He paused, apparently seeking phrasing that was just out of his reach. Then, "Kathleen says you're still welcome to stay with her. Any friend of mine, as she put it. There's nothing going on here, and you have nothing to feel sorry about. Just because two people are attracted to each other does not automatically mean that they have to jump in bed together. That's romance-story rubbish."

She laughed and missed part of what he said next. "...else going on?"

"What was that?" she asked. "I missed some of that."

"I said, has there been anything else going on?" he repeated patiently.

She thought for a moment. A reflexive and socially acceptable "no" was poised on the tip of her tongue when a thought suddenly crowded it out.

She had all but forgotten about the mysterious drawing that she'd found on her desk the week before. In the face of so many more immediate traumas, finding the strange symbol seemed almost pedestrian by comparison. She wondered what had happened to her, that in a span of less than three weeks, she'd come to view extraordinary and threatening occurrences as not worthy of her attention.

She supposed it was like a bad smell. After a while, you got so used to it you didn't even notice anymore.

Dutifully, she described the circumstances of finding the strange figure on her desk. Fintan listened without comment. When she was done, he asked, "Can you scan it and e-mail it to me?"

She said she could. Grabbing a pen, she jotted down Fintan's private e-mail address. In two minutes, a digital photocopy of the figure was wending its way through cyberspace toward Fintan Fitzkillian's computer. She heard a faint chime on the other end of the phone.

"Hang on just a moment," Fintan said. Another lengthy silence ensued while he opened the message and parsed the contents. When he came back, there was as much anger as surprise in his tone.

"This is Ogham script," he said. "It was what passed for a written language among the ancient Celts before the Roman Empire encroached on their lands and brought their alphabet with them."

"Can you read it?" she asked.

"No," he replied firmly. "Ogham was never my forte. The spoken language is relatively simple, but Ogham script requires a true specialist. Fortunately, I have just such a one under my thumb right now, and he owes me a report anyway."

"Would that be Scotty?" she guessed.

"It would, at that. I'll call the young man right now. Would you care to meet in an hour or so?"

"Where?" she asked, her stomach doing an involuntary cartwheel. It would have to be someplace public, she thought in a near panic. I don't dare spend any more time alone with him, or something's going to happen.

As if he'd divined the direction of her thoughts, he said, "The stacks at the Robinson Celtic Seminar Library? I have a permanent key. Scotty can meet us there and we'll get all our cards on the table, as it were."

She thought quickly. That sounded perfect, and she said as much.

"You might bring Erin, if she's free, as well."

Heather stifled a sigh of relief. "We'll be there."

* * * * *

An hour later, Erin, Heather, and Jerry walked into the Fred Norris Robinson Celtic Seminar Library with Fintan, Scotty, and Liz. Fintan nodded pleasantly to the security guard at the reception desk and he and the students laid down their Harvard identification cards. The security guard, a pleasant-mannered, slender man with a bald head and a luxuriant mustache, examined them and handed them back.

"How long are you folks going to be?" he asked.

"About two hours, three at the outside," Fintan told him. "Got plans tonight, Joe?"

Joe chuckled. "You bet. When Bobby gets here in an hour and a half," he said, glancing at the clock, "I'm taking my wife out to dinner. Been way too long since we just had an 'us' night."

Fintan smiled. "Sounds pretty good. When Bobby gets here, let him know that we're inside, if we're not done, would you?"

"You got it, Professor. The guests need to sign in. And I'll need to see their IDs," he said with a faintly apologetic air.

The requested documentation was provided with dispatch, and the group signed in. Then Joe gave a quick nod and said, "You folks need anything, just let me know."

"We will," Fintan assured him. "C'mon, everyone."

He stopped at a metal-framed glass door. Spiriting a key on a lanyard out of his polo shirt, he unlocked the door and held it open while everyone filed in. Heather moved discreetly to the back of the line and took a long look at Liz and Jerry, the two she didn't know.

Jerry was a lanky man with the barest beginning of love handles visible under his plain white T-shirt. He looked like a runner who'd started to go to seed a little. His brown hair and eyes suited him well. He was polite but not talkative. When Heather had picked them up thirty minutes before, he'd given her hand a firm but not overpowering shake and said, "Pleased to meet you." That had been the extent of his contribution to Erin and Heather's conversation.

Liz was a pale-looking girl in her early twenties, wearing glasses and a Metallica t-shirt. She was carrying a large file folder, talking in hushed tones to Scotty. When Fintan had introduced her, she'd nodded to the group at large and immediately gone back to her conference with the other grad student. Heather thought she detected an intensity in the timbre of the conversation and the way they leaned toward each other that suggested more than collegial interest between them.

Fintan ushered them over to a long table surrounded by chairs. Liz immediately opened the file folder and began spreading its contents out according to some ordering scheme that Heather found quite impenetrable. Scotty took up a seat next to her, their heads nearly touching as they reviewed the materials. Fintan, meanwhile, had produced a laptop from his briefcase, and opened it with a flourish. Jerry, Heather and Erin were all empty-handed, with the exception of the two women's purses.

When everyone was seated and arranged to everyone's mutual satisfaction, Fintan held up his hand for silence. Turning to Liz and Scotty, he asked, "What have you two come up with?"

Scotty smiled behind his glasses. He gave Liz a sidelong glance which she answered with a curt nod. He stood and said, "We've got a lot of really great material here. There seems to be at least twelve different handwriting styles, suggesting that the people who chronicled this have done so since at least sixteen twenty-nine. We calculated this based on the dating systems used and the evolution of the Gaelic dialects in play."

"What dialect is it?" Fintan asked.

"For the sake of not boring the non-scholars among us, I'll keep it simple," Scotty said. "The dialect used is peculiar to Northern Ireland, especially modern-day County Donegal. When the writings started, they were still calling it Tyrconnell. All the accounts seem to center around Cionn Mhalanna, which is known today as Malin Head."

Heather felt a strange twinge in her memory. She found herself wondering if there was a connection between her family settling in Marblehead, Massachusetts after leaving Malin Head, Ireland. From the thoughtful expressions on the others' faces, they were having similar thoughts.

Scotty gave them a second to run that bit of trivia through their minds, then continued. "There is evidence that these records are incomplete; they reference other, older parts of the history written by a woman called Raichael O'Cealleigh, a descendant of Duic Donal O'Cealleigh. It seems to suggest that the records were purged of references predating sixteen twenty-nine because of some crime or sin the duic committed during his lifetime. There are, however, multiple references to a family curse that seem to stem from that time, as well as many hints about a dark spirit or banshee which came about as a direct result of whatever happened."

Fintan pursed his lips and thought for a moment. Turning to Liz, he asked, "And what do you say? Did you have a chance to look over the Ogham I sent you earlier?"

"I did," she answered. "It says _go luath."_

"Anything else?" Fintan prodded.

"No," she said curtly. "That's it."

He nodded. "We have translations of all this?"

Scotty nodded. "Cost me a fortune in coffee and Mountain Dew, but we got it done." He looked over toward Liz and his expression flickered from scholarly recall to something that very closely resembled affection for a second. "Liz was an invaluable help."

Fintan said, "Well, Heather, what do you make of all this?"

She looked a silent question at him: _How far do I explain?_

The level look he gave her seemed to suggest that holding back would not be wise.

Heather stood, asserting her right to the floor. She looked around and said, "It seems to tally with some things that have been happening to me recently." Keeping it brief and matter-of-fact, she detailed the events that had led to the assembly. Before she was half done with her recitation, Scotty was nodding thoughtfully, his hand stroking his goatee.

When she was done, he said, "It all fits with what's on the record here." He swept his hand over the sheets of paper on the table to indicate here. "It seems to happen once every five generations, to a woman in the direct line of descent from the Black Duke, who dies in childbirth under strange circumstances."

"Okay, so what do I do now?" she asked wearily. She felt like every answer she got raised another, more sinister question.

"Well..." Scotty hesitated, looking to Fintan for his approval. Fintan's face was blank, so Scotty soldiered on. "It seems that once your family gets a banshee, you really can't _un_ -get it. It's not something that can be banished or kept away. Once it shows up, according to the legends, you're pretty well stuck with it for keeps." He said the last part reluctantly, as if he was hoping that Fintan would intervene.

Liz broke the ensuing quiet with an observation. "The _bean'sidhe,_ though, is still supposed to be a member of the Fae. That being the case, a _bean'sidhe_ should have the same vulnerabilities as any other faerie. Cold iron, rowan, and so forth."

Heather couldn't believe what she was hearing. Here they were, six allegedly grown-up, rational people, analyzing ways to keep a mythical creature away from her. A sense of the ludicrousness of the situation washed over her, and she fought an urge to laugh. What finally won the day for her sense of solemnity was the memory of the soul-chilling look the figure in the office had given her before vanishing as if it had never been. Soberly, she asked, "Well, that's all very fine and good, but I can't very well carry a sword on a plane, even if I knew where to get one made of cold iron. And what's rowan?"

"Mountain ash," Fintan replied absently. "You may not have noticed, but Ash Street is liberally planted with them. It may afford you a degree of protection. That may be why the _bean'sidhe_ appeared at your house but didn't really affect you. Whereas at the office..."

"I have no such protection," Heather finished the sentence.

"So, there's the question," Scotty said. "How can we make her something that can afford her proper protection without raising too many eyebrows?"

Liz jumped back into the intellectual fray. "I think I can help with that," she allowed. "If it won't cause too much of a conflict."

Heather looked at Fintan to see if he was following the flow of the conversation. He seemed as lost as she was. To break the impasse, Erin asked, "What do you mean?"

Liz stood and turned around. To Heather's surprise, she yanked at the hem of her t-shirt, pulling it up to reveal a trefoil design within a circle on her left shoulder blade. Inadvertently, she also gave away the fact that she wasn't wearing a bra.

Scotty looked unsurprised. Erin nodded as if a question that had been on the tip of her tongue had just been answered. Fintan stayed as still as a statue. Jerry's mouth quirked up in a smile.

"I'm a Wiccan," she announced, pulling her T-shirt back down to socially acceptable territory. "I've been studying and practicing with the Irish Celtic pantheon for several years now. It was the biggest reason I came here to finish my doctorate in Gaelic studies."

Heather asked, "And that has what to do with this?"

Erin spoke. "If you can accept that magic can fight magic, and treat it as an article of faith, I think Liz is saying that she can make an amulet that will help keep the banshee at bay. So long as your religious views don't conflict with what she's trying to do, it should work."

Liz smiled approvingly. "Exactly."

Erin, Jerry, Scotty, and Liz immediately hurried off into the stacks, jabbering excitedly to each other. Fintan leaned back in his chair and sighed.

"As a Catholic, I'm not exactly at ease with this," he said. "But if it will keep you safe, then I'm willing to try anything once."

From two rows of shelves away, Liz's strident voice came floating toward them. "That's a damn good thing, Professor," she called. "Because for this to work, we're going to need your help."

"I was half afraid of that," Fintan muttered under his breath.

* * * * *

Two hours later, they left. Liz, Erin, Scotty, and Jerry hurried off together in Scotty's AMC Gremlin, which caused Heather to do a double-take. "I didn't know these even existed anymore!" she exclaimed in surprise.

"One of the easiest cars in the world to work on," Scotty said proudly, patting the front quarter panel affectionately, unperturbed by the flecks of paint that flaked off at his touch. "Excellent transportation for a doctoral student who doesn't exactly have three jillion dollars a year at his disposal."

Heather blushed. Although Harvard was widely reputed as horrendously expensive and so only open to the crème de la crème of society, they had an excellent scholarship program. Scotty had to be mesospherically intelligent to achieve such a distinction, however. Harvard scholarships weren't exactly handed out like Halloween candy. He had such an air of belonging, however, that Heather had never considered for a moment that he might be one of the less privileged students.

Scotty simply laughed, clearly picking up on her discomfort. As the four piled in, Heather asked Fintan, "So what part do you have to play?"

Fintan blushed furiously. "It's down to me to get my hands on some holy water."

#  Chapter Twenty-Two

Fintan knocked at the door of the rectory of Our Lady Star of the Sea. Heather felt exceedingly uneasy. She was painfully aware that one hundred ten and one-half years ago, her ancestor had done the same, many thousand miles away, with murder on his mind. The fact that she was there for a diametrically opposed purpose didn't do as much to salve her conscience as she thought it might have.

It was more than just ancestral guilt, too. She was self-aware enough to be very conscious of the fact that she had lusted in her heart after a man who wasn't her husband, a definite no-no as far as the Church was concerned. Fortunately, she didn't think that taking communion would be necessary to get a small container of holy water, but still it weighed on her.

Fintan's own thoughts were unreadable as they stood there in the chill night before the elegantly crafted door. Heather was just starting to ask him what was on his mind when the porch light clicked on, momentarily blinding her.

The door opened, and an older man with wispy silver hair and a Roman collar at his throat stood in the doorway. "Fintan?" he asked with evident surprise. "What brings you here at this hour?"

Fintan inclined his head in the first show of deference Heather had ever seen from him. It was an impressive sight. "Father Howard," he said simply.

"Well, come in, come in!" Father Howard boomed. "Can I offer either of you something to drink? I'm afraid I don't have anything hard on hand, but I do love Coca-Cola. I have to give it up for Lent," he added in a conspiratorial aside directed at Heather.

Heather smiled. Father Howard had an open and generous way about him that made her feel instantly at ease. "Coke would be very nice, Father."

The priest's eyes moved to Fintan. "Why not?" Fintan shrugged.

When they were settled with their frosty cans of soda and a brief round of introductions had been performed, Fintan cleared his throat. "I must apologize, Father, for the late hour. If it was not desperately urgent, I'd have waited."

Father Howard said nothing, but leaned forward slightly, his entire posture projecting non-judgmental listening. Fintan continued, "I was hoping that I could persuade you to part with some holy water."

"To what end?" he asked neutrally.

Fintan seemed to be choosing his words more carefully than usual. "I need it to protect this young lady," he finally said, taking a long pull off his can as if the admission had tasted bad.

"What would you need holy water to protect her from?" Father Howard asked, his alert blue eyes turning toward Heather with renewed interest.

Heather took a deep breath. "I have reason to believe I have an evil spirit threatening me and my child," she said flatly. Her body went rigid, and her face set in a defiant expression.

Father Howard looked surprised; whatever he'd been expecting, this clearly wasn't it. "An evil spirit?" he asked, as if trying out the words for the first time. He looked at Fintan with an elegant eyebrow arched skeptically.

Fintan nodded. "It's true, Father."

The older man's face twisted like he was choking. After a moment, he stood and left the room.

Heather looked a question at Fintan. He shrugged. From the other room came a clattering and banging as various household objects were moved around with a little more violence than was strictly necessary. Then an inarticulate cry of triumph rang through the downstairs. "Found ya!" the priest exulted.

"My apologies," he said as he came back into the room, cradling a bottle of golden liquid. "One of my parishioners brought me this last Christmas. I could hardly throw it away, but I haven't indulged in many years. I'd quite forgotten about it," he said quietly. "However, this tale sounds like it needs more than soda pop for the telling," he added. He walked over to the sideboard and picked up three tumblers. Handing one to Fintan, he started to offer Heather another.

She held up her hand in a polite refusal. "I'll stick with soda, thanks," she said, offering a smile to take any sting out of the rejection. The priest shrugged and perched back in his chair. Holding out the bottle, he poured a generous splash into Fintan's tumbler and then doctored his own. Filling the glass to the brim, he waved it in a vague salute.

"Christ preserve us," he said solemnly.

Fintan and Heather followed suit. When the toast had been drunk, Father Howard said, "So. What kind of spirit are we discussing?"

Economically, Fintan spelled out the situation, prudently omitting any mention of witches, pagan magic, or Heather's checkered family history. Father Howard listened, giving no sign of the direction of his thoughts. When Fintan wound down, he sighed.

"A banshee."

The tone almost sent Heather to her feet and out the door, apologizing as she went. Before she could move a muscle, Father Howard turned toward her.

"What did you say your name was?"

"Heather Kelly," she repeated.

The priest blinked. "Any relation to Agata Kelly?"

"She was my great, great, great grandmother," Heather affirmed, "assuming we're talking about the same woman."

"Her son-in-law's name was Seamus McCumhail?" he asked.

"That's her," she whispered. Her eyes slid closed. She could guess where this was going.

"There are old parish records dating back to 1852, when this church was first opened," Father Howard said gently. "I read through them when I was first assigned here. The name 'Kelly' stuck in my mind because according to one Father Joseph McLean, Agata came in every year until she died with her granddaughter, Erin. She came in, always around the middle of November, and lit candles to pray for Seamus. She would never say how he died, but gossip was rampant in the parish at the time. Agata never said a word, and Erin after her kept her secrets as well." The priest's eyes twinkled with excitement. "So, am I finally about to solve this mystery? Just for that, I'd gladly give you the holy water."

Heather considered for a moment. "I hope you mean that, Father," she said heavily.

"Why's that?" he asked.

Get it over with and out in the open, she told herself. "Seamus was hanged in 1899 for the attempted murder of the parish priest of Malin Head, Ireland after the banshee apparently took Erin's mother," Heather told him matter-of-factly.

Far from the howling demand that they take their crackpot theories and leave his presence at once that she'd expected, Father Howard merely took a long drink from his glass and gave a small sigh of satisfaction, his eyes closed. "Well, that's a fine solution to the mystery," he said, opening his eyes and looking at Heather. The priest surprised her by giving another one of those jovial laughs. "Don't worry, young lady. I don't hold the sins of the father against the child. And for what you've given me tonight, it's well worth a bit of water to me," he grinned.

"My greatest sin has always been that of curiosity," he continued. "It got me in a fair amount of trouble at seminary. I was forever raiding the occult section at the library. Because of it, I very nearly didn't graduate. And I'll never be any more than a parish priest. But I'm quite all right with that that state of affairs, for we all serve God in our own ways," he finished merrily.

"Thank you, Father," Fintan said fervently.

#  Chapter Twenty-Three

Shortly after midnight, Fintan pulled up in front of a nondescript apartment building. The peeling paint and graffiti that festooned the sides of the building didn't inspire confidence. In fact, had the neighborhood been only slightly more downscale, Heather would have refused to get out of the vehicle for any reason at any price. As it was, she asked, "What are we doing here?"

Fintan gave her a wry smile. "This is where Liz lives."

"Oh."

They hurried up the cracked, weed-infested walk to the door. Heather knocked. Moments later, it opened to reveal Erin.

"Hey, darlin'!" Erin greeted her. "Fintan," she added as she realized that he was right behind Heather.

"Erin," he replied.

"Did you get it?" she asked, standing aside to let the two pass. Liz's apartment was clean but cluttered, a few taped boxes huddled in the corner hinting that she'd moved in only recently. She had decorated the place in an odd Art Deco/Gothic mix that would have seemed strange just about anywhere else, but Heather decided that it suited what little she knew of Liz's personality perfectly.

The furniture in the living room had been moved up against the walls. The only light was that cast by four pure white tapers, each placed to correspond to a point on the compass.

At the kitchen table, Jerry and Scotty sat, passing a tiny object back and forth between them. Jerry had a set of engraving tools arrayed in front of him. Scotty was consulting a book and stirring a small dish full of a black substance. Heather decided she didn't need or want to know what the dish contained.

Fintan stood, clearly ill at ease. Heather wondered how his Catholic upbringing and belief structure would reconcile this mix of pagan and Christian power that the four were cooking up. As it was, he seemed to crowd himself tightly into the wall, as if making himself a smaller target. Self-consciously, he reached into his pocket and produced a small vial with a cork stopper.

"I did," he told Erin, passing her the container.

"Excellent," she said emphatically, pushing past him to get to the kitchen. A quiet yet pointed conference ensued, and when Erin came back, the vial lay on the table in front of Scotty.

Scotty palmed the small object that Jerry handed him and placed it carefully on a clean but threadbare sea green towel. Taking a miniscule paintbrush, he began to dab the black substance from the bowl onto it with exaggerated care. Heather stepped behind him so that she could see what it was he was working on so attentively.

It was a tiny wooden ring. The head had been painstakingly carved with a simple flat surface featuring spidery lines and curves in an abstract design that meant nothing to her. As he turned the ring over to daub the shank and shoulder of the ring, she saw that the outer and inner surfaces of the shank had been traced with minute lettering far too tiny for her to read without the aid of her glasses.

Scotty stole a brief glance at her before turning back to his work. "It won't be long," he told her. "We just need to pop this in the oven for twenty minutes to bake the lacquer. Liz!" he called.

"What?" came from the other room.

"Did you turn on the oven?"

An exasperated hiss of breath preceded, "Yes, Scotty. It's been preheating for the last half-hour. It's ready whenever you're done."

"Thank you, baby!" he called back, using his wrist to push his glasses back up on his nose. "Now, to get this into the oven."

"Don't you think you should put another coat on?" Jerry asked. "It would look a lot nicer if it doesn't crack, right?"

"Good point," Scotty averred, beginning the ritual with the brush again.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, the ring was ready. The black lacquer had baked into the wood to make the symbols and letters on the head and shank of the ring stand out starkly when turned exactly right. As Scotty carefully drew it out of the oven with a pair of tongs, he said, "Okay. Let's give this a few minutes to cool, and then we can give it its bath." He looked at the glass tube of holy water on the table.

Liz, now done with her preparations, came into the kitchen. Rolling her eyes, she said, _"Must_ you be so flip about this? It wouldn't kill you to take this a little more seriously."

Scotty didn't miss a beat. "Maybe not, but what if I took the chance and was wrong? Think of all the wild nights of...er, passion, that you'd be deprived of."

"Wouldn't _be_ nights," Liz informed him with a flick of her black ponytail. "I could have three guys over here to take your place in fifteen minutes."

Scotty gave that a moment's consideration and shook his head. "Maybe so," he conceded, "but how many of them will know what you're saying when you start cursing in Gaelic?"

"Maybe I don't _want_ them to know, Scotty," Liz said mock-sternly. "Maybe that's the biggest turn-off about you, that you understand what I'm saying in other languages."

Scotty clutched his chest, to a murmur of laughter from everyone present. "Oh, it hurts! My biggest selling point reduced to a deal-breaker!" He winced in melodramatic agony and wilted to the floor, his hands outstretched into claws as he flailed about on the floor.

Liz finally put an end to Scotty's faux death pangs by placing the sole of her high-heeled Doc Marten boot on the back of his head. "That's enough, Scotty," she said gently.

"You are so _hot_ right now!" he enthused, his voice muffled by the fact that his lips had been pushed flush against the floor. Liz rolled her eyes and removed her foot, muttering something that sounded a lot like, _"Pervert."_

Turning away from her boyfriend, Liz looked at Fintan seriously. "Professor, I appreciate all your help," she said. "But knowing your, ah, religious bias, you might want to think about heading home now if you don't want to be involved in this."

Fintan looked torn between accepting the opening and not wanting to leave. "Will it be more efficacious if there are more people present?" he asked. "I seem to remember reading something to that effect."

"Where did you read it?" Liz demanded.

"In a Mercedes Lackey novel," he replied without a shred of embarrassment.

"Hmm." Liz thought for a moment. "Yes, that's true," she said. "But I don't want you to have to get involved in this any more than is absolutely necessary. How much penance will you have to do for this, anyway?"

Fintan looked a little troubled. "I will do no penance," he said. "The biggest part and point of doing penance is you feel a legitimate remorse for your actions. Since I don't, and can't in good conscience say that I do, it would be quite impossible for me to do penance or take confession."

"But as an unshrived sinner, wouldn't that make you ineligible for communion?" Jerry asked.

"As far as I'm concerned, if God would consider any act undertaken to preserve a human life a sin, then a sinner I'll be until my dying day and glad of it," Fintan said firmly. "We're wasting time here."

Heather felt a flush of warmth. Before she could stop herself, she said, "I want to thank you all. I know this is hard for all of you and that you have better things to do. The fact that you all care enough to do this..." She broke off as she choked up. "You're all wonderful," she finished when she felt a little more controlled.

Erin knelt beside her and gave her a hug. "Yeah, yeah, yeah," she said in her brash manner. "We love you too. Now cut the waterworks and let's do this already."

Liz picked up the ring and the holy water and went into the living room. She lit a stick of sandalwood incense and used it to describe intricate circles in the air. Once done, Liz placed the incense in a holder on the entertainment center and turned on the stereo. A wailing, ethereal music welled up as she drew a black-hilted dagger from the waistline of her skirt and began to slash the air in a pattern that Erin seemed to recognize, but that meant little to Heather or Fintan. Heather started to ask what was going on; Erin's elbow in her ribs effectively quelled her curiosity.

When she'd worked her way around to the north again, she held up the ring and said in a low but oddly carrying voice, "Macha, Badb Cathu, and Morrigan, I invoke thee. Anu, Mother of All, I invoke thee. Aine of Knockaine, I invoke thee. I beseech all of thee this ring to endow with thy might and power, that one of the Sidhe who threatens our sister may not enter her presence. Let this ring bind and constrain her that she may raise no hand nor power against our sister or the babe she carries, and let her win free of the curse which has claimed her mothers and forebears. Aine, _Leanansidhe,_ I beg thee to restrain thy subject. Anu, I beg thee shield this woman and child. Morrigan, Badb Cathu, Macha, Crone, Mother, and Maid, I beg thee seal and vouchsafe this woman and child from any and all harm."

Liz repeated the bit she had done at the beginning and poured the vial of holy water over the wooden ring. To Heather's surprise, she felt a stirring of something she couldn't identify in the air. As Liz moved to break the circle, however, the feeling of gentle, quiet power thrumming in the room suddenly changed to something colder and more malevolent.

Her eyes tracked around the room, as did those of everyone else, trying to identify the source. A cold, hissing, grating voice emerged from seeming nothingness.

" _Uimh relic déanta de Dhia nó fear stop a chur orm. Do máithreacha iarracht, agus theip. Is é an medicine amadán agus go bhfuil tú ag siúl gcorp. Ba mhaith leat teacht go dtí mo bhaile, áit a bhfuil mo chumhacht is mó, agus a chur ar do chreideamh i pathetic trifle den sórt sin a dhéanamh dom seilbh mo lámh in aghaidh leat?"_

A murmuring, sinister laugh rang through the room, causing Heather's skin to crawl with goose bumps.

" _Tá súil thréigean, amadán beag. Tá d'anam liom a dhéanamh leis mar a bheidh mé!"_

As quickly as it had come, the chilling presence departed. Everyone looked wildly around at each other, confused and frightened. Fintan finally held up his hand for silence.

"Liz, give Heather the ring," he ordered. Liz hurried forward and placed the smooth, wet black ring in Heather's hand. She slipped it onto her right middle finger; to her surprise, she found it to be a perfect fit.

"What did the voice say?" Scotty asked. "It spoke too fast for me to understand."

Fintan seemed to be weighing a decision. When he spoke, it was with such frightful gravity that Heather felt a chill shudder up her spine.

"It said, 'No relic made of God or man will stop me. Your mothers tried, and failed. The witch is a fool and you are a corpse walking. You would come to my home, where my power is greatest, and put your faith in such a pathetic trifle to make me hold my hand against you?" He paused and closed his eyes, as if silently begging forgiveness of someone who wasn't in the room.

"'Abandon hope, little fool. Your soul is mine to do with as I will.'"

Jerry nodded somberly. "So now we know this is real," he said in a Herculean revelation of the painfully self-evident. "But is that ring going to work?"

For that, no one seemed to have a satisfactory answer.

#  Chapter Twenty-Four

It was a very long rest of the night, and the weekend crawled by at the same glacial clip. About the only good thing Heather had to say about the entire experience on Monday morning was that she'd managed to finish _The Eternals._ She'd enjoyed it so much that it actually managed to keep her mind off the disaster area the rest of her life had become for a time.

The dawn came gray and misty, a not-uncommon state of affairs on the Massachusetts coast. Looking outside, she made a bet with herself that the sun would burn it off within a couple of hours. Tired and feeling a little down, she trudged upstairs to shower.

After her shower and two cups of coffee, she felt a lot better. Erin had told her to take the day off and do whatever she needed to do to get things in order for her trip. Fortunately, that didn't add up to much. Unfortunately...that didn't add up to much.

So now she was effectively stuck at home, with nowhere to be and nothing to do. Her eyes kept drifting toward her office, where the rest of the story of Seamus McCumhail's fate had yet to be read. But somehow she kept shying away from it.

She cleaned the house top to bottom. Vacuuming, scrubbing, washing, dusting things that didn't really need it since she'd done it not three days before. She called her mother and grandmother to tell them that she was going to Ireland for work. Both of them thought it was wonderful and insisted she get money from them so that she could get them souvenirs from the Emerald Isle. She packed, unpacked, and repacked her suitcase.

She drove herself nuts.

Finally, she broke down and went into the office, nervously toying with her new ring. True to her prediction, the sun was now shining as bright as ever, and she could hear the shrill cries of seabirds just outside her window. The neighborhood children had a day off school, to judge from the sounds of childish laughter and squabbling ebbing and flowing in counterpoint to the calls of the gulls above.

Turning on her computer, she pulled up her MP3 player program and loaded in her favorite relaxation play list. As Enya's "Orinoco Flow" began to play, she picked up the thick sheaf of papers and looked for her stopping point.

Cionn Mhalanna, Ireland

November, 1899

Agata left little Erin with Katherine O'Meara, the new wet nurse, and hurried into town. At ten of the clock they would hang her son in law.

Father Kevin had lived, right enough, but Seamus had beaten him so savagely that he had done the man a far worse turn than simply killing him. The erstwhile priest had suffered such brain damage that he was now quite unable to speak with any manner of coherency. He had adopted the peculiar habit of walking up to inanimate objects, having apparently very earnest and sincere, albeit unintelligible, conversations with them, and then making the sign of the Cross and going on his way.

The folk in Cionn Mhalanna had taken this in good part, poking a bit of good-natured fun at the priest. But it ceased to be fun or funny when the Mother Superior came to tend him one night. He had babbled at her the same as if she'd been a table or wall, made the Cross at her, and then dropped his trousers. Mercifully, the Mother Superior had a decent sense of humor, and made light of the incident later.

The townsfolk, however, were scandalized and convinced that Father Kevin would not, and could not, be put right again. They would be proven correct six months later, when he dropped dead of internal bleeding in his brain. But for the nonce, they would at least see to it that the man who'd taken their beloved priest from them would pay.

As Agata hurried through the muddy streets and the freezing rain, ruining her finest pair of shoes which, admittedly, were no great loss, she prayed that she would be in time. Even if it was only to say goodbye.

Fortune favored her in this: she arrived in front of the gaol, where the gallows had been set up, just in time to see Seamus's great shaggy head pass by. A mighty roar of jeers and catcalls went up from the assembled crowd. Agata saw several people hurl vegetables and bits of offal at Seamus. He ignored all the abuse, threats, and jeers, wrapped as he was in his own morbid and miserable thoughts.

The constable who'd come to the house a week earlier to take Seamus away stood at the top of the stairs leading up to the gallows. His uniform was immaculately pressed, and his brass buttons gleamed as if newly polished. Holding up a hand, he announced, "For the crime of assaulting a man of the cloth, and for such assault resulting in grievous bodily harm, Seamus McCumhail, you are sentenced to hang by the neck until dead. Have ye any last words before the sentence is carried out?"

By now Seamus was on the platform. His rough shirt was stained with unmentionable things, and he sported bruises over every inch of skin not otherwise covered. He opened his mouth to show that he was missing most of his teeth, apparently to say something as invited.

Agata caught his eye. He shook his head and held up his hands in as prayerful a gesture as he could manage, with his wrists bound in heavy iron shackles. She nodded broadly, making sure that he knew she got the message. He nodded back and put his head through the noose without any need for "assistance" from the constable or the black-hooded hangman.

The church clock tolled ten. The constable nodded.

Agata turned away.

But nothing could stop her from hearing the gunshot crack as the trapdoor opened under Seamus' feet and he made the short drop to his death. Tears welled in her eyes, and she turned back to see Seamus' corpse swinging back and forth in the wind. They left him that way for several long minutes, each one spinning itself out into an eternity.

Without ceremony, the executioner and constable cut him down. His lifeless body tumbled down into a cart strategically placed beneath the gallows. As soon as the body hit, the driver cracked his whip and belted a command to his horse. The black cart began to move, a lengthy and ragged line of people following behind it as it led an impromptu funeral procession to the cemetery.

As Seamus had died an unforgiven murderer, he couldn't be buried in holy ground. The grave diggers had been up early this morning, and a deep hole yawned in the damp earth to receive him in the field reserved for those too poor or too wicked to warrant a proper Christian burial. To Agata, this was surely the worst possible thing they could have done to him. After all he had lost in life, to not even be able to sleep next to his wife in eternity was a cruelty far beyond anything an angry drunk man could have conjured. That kind of malice could only be achieved by cold and heartless committee.

At the graveyard, they tumbled Seamus out of the cart as unceremoniously as if he'd been a bag of feathers. The corpse toppled into the grave with a resounding, moist thud as it hit the wet ground at the bottom. Without so much as troubling to put the body into a coffin, they had buried Seamus McCumhail, descendant of one of Ireland's national heroes, as if he were the greatest traitor ever birthed by that nation.

Agata felt her heart shatter at the thought, and it broke a little more when Thomas McLean came over to her, making only a half-hearted attempt to hide his hangman's mask under his shirt. "Y'know," he remarked conversationally, "there'll be no hope fer a normal life here fer the wee one."

She forced herself to bear up under the sudden urge to lunge at him and claw his foolish drunken eyes out. "Aye," she said dully, "I know."

"T'would be better for precious wee Erin an' yer own self if ye left here for somewhere far away, where no one need know what really happened to her father," he continued.

"And ye think I've no idea whatsoever what part you played, Thomas McLean?" Agata drew herself up to her full height and glowered into the man's piggish eyes. "I could make a fine guess, I could, as to who it was pressed so hard for Seamus to be hung. D'ye feel better about yerself, now that ye've gotten yer revenge and the hangman's pay all at once?"

"Now, Agata—"

A sharp report rang out as Agata's temper broke and her hand whipped across Thomas's face, leaving an angry red streak and two scratches welling with blood where her nails had raked his cheek open. His face turned uglier than usual and his hand came up to repay her in kind. Agata stood her ground, knowing full well there was nothing she could do to stop him, but refusing to cower in the face of his wrath.

Before the blow could land, Frederick McCormac, one of Seamus' friends in town, seized Michael from behind and spun him round to face him. "So it's Thomas McLean tryin' ta beat a woman what's just seen her son in law die before her eyes, is't?" McCormac boomed. He had the wiry, spare build of a longtime swimmer, but there was deceptive strength in his lanky frame. Many was the unfortunate drunkard who'd learned that lesson the hard way when trying to best Frederick in his own tavern.

Thomas had been a recipient of such instruction himself. Time was when he'd tried it on with Frederick on a night when he'd had just a wee drop too much to be fully aware of the danger. It had been two months and more before Thomas could work again, with his left leg splinted and his right arm pinned tight to his side where Frederick had broken bones on him before hurling him out of the tavern to make his own way home as best he might.

Thomas's left hand shot up to cover the spot where Frederick had broken his arm once before. "Now, ye stay out o' this, McCormac," he spat. "'Tis no concern of yours."

Frederick's face darkened, and he looked over at Agata mildly. "That so?" he said, offering her a wink that accorded ill with the thunderous visage he wore. "Well, _I_ say otherwise, Thomas McLean. 'Tis _every_ man's business when he sees one the size o' ye about to lay hurt on a woman wouldn't make half o' ye. Ye may recall the last time I saw or heard o' ye doin' the like, eh?"

From the way Thomas's hand curled a little more protectively around his arm, he remembered only too well. Frederick saw it and nodded. "Now, ye'll apologize t' the poor woman," he said bluntly, then blushed. "Beggin' yer pardon, Missus Kelly," he added. "An' then ye'll toddle yer way home t' do whatever 'tis ye do. Do ye ken me?"

Thomas nodded tersely and turned to go. Frederick said quietly, "Oh, an' Thomas?"

He turned, staring daggers at the lean man, now standing pointedly between him and Agata. "It'll go very, _very_ hard for ye should I see your Meaghan in town looking like she's in discomfort of any kind." Frederick took two long strides to put himself right in Thomas's furious face. His hand curled around and got a firm grasp on the back of Thomas's neck. "One bruise. One cut. A limp, a headache, she so much as gets a hangnail, and it'll be me and as many o' the boys as care to join the party at yer house that night, lookin' to take pieces of yer worthless hide as keepsakes. Me?" He smiled savagely. _"I'll_ take an ear. An' I'll nail it up behind the bar t' make the point that I'll not have such men in my village, never mind drinkin' at my tavern. D'ye've any doubt that as Jaysus is my witness I'll see it done?"

Thomas showed his true colors as his face went pale and a noticeable dark stain began to spread across his trouser front. By now a significant crowd had gathered to watch his humiliation.

"Get on wit' ye, then," Frederick snarled, aiming a boot at Thomas's backside. It connected solidly, and the crowd cheered and hooted at Michael with as much derision as they'd shown Seamus only an hour before. Before anyone else could say or do anything, he leaned over and whispered in Agata's ear, "Come along with me, if ye would."

Ten minutes later, they were sitting at a table in his tavern. Frederick had thrown the bar across the door to ensure they weren't disturbed by any well, or ill, wishers. Agata rarely drank, but Frederick hadn't asked her mind on the matter before he set a glass of whiskey in front of her and poured one for himself. Raising his glass, he said, _"Slainté."_

" _Slainté,"_ Agata echoed, and drank. The smooth liquor went down her throat as easy as water, but burst into flames when it hit her stomach. Sucking in a deep breath, she favored Frederick with a watery smile and raised her glass again.

"To poor Seamus," she proclaimed. "May he find his rest with Tabitha and his peace with the Lord."

"Amen," Frederick said. After the second toast was drunk, he said, "Agata, I've no desire to pry where I'm no' wanted. But McLean, sodding arsehole that he is, was right about one thin'." Agata raised an eyebrow in invitation for him to continue.

"He was right about this being a hard thing for little Erin," Frederick said delicately. "You an' I both know that folk around here have long memories when it suits 'em ta, an' this is no' the kinda story t'will die in nine days, or nine years. Erin'll hafta grow up listenin' to the scorn and sneers o' the village o'er that which was no' her doin'. She was but a babe in swaddlin' clothes, but no' one o' 'em'll give a fat damn 'bout none o' that. They'll just say, 'Oh, an' there's poor Erin, whose mum died bearin' her an' whose da followed her in less than a fortnight, mad out o' his head he was. Wonder when she'll start actin' as great a fool as him, or worse?"

Agata wanted to snap at Frederick, but the look on his face said that he would harbor no such feelings. She looked deep into his eyes and saw only understanding and kindness, and recognized that he was not speaking so out of malice. He spoke to her so only to make sure she understood the situation. So, biting back her bitter retort, she only nodded.

Frederick continued, "Now, here's the part that's truly none o' my affair, an' ye needn't answer if ye dinna care to." Taking Agata's silence for assent, he asked, "How are ye set for money?"

Agata thought for a moment. The question would have been rude in the extreme had it been anyone but Frederick asking, and Agata was fairly sure she already knew where he was going with this. Even so, she did some quick calculations.

"I've a wee bit o' money hidden away, for a rainy day, like," she said after a lengthy pause. "Might be enough to get us set up in Dublin, but t'will surely take us no further than that."

Frederick pressed his lips together and appeared to be thinking very hard. "I dinna want ye t'think that I'm treatin' ye as a charity case," he said slowly after a moment. "But ye've done fer this village when they could no' do fer themselves; many a one around here'll forget that, figurin' what Seamus did more than clears any debt they might've owed t'ye and yers. I wanna do fer _ye,_ now, an' do't in Seamus' memory. An' be damned to any of 'em as have a problem wi' _that!"_ he spat.

"An' what did ye have in mind, then?" she asked, curious despite herself. She knew only too well that he was absolutely right. The village would forget her generosity, but they would never forget Seamus' sin. The saw, "I did well a hundred times and no one noticed; I did ill once and no one forgot" filtered through her mind.

"I have _this_ in mind," he said, laying a thin pile of banknotes on the polished wood of the bar. Agata picked it up and fanned the bills, doing a quick mental tally. When she realized how much there was, she dropped the innocuous pieces of paper as if they had burned her.

"Frederick McCormac, there must be three hundred pounds here!" she gasped, astounded almost to muteness by the vast sum lying on the bar in front of her.

"T'ree hundred _fifty,"_ he corrected her gently. "Y'see, I dinna have a wife o' me own. No good woman ever wanted a man as runs a place the likes o' mine," he said, looking around with a touch of fondness at the dark wood furnishings and the sweating stones around the windows. "Wha' with the girls an' such a place like this has t' have t' make money, they reckon I'm as shiftless and feckless as all the other men. Not that they're wholly wrong, mind ye," he said in an open manner that she frankly found a little scandalous. It was quite unusual, nigh unheard-of, for a gentleman in that day to speak so openly about his peccadilloes to a lady. "But it's passin' unlikely I'll ever find me a woman of my own, so no need fer dowry or t'be after worryin' about children an' such," he pressed on without a trace of self-pity. "The place makes its own money nowadays. My girls are happy, my liquor ain't watered, and the ale's as fine as can be found in these parts," he said proudly. "All I ever needed is well provided for.

"So, tha' bein' said, t'would be my honor to give this money to help Seamus' daughter find a better life."

Agata considered this, aghast. On one hand, she didn't want to leave the green shores of Ireland. On the other, she knew only too well that Dublin was nowhere near far enough away to ensure that the rumors of why she'd had to leave could never follow her granddaughter. On yet another hand, though, three hundred fifty pounds sterling was a sizable sum of money. There were people, especially around the docks, who would cut one's throat for a shilling, never mind such an immense sum of quid.

There were ways around such obstacles, however. If Agata could only raise the nerve to reach out and take the money.

"Now, Agata," Frederick persisted, "y'know as well as I that ye'll no' have a choice sooner or later. Best if ye leave on yer own terms and proud, rather than havin' that lot what was at the hangin' houndin' yer heels the whole long way out of County Donegal." He poured her another glass as he spoke.

It was a testament to how rarely she imbibed, and how roughly the events of the day had affected her, that she didn't say no.

#  Chapter Twenty-Five

It was three days later that she and Erin left Cionn Mhalanna by coach, ostensibly to go visit her cousin in Dublin. Her plan was to sail from Dublin to Liverpool and from there on to Boston. The passage from Dublin would cost her only a few pence. There would be plenty of women in Dublin looking to escape the dreadful conditions left in the wake of the Great Potato Famine for the hope of something better. She and Erin could lose themselves in the crowds readily, relying on the motion and clamor of the docks as protective camouflage. She nervously considered how much money she had: four hundred twenty-seven pounds, seven shillings, and four pence. By any standard of the day, she had plenty to establish herself anywhere she chose.

However, she also had to take into account the type of person who gathered near the docks: the desperate, the poor, the prostitutes, cutthroats, and pimps. Any of them might take her for an easy target, a woman on the downhill side of forty with a wee babe in arms, and she grudgingly had to admit that such an assessment might not be so far off the mark as she might have wished. So, by way of protective coloration, she had donned her drabbest and most threadbare dress. It was her hope that if she looked as poor as the rest of the dregs, they'd not trouble her for what meager pickings they would perceive her to have.

The coach cost her a pound and tuppence. She paid, and gladly, when the coach took her right up to the Dublin wharves, where the _Giorg Ferenczy,_ a steamer sailing under the Romanian flag, sat at anchor. Asking the coachman, a quiet but cheerful man whose name she'd not troubled to get, to keep a sharp eye on Erin for a few moments, she dismounted, wearing her most threadbare shawl and the oldest dress she had that was in still in reputable repair.

She hurried over to the vessel. At the boarding ramp stood a young man in a black sailor's uniform and wearing a watch cap. "May I help you?" he asked, stroking his thick black beard and looking at her with curiosity, but not animosity.

"I am seeking passage to Liverpool," she said.

"Ah, but that would be quite impossible," he sighed in his thick Slavic accent. "You see, madam..." He trailed off as if unsure he'd spoken correctly. When she nodded dispiritedly, he hurried on, "This ship is steaming to Montreal on the tide."

"Montreal?" she asked. For all that she was as cosmopolitan a woman as living in a tiny village in northern Ireland would permit, she could hardly claim to be well-traveled and was, to put it generously, less than conversant with geography beyond that of Ireland.

"Quebec, Canada," he explained. "Luckily, we've an empty stateroom aboard. I think the captain will not have a problem with allowing you aboard. If you can pay?" he asked, slanting a dubious look at her attire.

Agata smiled. She'd expected this. "Let me fetch my grandchild and we'll come aboard. I'll discuss the matter of my passage with the captain, Mr.—?"

"Ladislaus Pazhnitov," he said with a sweeping bow that if his face had not been perfectly devoid of humor would have seemed a caricature of courtesy. "Have you any baggage, madam?"

"I do, indeed," Agata said.

"I'll fetch a couple of deckhands to help, then," Ladislaus said in a tone that brooked no refusal. "You see to your grandchild, and we'll get your things aboard."

* * * * *

In less than a half hour, Agata had met with Captain Vladimir Ustinov and had agreed upon the very reasonable sum of two pounds, three shillings, and six pence for the passage and meals. When one considers that for such a sum, she might have been placed in steerage on most other vessels if she could get aboard at all, she had been quite fortunate. However, she also sweetened the deal by offering to help the ship's cook, a gruff man named Piotr, in the running of the galley.

The conditions aboard the _Giorg Ferenczy_ were far better than she might have expected anywhere else. The captain displayed no interest in Agata beyond her ability to pay, and once she established that to his satisfaction, he forbade the crew to enter her stateroom for any reason without her blessing. Since her stateroom was equipped with a good, sturdy door latch and a safe secured by a key, which only she would have access to, Agata's funds were as secure as they possibly could be.

The ship sailed with the tide, as advertised, and Agata stood on the deck in the icy offshore wind and watched as her beloved homeland seemed to sink below the waves. Then, sighing, she went to the galley and set about helping Piotr prepare the evening meal.

* * * * *

The rest of Agata's journal described the journey in broad terms; her arrival in Montreal, her arrangements to proceed to Boston, and her efforts to establish herself and Erin in the thriving Irish immigrant community. Over the next several hours, Heather absorbed it all voraciously.

She found it fascinating, but her reading was interrupted at odd intervals by the strange and alarming feeling that she was being watched. Finally, she was called away in the early afternoon by the ringing of the doorbell.

She opened it to find the mailman, a sallow, surly man, waiting for her impatiently. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Package for you," he grunted. "Need a signature," he said, thrusting a pen at her like he was fencing with an unseen opponent. She scrawled her name quickly on the line he indicated on his clipboard, and took the package. As soon as she saw Mike's writing on it, her face lit up.

"Good news?" the mailman asked, like he genuinely couldn't care less.

"From my husband," she said. "Have a good day." Before he could say or do anything, she hurried inside and shut the door.

Placing the package on the table, she ripped the package open as fervently as any child on Christmas morning might. Brown paper and twine flew everywhere, and a part of her that wasn't overcome with excitement bemoaned the mess she'd have to clean up when she was done. But the greater part was dying to see what Mike had sent her.

On top of a plastic-wrapped bundled was the pale blue Marine Corps stationery Mike always used when he was on assignment abroad. She picked it up and read:

I'M GOING TO BE A DADDY!

She smiled. Apparently this was good news.

I understand why you didn't tell me before, and it's okay, baby. I've been thinking about baby names and how we're going to do up the nursery until everyone I deal with is sick to death of hearing it.

She could just imagine Mike in his desert camos jumping up and down with a little boy's excitement at the news.

Are you all right? Are you keeping up with the doctor? Does the doctor think it's a good idea for you to be traveling right now?

So you're going to Ireland, huh? Must be exciting. I wish I could go, but I'm stuck here in the land of camels, fleas, and Things That Go Boom In The Night And At Random Intervals. I'd a whole lot rather be there, with you. How long will you be gone? Where, specifically, are you going? Maybe I can wrangle some leave and meet up with you while you're there.

Oh, God, Heather, I love and miss you so much. If you come across any good baby names while you're over there, let me know! Keep me up to date on everything!

_Things here are same old, same old. I'm an REMF_ [rear-echelon motherfucker] _, so I don't have to worry about a lot of the things that most of the guys do. As long as they don't shell the camp, I'll be perfectly fine._

You take care of yourself and our baby. Hopefully I'll see you soon.

Love,

Mike

Heather set the letter carefully aside. She would write an answer after she saw what Mike had sent her. Pulling the package out, she withdrew a gorgeous black dress with elaborate floral embroidery in a riot of red, gold, and green at the neck, hemline, and wrists. She ran a hand over the finely woven fabric, and was almost convinced that the dress was constructed of real silk. As she did so, a note fell out of one of the sleeves.

_This is called a_ parahaan. _It's a traditional Afghan woman's dress. The embroidery style is known as_ gul dozi. _I practically stole it from a street vendor in a nearby town. For obvious reasons I can't say which one. Be careful with it...it's real silk._

Erin decided that she would wear it once she got to Malin Head. In the meantime, she packed it carefully away. She had a letter to write.

In the Otherplace...

" _This is madness!" Cavana insisted for the steenth time. "She can't honestly think that little trinket will protect her. We need to do something more proactive."_

" _Like what?" Raichael demanded. "We fed all the power we had to spare into the ring, and even_ that _didn't keep the_ bean'sidhe _away. We now have to save all we have left, in case it isn't enough. Our daughter will be at her most vulnerable when she arrives. So what do you suggest?"_

" _Why can we not simply mount an attack on the_ bean'sidhe _directly?" Cavana asked. Her large fist came down on the table, causing the dishes to rattle. A cloud scudded across the sun outside, making the shadows lengthen within the room._

Adan met Cavana's eyes with a direct stare. "We do not know where she is," Adan said. "And as powerful as she has become over the centuries, we must have a living anchor in order to go against her with a reasonable chance of success. She has had more than enough time to work out the laws which govern this place and to bend them to her will; going against her at the center of her power is madness. We will have to draw our battle lines carefully, where our daughter can lend her own talents to the fight. Anything less dooms her forever, and us for another five generations."

_Cavana subsided. "Aye, and well I know it," she acquiesced. "That does not mean I'm obligated to_ like _it."_

_Raichael smiled sadly._ "None _of us likes it," she said. "But Adan is right; as the most powerful of us, she has the right to determine if and when we will join the battle. Surely the seven of us, plus our daughter in the living world, can prevail against her."_

Finella went several shades paler than usual. "D'you think there's aught to fear...after?" she asked.

Adan resisted an urge to slam her own head into the planks of the table. Instead, she said with a calm she didn't feel at this moment, "I do not think so. At the worst, we will go on as we are. And that is not such a bad thing, considering. At best, we will be able to move on to something...else."

Finella smiled wanly, comforted. "Then what do we need to do?"

Raichael laid out a long strip of parchment covered with Ogham script. "We must begin with these names," she said. The women crowded around to see what their sister had wrought. As Raichael spoke, the view faded from the window, to be replaced by foggy gray. None of them noticed; they were completely engrossed in the study of the parchment, and their council of war.

_This was one battle that they simply_ had _to win._

#  Chapter Twenty-Six

Heather loaded the last bag into the trunk of Erin's car. She'd been determined to pack light, but the sheer volatility of Irish weather had demanded that she bring heavier cold-weather clothing than she'd initially planned. Erin was uncharacteristically quiet on the drive to Logan International Airport.

Finally, Heather could take no more. "What's on your mind?" she asked. "You look like someone just punted your puppy."

Erin's mouth was set in a thin, tight line. "Are you sure this is wise?" she asked.

Heather felt confused. After all, Erin had been the one, with Fintan's tacit approval, to railroad her into this insane quest. Heather, if she recalled correctly, had been firmly against it, only caving in to keep peace and avoid a horrible fight. Instead of reminding her of that, though, she kept her voice carefully neutral as she asked, "What do you mean?"

"I'm just worried. I'm still blaming myself for doing that stupid Ouija board reading. If I'd just left well enough alone, none of this might have happened."

"Or I'd die in childbirth, with no one the wiser about what happened to me," Heather observed coolly. "If forewarned is forearmed, I could kick off the Apocalypse with the weapons I've got."

Erin smiled crookedly. "That may be. But I still feel bad."

"It's irrelevant now," Heather pointed out. "I'm going regardless. Besides, a vacation in Ireland, even if it is at least partly for business, isn't the worst fate I could suffer. There're plenty of other people who'd love to be in my shoes. So I'm having kind of a hard time being too upset about it."

"You just promise you'll come back safe," Erin said. She seemed to be on the verge of saying something else, but then set her jaw in a way that Heather knew from forever ago. It signaled that the conversation was well and truly over.

Heather mentally reviewed her preparations. She had gotten a hold of Fintan two days before and obtained his cousin's name and number. She'd carefully written it down in no less than three places, and e-mailed it to herself on top of all that. Her passport and one copy of Kathleen Fitzkillian's phone number rode in her purse, along with a thick parcel of travelers' cheques in fifty-Euro denominations. For emergencies, Erin had given her a corporate credit card with a two-thousand-dollar limit. If Heather tapped it for anything frivolous, she'd be forever and a day paying it back, as Erin had pointedly and with a certain restrained glee observed when she'd presented it to Heather.

Her laptop rode in its hard-sided satchel. She'd be taking it on the plane with her. Her electronic ticket was already purchased. She was flying Aer Lingus, reasoning that if she was going to do this, she might as well immerse herself in the experience as much as possible. The round-trip tickets had cost her one thousand, three hundred seven dollars and ninety-two cents, after all the taxes and fees were tallied up.

She was flying into Dublin International, in the capital city of Ireland. Her flight, EL 136, was scheduled to depart at six fifteen p.m. It was only three-thirty now. She would arrive at five-twenty local time on the following morning in Dublin. Upon arrival, she'd have a two hour and fifty-five-minute layover before she boarded the RE281 Aer Arann shuttle to Derry City Airport in County Donegal, which was scheduled to depart at eight twenty-five. The schedule claimed it was a fifty-minute flight, which would put her Derry at nine-fifteen the following morning.

From Derry, according to the AA website, she would have an hour and a half of driving in front of her. Fortunately, Kathleen lived just south of Malin Head. Heather had to trust that she knew where she was going. Just the thought of spending the next half a day plus traveling made Heather feel a little woozy, but she had discussed it with both Erin and Fintan. Both of them agreed that she'd be wise not to try to tackle any research on her first day. As Fintan had put it: "Take a day, enjoy the local color, make it a day for you and you alone. The bookwork can wait a day, and no harm done."

Heather recalled the look on Fintan's face with a smile. He was a genuinely good man, she decided, who had given more than generously of himself, asking nothing in return but her friendship. Oh, she was under no illusions that he would have liked to see it go further, if that were even remotely possible. She would have too. But now, with her heading off to Ireland, it seemed she could finally work his undeniably attractive self out of her mind and overfiring hormones. Maybe when she came back she could set up dinner plans with him. Hopefully by then he would seem like nothing more than what he was: a very nice man with a very sexy way about him, but not her man.

Never her man.

She was shaken out of her reverie by Erin dividing her attention between staring at the road and staring at her. "What?" she asked, a little self-consciously.

"Oh, nothing important," Erin sniffed. "I was just asking if you'd mind terribly seeing if you could get me one of those four-leaf clovers in plastic at the Dublin airport?"

Heather grinned. "I think I can manage that. Maybe if I can find a little stuffed leprechaun doll, I'll bring one of those back too!"

Erin returned Heather's grin with a smirk. "I think you've already got yourself a leprechaun," she said in a tone that insinuated far more than the words did.

"What are you babbling about?" Heather demanded.

"Oh, don't even try to fool me, woman," Erin said dismissively. "You were sitting there looking all moony, and since I know it's not over Mike because he's half a world away, it had to be over Fintan."

"Oh, get off it," Heather huffed. "I was _not_ mooning."

" _You_ get off it," Erin retorted. "Your ankles are wet and those funny-shaped buildings you'll notice right in front of you are pyramids."

"What?" Heather asked, now befuddled right out of her irritation. "What pyramids?" She looked around, but all she saw were the graceful Colonial buildings that lined the street they were currently driving down.

"Honey, you could change your name to Cleopatra. You are standing hip deep in denial," Erin said. "You can't fool me. I know that you've been itching to jump Fintan ever since you met him. I have too," she confided. "But please don't sit there and insult my intelligence by telling me that you don't feel any attraction toward one Professor Fintan Fitzkillian, because I'll laugh in your face!" She punctuated the threat with a witch-like cackle. "And then I'll tell you that you're as full of shit as Nancy Yates!"

Heather's innate disapproval of four-letter words was quite overshadowed by horror at the allegation that she was in any way anything like Nancy Yates. "You take that back!" she cried.

"Not likely," Erin said smugly. "You and she could have a little tea party. Of course, you'll probably have her in tears within an hour. After all, she's not interesting enough to rate a banshee in _her_ family tree."

"Yes, and she can have it," Heather groused, "and all the irritation that comes with it."

A few minutes later, they pulled into the passenger unloading line for Logan International Airport. Erin inched forward, dodging pedestrians, limos, cabs, and busses, cursing like a sailor with every rotation of the tires. She kept up a steady flow of commentary, which Heather found almost more unnerving than Erin's new disregard for Heather's dislike of vulgarity.

"Who the fuck taught you how to drive, asshole? Stevie Wonder? I'm driving a goddamn gold Ford Taurus, for Chrissakes. You'd think that I'd be a little more fuckin' obvious than the curb, but no, you've gotta be a dickhead and try to run that stretch limo right up my ass! I'll tell you, if I had a gun..." And so on and so on, until Heather saw, with a feeling of intense relief, the entrance decorated with the Aer Lingus shamrock logo.

When Erin finally slowed to a stop, Heather got out and set her bags on the curb. Erin hurried around with her laptop and handed it off to her. As Heather took it, Erin folded her into her arms in a sisterly embrace.

"You take care of yourself, you hear?" she whispered, pressing a light, friendly kiss to Heather's cheek. "And let me know what you find."

"As soon as I know, you will," Heather promised.

"Love you," Erin whispered.

"Love you too, sweetie," Heather replied, giving her a little squeeze.

"Go on, get out of here!" Erin said with mock severity. The skycap bustled over and Erin got back into the driver's seat. She pulled away from the curb with a wave. Heather returned it and turned her attention to the business of getting on an international flight.

#  Chapter Twenty-Seven

Four hours later, Heather was flying over the North Atlantic at nearly four hundred miles per hour. The sun had set an hour before, making a breathtaking panorama over the water. But Heather was glad when the sun finally went down and the cabin lights were turned down. She worked on her laptop until the flight attendant, a perky woman with copper hair and a smile bright enough to hold back the blackest night, came around to offer her the complimentary meal.

She considered her options and finally settled on an appetizer and the beef dish, which sounded good. She asked for a Sprite to wash it down. The baby was starting to make its presence known, and she had no desire to inundate her fellow passengers with the contents of her stomach two hours down the line. The perky flight attendant agreed without hesitation, and Heather turned off her laptop to consider the in-flight entertainment options.

Aer Lingus offers nine channels of video-on-demand service. She scanned through the available options and finally settled on a saccharine teenage paranormal love triangle, as she really didn't want to see anything else. Hunching down in her seat, she put on her headphones and was soon engrossed in the movie.

The flight attendant had to wave at her three times to get her attention. Heather paused the movie and quickly dropped her tray table so that she'd be able to eat.

The meal was every bit as good as the website had promised, and Heather told the attendant so when she came back to take away the rubbish left behind. "That's wonderful!" she said. "I'm so glad that you've enjoyed it. By the way, I'm Moira," she added, holding out her hand.

"Heather," she said shyly.

"Oh, aye, I know who you are."

Taken aback, Heather felt her face go pale. "What—what do you mean?" she stammered.

Moira laughed gaily. "Oh, not to worry, love. You see, I'm about to begin my vacation. You are headed to Malin Head, right?"

"Yes," Heather admitted grudgingly.

"Then you'll be staying with me and Kathleen," Moira said matter-of-factly. "It's really just as well that I was able to get this flight. I wanted to get in touch with you earlier, but the schedule simply didn't allow for it."

"Oh!" Heather gasped, feeling a lot better. "Thank you for giving me a place to stay," she said with feeling.

"Not to worry," Moira said again, and hurried off to be about her business. When she came back by again, she whispered, "I'm a wee swamped right now, but if you don't mind, we'll have plenty of time to chat while we wait for the shuttle to Derry."

"That sounds great," Heather said. When Moira was gone again, she put her seat back and made herself comfortable. She was asleep in moments.

* * * * *

Moira disembarked nearly fifteen minutes after Heather. When she saw Moira coming up the jetway dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her she felt relieved. Although they hadn't had much time to converse, it was nice to know that she wouldn't be spending the next two and a half hours fending off random come-ons and abortive attempts to be clever from jetlag-drugged businessmen. Moira whisked her through Customs and guided her to the nearest ladies' room, which she called a "loo," conveniently located less than fifty feet from the Aer Lingus gate. Once inside, Moira locked herself into a stall. Heather inferred from the whispers of cloth she heard that Moira was changing out of her uniform.

Heather didn't feel any need to change. The blue jeans and ivory-colored wool mock turtleneck had kept her more than adequately warm on the plane, and the navy-blue waist-length pea coat she had topped the ensemble off with was more than up to the challenge of keeping out the chilly Irish weather. Touching up her face probably wouldn't kill her, though, she decided, rifling her purse for her compact and lipstick.

She and Moira made quiet conversation as she fixed what little damage the trip had done to her makeup. By the time Moira emerged, wearing a denim long skirt and blouse ensemble with sensible pumps, Heather felt as if she'd known her forever. The two walked out onto the concourse, where Moira navigated them to a café where she said the coffee was better than any airport in the States could offer.

Heather soon learned she was right. The smooth brew went down easily. Before long, she felt the weariness of travel fall away, replaced by a mellow caffeine jag. She felt ready to take on the world by the time they'd finished their second cup.

Moira dished about her and Kathleen, telling her a host of amusing anecdotes from their relationship. As Heather listened, it struck her that Moira and Kathleen sounded a great deal like her and Mike: they shared a lot of the same foibles, follies, and problems that confront any couple. Of course, because of where they lived, they had to keep their relationship low-key. But the typical Celtic nonchalance about other people's business played heavily in their favor. "So long as we don't frighten the horses," Moira said, smiling so intensely that Heather felt an urge to shield her eyes as if against a bright light.

They were in position at the Aer Arann boarding area well in advance of their scheduled departure, even with the leisurely stopover at the café. Moira had strongly suggested that Heather not eat immediately, hinting strongly that Kathleen had plans to stop along the route for breakfast. Heather agreed readily, figuring that she might as well get the "true" flavor of Ireland while she was there.

The jaunt from Dublin to Derry went off without a hitch, except for the fact that Moira couldn't sit next to Heather, as they had initially hoped.

"I'm that sorry, I am," said the young man with the prematurely thinning hair who took their tickets on the jetway. "The flight is quite booked, I'm afraid, and so we must insist that everyone keep to their original seating assignments."

Moira assured him that she quite understood, and gave the young man in Aer Arann uniform another one of those dazzling smiles and a comradely pat on the arm. It left the poor kid stammering and blushing. Apparently his brain had been completely short-circuited by the sheer wattage of that winsome grin.

Heather, for her part, was a little relieved. Although Moira was not a difficult companion by any means, she kind of liked the idea of being able to get her bearings and think over how she wanted to attack her problem now that she was on Irish soil. She hoped that Kathleen had done a little groundwork-laying for her; otherwise this entire trip might prove to be nothing more than an extravagantly catastrophic waste of time and money.

#  Chapter Twenty-Eight

Kathleen Fitzkillian was waiting at the baggage claim at Derry Airport, scanning the crowd of debarking passengers avidly. When she spotted Moira coming down the lift with Heather in tow, she charged through the crowd like a bull on the rampage: no mean feat, given her slight build. Moira was far more buxom and curvaceous. Compared to her, Kathleen was as straight and slender as a willow wand.

When the two collided, it became readily apparent that for them, the world around ceased to exist. They embraced warmly, offering a chaste peck on the lips. Heather knew from her research that there was a small gay and lesbian scene in Derry, but that it wasn't widely advertised. These women clearly knew how to play their roles. She had no doubt, however, that when they got home, the displays of affection would become much more graphic.

"An' ye'll be Heather," Kathleen said, holding onto Moira's arm. "Well, Fintan dinna lie about ye, 'at's fer sure."

"And what did Fintan say about me?" Heather asked, smiling.

"'e said 'e never met sech a woman as ye before," she answered in her lyrical Ulster accent. "Said yer the first woman 'e ever met as made 'im wish 'e weren't Catholic."

Heather laughed. "He exaggerates."

Kathleen shot her a quelling look. "'Tis no laughin' matter," she said pointedly. "As seriously as that man takes 'is religion, it's worth wonderin' what 'e sees in a married woman would make him consider strayin'."

Moira intervened smoothly, defusing what was starting to show signs of tension. "Now, Kathleen, I'm sure she meant nothin' by't." Now that she was out of her official bailiwick, her accent had broadened and rounded so that she sounded much more Irish than British, as she had on the plane. Heather couldn't help but be impressed by her ability to turn her accent on and off at will. "But I also know yer makin' the poor gell uncomfortable," she added in a lightly scolding tone.

"I'm sorry," Heather hastened to leap into the gap. "I didn't mean to offend. Fintan is a dear friend, and a very good man. I just—I never meant to give him the idea that there could be anything more than that between us."

Somewhat mollified, Kathleen said, "Oh, aye, I know't. I just don't take well to anyone mockin' such a fine man as would throw over th' rest of the family over th' likes o' us." She accompanied the last part with a brutal gesture to signify what, exactly, the rest of the family thought about her and Moira.

They waited for the bags to come around the carousel, Heather silently reviewing the last few minutes, Kathleen and Moira whispering to each other in the hushed tones of lovers of long standing. Finally, Heather saw her blue and tan plaid bags coming around, and reached down to grab them, only to have Kathleen immediately take charge of them.

"Ye've been travelin' fer half a day now," she said autocratically. "I believe I can handle yer bags out to the car."

The car, as Heather learned when they made it out to the parking structure, was a lovingly maintained royal blue 1993 Peugeot 205CJ with a convertible top. As Kathleen lifted the bags into what she called the "boot" without discernible effort, Moira clambered into the back so that Heather could have the front seat. A mild disagreement ensued, which Kathleen quelled unceremoniously when she eased into the driver's seat and told Heather, "Yer th' guest, ye ride pillion, an' there's no use tellin' us otherwise. So just enjoy th' view, aye?"

Heather smiled. "Aye," she said without a shred of irony. It felt oddly natural to her.

* * * * *

The drive from Derry to Malin Head offers some of the most amazing sightseeing to be found in Ireland. They took the A2 to the A515 through the city until they reached Foyle Bridge.

"Ye may be interested t'know that Foyle Bridge is the longest bridge in Ireland," Kathleen observed for the benefit of their foreign guest. "'Tis eight hundred sixty-six meters across." Heather's breath was taken away by the lovely flowing span of the bridge, and even more so by the astonishing view it commanded of the River Foyle and the surrounding area. As they reached the center point of the bridge, the sun broke free of the massed clouds around it, lighting the entire vista up in a riot of gold and green that made the color palette of Heather's office in Marblehead look downright pastel by comparison. It seemed to Heather that she'd never seen anything so beautiful before.

The three women chatted gaily as they meandered back onto the A2 and the car built up speed. At Culmore, they picked up the R239. Kathleen worked the manual transmission as if she was driving on the Autobahn, and in a very short time, they passed a sign that read, in English and Gaelic, "Welcome to Northern Ireland." Not long after, they passed a sign for "Muff," which sent Kathleen and Moira into gales of schoolgirl tittering.

At Muff they pulled off onto the R238, which in that village also doubles as Main Street. Kathleen looked around at the stop light and cried out triumphantly, "There!"

Heather followed Kathleen's strident finger and saw that she was pointing to a small café that fronted on the street. "What's this?" she asked.

"Yer first traditional Irish breakfast," Moira beamed from the backseat. "Don' worry, love. Ye'll _love_ it!"

In short order the women were seated. A matronly lady with steel-gray hair and square glasses hurried over to take their order.

"We'll have three of the Ulster Fry with Bewley's," Kathleen announced.

"Of course, dears," the lady smiled, and hurried off.

"What's an Ulster Fry?" Heather asked quizzically.

"Heart attack on a plate," Moira replied, grinning mischievously. Heather was beginning to suspect that Moira was incapable of forming an expression that didn't involve a smile. Her good cheer was infectious. "If ye c'n survive breakfast here, ye c'n survive _anythin',"_ she remarked, half-jokingly.

"And Bewley's?" Heather asked, now not entirely certain she wanted to know, but feeling constrained to ask anyway.

"Only the finest tea ever devised by the hand of God," Kathleen answered, pressing a hand to her bosom to convey her shock at the untutored ways of her Yankee guest. "Puts the best tea ye Yanks ever made to shame, it does. And a fine accompaniment t' breakfast it is."

Moments later, the server hurried back with three immense platters. Mild Irish sausages, lean European rounds of bacon, eggs over easy, some sort of flat bread, baked beans, sautéed mushrooms, and a grilled tomato made for a very crowded plate. Heather picked up the bread and looked at it dubiously. The loaf had been split crosswise to reveal the flaky inside and then fried.

"What kind of bread is this?" she asked.

" _Farl,"_ Kathleen said. "It's a kind of soda bread. Try it."

Heather did. It had a unique flavor, but a very good one, and it brought her hunger roaring to life. She began to devour her food with a vengeance, loving every last bite. She washed it down with the tea, which was far stronger than anything she was accustomed to from the States. It's no wonder, she thought, that tea with milk is so popular over here. Prudently, however, she didn't vocalize that particular realization.

By the time they were done with breakfast, Heather felt pleasantly full. She rarely ate so much at one sitting, but figured that pregnancy and the lengthy travel probably had a great deal to do with it. She was raring to get on the road again by the time they settled the check, which came to nineteen Euro and some change. Kathleen assured her this was a very reasonable price. Heather did some quick mental calculations and figured it would be approximately the same as she would pay in any medium-quality restaurant back home, for a good deal less than she'd just eaten.

#  Chapter Twenty-Nine

Back in the car, the women headed up R238 to the R242, which they picked up just outside of the village of Carndonagh. A lovely and very picturesque place, it was the kind of old Irish town that practically begged to grace the front of a postcard without doing more than being there. As they drove through the town center, which Moira called the Diamond, Heather found herself enchanted by the architecture and the atmosphere of the place. It was as if the mystique of Ireland was seeping right into her soul, opening its arms wide to welcome her back to her ancestral home. She rubbernecked, as wide-eyed as any country bumpkin seeing Chicago or New York for the first time, at the Gaelic signs over many of the businesses and the eye-searingly cheerful colors on the buildings, most of which would doubtless have prompted a "cease and desist" order most places back in the States.

Moira and Kathleen were kind about it, teasing her gently about her open-mouthed awe. _"There's_ a light post th' likes o' which I'm sure ye've never seen," Kathleen pointed out jokingly.

"No, no, 'tis th' fine Irish buildings, built t'withstand anythin' _but_ th' wind an' th' rain," Moira laughed.

Heather knew they were making sport of her, but it didn't bother her. She joined in the laughter, taking it all in good part.

But as Cardonagh fell away behind them and the headland loomed before them, Heather felt an unaccustomed weight begin to press down on her good spirits. Soon, she was as solemn as any grave marker. Adding to the feeling of oppressive gloom were the clouds, which seemed to redouble their efforts to choke off the sun. Soon a light mist of rain began to fall.

"Feckin' rain," Kathleen swore, turning on the wipers at their lowest setting. "If ye want it to rain, wish for sun. If ye want sunshine, ye've got to ask for a fecking hurricane."

"Language, Kathleen," Moira said gently. "I'll no' be kissin' any gell wi' a foul mouth, n'matter how pretty it looks."

"Oh, aye?" Kathleen asked. "Then I guess ye'll have to be about punishin' me, now won't ye?" she added with a broad wink at Heather, who blushed a brilliant red.

The racy humor broke Heather's incipient dark mood, and she lost herself in the natural grandeur of the headland. It was a stark but beautiful vista, with the vast Lough Foyle, which formed the eastern side of the Inishowen Peninsula, off to the right and the earth rising up to form a dramatic horizon to the north.

There was something about the place that spoke to something wild and untamed in Heather's Americanized Celtic soul, whispering of battles lost before they were ever fought; but fought they were nevertheless, for to the Gaelic spirit, a cause was never as truly worth fighting for as when it was surely doomed. She could almost hear the primal thump of war drums, the shrill scream of bagpipes, and the cries and grunts and groans of hardened warriors fighting toe to toe for the honor and glory of battle chieftains whose names are now lost to history and the corrosive influence of time itself.

Her pulse quickened as she felt all this and more; her chest began to heave with excitement. _This_ was her home, as surely as Marblehead was. This was where her ancestors had lived, and loved, and died. This was where her story had truly begun, centuries before a tiny girl-baby screamed out her first protest against the cold, antiseptic atmosphere of the maternity ward at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. The sheer wonder and pride of it all nearly overwhelmed her, and she had to fight back a flood of tears that rose from somewhere she couldn't have described if she'd had a year to do it.

The other two women seemed to sense that Heather was under the spell of the ancient magic that this land seemed to weave in the hearts of all comers. Whether you were a native when you arrived, a transplant revisiting your roots, or a true foreigner coming to this shore for the first time, you would never be the same for having been here, on the lush green turf that too often in Ireland's turbulent history had run red with the life's blood of men, beasts, and creatures none now dared speak of.

Kathleen and Moira, having lived here their whole lives, were used to the wonder of it; but it was always a treat and a joy for them to watch a newcomer feel that wild, primitive energy and react to it for the first time.

As they pulled onto the main street, past the sign that said _"Fáilte chuig Cionn Mhálanna,"_ and beneath that, "Welcome to Malin Head," Heather felt that, for the first time, she was truly home.

* * * * *

The women's house was a small but surprisingly modern structure on the southwestern edge of the tiny town, painted an incandescent white with cheery red trim. The door was a deep forest green. The brass doorknob had been polished to within an inch of its life, gleaming as bright as a new hope.

Inside, the house had low, dark beams cutting through the plaster ceiling. The wide, low window sills offered cozy nooks to sit and read or look out at the weather and the majestic view of the headland. The kitchen featured all the best modern appurtenances, blended with cooking gear that Heather had always thought of as "Old World;" shining, dented copper pots were interspersed with dull iron cookware. The women even had a small cauldron to hang over the fireplace. Various bits and pieces of folk art hung here and there, along with paintings that Heather greatly admired simply because of the warmth the earth tones used seemed to add to the house.

Moira pointed to an aqua-blue door. While it shouldn't have harmonized with the rest of the décor, Heather found to her surprise that it seemed perfectly in keeping with the eclectic personality of the place. "That's yer room," she said kindly. "Has its own loo _en suite._ When ye've had a chance to freshen up, take a nap if ye like...?" She trailed off. Heather encouraged her to go on with a nod. "Then we'll see about givin' ye th' grand tour, all fifteen minutes of't!" she finished.

"That sounds great!" Heather enthused. "I am a little tired," she allowed, giving a huge yawn. "Say...two hours?"

"That'll be just fine," Moira said, giving Kathleen a smoldering look. "Our room's right across here," she motioned with her chin to a mocha-colored door on the other side of the large kitchen, "so we shouldn't disturb ye. But if we do, or if ye're wantin' after anythin', anythin' a'tall, ye just give a shout. Sound good?"

"Sounds wonderful," Heather said. She gave both the women a friendly embrace, and said, "You two have fun."

"Oh, we will," Moira said, her eyes seeming to grow hotter. Heather could almost see her mentally undressing Kathleen as she stepped toward her lover. "C'mon, you," Moira commanded. "It's been far, far too long."

Kathleen turned and grinned over her shoulder as Moira seized her hand and dragged her into the bedroom. Just before the door closed fully, Kathleen squealed shrilly. Heather smiled wryly and shook her head, walking the other direction toward the blue door. Apparently, Moira enjoyed control.

The bedroom was as charming as the rest of the house, but Heather didn't take the time to admire it. In moments, she was asleep under the down comforter.

In the Otherplace...

Adan stopped stirring the large cauldron so abruptly that it startled Finella. "What is it, sister?" she asked with some alarm, rushing from the table to take Adan's elbow and help her to a seat.

She was having none of it; she shook Finella off and turned to the room at large. "She is here," Adan announced.

Raichael crossed herself. Cavana unleashed a voluble oath that drew a look of disapproval from Sorcha. Finella squeaked with fright. Rowan looked stricken. Tabitha merely looked resolved.

" _Will the ring be enough, do you think?" Sorcha asked._

" _I honestly do not know," Adan said. "We added all we could give to it, but who knows?"_

Rowan spoke, seeking to comfort them. "It should work. The girl who invoked the spell called upon names of goddesses that Time itself has almost forgotten; with their power undiluted by overuse, it should be enough to protect her until the child's birthing. At that point..."

" _At that point," Cavana grumbled, pulling a wickedly sharp local variant of a claymore broadsword out of thin air to examine the blade, "we had better have another strategy."_

Sorcha didn't speak often, but when she did, she was always heeded.

" _We will." Cutting her eyes to Adan, she asked, "Will we not?"_

Adan tried to smile. It quirked her lips but missed her eyes as she said, "Of course we will."

#  Chapter Thirty

The tiny travel alarm clock Heather had purchased in Boston blared in her ear. She opened her eyes and stretched, feeling a strange disorientation as she realized her surroundings were completely unfamiliar. The light blue walls and pale ceiling with the dark beam bisecting it certainly weren't part of her house. Nor was the fluffy comforter in a vivid blue tartan or the matching pillowcases.

After a moment, during which confusion threatened to turn into panic, she remembered the events of the last sixteen hours. Although she felt like a poor job of embalming, she knew the best way to combat jetlag was to adjust to the local clock as quickly as possible. So she got up and padded into the adjoining bathroom.

It was an elegant little room, clearly designed with a woman's priorities and sensibilities in mind. She looked around, noting some of the nicer details for future application to her own house. The freestanding bird-bath sink, the claw-footed antique tub, and the glass-walled shower all earned an approving nod.

For all that it was feminine, however, it wasn't frilly or fussy. This was a room where real women performed their toilette. The toilet was carefully hidden away in a small alcove off the main bathroom, where it wouldn't get in the way. There was an array of beauty products on the glass shelves. Heather moved them aside carefully to make room for her own toiletries and set about cleaning the grime of the journey off her.

Fifteen minutes later, she smelled coffee, and quickly dressed in sensible khaki slacks, a pale pink long-sleeved pullover, and a pair of good hiking boots. Feeling much more alert after her shower, she followed the enticing aroma to the kitchen, where she found Moira and Kathleen having what seemed like a well-worn debate.

"...think we should take 'er around the area, give 'er a day t'get familiar, like," Moira said truculently.

"Well, that's as may be, but _I_ think we should get 'er into the Historical Society as quickly as possible. That way, we can find out what there is to find out. Leaves more time for fun that way," Kathleen insisted with a chuckle that accorded ill with the heat of her tone.

Heather sauntered into the room. "May I have a cup of that?" she asked, waving at the coffeepot.

"Certainly, Heather. I hope we dinna disturb ye," Kathleen said. Her waifish face fell at the very idea that she might somehow have failed in her duties as a hostess.

"No, not at all," she assured them, pulling a delicate china cup off a hook by the coffeepot and filling it. "I had just finished showering when I smelled the coffee. I hope I'm not causing any trouble," she said, looking back and forth between them.

"Oh, no trouble a'tall," Moira said airily. "We were just trying to work out how ye'd like t'spend yer first day in Ireland."

Heather smiled. "I think that it might be best if I take a day and get properly acclimated, go over and meet the people at the Public Records Office, and then start with a fresh eye and a good night's rest tomorrow."

This compromise seemed to agree with all concerned, and they sipped coffee and chatted like old friends while they planned the itinerary for the day. Fifteen minutes later, they stepped out the front door.

* * * * *

They walked down the longish drive to the main street; it was unpaved and showed the scars of recent, heavy rainfall. The houses were strangely harmonious, alike and yet not in deference to the individual preferences of their owners. Heather was grateful she'd worn her hiking boots, maneuvering around the larger puddles and potholes and wading through the shallower ones.

The day was brisk to begin with, and the north wind made it downright uncomfortable. The wind seemed to slice right through the worsted wool of her coat. She shivered when a particularly powerful gust dashed a gout of icy water into her face.

They walked through the village, Moira and Kathleen apparently unaffected by the chill of the day. They pointed out the church, the ancient building which housed the local pub, and various other spots of interest along the way. Finally, they came to the other side of town, where a strip of scrub brush covered the steep slope separating the rocky shore from the village.

If Heather had thought the wind was dramatic in town, it was nothing compared to standing here, atop the immense crag. It was gusting a gale, pushing low-hanging, ominous-looking storm clouds ahead of it. "Mind yer footin'!" Moira called over the howl of the wind. "This wind'll hurl ye righ' o'er the cliff if't eddies right!"

Heather took three long strides backward. Kathleen moved to take up a position right behind her, in case Heather should fall. "We'll come back tomorrow," Kathleen called. "It's supposed t'be clear an' calm. Ye'll be able to see all the way t' Scotland!"

Heather gave a broad nod to indicate she'd heard, and started to turn around. From off to her left, a sudden chorus of excited barking broke out. Behind her, Moira said something that was snatched away on the wind before Heather could be certain what she'd heard. It sounded a lot like "Bloody 'ell."

"What is it?" Heather called.

" _Master_ Brian Diurmuid," Moira said, moving close so as not to have to shout over the wind. Her face twisted as if she'd just tasted something bitter. "Thinks 'e owns the whole feckin' shore, 'e does, an' no use tellin' 'im any different." She turned and assumed a stance that looked vaguely combative as a pudgy, florid-faced man holding the leads of two large Labradors came puffing up the trail toward them.

"Get _off_ me property!" the man cried, his voice pitched several steps higher than Heather would have expected. "Gwan, be off wi' ye, or I'll be havin' the _Garda_ on ye!"

"Oh, soak yer head, Brian Diurmuid," Kathleen snapped. "Here's us wi' a visitor from the States, come back t' learn of 'er past an' 'istory, an' we dinna need ye runnin' up on us actin' like a damn fool!"

Despite her slender build, Kathleen had a look on her face that suggested she'd take Brian Diurmuid and any dog he cared to bring with him if he so much as moved wrong. Diurmuid stopped about fifteen feet away and glowered at the women.

"Me property line runs from 'ere—" Diurmuid pointed with a sausage-like finger at a large fieldstone pile. "—T'there," and he stabbed the same finger at a precariously leaning fence post with a ragged ribbon of metal chain links hanging off it. "Ye're _here,"_ and the finger came up to aim straight at them. "An' I want ye _there..."_ His finger moved to indicate a point somewhere behind them. "...Before I count three," he finished, panting with the apparent exertion.

"Ah, fold it small and stick it up yer arse, Brian Diurmuid," Moira chimed in, coming to flank Kathleen. Heather had never seen her with a grim expression before. She wore it to great effect, she decided. Diurmuid took a step back, as if he'd suddenly realized it was the Morrigan herself he stood in the presence of. "We meant no harm and we're leavin' the same. But ye'll no' threaten us. We're sorry for intrudin' an' fer yer poor courtesy to a guest," she snarled.

Old World courtesy and the obligations of host to guest, and otherwise, were taken more seriously in such remote outposts of civilization than they might have been in more "modern" places. The tradition held that one's hospitality, once offered, must not be abused by either side. It was considered the responsibility of the entire village to offer welcome to visitors and guests without stinting. When they left, if they were rude, uncouth, or just generally unpleasant to be around, the villagers would sit around the local pub, spending the departed's cast-off money and telling tales if it suited them. But while the visitors were around, it fell to every last man, woman, and child to offer civility until and unless civility was no longer warranted.

Moira's pointed observation brought Diurmuid down a notch or two, and he said, calmly if stiffly, "My apologies, madam," directing the comment to Heather, as if Moira and Kathleen were not present, or at least of no account to him. "But ye see, this is _me_ land, an' if ye'd be so kind as to escort yerself _off_ it, I'd be that grateful." He ended with a noncommittal gesture that could have meant nearly anything, depending on how inclined one was, or was not, to take offense.

Heather inclined her head. "I'm sorry for having inconvenienced you, Mr. Diurmuid. We'll be on our way." She turned and began to walk away without a backward glance. Behind her, she heard Moira and Kathleen fall into step.

She could only imagine what they must look like as they started back down the steep incline toward town, Heather in front and the other two women behind her on the flanks, forming a perfect triangle. Her hair was streaming forward in the fierce wind, and she imagined the other women had the same problem. It would be a horrific nuisance getting the tangles she was surely incurring in her hair back out again, but she took a mild satisfaction in the fact that they must surely look as wild and savage as any three ancient goddesses might have as they descended the hill.

* * * * *

A cup of strong tea later, served up by a brawny young man with a five o'clock shadow and dark hair just two beats longer than was the current fashion in America, the women considered what to do for the rest of the day.

"'Tis no purpose in stayin' out'n that damned filthy weather," Kathleen said.

"I really don't need to see all there is to see today," Heather smiled. "I'm sure I have plenty of time to play tourist. Maybe we can go over to the Historical Society and the Office of Public Records and at least see what it will require for us to get started."

Moira agreed. "That makes a bit more sense than thrashing around in the wind an' rain t'no good purpose," she mused. "I'll only slow ye down. How 'bout I see you lot over there an' go get the car. Pick ye up in two hours?"

Kathleen thought it over. "Aye," she said thoughtfully. "P'raps we'll go out for some _craic_ tonight."

Moira beamed. "That sounds lovely!" she caroled.

Heather couldn't believe her ears. "I most certainly don't want anything to do with crack!" she said urgently, horror written large across her face. "I can't be doing drugs, least of all not now!" she exclaimed, waving at her stomach for extra emphasis.

The women stared at her for a moment in shock. Then Moira's eyes widened in understanding, and she began to laugh. That set Kathleen off, and soon the couple was clutching their sides and wiping their eyes while Heather teetered on a precipice between indignation and joining in the good-humored laughter. Finally, Kathleen wound down, and waited patiently for Moira to finish.

When she did, she said, "I'm sorry, Heather." Reaching for a paper napkin, she wrote the word "crack." "That's what ye heard, right?" Heather nodded. "But what she actually said was this." Moira wrote _"craic"_ under the first word. "It's Gaelic. Sounds just the same, but means something totally different."

Her voice adopted the clipped, proper pronunciation she adopted in her working role. "You see, _craic_ means 'fun.' But it's a good bit more complicated than that. _Craic_ is that special kind of fun you have when you have good friends, fine drink, good music, and good conversation in the same place at the same time. You can ogle the boys, we'll look at the girls, we'll be silly, listen to the band at the pub, and just overall have a fine time. That's the essence of _craic._ There's some as use it in conjunction with drug use," she added, "but that's few and far between."

Heather grinned. "A couple of hours of work and then some... _craic,"_ she tried the word on her tongue. "Sounds great!"

#  Chapter Thirty-One

The books were beginning to blur in front of her. As Kathleen came back with yet another armload, Heather groaned. "I don't know how much more I can take today," she said. The window outside was beginning to darken, and the secretary at the desk, whose nameplate proclaimed her to be _S. MacGregor,_ was starting to direct meaningful looks at them.

Kathleen grunted. "Ye've enough research here t'last ye a fair time," she allowed. "We could work all day for the next two weeks an' no' get it all. But we've a fine start."

Heather leaned in close, so that the secretary couldn't hear. "What did Fintan tell you about my visit?" she asked.

Kathleen smiled. "Oh, dear, he told me everything," she said, patting her hand in a reassuring way. "I know about the _bean'sidhe."_

Heather felt her face slide down uncertainly. "Do you think I'm crazy?"

Kathleen shook her head violently. "No, I certainly do _not."_ Her eyes widened in a picture of perfect sincerity. "I can call up an' introduce ye t'full half a dozen folks without raisin' me voice who've had their own bouts with the _bean'sidhe,"_ she allowed. "Granted, their tales are mostly less dramatic than yer own," she admitted, "but no less frightening fer all that. Why, I meself had such an encounter."

"Tell me everything!" Heather enthused. Kathleen opened her mouth to speak, but before she could say anything, the secretary stood and began turning off lights one by one. "That'll be our cue to leave, then," she sighed. "I'll tell ye all ye care to know an' more still at the house," she said, picking up the books and hurrying to the front. A quick conference later, she came back. "I was able to check all these out," she said. "Cost me a Euro and change for the lot for a week."

Heather automatically started to reach into her purse. "Nae," Kathleen smiled. "I've got this. Ye can buy the first round when we get to the pub."

Heather arched an eyebrow. Kathleen nodded.

"Fine," she said.

* * * * *

At the house, the women took turns showering. Moira insisted that Heather go first, to chase the chill, as she put it. Heather agreed gladly and spent a little time undoing the damage that the wind had done to her hair. Then she looked into her suitcase and considered what to wear for the evening. Peeking out from under one of her sensible business suits was one sleeve of the beautiful silken dress that Mike had sent her from Afghanistan.

Although the night would be even rawer than the day had been, she decided that she'd be inside most of the time anyway. So why not dress to impress? She held the lush silk up against her naked body, loving how sensual it felt against her bare skin. Quickly donning racy black satin panties and a matching bra, she sat on the bed and rolled nude pantyhose up her legs carefully. When she was done and had checked the hose for runs, she pulled the _parahaan_ over her head and quickly guided it into position. Her sleekest pair of stiletto heels topped off the ensemble, and she sat down to do her makeup.

When she walked out into the main room, Moira froze in the act of pouring tea, with the unfortunate result that she slopped it all over the counter. Kathleen looked over to see what the matter was, and her jaw dropped in surprise.

"Ye...ye look _gorgeous!"_ she said.

"Thank you," Heather said modestly. She'd taken a little extra time with her hair, pulling part of it back and leaving the rest to swing free. She had on just a touch more blush than usual, and her mascara was just the merest hint of a shade darker than customary. With her heels, an inch taller than she typically wore, and the form-hugging _parahaan_ swirling around her, she cut a strikingly attractive figure, if the twin poleaxed expressions that the other women wore were anything to judge by.

"Aye, dammit, an' me wit'out me club," Moira smiled.

"What? What do you need a club for?" Heather demanded.

"Why, t'beat the poor lovestruck lads away!" Kathleen chortled. "They'll be lined up from Malin t' Mizen t' get a glimpse o' ye!"

"What's Malin to Mizen?" Heather asked, sensing a compliment, but unable to make sense of it.

"Well, Malin Head is often claimed as the most northern point of Ireland. It's _not,_ but that's beside the point. Mizen Head is the southernmost point. So, what Kathleen is saying is that ye'll have young men and women lined up all across Ireland t'see ye when yer all togged up like that," Moira explained.

"Ohh," Heather said, getting the drift. "Well, you two look great, too!"

Moira was wearing a black leather miniskirt and fishnets with a look-at-me red button-up blouse. The top was unbuttoned two buttons too far to be acceptable daytime wear, revealing the matching lacy bra she wore and the deep swell between her breasts. Knee boots with absurdly tall heels completed the picture. Her red hair flowed free, and aside from a flair of blue eye shadow and lipstick to match her blouse, she appeared to be makeup-free.

Kathleen, on the other hand, had painted herself to within an inch of her life. She was wearing simple blue jeans and a black cotton V-neck. A silver choker with an ornate Celtic cross pendant featuring elaborate knot work lay against the hollow of her throat. In harsh contrast to her short-cropped flaxen hair, her makeup was dark and dramatic. It made her blue eyes seem almost to burn.

Both women looked amazing in their own ways, and Heather told them as much. As Moira set about mopping up the tea she'd sloshed all over the counter, Heather sat down at the table.

"Now," she said severely, "you owe me a story."

Kathleen nodded.

"Aye, that I do," she agreed, her voice distant and vague with memory.

Her diction shifted, becoming crisper and more precise, without the softened, lilting syllables. "When me mother passed two years ago this Easter, I heard the _bean'sidhe_ myself. Horrible it was." She shivered at the memory. "Folklore says that the _bean'sidhe_ about these parts sounds like two boards being beaten together. 'Tisn't so," she whispered, lowering her head and swallowing hard. When she raised her head, her eyes were huge and luminous with fear.

"What I heard was the most terrible screeching ever to fall on human ears. It seemed loud enough to shatter the glass in the house. Everyone heard it, even the doctor who came to check on her in the night. Before he left, he stopped to talk to me father. The screaming was so loud he had to shout over the top of it to make himself heard, even though he was standing right in me father's ear. I don't know what he said, but as he said it, me father burst into tears and the horrible sound just stopped."

She blinked several times, apparently trying to collect herself. "When we went upstairs, me mother was gone."

"I'm so sorry," Heather said miserably, aching at the pain she'd caused Kathleen.

"'Tis no' yer fault," she said, pulling herself together with an effort. "Me father killed himself the next year, ran a hosepipe into his car. No _bean'sidhe_ for him," she said grimly. "The priest intervened to have the death ruled an accident, so he could be buried next to her."

That jogged a memory in Heather's mind. "Do either of you know where the Potter's Field is here?"

The women exchanged a confused look. "The place where they buried criminals?" Heather prodded.

"Oh, aye!" Moira said, leaning down to embrace Kathleen. Apparently the story, and its emotional aftermath, were things Moira was well used to dealing with. "'Tis right next to the graveyard on the east side of town. We can go tomorrow, if ye'd care to."

"Let's do it," Heather agreed. "In the meantime, no more scary stories tonight. Let's go have some _craic!"_

In the Otherplace...

_Cavana grunted. "Well, is not_ that _a fine thing," she tsked, after Adan had made her report. "Our daughter all tarted up with those two unnatural little strumpets, going for a night at the pub when her life is in danger!"_

" _You might have a care what you are calling_ unnatural," _snapped Sorcha. "There is naught unnatural about love in any form; what was unnatural to_ me _was the circumstances that forced me to marry and bear a child. The curse might have ended with me, had not my father been such a hardheaded fool."_

" _Yes, Cavana,_ do _hold your tongue," Adan admonished pleadingly. She was stroking her temples as if nursing a severe headache indeed. Looking toward the window, where the moon was just rising in a configuration that would be quite impossible in the mortal world for an entire host of reasons, she asked, "Will it do any harm to let her have her fun? The situation can hardly get any graver for her. Why not let her enjoy it without interfering or peeping in over her shoulder?"_

" _And what if she falls prey to those two harpies?" Cavana demanded. "What if she dies unshrived?"_

" _It made no difference to any of us," Raichael pointed out. "Shriven or no, we all arrived here the same."_

_Tabitha nodded. "Our sister speaks true," she said, a touch of Agata O'Kelly's sharply precise tongue gracing her own. "And it has made no difference since we have been here, either. Neither angel nor devil has appeared to strike us down or bear us onward. If two women loving is so unnatural, how do you answer_ that, _Cavana?"_

Cavana couldn't, subsiding with a loud "Humph!"

_While she pouted, Finella said, "Sister, why do you not take the night to rest? Surely the ring will alert us should our daughter need help. You have been awake for far too long. Let her be for a night; she has managed well enough without us thus far, and until the child is further along, the_ bean'sidhe _will not dare to move against her."_

Adan looked at Finella suspiciously. For someone so terrified of what would happen to her once they could move on from this self-inflicted penance, her sudden desire to help struck her as highly questionable. But she had been awake for...for...

Adan blinked her weary eyes to indicate compliance.

" _Wake me immediately if_ aught _goes awry," she said, turning to the bed in the corner. In moments, she was asleep, as the rest of the women filed out of the cottage to permit her undisturbed rest. Raichael was the last to leave, and she lingered on the threshold, looking back at Adan's drawn features._

A scowl wrinkled her brow. She knew Adan's thoughts almost as well as if they had been her own.

" _I will keep my eyes on her, sister," she swore, as she gently closed the door behind her._

#  Chapter Thirty-Two

The timing couldn't have been more awkward.

Heather dismounted from the car, followed quickly by the other women. She paused to allow them to precede her through the door, and walked into the pub just as a song ended.

In the silence, her high-heeled boots sounded incredibly loud on the polished wooden floor. All eyes turned toward the door; all conversation ceased. Heather felt the scrutiny as if it was a tangible thing against her skin. Despite the fact that her _parahaan_ was cut to conceal, rather than reveal, she suddenly felt very naked under the weight of so many curious gazes.

She looked to the bar, where a lanky man around her age was frantically signaling to the band on the stage to start playing again. The bandleader's face was flushed; judging by the sizable mug next to her, she'd already been drinking more than would be considered acceptable for a live band back home. In moments, however, she picked up on the barkeep's request, and began to saw on her fiddle in a lively jig. The aborted conversation swelled again, and the women pushed their way to the bar.

The barkeep gave them a friendly smile. "Moira, Kathleen, sure an' t'God yer a sight fer sore eyes!" he bellowed. "And whom, may I ask, is yer lovely friend?"

Heather smiled. "Heather Kelly," she introduced herself, holding out her hand.

Instead of shaking it, the barkeep kissed her knuckles, sending a thrill through her; she couldn't help thinking that he had very nice, smooth lips. "Hugh McCormac," he said in return. "Owner an' proprietor of all ye see here an' master o' all I survey," he laughed with an expansive wave around him. "An' how, may I ask, did such a lovely woman land in my poor establishment, in such dubious company?" He winked to demonstrate that he was only having a bit of fun; clearly, he knew the girls well.

"I'm in town on business, but they're taking me around, showing me the local color," Heather answered.

"Aye?" A hefty fellow on the other side of the bar roared for Hugh's attention. He turned and said, "I'll be wi' ye when I bloody well get there!" Turning back, he shook his head as if discouraged. "Angus's makin' a fair run at drinkin' me right out of me trade t'night," he sighed. Brightening, he asked, "So, what can I get for ye?"

Moira answered. "Three pints of black."

"Comin' up!" he said, with a merry twinkle in his eye and a flourishing bow. He poured off the pints with flare, sliding them down the ancient surface of the bar as he did so. Moira and Kathleen picked up their pints and gestured to Heather to follow suit.

" _Slainté!"_ they cried.

" _Slainté,"_ she echoed, and took a taste of the dark ale. It was very bitter on her palate, but as she swallowed, a pleasant, sweet after-taste took over. She could tell that it was much stronger than the beer she was used to in America, and firmly resolved to limit herself to one, less if she could manage it.

The patrons were now on their feet clapping to the rhythm of the sprightly tune the band was playing. Heather dimly recalled hearing the song, or something very similar, at a distant cousin's wedding reception a couple of years prior. It had been a lot of fun to see everyone trying their hands, or feet as the case may be, at traditional Irish dancing. The results had been equal parts hilarity and havoc, and more than a few bumps and bruises to boot.

A pair of burly men who Kathleen identified as local fishermen hit the floor and began to perform a clog dance, their movements perfectly synchronized. The clapping and roars of approbation from the pub's patrons seemed to spur the men on. The heavy soles of their work boots pounded the floor as if trying to break right through the unfinished planks. Before long, Heather found herself clapping along with the rest of the crowd, lost in the spirit of the moment.

One song segued into another, and a curvaceous woman with dark hair and hazel eyes threaded her way through the crowd. "C'n I get ye anythin'?" she asked.

Heather eyed her barely-touched ale. Moira and Kathleen were drinking without restraint, and Heather considered that she really needed to come back here when she didn't have the responsibility of an unborn child to worry about. She shook her head, enjoying the singer's voice as she warbled a tune in Gaelic. The other women each requested another, and the server nodded. Before she left, though, she touched Heather's elbow and said, "Miss?"

Heather met her gaze. There was something timeless about the look in her eyes, something that hinted she'd seen more than any three people had any right to in her lifetime. It made her a little uncomfortable.

As if to compensate, the server gave her a sweet smile. "Mr. Hugh'd like th' pleasure of yer comp'ny when ye've a moment t'spare," she said.

Heather nodded. "I'll be over in a moment," she replied. The server ducked her head and departed, following the same circuitous route she'd taken to get there. One of the patrons, a middle-aged man in a sweater that looked for all the world to be homemade, reached out and pinched the server's bottom as she hurried by.

In America, such a thing might have produced a cry of outrage and a complaint to the management. Hugh McCormac leaned over the bar as if getting ready to jump it. Before he could, however, the server's hand sliced around in a vicious backhand that struck the inebriated gentleman squarely on the mouth and knocked his head a quarter turn to the left.

"Dinna _ever_ touch me bum again!" she shrilled, her angry voice cutting through the din of the pub. "Me man'll be on ye like wool'n a sheep, y' _ever_ touch me so familiar again!"

The customer looked dazed, a livid red mark beginning to show across his pallid skin. Before he could move, all his cronies began to laugh uproariously, hooting and whooping. "She sure told ye, Aiden!" "They'll be na play for ye tinnight!" "You sure've a way wi' th'ladies!" and so on.

Hugh McCormac came up behind Aiden and tapped him on the shoulder. "It's time to go, Aiden McLoughlin," he said loudly.

The other man flinched and looked around until he met Hugh's eyes. Hugh leaned down and whispered in Aiden's ear. Aiden's eyes widened to comical proportions and flicked around the pub fretfully. Hugh cocked an eyebrow at Aiden. Without further fanfare, he scrambled to his feet and shrugged into his coat.

"There'll be nae molestin' me servers, an' I'll thank each an' e'ery one o' ye t'remember it!" Hugh called as Aiden scuttled toward the door. "Any woman as sets foot in my pub'll be as safe as a babe in 'er mother's arms from any unwanted wanderin' hands, 'less ye care t'deal wi' _me!"_

No one else seemed inclined to try anything untoward, and the music started back up again. Heather watched Hugh as he worked his way back behind the bar. There seemed to be no doubt, from the diary entry that Agata had written, that this was surely Frederick McCormac's heir. The description matched, right down to an apparently inherent family eccentricity that tended to chivalry where women were concerned.

Suddenly, Hugh McCormac seemed a good deal more interesting to her, she reflected, taking a deep drink of her pint.

* * * * *

When the band took an intermission, Moira and Kathleen decided they were going to go for a walk, "t'take the night air," as Kathleen said.

"Ye'll be all right by yersel' for a spell?" she asked Heather, who was quietly enjoying the atmosphere of the place. Heather grinned and said, "Go. You two have fun. If it gets too late, or I get tired, I'll call a cab."

"Just talk t'Hugh," Moira said. "He'll see ye home safe as ye please, and fer nothin'. A fine man, that. If I liked men..."

Kathleen rolled her eyes. "Aye, aye, I know. Ye've told me often enough that if ye weren't so inta women, ye'd be all over that one."

Moira's lips twitched. "An' ye wouldn't be?"

Kathleen pondered that for a moment. "Bah. And aye," she admitted.

"Go on, you two," Heather laughed.

When the women had made it out the door, Heather stood and began to move toward the bar, keeping a sharp eye around her for anyone else who might decide that a passing, unaccompanied woman might welcome a little direct attention. But Hugh McCormac had made his point more than adequately, and she made it to the bar without difficulty or distraction.

The publican was standing in the corner, beside and just outside the bar area, puffing on a meerschaum pipe as he watched his server pour pints and whiskey for the thirsty customers and keeping a patriarchal eye on his establishment. For all that it was a Thursday night, the crowd seemed as intent on having a good time as any Friday at any nightclub she'd ever been to. They drank lustily, sang heartily, and danced with abandon, often with a drink in one hand and a partner in the other.

This feeling of goodwill and mirth, she realized, was exactly what _craic_ was all about. It utterly defied description. _Craic_ was the sort of thing a person had to experience for themselves to do it justice.

Hugh smiled as she sat on the stool next to him. His eyes flicked to her hands, in full view. To his credit, if the wedding band on her left hand made him feel any uncertainty toward her, it didn't show on his face. "An' how're ye likin' me little pub?" he asked with justifiable pride.

Heather took a good look around. The floors were polished smooth by years of feet coming and going over them. The low ceiling featured fans that whirred lazily away in the close, smoky air. All the furnishings and bindings were brass or the same green as the door of Moira and Kathleen's house, and the crowd was as boisterous and fun-loving as any she'd ever seen. There was something in the air, something that couldn't be captured, duplicated, or imitated. A spirit, for lack of a better word, that seemed to infuse and saturate the very walls. She'd been in Irish-style pubs in Boston many times before, but even the best of them was only a pale shadow in comparison to the feeling she had now.

"It's wonderful," she said with feeling. "It feels like an old friend."

Hugh laughed with genuine delight. "Aye, me family's worked that hard for generations t'keep it that way," he said.

"I know they have," she replied, and then wondered why she had answered that way. It seemed odd to her.

Apparently Hugh had the same thought, because he leaned in close. "I know who yer family is," he whispered. "If I were ye, I'd not go broadcastin' it while ye're here. The gossips still talk about't. Ye'd think nothin' else o' note ever happened in this little corner o' nowhere."

Heather paled a little. "You're talking about Seamus?"

"Aye," he said. "And the _bean'sidhe._ Half the town already knows. Lucky fer ye, most o' 'em dinna care. But there's always those few, mind, who've memories and grudges runnin' far longer than is sensible."

She felt herself wilt a little. "And which side are you on?"

Hugh gave her a genuine grin. "It's sorry I am," he said, "if I've alarmed ye. I'm on yer side, as my dear great-great Uncle Frederick would've wanted. If ye've need of anythin' while yer here, ye've only t'ask, d'ye ken?"

Heather laughed, half in relief, half in joy. "I could use a dancing partner," she said.

"An' what'll yer husband say t'that?" Hugh asked shrewdly, narrowing his eyes through the veil of smoke cast by the fragrant tobacco in his pipe at her thin gold wedding band.

"Mike won't mind," she assured him. "He wants me to have fun while I'm here."

"Does that include th't lot ye came in wi'?"

Heather gave him a sharp look. "Not that it's any of your business," she retorted tartly, "but if I decided it should, that's between me and my husband." She stood as if to leave.

Hugh put his hand gently on her elbow. "I dinna mean t'offend," he said quietly. "It's just that I like those gells a great deal. But there's those same gossips who'd be talkin' from now t' the Second Comin' about yer family who say the vilest things about them. They're perfectly kind, sweet, and as good a pair as a body'd e'er hope t'meet. But because they don't twig t'men as bed partners, there's got t'be summat wrong wi' 'em, says they. What ye do in yer own bed is yer own business, 'less ye care t'make't mine. I was simply curious, an' I'm that sorry again if I offended," he said sincerely, dropping his hand from her arm.

Heather thought it over for a moment, looking at the situation as an outsider might. Someone who had no idea why she was here or what she was doing might very easily get all the wrong ideas about her. But then again, why did she care? What did it matter to her what these people thought of her? And if she did decide to get involved with Moira and Kathleen while she was here, what was the harm? Surely sex with other women was far safer, by comparison, than sex with any male.

Hugh looked quite crestfallen as he sat there, clearly torn between fear that he'd pushed too far and blown his chance to be her dancing partner and hope that she'd forgive him. The band filed back onto the stage and picked up their instruments. Heather let him stew for a moment, and then took his hand.

"Come on," she said, leading him out onto the floor.

The woman leading the band began to play a mournful tune on her fiddle, and the band filled in behind her with a somber, melancholy but lovely air. As she played, she began to sing. Heather couldn't understand a word of it, but the song was so wistful and sad that it tugged at her heart. She asked Hugh, who was keeping just enough distance for courtesy's sake, "What is she singing?"

He listened for a moment. Clearly, he'd been paying more attention to the company than the music. He said, "It's a traditional Irish love song, about a woman whose man's called away t'war."

"Does it have a happy ending?" she asked, even though from the doleful sound of the melody, she doubted it.

"Ah, ye've a _lot_ t'learn about yer people, colleen," Hugh chuckled. "It's very few Irish songs worth the singin' have _happy_ endin's."

#  Chapter Thirty-Three

Soon after, Moira and Kathleen returned to pick Heather up. She'd had a wonderful time talking and dancing with Hugh, but she was starting to feel the effects of a very long day. Heather realized with a sudden pang of guilt that she hadn't so much as e-mailed Erin to let her know she'd made it safely. After making hasty arrangements for Hugh to join her and the others for lunch the next day, she hurried out the door.

Moira's lipstick was mussed, and she'd missed a button on her blouse. Kathleen's hair was tousled and her mouth looked a little swollen. They both looked, in short, like they'd been having a very intense session of love play. Heather felt a tiny flame of jealousy flare to life in her chest, but couldn't have explained why if it had meant the firing squad.

When they got home, Heather unpacked her computer and plugged it in, using the universal adaptor she'd purchased after reading online about various disasters that accompanied using the wrong type of plug for European electrical current. After giving the machine the requisite couple of minutes to boot up and get up to speed, she signed on to her e-mail program. Not surprisingly, there was a list of five messages from Erin, starting at one o'clock Boston time the previous afternoon and running up to seven o'clock this morning. The messages began with a casual "Just checking in" and ended with "If I haven't heard from you in three hours, I'm calling Interpol!"

Before Erin could panic anymore, Heather opened her instant messenger window and typed, _Hi._

Erin responded immediately. Heather felt even worse. Erin must have been really worried. _WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU!?!?!?!_

Heather considered her next words carefully. _I've been out getting some local color, she typed. Stopped by the historical society today; we'll start the research tomorrow._

WHY DIDN'T YOU CALL ME? E-MAIL? LET ME KNOW YOU WERE ALIVE?!?!

_Oh, boy,_ Heather thought. _She's_ pissed. She quickly typed, _I took a two-hour nap when I got here, and I've been either doing research or out with Moira and Kathleen ever since._

_Oh. OK, then,_ Erin sent back. _Call me in the morning when you get up._

Heather looked at the travel alarm clock. It read twelve twenty-seven a.m. She did some quick arithmetic, and then gave it up. _What time is it there?_ She asked.

I have seven thirty.

Okay. I'll call you before four your time.

You still have the calling card?

Yes, Mother.

_Ha ha ha ha ha. My sides hurt,_ came the sarcastic response.

Heather smiled. If Erin was being sarcastic, she couldn't be _that_ angry. _Good night._

Sleep well.

That sounded like the best idea Heather had heard since she could remember. In less time than it takes to tell, she was out of her dress, in bed, and sound asleep.

* * * * *

She was running down an endless hallway. She could hear nothing behind her or ahead of her. Somehow, that didn't matter. Heather knew that something horrible pursued her, and she fled down the corridor as if every demon Hell had ever spawned was on her heels.

Something rustled behind her. Heather didn't dare turn to look. She remembered only too well that to turn was to risk falling. Falling virtually assured that she wouldn't survive. After all, all the movies and books said so. If you died in a dream, you would never wake up in the morning. So she put on an extra burst of speed, fleeing that awful, purposeful sound that seemed to keep perfect pace, no matter how fast she ran.

Then she heard the first keening wail. It sounded like a screech owl, a coyote, an air raid siren; all and none of these things. There was such a tone of hideous malevolence in it that it caused her to break out in a cold sweat. Her heart fluttered in her chest like a terrified sparrow, and her lungs felt hot and heavy.

From behind her, that odd rustling sound seemed to come closer, and she jerked to the left, ignoring the conventional wisdom that when people move randomly, they actually tend to move in the direction of their dominant hand. Seizing the door handle, she wrenched it open.

Only to find a black figure behind it, all but invisible in the gloom. The only points of reference she had for it were the brilliantly glowing eyes, which narrowed maliciously. Behind her, she heard that rustling again as something unseen lunged for her exposed back and missed.

" _Go luath,"_ the figure said, and vanished, as pain flared in Heather's shoulder as something hard and blunt smashed into her. A hot slash of agony welled up as she felt sharp claws on her tender flesh. The _bean'sidhe_ screamed again...

Heather awoke with a shriek. Her right shoulder was on fire and ached where she'd slammed it against the bedside table while thrashing, and her throat was raw from the screaming she had done. The first coherent thought she had was that the room was full of sunlight and people.

The second was that her comforter had fallen down, and she was naked to the waist. This fact seemed unimportant until Kathleen burst into the room, only seconds later, hair wild and eyes heavy with sleep, wearing nothing but a worried frown.

"Are ye all right?" Kathleen asked anxiously.

"I had a nightmare," Heather rasped, pulling the bedclothes up in a futile bid to preserve her modesty.

"Get'er some water," Kathleen ordered, over her shoulder. Heather could hear footsteps as Moira hurried to do her bidding, and Kathleen asked, "What was the nightmare about, love?" as Heather heard the tap turn on in the kitchen.

"The _bean'sidhe,"_ Heather croaked.

Moira walked back in, carrying a large glass full of water. "Drink this down, love," she commanded, handing her the cold glass. "Ye'll be fine. We heard a thump, and then you screamin' fit t'rouse the dead. Must've been some nightmare."

Heather shivered as she recounted the dream for the two women. When they were done, Moira said briskly, "Let's have a look at yer back, then."

She hesitated.

"C'mon, love, ye dinna have anythin' we've not seen before," she coaxed. Heather had to concede the truth of that. She turned and let the sheet slide to reveal her exposed back. The women took a long look and hissed in a long breath as one.

"What?" Heather cried, panic welling at the base of her throat.

"It's—" Moira broke off.

"Ye'd best come see fer yerself," Kathleen choked, taking her hand carefully. Heather had a sudden mental image of Kathleen trying to coerce a frightened, wounded bird, and realized the picture really wasn't all that far off the mark. Alarmed well beyond any concerns about two lesbians seeing her in the buff, she allowed Kathleen to lead her into the bathroom, where she ordered Heather to turn her back to the mirror. A quick glance at Moira sent her scurrying off again, only to return in seconds with a small hand mirror.

"Now, dinna be alarmed, love," Moira said gently as she handed Heather the mirror. Her soothing tone didn't achieve the desired effect, Heather decided as she looked in the mirror.

A large, blotchy red spot marred the creamy flesh high up on her right shoulder blade. It took Heather a moment to see exactly what they were so concerned about. When she did, she had to summon all her willpower not to scream with even more gusto than she'd displayed on waking.

Four long, arcing scratches ran from just below her collarbone to the center of her back. Even as she watched, the cuts began to weep tiny rivulets of blood. Stricken, terrified beyond rational thought, she whispered, "What _happened_ to me?"

Moira looked alarmed. "I know this much," she said. "Ye canna've done that t'yerself." She spoke with absolute authority. "Short, deep gashes, aye, tha' I could see. But those scratches are far too long fer ye t've been able t' reach back an' do 'em yer own self. It's simply no' possible. I dinna do't. _She_ dinna do't," she said, jerking her chin to indicate Kathleen. "So what the feck happened here?"

"If none of _us_ did it—" Heather whispered. Bile rose in her throat, and she silently prayed to any god that might care to listen that no one would finish the thought.

"Then somethin' _else_ did," Kathleen murmured grimly.

Heather's stomach lurched in rebellion at the thought, and she narrowly kept from vomiting all over the room. Clawing the door to the water closet open, she bent to the toilet even as her gorge finally escaped. She was wretchedly sick in a way she could never recall being before in her life. Heaving, gasping, and groaning, she vomited until nothing came up but revolting-tasting bile. Tears streamed from the corners of her eyes, and she wept in pain and fear as the waves of nausea rolled over her endlessly.

Gentle hands took each of her shoulders and caressed the sides of her head as her housemates calmly encouraged her to let it all out. When she was done, she began to weep out all her horror at the nightmare and the frightening revelation that had awaited her awakening. The next thing she knew, both women had their arms around her, folding her into a warm, soft, safe haven. Somehow, she instinctively understood that there was nothing sexual or romantic in the embrace. It was simply the maternal drive of two good women who saw a wounded soul and wanted nothing more than to nurse it back to health.

She wept, thoroughly soaking the front of Moira's nightgown and leaving salty rivulets down Kathleen's breasts. It seemed that, like Heather, Kathleen preferred to sleep nude. The storm of tears shocked her with its intensity and its savagery. Her throat lurched as she sobbed, and she couldn't seem to catch her breath, which threatened to set off her nausea all over again.

Her arms went tighter around the other women, and they in their turn pulled her closer, bestowing soothing, calming brushes of their lips on her damp cheeks. They whispered comforting words in two different tongues. To Heather, the vocabulary mattered less than the tones used, which were identically hushed and caring. It made her feel like a small child, to be held and talked to this way as a grown woman, and the thought brought on a swell of shame mixed with abashed appreciation which only made her cry all the harder.

To Moira and Kathleen's credit, they refused to let go until the tidal wave of emotion passed and Heather had wept herself finally, blessedly numb. Her eyes were red and swollen, her nose was dripping, and her voice was hoarse when she finally raised her head and offered them a wan smile.

"I'm okay now," she rasped. "Thank you both so much."

Her throat tightened again, and the flood of gratitude she felt for these virtual strangers nearly swamped her. They gingerly chivvied her to the bed, as if afraid she'd break like porcelain if they moved too quickly, and sat her back down. Once there, Moira looked at her with an expression full of parodied severity.

"Well, we've a problem here," she said.

Heather's emotional compass, already battered almost beyond recognition, spun toward despair. Surely they wouldn't ask her to leave, would they? She supposed she would not, could not, blame them, but still—

Before she could open her mouth to ask the seemingly obvious question, Moira and Kathleen exchanged a meaningful look. Kathleen nodded. Moira smiled.

Heather looked from one to the other. "I...I don't...I'm not..." she fumbled, unable to frame her objection to their sympathy in any reasoned manner. She wasn't sure if she felt like she was trying to defend herself or explain herself, and the confusion she felt almost brought on another cloudburst of tears.

Moira knelt beside her. "We know, dear. We understand exactly where ye're at, and why," she said with such perfect self-confidence that Heather couldn't help but take it as an article of faith. "But ye needn't worry. There's nothin' bein' offered here that ye dinna want. I just figured we'd call it a 'girls' day in,' an' no' concern ourselves with the fussy bits...like real, grown-up clothes." She smiled, making Heather privy to their little in-joke. "Besides, my nightgown's quite unfit for wear right now, so 'less I care to wear my tracksuit, which I don't," she qualified with understated fervency, "it's either pyjamas, or starkers. Me, I quite like starkers," she winked teasingly, before turning to go to her bedroom.

Heather felt a grin breaking out across her face in spite of herself. These women had accepted her unconditionally into their home, something that must surely be at least a little inconvenient. And they'd done it asking nothing more of her than that she help out with the food. They'd even put up with the new eccentricity she had brought into their home without so much as twitching an eyelash. In that moment, she felt truly blessed to know such people.

#  Chapter Thirty-Four

While she was in the bedroom getting herself together, she put the time to good use. Clad in only her most utilitarian pajamas, she consulted the calling card Erin had given her and followed the instructions to make an international call on her cell phone. It was a high-denomination card, but a call from Ireland to the States would still cost seven cents a minute. The roaming charges would eat her alive, too, she thought, too drained to care as she dialed the number for the office.

"McCorkle-Kelly Inquiries, Erin McCorkle speaking, how may I help you?" came Erin's voice.

"You can tell me that it's not the end of the world, I'll be fine, and everything's coming up roses," Heather said. She was agonizingly conscious of how flat and lifeless her voice sounded, but didn't have sufficient emotional energy left to summon up more than a spark of caring about it.

"It's not the end of the world, you'll be fine, and everything's coming up roses," Erin dutifully replied in a saccharine voice. "What the _hell_ is going on?" she continued in a more natural, strident voice.

Heather gave her the broad strokes of everything that had happened since her departure. Erin laughed and groaned sympathetically as needed, until she got to the part about this morning, when she fell most uncharacteristically silent. Heather actually said, "Hello?" several times during the course of the explanation, only to hear Erin snap impatiently, "I'm still here! Go on, already!"

When Heather finished, Erin was quiet for so long that Heather checked the phone to be sure she still had an open connection. It said that she did, so she asked, "What do you make of it?"

Erin's voice was very small, even taking account the inevitable static involved in making a intercontinental phone call. "I don't know if I did the right thing sending you there," she said. "In a lot of ways, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, I just don't know. What do you want to do? I can call the airline right now and get you home in time for supper today."

To her surprise, Heather felt her whole being rebelling against the idea of going home, even with the humiliations the morning had inflicted upon her. Even though she felt like her very spirit had been lacerated, some defiant, latent echo of a Celtic warrior woman residing in her very marrow refused to permit her to run away with her tail between her legs.

"I'm not coming back," she growled with a ferocity that surprised her. "I'm going to see this through. I'm going to find out how all of this started and what it will take to end it."

Even through the whistles, crackles, and pops of a poor connection, Heather heard Erin take in a sharp breath. "Are you sure?" she asked.

"I'm positive." Heather thought for a moment. "How's everything there?"

Erin had little to report. In two minutes, she was off the phone and back in the kitchen. One of the women had reshuffled the cushions so that she would have a clean, dry one to sit on. In moments, the three were clustered around the table, trying to sort out fact from fiction.

Moira read out the folklore of various _bean'sidhe._ Kathleen was translating historical documents from the time of Duic Donal O'Cealleigh, while Heather passed judgment on what was relevant and what wasn't. In less than two hours, a sizeable pile of books had been laid aside as useless. Heather surveyed the remaining pile, less than a quarter of what Kathleen had taken from the historical society the day before, with a feeling of accomplishment.

She stretched, savoring freeing feeling of not having daytime clothing to interfere with her movement. The house was amply warmed by natural gas, and the warm air felt glorious on the bare areas of her skin.

Her stomach growled loudly, and her hand lowered to massage her forehead, which was giving off the pulsating waves of discomfort that precede a full-blown migraine. "What time is it?" she asked.

"Three-twenty," Moira said, after a quick glance at the clock on the wall behind Heather.

" _Fuck!"_ Heather cursed loudly, startling the others just as much as herself.

"What is it?" Kathleen asked, her eyes trying to see everywhere at once.

"I forgot about Hugh," she groaned.

"Ah, dinna worry 'bout him," Kathleen said bracingly after Heather had explained. "I'm sure he'll think nothin' of't , after we explain wha' happened this mornin'."

Heather wished the earth would just open wide and swallow her. "I'd rather try to pet a shark," she admitted. "He was so nice to me last night, but he told me half the village already knew who I was and what my connection to this place is."

Kathleen's eyebrow sought her hairline. "So?" she asked. "'Tis no' their problem. An' any o' 'em has a problem wi't can bloody well go sod themselves," she said, slowly and with undeniable gravity.

"I should at least call him," Heather said.

"Y'c'n make't up't'm by goin' an' seein' 'im later," Moira said. "Knowin' 'im, Hugh'd much rather have arses in his pub and Euros in his till than all the apologies in the world. Hell, y'c'n blame't on us, if ye like. Tell 'im we kept ye up 'til all hours havin' a gossip. That'll put it squarely off you altogether," she said, putting her arm around Heather's shoulders and giving a sisterly squeeze.

In the Otherplace...

Adan shrieked herself awake, giving her sister-daughters a terrible fright in the process.

Finella knelt beside her. "What is it, Adan?" she asked.

" _The_ bean'sidhe," _she choked. "She's gaining power faster than ever. Something's terribly wrong here."_

" _But what could it be?" Finella asked. Behind her, the other women all waited to hear the answer._

" _I have no idea," Adan said. Her eyes raked over her sisters in purgatory, then narrowed as they spied something that simply did not belong._

" _But I intend to find out what," she thundered, groping her tired way to her feet. "Rowan, Raichael, I need you to walk with me. The rest of you, stay here." Adan rapped out the command with such authority that none present dared gainsay her as she swept out of the room._

Outside the window, thunderheads of a size that promised a cataclysm the likes of which would never be seen on the mortal world until the End of Days gathered over the ocean, and the waves, usually invisible from this height, became white-capped monstrosities that threatened to engulf even this high redoubt. The four in the cottage huddled by the fire; for the first time in decades, centuries even, all of them knew fear.

Adan's wrath was truly a force to be reckoned with. And the thought that passed through the minds of all but one was: Who will have to bear the brunt of it?

What the last woman thought, she went to great lengths to conceal.

#  Chapter Thirty-Five

After a hurried but hearty meal, the women went back to work. Kathleen glowered at a book in front of her and made notes on Heather's commandeered laptop. Moira read out what Kathleen was typing every paragraph or so. Before long, the picture began to emerge, and Heather listened, rapt, as the final pieces of the puzzle began to fall into place.

Cionn Mhalanna, Tyrconnell, Ireland

May, 1512

Through the slitted windows which interrupted the rough-quarried stone of the tower, the Beltaine fires burned bright to south, east, and west. Out there, on the gently rolling moors and among the rocky cairns, people celebrated the coming of summer with song, drink, dance, and all manner of disporting. There would be many a babe born between Yule and Imbolc of uncertain parentage on the father's side, but as sure as night follows day, the father had a fair chance of siring his own bastard on some other woman than the one he'd pledged himself to.

Duic Donal O'Cealleigh gave no thought to any of that as he hastened up the shallow staircase that led to the family quarters, securing the ties of his doublet on the way. He had paid but scant attention to his choice of attire, and in his haste, he had paired up a deep purple pair of his best court trous with a violent red tunic. The effect made him look like one of the fools who entertained at the court of Manus Dubh, Rigan of Tyrconnell in the absence of his father, Hugh. Although the boy had not yet put thirteen winters behind him, he had proven an able enough ruler in his father's stead, and Tyrconnell was prospering.

Not so his beloved wife, Adan. The duic had made his fair share of dalliances in Tyrconnell, and earned himself quite a reputation as a rake in the surrounding area. But when he had first met Adan at the last Beltane feast, he had pledged then and there that she, and only she, would possess him from that day forward.

The announcement that Adan was with child the previous Samhain had been met with glee and approbation in the O'Cealleigh fiefdom, which included the village of Cionn Mhalanna and some twenty leagues in all directions. The duic was well known as a hard taskmaster, but a fair and just lord. His wisdom in the adjudication of nigh any matter he heard was widely considered to rival that of Fionn McCumhail himself. Duic Donal the Wise, they called him around the fires and in the taverns, and fully half of all the _uisge_ and ale consumed in the kingdom was presaged by the toast, "May Duic Donal's hair never gray!"

But Adan's chambermaid had sent for him minutes earlier at the behest of the midwife, Aoibheall. The delivery of the worrisome tidings had fallen to Donal's personal page, Ciaran, a boy of no great wit but excellent integrity and will. The lad had woken the duic less than five minutes prior.

Now, as he hurried up the stairs, Donal puffed, "Tell me again what, _exactly,_ you were told."

"Tiarna," Ciaran said evenly, "Lady Aoibheall says that Bantiarna Adan suffers greatly in her birthing. She said it would be well for you to be near, and for the priest to be sent for."

Donal was uneasy at the idea of having a priest of the Roman Church in his home. He still prayed and gave sacrifice to the old gods, especially Cerunnos and Anu, whose signs were worked right into the emblems he wore into battle. But still, it could do no harm and might perhaps forestall the impending tragedy the duic sensed on the horizon. "Has it been done?" he asked. He suppressed a slight twinge of annoyance at the boy. It was considered unseemly for a man of his station to be rushing to and fro in his own house. That was what the servants were for. But the duic found his wind sorely taxed before he was halfway up the tower, while the page seemed to suffer no ill effect at all from the furious pace his lord was setting.

"It has, Tiarna," Ciaran affirmed.

"Do you go back down, then, and show the priest straight to me when he comes. Should you see any of the Druids pass by, collect them as well. Promise them what you must." He hesitated. "Within reason, if you please. I've still the payment of the house to look after," he added ruefully.

"As you say, Tiarna," the boy said. Sketching a bow that was too graceful by half considering the lad was running in two different directions at once and on stairs, no less, the page flew to obey his lord's command. Donal took a moment to collect himself as he reached the top of the stairs, and the iron-bound door that barred the room beyond. It would not do for him to seem out of breath, or out of sorts. Never mind that he was both.

Soon, his gasps subsided, and the stitch in his side eased. The duic took one last, long breath, and pulled the door open.

The wail that assaulted his ears was a primal, tangible thing. It pierced and terrified him, a hardened veteran of more battles than he cared to recall. He'd rather spend all eternity listening to the cries and moans of men dying in battle than endure another second of the sound of such soul-shattering anguish. But endure it he did, and as the scream subsided, he moved to where Adan's personal chambermaid, Luighseach, stood waiting.

She bowed as he approached. Not so much as the hint of a smile at his buffoonish attire crossed her lips. She had been in the duic's employ long enough to know that he was a serious man, but a good one. Naught but the direst emergency could cause him to be out in public dressed so foppishly. "Tiarna," she said, her eyes carefully averted.

"Luighseach," he greeted her tersely. "How goes it with my dear Adan?"

"I would fain give you better news, Tiarna," she quavered. The phrase "kill the messenger" was ancient even then, and uppermost in Luighseach's young mind.

"I'll not bite you," he said reassuring, but with a faint edge of menace that suggested she needed to stop waffling immediately. "Simply tell me."

"Bantiarna Adan...Lady Aoibheall says that unless a miracle occurs, she may not last the night. It has been a hard birth, and she fears for Bantiarna Adan's health."

The duic leaned against the wall and covered his eyes in a gesture of supplication as old as the human race itself that would have been instantly recognizable to any man, at any time, in any remote corner of the globe. "What can be done?" he whispered.

"Lady Aiobheall requested a priest," Luighseach said starkly. There was no answering that, and the duic didn't bother.

Another anguished scream erupted; even through the thick door, it seemed to shake the very foundations of the castle. Luighseach took the duic's arm and guided him to a simple wooden stool. It was still warm from her vigil on it, and the duic took some small comfort in this. He stared through the window, which looked to the east, where the moon was bursting over the horizon. It was not quite full, but it shed a silver light over the land as it rose; Donal saw none of it, lost as he was in the audible testimony of his wife's pain.

Abruptly, the scream cut off. He heard the midwife spit a lengthy string of heartfelt curses. Then nothing, for so long that the duic rose to his feet, prepared to smash the door down if need be. But before he could, the thin piping of a baby's first cry wafted through the walls.

Luighseach touched his arm cautiously. "A good sign, Tiarna," she said. "The baby sounds just fine."

The duic spared her a dubious glance. "Aye," he agreed. "But what of my lady Adan?"

Before Luighseach could do more than look uncomfortable, the door opened. The midwife stood there, holding a tiny, wriggling bundle swaddled in the softest cloth to be had in Tyrconnell. The dark green velvet had cost the duic a fair penny, but it had been well worth it. He held out his arms, as was expected, and Aoibheall pressed the baby into them carefully.

"A fine, strong, healthy daughter you have, Tiarna," she said softly. Her long face was streaked with sweat and the blood of the birthing bed; despite the joyous news, her eyes were dark and sad. She was a tall woman, and looked him in the face with something akin to pity.

"My wife?" the duic croaked, moving a fold of the babe's cloth aside to look upon her face. It was scrunched, wrinkled, and ruddy, the tiny lips puckering as it quested for a nipple to suckle. He stared for a moment, a host of conflicting emotions warring upon his visage, then looked up to meet the midwife's eyes.

Her own cut toward the floor, as was only modest and proper for a woman of lesser station in the presence of her betters. But something in the set of her shoulders bespoke fell news yet to be spoken.

"Forgive me, my lord," Aoibheall whispered. "She bled too much." She choked, and it was plain that she was trying to hold back tears. "I could not save her."

Donal's face went blank. Luighseach instinctively reached out to relieve the duic of his tiny burden. The babe slid out of his arms as if his arms had abruptly lost all their bones, and their strength with them. His face contorted into the grimace of a man who had just taken a spear in his guts. The blood drained from his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

Aoibheall cursed. "Luighseach, call for a couple of the duic's men, quickly." When the younger woman looked like she was about to say something, the midwife cut her off curtly. "Be off with you!"

The girl hurried down the hall; when one of Fae blood told one to do something, it was best done and no dawdling about the doing of it, either.

Meanwhile, the midwife knelt to assess the damage Donal had done himself in the fall. Mercifully, she could see no evidence that he had done any real harm. He may show a bruise or two in the morning, but he had fallen on his side, which had spared his head from colliding with the stone floor.

Aoibheall ensured that he was breathing and that naught else seemed amiss. Then she hurried into the bedchamber to remove the soiled linens and make the poor dead woman within presentable. She stripped the feather bed with dispatch. Once done, she rapidly washed the Bantiarna's body, cleansing it of all the inevitable results of birth and death. As she removed the offal from the small, frail-seeming corpse, she uttered a low prayer to the gods and goddesses of death and the underworld to take pity upon this poor soul and convey her safely to the blessed land of _Tir na nÓg,_ where she would never suffer nor want evermore.

#  Chapter Thirty-Six

When the duic's men arrived, Aoibheall ordered them to bear Donal to his couch as gently as they may. The men waffled for a moment, until she quite lost her patience and began to try to lift him herself. Seeing her determination, they gave her no further argument, but simply complied.

Her duties here attended to as best she could, she turned to Luighseach, who had returned with the baby. "I must go into town and spread the news," she said. "Can you ask in the kitchen and have them make me a tisane for my throat?"

Aoibheall was a most unusual woman. In addition to serving as midwife and healing woman, she was also the village _bean chaionte,_ or professional mourning woman. While it was rare to the point of unheard-of for such a woman to hold such disparate roles, straddling the thresholds of life and death as it were, Aoibheall saw it as only fitting. She had borne more than her share of squalling babes from their mothers' wombs, seen them through cough, fever, and illness, and all too often, had to convey them from cradle to grave. Why should she, who had welcomed so many of them into this world, _not_ be the first to mourn their passing?

That was why she required the potion. It would allow her voice to carry beyond what her lungs would permit on their own, letting all who heard her wailing know that one of their own had passed on.

The village people were glad of her aid when she came. But when she left, they often cast dark looks and motions meant to call forth protection against evil spirits at her back. She knew, and held no grudge for it. Her mother, and her mother before that, had tutored her well in the lore of plants. From root to leaf to berry, she knew every variety that grew for a hundred leagues in any direction, and the purposes to which each could be used, for good or ill. She had also been schooled in some arts that the village priest would hardly approve of; she knew the ancient ways to divine what may be by the flight of birds, by the residue at the bottom of a mug of tea, or the casting of knucklebones.

Aoibheall had long since made her peace with the fact she would have no daughter or son to pass her knowledge on to. She had offered to teach a few of the village children, for fear that the lore would be lost under the pious thundering of Lucian Pliny, the priest who led the Catholic Church in this area. Only one brave woman had permitted it, and she was regarded askance by the village. Fortunately for her daughter, Brannagh, a marriage had been arranged for her while she was yet a babe in arms. The lad's parents could hardly abrogate their end of the agreement now without losing face and honor, no matter what manner of learning Brannagh received, or from whom.

So much to do, she realized with a start. Four Beltaine fires hence, barring tragedy, Brannagh and her Padraig would pledge their troth, and she would be without a student again. Brannagh was a bright young thing, for all that she was only seven winters gone; inquisitive, with a mind that wanted filling as keenly as any starving man's belly wanted meat. She asked thoughtful and insightful questions that often gave Aoibheall pause. It was a point of honor with her that she would never disguise the truth of any matter from her pupil, and she always answered honestly, no matter how delicate the subject Brannagh might choose to broach.

From below, the scent of steeping chokeberries and willow bark told her that her tea was almost ready. She worried about Brannagh most of all; for all that Brannagh was bright and too smart by half for her own good, she was also a very sensitive child. Aoibheall made a mental note to have a quiet word with the child about that: a midwife's life was hard and uncertain. A wise woman's was even more so. When all was well and the crops flourished, all the cows calved and the horses foaled on time and without deformity or lameness, and the village and environs were properly fed, she was welcome, even feted. Indeed, she had been a little put out with the Bantiarna's babe for deciding to come on this night, of all nights.

If she was to be got with child, it would have to be on Beltaine, when all the men were too lost in good drink and their own base desires to recall her checkered reputation. Indeed, and she would take this secret to her grave, she had half-hoped that the duic himself might ride to the village and leap the fire with the rest of the men. Aoibheall had long hoped and prayed that Donal might notice her. He was a fine and honorable man who cut a dashing figure in his regular black tunic and pants, with his wavy red hair hanging down past his powerful shoulders. While she could not begrudge Lady Adan her fortune in landing such a husband at fourteen winters, it made her, at three-and-thirty, feel a positive crone by comparison.

She sighed and dragged her thoughts back into their original course. When all went ill, the angry, fearful people would seek her out first to give an accounting, whether she had aught to do with it or no. The tales of what vengeful wise women could do had been contorted so far out of their original shape, and become so large in the retelling, that there were actually those fools in the village who feared to so much as utter her name lest she send some unnatural, vile creature against them. Many was the unfortunate woman of late whose village had suffered misfortune at the whim of the gods, and paid the price for that which was no doing of hers. The funeral pyres and waterlogged bodies of so-called "witches" were turning up right across Christendom, especially in the more isolated areas. She had no intention of meeting any such end. And it was up to her to instruct Brannagh, young though she was, in the darker side of the service she had committed herself to.

A clatter of footsteps announced a very pale Luighseach, who rushed through the door with a steaming tankard. "Lady Aoibheall," she gasped, "I have been told to give you your pay as agreed and see you to the duic's coach. It will take you to the village, where you can attend your...other duties," she quailed.

Aoibheall was well accustomed to such turns of events. At least she would be paid for this night's work. Too often, when something like this happened and the babe was stillborn or the mother didn't survive the birthing, she was sent on her way with not so much as a thank you, never mind the means to keep body and soul together. Two chickens and a gold piece, she thought. After Bantiarna Adan was laid to rest, she would eat well indeed for a time. The gold piece, she would put aside against the coming winter. The hen, she could keep to lay with her others. The cock was destined for a stewpot and other uses. As long as she was to be paid, she could take the abrupt dismissal in stride.

"Let me drink this on the way, then," she said, breathing deeply of the steam curling softly off the hot surface of the deep reddish-brown brew. Her breathing eased at once, and her throat felt a little less parched. When she drank, she could feel the strong beverage working to flood her breathing apparatus with extra blood.

It felt good, and she quelled the thought. Focusing on the saddest and most heartbreaking things she could think of, she allowed a tear to fall down her face as she looked back at the shrouded girl in the bed behind her. It did not take any great effort. She always found the untimely death of one of her charges tragic, no matter how often she saw it.

Murmuring a blessing on the deceased, she followed Luighseach's panicked lead down the stairs and out the great door to the courtyard, where the Tiarna's driver waited. Two wicker cages stuffed with squawking poultry rode on the back.

Luighseach pressed the gold piece still owed into Aoibheall's hand, and squeezed. "God be with you, Lady," she whispered.

"If they will," Aoibheall replied, clambering up the step into the carriage. When she was seated and the door shut behind her, the driver snapped the reins and hurried out of the courtyard as if demons were flying along behind him.

She didn't let it wait long. When she saw the first figures around the first fire, leaping and carousing, she let out a terrible wail. The figures instantly froze and she could see their heads thrashing about frantically, seeking the source of the cry. As she went, she carefully modulated her wails and keening anguish with low, miserable moans. The drink had worked well enough, and even her lowest vocalizations carried clearly across the night, under the fat silver moon.

As she went, tears blurring her vision, she began to hear cries of alarm. "What has happened?"

"That is the Tiarna's carriage. Have we lost our master?"

"Nay, the Bantiarna was giving birth. Perhaps aught went amiss."

As a flood of people broke off from their ale and the warm, pliant flesh of the lovers they had taken for the night to head for the castle, she continued her wailing until she reached the town square.

Before she opened the door, she drew a deep breath and gave one last, piercing, shrieking wail. Then, her throat raw and aching from keeping up such a performance the whole long way to town, she dismounted the carriage lightly and waited for the driver to detach the chickens' carriers from the rear.

She didn't know him, she realized as she saw his face fully for the first time. But the look of disgust he gave her was so intimate that she wondered if they had met in some other life.

"I know not what you are, woman," the man growled, his oddly-accented voice brimming with loathing and hostility. "But such as _you_ should never have touched the Bantiarna, or her babe. If it were up to me, I would see you burned as we do in Cornwall."

A Welshman. Well, that explained a great deal, she thought. Cornwall had been overtaken by the Roman Church to a far greater degree than had Tyrconnell in that day, and the mistrust and dislike of women and their innate power had saturated their national character. But this went far beyond simple prejudice, she realized, looking into his bulging, enraged eyes; this was something that he felt on a very personal level.

"Lord," she said quietly, "I know not what befell you to make you hate me so. But I swear to you on the last drop of blood in my heart, I did all in my power to save the Bantiarna. Our duic is a good man, and none wishes to see him suffer less than I." Her voice hitched, and honest tears began to roll down her pronounced, high cheekbones. If this was the kind of counsel the Tiarna would be hearing in the next days, she could only imagine what might lie in her future. At that moment, it did not matter. Her sole concern was for Donal, who would surely be heartsore at the loss of his wife, and she wished that she could comfort him in any way he would let her.

And be damned to what was or was not done by a lady.

The driver favored her with such a scornful, hateful look that it hit her as hard as if he'd pulled back his fist and driven it into her stomach. Then, saying nothing, he pulled himself up to his seat and flicked the whip with a bit more force than was necessary. The fine bay horses nickered and broke into a run, gaining speed until they were quite obscured from view by the mighty cloud of dust they raised.

Grimacing, Aoibheall hefted the two wicker boxes, ignoring the clucking protests of their contents. Although the cages weighed near to nothing, her back was bent as if under a great weight as she began to trudge her weary way back to her tiny house just outside of town.

#  Chapter Thirty-Seven

Heather leaned back, frowning.

"Why do I have a really bad feeling that I know what's coming?" she asked quietly.

Moira said nothing, picking up her mug to refresh it. Kathleen thought for a moment. "Because you _do,"_ she said, scanning ahead. "Are you sure you want to hear this?" she asked. Heather realized with a start that at some point, Kathleen had put on reading glasses; it was brought forcibly to her attention as she raised her head and looked at her over the top of the frames.

Heather wanted to scream, _No! I don't want to hear anymore. I had nothing to do with any of this! Why is it_ my _problem? Why is this coming back to haunt_ me? _Gritting her teeth, she nodded._

Moira spoke from behind her. Despite the softness of her tone, Heather jumped. "Something is bothering me," she said.

"What's that, love?" Kathleen asked, looking at her curiously.

"Well...Aoibheall is, according to legend, one of the more famous _bean'sidhe._ In fact, it is said that she is a queen of the Sidhe, if that song is to believed."

"D'ye mean 'Gartan Mother's Lullaby?'" Kathleen mused. Moira nodded. Kathleen considered it, pursing her lips. "Yes, but in 'Gartan Mother's Lullaby,' she's connected t'County Clare. It has to be a coincidence," she declared firmly.

Heather broke in. "Not necessarily," she said. "Remember the Brothers Grimm?"

Moira tilted her head as if Heather had suddenly grown a third eye. Kathleen, however, screwed up her face in concentration. After a long, silent moment, she confessed, "I'm sorry, but I dinna see—"

"Grimm's fairy tales have changed quite a bit since they were written," Heather pointed out. "The stories we tell our children today don't have a whole lot in common with the originals. We've taken them and sanitized them, made them Disneyland versions of what they were. I've actually read some of the original stories as the brothers Grimm wrote them. Those stories were never intended for children at all, but these days, that's all they are. Let me tell you, they'll give you nightmares if you've never read the originals."

"What's that t'do wi' this?" Moira asked.

"Simple." It now seemed so ludicrously obvious to Heather that she couldn't believe none of them had put it together before. "How many people outside of, or even _in,_ Ireland seriously believe in banshees and such these days?

"Very few," she plowed on before either of the others could speak. "They're scary stories we tell kids, but there aren't that many adults who take them seriously. Same with ghosts and so forth. Why should the story of the banshee be any different? We always heard a relatively gentle, edited-for-content version. But what if what we're reading right now is the birth of a real, honest to God _bean'sidhe?_ Why _shouldn't_ it be a malicious, blood-soaked story? My God, a woman's already died, and if I'm hearing it right, it sounds like the midwife is next."

Heather's hand flew up to cover her mouth. "How did you say her name, again?"

Kathleen pronounced it clearly. _"Ee-vil."_

Heather felt sick to the very core of her soul. "That's the connection," she said grimly. "It has to be."

With this stark revelation, she realized three things: she was hungry. She needed to hear the rest. And she needed to find a way to fight back.

Before her past became her future...and her fate. An icy chill seared her naked skin. It was just like the Ouija had said.

She stared at the ring on her right middle finger disconsolately, hoping that it would be enough to keep her safe. It seemed like such a small thing to wield any kind of power against such an inexorable force. She could feel Moira and Kathleen looking at her, but her throat had tightened so she was rendered incapable of uttering a sound and she didn't dare meet their eyes, for fear they would see the fatalistic resignation she felt hanging over her face like the shadow of a dead man.

"Let's eat," she said quietly, "and then let's hear the rest of it."

"I'll call fer takeaway," Moira volunteered, whipping out her cell phone. "Suppose I'd best get dressed," she sighed wistfully.

"While you're out," Heather asked, reaching into her purse and producing a Euro note, "can you stop by the Historical Society and drop off these books?" She stabbed a finger at the snowdrift of books blanketing the counter, where the tomes that had been deemed unhelpful had been abandoned. "And stop by the library and get a book on _bean'sidhe?"_

Moira smiled. "Aye."

* * * * *

While Moira was gone, the other women tidied up the house a bit and put on house clothes. Heather lounged in a pair of well-worn sweats and an old T-shirt that bore the question, "Any way we can speed this up?" Kathleen had put on track pants and a halter top. While they cleaned, Heather debated the best way to broach her next question.

"Kathleen, can I ask you something and not have you freak out?"

There must have been a tone that she didn't intend in her voice, because Kathleen leaned up against the counter and gave her a piercing once-over. "Of course," she said flatly.

"Did Fintan tell you what started all this?"

She shook her head. "Only that you had reason to believe that you were being stalked by a _bean'sidhe,"_ she said.

"Okay," Heather said. "Before I go any further, what did you _think_ I was going to ask?"

"Caught tha', did ye?" she asked ruefully. Heather spread her hands wide. Kathleen seemed to think very hard for a moment before she spoke. "Wha' ye have t'understand is tha' we're well used t'them as aren't entirely sure about who they are askin' us all manner of questions about how we live. Ye'd no' believe what people used t'ask me at the grocer before I put a stop t'it. We've nothin' t'hide," she added, "but't does wear."

Heather caught her drift immediately. _"Oh!_ Oh, no," she said hastily. "It had nothing to do with that. What you two do is your own business, and certainly none of mine. It's your house and your relationship."

Kathleen relaxed visibly. "Well, then, I seem t've put my foot right in't, didn't I?" she smiled apologetically. "Never mind, then. What was't ye meant t'ask?"

Heather took a moment to get her mind back on track. "I need to know if you have a Ouija board."

Kathleen started. "Now wha' on Earth d'ye need _tha'_ for?"

Heather quickly explained the idea that had come to her while she was thinking about possible ways to combat this, and her realization that the ability to communicate with the mysterious messengers might very well be the best way to get useful information.

"An' ye need me because I speak Gaelic," Kathleen mused out loud.

"Exactly," Heather said.

"Well," she said thoughtfully, "I generally don't care t'have any truck wi' such things, y'see. Moira, however, loves that sort o' thing. Tarot cards, Ouija, all manner o' things tha' make my skin crawl." Seeing Heather's face fall as she processed that, she hurried on. "But given circumstances, I'm willin' t'try."

Heather gave her a hug, and they sat down to start a list of things Heather wanted to know. Kathleen's academic mind was Heather's greatest ally, she quickly discovered. For all that she didn't care for the idea of getting information from a source that couldn't be verified, Kathleen had managed to come up with a quick and dirty way of establishing _bona fides._ If it worked, she said, they could more easily sort out what was useful from what wasn't. Heather agreed, and began working out a series of questions designed to trip up someone who didn't know the correct answers.

Working from the genealogical books, she'd quickly amassed a series of names. This was where her training and ability took center stage. A sizable pile of loose sheets of papers, covered with scrawls and scribbles, began to take shape next to her elbow.

By the time Moira returned, the kettle was just piping to announce that the tea was ready, and Heather and Kathleen had amassed a hefty bevy of notes. Kathleen jumped up to greet Moira with an enthusiastic kiss, and Heather felt just the slightest bit uncomfortable for a moment. Then it occurred to her that Mike had kissed her on many occasions in public no less passionately. So she simply averted her eyes, and asked, "Is there anything I can get?"

Moira smiled at her. "Think I've got't, thanks," she said. "Do I smell tea?"

After dinner, which was very good take-out from the pub, the women sat down again. "D'ye know where yer Ouija board is?" Kathleen asked Moira.

"Aye," she said, surprised. "But why?"

Heather jumped in to field that question. "Because that's how all of this started," she said. Quickly, she gave Moira the run-down. She ended by handing her the original notes from the séance at her baby shower. Scanning them quickly, Moira clicked her tongue against her teeth a few times.

"Okay," she said. "Let's finish the rest o' the story, and then I'll pull't down. This should be interesting," she grinned.

"That's what I'm afraid of," Heather half-whispered.

#  Chapter Thirty-Eight

Aoibheall walked slowly in front of the funeral cortege from the castle, robed and cloaked in black, as befit her role in the solemnities. It was fully three miles from the castle gates to the cemetery, and her feet ached before the procession had made it halfway. But the duic had insisted on her presence, despite the black look that beetled his brow when he was forced to actually speak to her.

A wet-nurse she had recommended rode on a lovely white mare behind Donal's black steed. Donal, in his typical black garb with a sable cloak thrown over his left shoulder, looked as forbidding as any underworld god, although he acknowledged the expressions of sympathy flung at him from every side mechanically. His driver and the village priest, Pliny, rode on his flanks.

The three men seemed to be embroiled in an impassioned argument. For all that they did not raise their voices, the stubborn sets of their shoulders and the grim angles of their jaws told more than any amount of roaring and cursing might. Aoibheall dared not turn to look. She had seen as much as she needed to and plenty to spare besides at the castle.

Donal's driver had stared at her with a fervor that suggested he would gladly use her as kindling right then and there. The priest had been no better. He had pointedly refused to so much as look her in the eye. The snub had not concerned her nearly as much as the meaning behind it. Donal hadn't offered more than a cursory, pro forma greeting to note her presence, and his reaction was the one she feared the most.

If the duic and the priest aligned against her, orchestrated by the mutterings of the driver, her life could very well be forfeit. The very thought turned her knees to water and her mouth to a desert. She pushed it away again and again, only to have it return more forcefully. Reaching under her cloak, she surreptitiously located the flask of water she had filled at the spring this morning. It would bring no fortune, and a great deal of ill, if she could not fulfill this last, so important service, but she could hardly do her duty while parched. Raising it to her lips, she took a hearty swallow and put the flask away.

Mercifully, the funeral procession finally reached the cemetery. The priest stood by and mumbled in Latin as the fine lacquered coffin was carefully drawn off the back of the flat cart where it had ridden. It was painted with white Ogham script, giving the name and title of the occupant.

The gravediggers had been up before the dawn, at Aoibheall's behest, to make the Bantiarna's final resting place ready. Behind the little knot of people directly involved in the ceremonies, full half the village shuffled along, the women weeping, the men solemn. Bantiarna Adan had been no less well-loved than her husband. She was known in the village as a lady who was easy to approach and to speak with, whether one was merely asking the time of day or a boon, despite her lofty station. Adan had earned the love and accolades of her husband's fiefdom, and now they poured out that love and their united grief under a glooming, lowering sky as their fields went unworked for the moment and the cattle, sheep, and horses were left to their own devices.

The casket was carefully lowered into the ground. Aoibheall began to sing the _caioneadh,_ letting the mourning song rise and fall as it would. For all that she was a woman far more handsome than beautiful, her voice was pure and crystalline as she sang the Bantiarna's soul into the care and keeping of the gods. In a doleful counterpoint, the priest chanted the last rites over the grave in letter-perfect, inflectionless Latin. His gravelly voice seemed to make Aoibheall's voice all the sweeter by contrast, and many a woman who had been holding her loss close set it free to join with the song as the notes soared into the air. Aoibheall deftly wove her song around the heartfelt grieving and the leaden pronouncements of the priest, taking the whole and transmuting it to something so sweet and sad that, it was said later, "The gods themselves surely wept to hear such a sound."

After it was done, the duic picked up a handful of earth from the great pile alongside the open trench. Kneeling, he tossed it upon the lid of the casket, where it hit with a resounding thud. Rising to his full height, he then motioned to the gravediggers, who moved in and set to work with their shovels and picks to fill the cavity.

The duic's daughter, who had not yet been named, began to cry. The wet nurse tried to hush and soothe her, but to no avail. Aoibheall dared not intervene, for fear that she might further provoke the duic's wrath. Finally, the duic sighed. With a tear in his eye, he beckoned the nurse over and took the babe from her. As he held her, Aoibheall heard him whisper, "Say farewell and good journey to your mother."

The thought seemed to undo the last restraints on his own grief, and he crumpled to his knees, bellowing a great sob which seemed to rend the day itself and put the lie to his former stoicism. A crowd gathered, men and women offering what cold comfort they could, patting the duic on the back and muttering words of solace and courage. Even the town vixens had turned out, she noted with distaste, and they, after their own fashion, tried to console the disconsolate Tiarna.

The thought of how they would "console" him, given the opportunity, made her gorge rise. She had treated far too many of the village men for ailments that were suspiciously alike, seeing through their transparent efforts to craft alibis that would not incriminate them to the priest or their wives, whom they had left at home to look to the children while they went out to drink and sport in the tavern. Then the bastards came to her, begging her silence and complicity and offering her coin she knew only too well was needed for other things, to help them treat their weeping, pus-filled members so that they could turn around and make the same errors all over again.

It bade fair to drive her mad; the vixens themselves had been to see her on more occasions than she cared to count. Always the same names came up in connection with their symptoms, and always she told them to simply turn the men in question away. But, she realized, the sicknesses the whores had, many of the men didn't realize they had got until their wives began to complain of illness or the open, weeping sores appeared on their genitals. And then the whole pernicious cycle renewed itself.

She couldn't complain overloud. The tending of such things did, after all, ensure her a steady source of income and thus food. But the notion of any of those women "comforting" Aoibheall's one and only true love nauseated her. Her part was played, and she had no further reason to be there. Indeed, the _bean chaionte_ was not welcome at the post-burial festivities, because of her function. The fact that she felt ill at the image of Donal taking his comfort from the vixens made it all the easier to take her leave without feeling snubbed. Bowing her head to the duic and the priest, she took her leave. Before any could question her, she began to walk slowly away, giving free rein to her own tears.

* * * * *

Donal and the priest watched her walk away. The driver came up behind them and spat in disgust. "She should never have been permitted to cry the _caion,_ Tiarna," the Welshman seethed.

Donal looked at him carefully. "Aye, Dafydd ap Myrwydden? And who, then, should have? She is the best _chaionte_ for fifty leagues around. Should I have gotten someone inferior to her talents to sing my wife into the arms of the gods?"

"God," the priest said deferentially, but with a hint of warning.

"Of course, Father, of course," Donal said impatiently. "Well, Dafydd, my question stands."

"Certainly not, Tiarna," Dafydd said easily, evading the trap the duic had laid for him. "I merely suggest that the woman who is directly responsible for the Bantiarna's early departure from our world should not have the honor of then welcoming her to the next."

The priest nodded firmly. "I can but agree, Tiarna. She failed in her task; you then reward her with more work to do?"

Donal pressed his lips together, and both men knew him well enough to know that he was forcibly getting his temper under control. "I have heard enough," he growled menacingly. "We will speak of this later, if we must, but for now, I will hear no more."

The other men could do nothing but agree.

#  Chapter Thirty-Nine

A week later, Aoibheall listened for the pattering approach of Brannagh's small feet on the stone path leading to her door as she cut up herbs to hang for curing. Wolfsbane, foxglove, native mint, and various other roots and leaves already festooned the earthen walls. As she listened with half an ear and absently sliced through the greenery with her sharpest knife, her thoughts began to wander down a morbid but familiar path.

In the past week, a dark pall had fallen over Cionn Mhalanna. The priest had been crying out loudly against her, and all women who did not "know their proper place and station," as he put it. The trouble was, he quoted Church doctrine that seemed to support his position, and was persuasive enough about it to convince many of the townspeople to go along with his position that the fault for the Bantiarna's death must somehow lie with her. A healthy young woman of fifteen dying in childbirth? It must have been some evil agency the midwife had conjured, rather than the will of God or some infirmity in the girl that had been overlooked.

Business had dropped off for her. First it was Maeve, the wife of a sheep farmer down the road, taking her sick daughter to the priest rather than to Aoibheall. Then several of the other women had followed suit. In a matter of days, there was talk of witchcraft and all manner of vile practices that Aoibheall indulged in, including animal sacrifice and the drinking of human blood. By the fourth night, she could not so much as set foot in the tavern.

She remembered the grim looks she had been offered when she walked in for a tankard of ale at the end of a long and troubling day. The serving girl, who also doubled as entertainment in the back, had flatly refused to carry ale for the likes of her. When Aoibheall had questioned this sudden lack of hospitality, the barkeep, whose wife Aoibheall had delivered of twins the winter before, dashed the requested ale in her face and demanded she leave immediately.

At least Brannagh's mother had thus far refused to break faith with her, sending her like clockwork every day for her lessons. Aoibheall brightened a little at the thought. Although the rest of the village had apparently lost their minds along with their faith in their healer, Brannagh's mother continued to stand by her, showing her support in the most public and tangible way she dared.

A sound outside brought her head up. Clumsily, she forgot about the knife in her right hand, and slashed a wide-lipped cut in her left hand as it got between the blade and the herbs she was chopping. Biting back an oath, she held up the hand to inspect the damage as she listened.

Rather than Brannagh's childish, light step, she heard hooves. A great many of them, riding at speed straight toward her house. There was no question of their destination, as hers was the only house on this road, and past her dwelling there was no road at all.

Hurriedly binding her injured hand, she stepped outside to greet whoever it might be. She dared to summon a prayer that her services might be needed in the village by some poor soul who had elected not to listen to the folly being spoken about her. But the hope died stillborn as she looked down the road to see a group of riders coming hard and fast.

Donal was at the forefront. As was custom, he wore the rough homespun tunic and breeches of mourning. He was swaying astride his mount, clearly blackly drunk and passing a flask up and back with Dafydd. Behind him rode a retinue of men from the village, all of them quite as full of drink as their duic. Donal nearly rode right over the top of her before he recalled how to halt his horse. At the signal, all the other men reined in their mounts as well.

He dismounted and promptly fell into a heap on the ground. She gasped and went to aid him, but stopped as the cold, sharp blade of the sword that had appeared in Dafydd's hand pressed against her throat. Without taking his flat, remorseless eyes off her, he motioned with his free hand. Three men moved to aid their Tiarna to his feet. With a shock, she realized that one of the men was the priest.

Donal looked at her, his visage twisted into such a mask of loathing and hatred that it fair broke her heart to see it. She had never done aught but love him from afar, even trying with every measure of her skill she could bring to bear to save his child bride. And now, it seemed, her efforts would be rewarded in the cruelest possible way.

The priest spoke. "Aoibheall O'Grady, for the crime of witchcraft, you are to be burned at the stake at twilight tonight. What say you in your defense?"

_So this was it_ , she thought. Behind the men, she saw Brannagh running up the road toward her and held up her arms in a clear warning for the child to stay well clear. The child nodded and dodged behind a stout oak tree, where she could see and hear without being seen herself.

"Witchcraft?" she hissed. "And what, exactly, am I supposed to have done that was so foul that my life is now to be taken from me to pay for the crime?"

"You murdered the Bantiarna Adan in her birthing bed, by calling forth your demonic familiars to drink her blood until the lack killed her," the priest accused, his voice cold and unyielding as stone. "Has anyone aught to add?" he demanded.

A chorus of shouts arose from the ring of men. She had caused cows to bear two-headed calves. She had caused men who crossed her to break out with sores and frightful afflictions of their male parts and made the breasts of many of the village women to dry up and give forth no milk, so that they would have no recourse but to seek out wet nurses at great expense. All this and more, they alleged, she had done for her own amusement and for the propitiation of her dark deities.

At first she wanted to howl with laughter. But as the litany of charges against her became ever more ridiculous, and the priest seemed to grant each one the weight of holy writ, she felt a leaden weight of despair settle in her stomach. These men wanted to see a woman burn today for the loss of the Bantiarna, truth and right be damned. Swallowing the lump of coal-black terror that rose up in her throat, she rasped, "If you want to burn someone, then so be it. But it will not be me!" she shrieked, slashing out with her knife.

Inconveniently, the duic chose that exact moment to try to take a stumbling step forward. The razor-sharp blade laid his face open from his left eyebrow to the left corner of his mouth. Aoibheall's knife tumbled from her suddenly nerveless fingers to clatter on the paving stones. Before she could move, the men had her surrounded. The pommel of a sword hilt crashed into her temple, and all went black and silent around her.

#  Chapter Forty

Frigid liquid was dashed in Aiobheall's face. It burned her lungs as she reflexively drew a breath. She spluttered her way to consciousness through the haze of the terrible headache her captor had given her. It took a moment for her eyes to clear and the dire straits she was in to assert themselves.

She was naked. Her hands were bound together tightly with good hemp rope around the other side of a thick pole. She had been secured to the rough post so that her breasts were pressed into the wood cruelly. Under her feet a mass of faggots, which stank with the same sharp reek as the fluid that had brought her back awake, bit into the soles of her feet exquisitely painfully.

The entire village stood in a circle around her, as best she could gauge from the limited amount she could turn her head. Even her neck had been bound to the post. A white-robed figure hove into her sight, but it took a moment for her to realize that it was the priest, wearing his full cassock and hood. In his hand he held, not a cross or mitre, but a blazing torch.

"For the crimes of witchcraft, with which she murdered Bantiarna Adan, and the attempted murder of Tiarna Donal O'Cealleigh with a knife, this woman has been sentenced to death by burning. Look well, Cionn Mhalanna, and see what end befalls such a black-hearted fiend!" he cried.

Beside him was a figure in black; Donal, she realized belatedly. He seemed to have sobered up, but sobriety had not improved his disposition toward her. He looked upon her nudity and her humiliation with as little compassion or interest as the priest displayed. Next to him stood Dafydd, smiling coldly. Recognizing that her only chance to escape was to try to persuade the duic of her innocence, she screamed, "Tiarna, you must believe me! I never wanted the Bantiarna to die, and I did not mean to wound you!" Tears streamed freely, born of her crushed heart. _"I love you!"_

The priest threw back his head and laughed. "See now how the witch tries to work her wiles, even now, on such a good and godly man as your Tiarna!" he cried, playing to the crowd for all he was worth.

"Donal, I beg you! Do not let them do this," she pleaded. "Let me prove it to you. Only spare my life, that I may serve you as my lord and Tiarna. Tell me only what I must do!"

The duic looked shocked. It clearly had not even entered his mind that she might feel anything for him. He turned to the priest and asked mutedly, "Should we not consider forgiveness? After all, if what she says is true, we would be making a grave mistake. And what of the people of Cionn Mhalanna? Who else is there who can tend their illnesses as well as she can?"

The priest howled with derisive laughter. "Has she then succeeded in casting her spell upon _you,_ Tiarna?" he asked silkily. "Are you under the sorceress's thrall?" He thrust the torch at him. "Take it up, and prove to us all once and forever that Duic Donal O'Cealleigh is, always has been, and forever will be his own man, no matter what woman would enslave him so!"

Donal looked between Aoibheall and the priest, then back again. She tried to scream her love for him, to make him see her truly through his unflinching gaze.

Donal did not hear, or if he did, he did not heed. Taking the burning brand, he flung it onto the pile of kindling, which had been thoroughly soaked with a substance that would make it burn faster. As the first flames whooshed up, Aoibheall screamed, _"NO!"_

A desperate, calculating part of her mind took over, working out how long she had before the first flames began to lap at her flesh. Taking a long breath, she decided, _If it is a witch they want, it is a witch I will give them!_

Breathing in another lungful of the toxic smoke, she wailed, in her best _caioneadh_ cry, a malediction she had been taught years before by her mother.

"Donal O'Cealleigh, Duic and Tiarna of Tyrconnell, always will you and your bloodline remember me with sorrow. Every five generations, starting with the one you hold in your arms this night, I will come and take your daughter from you as your wife was taken. If I will bear the blame, I will have their souls as recompense!" She screamed on, invoking the names of gods and goddesses so fell and fearsome that their names are lost to the ages, weaving the threads of the curse, working frantically against time as the heat and smoke began to make her head go fuzzy and her lungs ignite.

As the first tongue of flame reached her foot, she screamed. It raced up the pole, licking greedily at her flesh as it went. Her hair burst into flame, and she howled, forcing herself to repeat the words of the curse again. Now her very skin itself was aflame, and she could do nothing now but howl in agony.

Those awful cries of inhuman pain continued until she slumped against the pole, spent and exhausted. The smoke took her and seemed to whirl her spirit away. The blackening, charred thing tethered to the post was nothing to do with her anymore. But she knew.

Oh, yes, she knew. She knew that the duic would remember her with sorrow; and then with dread.

* * * * *

The priest looked at Donal companionably, once the witch woman had the good grace to stop thrashing about and let the pyre purify her soul. "What will you name your babe, Tiarna?" he asked. "It has been almost a fortnight since she was born, and you need to have her christened properly."

"Adan," he said absently, staring into the heart of the flames at something visible only to him. "Her name will be Adan, for her dear mother."

Dafydd moved to flank him. "You did a fine thing tonight, Tiarna."

Donal spared him only one brief, contemptuous glance. "Did I, Dafydd?" he asked, turning his attention back to the fire. "Or did I commit the blackest sin any man may?"

Dafydd blanched and muttered something about seeing that the carriage was ready for the return trip to the castle, hurrying away. The priest stayed, but wisely said nothing. Donal stood by the fire until naught remained but glowing coals, and the pitiful thing tied to the stake was no longer recognizable as human, thinking sulfurous thoughts.

* * * * *

As the years passed, the Tiarna almost managed to put Aoibheall's dread prophecy out of his mind. Adan aged, as children do, and in what seemed like the blink of an eye, she was thirteen.

At Beltaine, she pledged her troth to the son of Manus Dubh, who had overseen Tyrconnell while his father made pilgrimage to Rome. A fine boy in the first blush of his manhood, he had more than enough wealth and holdings to keep her in the style to which she was born, and Donal could see no reason not to let the match be made. In short order, they were married, and Adan's stomach began to swell with a new life.

On the night that she was to birth, Donal arrived at Manus Dubh's castle to make obeisance and be near his daughter. He had learned that Brannagh O'Cionn would be attending the birth. For all that it was whispered that she had picked up ill habits from her instructor, Aoibheall, he felt secure that his daughter was in the best possible hands.

He would have continued to feel that way, had Brannagh not burst into the great hall, where the men were sitting down to a late repast and awaiting word on Adan. Her face was ghostly pale and she looked terrified out of her skin. "Tiarna, you must come at once!" she snapped. Not waiting for his response, she rushed out of the room. For one thunderstruck moment, he froze; then he pounded after her, feeling a chill hand of dread clench around his heart.

When they reached the women's wing, it did not take but a moment for Donal to understand what the trouble was. He heard the shrieks of his daughter in her labor; but he also heard a high-pitched wailing that rose and fell in harmony with her agonized screams, seeming to mock her pain and her fear. Donal's face went ashen as he realized what was going on. "Aoibheall!" he cried.

The only answer was the keening, which redoubled in strength and volume. As it did, Donal felt himself forced to his knees, his hands pressed to his ears to try to block out the aural assault. Beside him, Brannagh crumpled to the floor, insensate and bleeding from her ears. The Rigan's men fled as fast as their jellied legs could carry them, stumbling like blind men under the power of the _bean'sidhe's_ wail.

Donal forced himself to bear up and crawled over to Brannagh, placing a hand on her chest. Her heartbeat was steady and strong, although her color was sallow and corpselike. As the shrieks died down, he helped Brannagh to her feet, gently chafing her hands. She opened her eyes; they were wide and unfocused for a moment before she looked at him. "Tiarna?" she gasped.

"All is well," he said. Her mouth formed a perfect O of fright, and she hurried into the birthing chamber. Donal rushed in behind her.

With no arms to catch the babe, she had fallen to the floor and now lay, tiny arms and legs thrashing, unable to catch her breath from the effort of trying to cry. She was covered in the usual muck and filth that accompanies childbirth, and was shivering from cold and indignation. Brannagh deftly scooped her up and began tending to her as Donal stooped over Adan and gently touched her warm cheek.

Her eyes were wide and stared at nothing in this world. Her mouth was set in a rictus of fright. Whatever she had seen in her final moments on earth, it had plainly been a sight to set demons to fleeing. One hand had fallen across her stomach protectively, the other lay limp in an attitude that suggested she had been trying to ward something off when death had overtaken her.

Gently, he closed Adan's eyes and smoothed the terror-stricken face into a semblance of peace. He felt tears welling up, but refused to shed them. He turned to Brannagh and demanded, "Is the child all right?"

Brannagh looked at him with a horrified expression and wrested one of her hands free. She pointed to her ears. The thin red rivulets of blood were drying along her jaw line, turning a dark red in the chill air. "I cannot hear you, Tiarna," she said, her voice shaking as she struggled to hold on to her calm demeanor. "The babe is well. More than that, I know not."

Donal nodded, and gestured that he was leaving her to her work. He made his way through the keep in a blind haze of sorrow, and when he entered the great hall again, he staggered as though in his cups.

Manus was on his feet and hurrying toward him. "What has happened here, Donal?" the large man demanded, seizing his arm in a desperate bid to keep his legs under him.

"I am, this day, a grandfather," Donal whispered. "My daughter is dead, your son is a widower, the midwife has been struck deaf, and there was no one there to catch my granddaughter when she emerged from the womb. I have brought shame and dishonor to my family and defiled your house and hospitality."

Padraig was up and out of the room before Donal finished, his footfalls rang on the stone stairs as he mounted the central staircase of the keep, rushing toward the women's wing. No other man stirred a foot to stop him. It was only fitting and proper that he should be able to be at his wife's side.

Manus reared back. "What manner of foolishness is this?" he demanded. "I always knew you to be an even-tempered sort. But you are talking daft, man!"

Donal shook his head. In the face of his lord's confused ire, he was as meek and submissive as any martyr before the executioner. "I have my full wits about me, my lord, as much as I may wish otherwise."

His eyes overflowed and tracked down into his red beard, now liberally streaked with gray. At forty, he was past his prime. In another decade, should he live so long, he would be considered ancient indeed. But he would not be accused of being in his dotage by any man, and the tears that now were wrung out of him were composed as much of pride as of grief.

Manus sat back down and cradled his head in his hands as he thought very hard. "My men," he said slowly, as if trying to wrap his mind around the idea, "came pelting in as if they were stalked by the Devil himself and spewing some nonsense about a _bean'sidhe_ that had cursed your line. I heard rumors, long and long ago, about the village wise woman you put to death at the priest's behest, but gave them no credence. If I had, I would never have permitted this marriage to go forward." He stood, and began to pace as if inactivity invited his own demise. "And now, the _bean'sidhe_ has come to my very walls. My son is, as you say, a widower with a wee one to raise, as you were upon a time." He whirled and gave Donal the full force of his piercing gaze. "And the cause of it all stands before me, diminished and humbled far too late to make amends. What, I ask, do you think is the appropriate price you should pay?"

Donal whispered under his breath. "I beg but one boon, my Rigan. Grant me three days to return to Tyrconnell and try to put things to rights as best I may. After that, I will return and deliver myself into your hands and judgment."

Manus looked at him narrowly. Donal had fought alongside this man in battle, and indeed Manus owed Donal his life. That consideration would no doubt sway him to spare Donal's life, but would hardly buy him a full pardon. But surely three days, from a man who had suffered grievous injury to protect his overlord, was not so much to ask.

Finally, Manus sighed. "You have three days, Donal O'Cealleigh. If you have not returned in that time, I will decree throughout Tyrconnell that you shall have no safe haven, but that your head should be brought to me on your own sword, to decorate my castle walls."

Donal stood and gave the full bow to his overlord. "It shall be as you say, my Rigan," he said, offering a salute and turning, nearly running out the door in his haste.

He did not stop until he reached the courtyard. One of the stable boys, a lackwit whose name he had never troubled to ask even had he been likely to remember it, shuffled out of the shadows. "May I serve you, my lord?" he asked carefully.

"Saddle my horse," the duic snapped, throwing a silver piece in the dirt at the lad's feet. "I must be off tonight."

"My lord," the boy said, and hurried to his task. In minutes, the duic was pounding through the night toward Cionn Mhalanna, his thoughts as black as the moonless night around him.

#  Chapter Forty-One

"That's just about th'end of't," Kathleen said. "Donal returned t' Cionn Mhalanna and killed the priest publicly the next day. He repented long an' loudly of th' folly that had brought him t'execute an innocent woman at Lucian Pliny's behest. Manus Dubh renamed him Donal th' Black, an' he went into exile in a monastery at Ballyshannon, where'e died four years later, stripped of his title an' holdings. The child, whose name's given 'ere as Mairead, went on t'marry a minor noble o' County Kerry, and they'd three children, one o' whom was a daughter. Brannagh never recovered her hearing, but's quite famous nonetheless; indeed, she's revered as a little-known saint for her healing ability in these parts. And so th'tale's told. An' now ye know all ye need t' know what's after ye."

Heather grimaced. "Maybe so," she allowed, "but knowing what something _is_ and knowing how to _deal_ with it are two different things. I know what a lion is, but if I was in the African savannah, that alone wouldn't save me from getting eaten if I ran into one."

Moira said solemnly, "Aye, that's true enough. So I have this," she said proudly, showing Heather the book she'd gotten from the library. It featured a lady in white on the cover, with a bold inscription: _Legends and Haunts of Ireland._

Heather snatched it from her as if it was a lifeline. She turned the pages so frantically that the other two women exchanged a questioning glance. Finally, she stopped and began to read, her lips moving silently as she followed the text.

"According to this," she said after several quiet moments, "there is no sure way to stop a _bean'sidhe._ There are certain ways one might, if they find her at the correct time or in the right circumstances. But when you're just a moving target, like I seem to be, there is no reported means of turning a _bean'sidhe_ away."

"I know that, love," Kathleen said. "But I think that you will find this to be more useful." She riffled the pages hurriedly until she stopped and stabbed a finger at the book.

Heather looked and saw a picture straight out of Disney: a slender, girlish form with dragonfly wings, hovering over a flower. She barked out a laugh. "Pixies?" she asked incredulously. "How the hell are pixies supposed to help?"

"No' pixies," Kathleen said impatiently, "faeries. Did't no' say in our reading' tha' the villagers figured Aoibheall fer one o' th' Fae folk?"

"Well...yes," Heather said hesitantly. "But..."

"But nothin'," Moira snapped. "It's yer best an' only chance. Will ye now be fool enough no' t' take't?"

Heather acknowledged the logic of this statement by bowing her head and beginning to read again. Fortunately, the book was in English, and she had no difficulty following it. Soon, she came to a passage that interested her:

"The Fae may best be repelled by use of cold iron, as it burns their flesh. Charms and devices made of rowan and herbs will do, if nothing better can be had."

"Well, then. Cold iron and cold steel are pretty much the same," Kathleen said. "Finding a knife made out of pure iron would be difficult, t'say nothin' o' expensive. Yer best off keepin' tha' ring close t'ye, an' never lettin't out o' yer sight."

* * * * *

The hour was late, and everyone was tired. Kathleen yawned hugely. "Wha' time's't?" she asked groggily.

"After midnight," Heather said, standing and stretching. The hours of sitting hunched over books had caused her spine to lock up, and the vertebrae protested with little popping noises as she raised her arms. She winced.

Moira was nodding in her chair. Kathleen stood over her and tapped her shoulder. "C'mon, love," she whispered tenderly. "Off t'bed wi' ye."

She stirred and looked around. "But th' Ouija?" she asked.

"It'll keep 'til tomorrow," Kathleen said sternly. "We're none o' us in any condition t'be communin' w' spirits or any other such thing tonight."

Moira rubbed a hand sleepily over her eyes. "Guess yer right," she slurred. "Is't all right with ye?" she asked Heather.

She nodded. "Better to do it when we're rested," she said. Moira offered her a wan smile. "Then it's off t'bed," she murmured. "We'll see ye in th'mornin'."

As Moira and Kathleen shuffled into their room, Heather went into her own. Stripping off her sweats, she began to run a shower. It took her only a moment to rethink it, deciding that a long, hot soak with a good book was the best thing to take her mind off the situation. She dug out The Eternals for rereading; unlike many people she knew, she didn't mind reading a book twice or more. She often found that she missed small but vital details the first time around, and it was fun for her to go through and try to pick out what she'd missed. Shortly, she was marinating in the hot water, steam wafting into the cooler air, starting from chapter one again.

When she began to doze, she started awake and realized the water had cooled to an uncomfortable level. Quickly, she lathered up and scrubbed herself, then rinsed off. Once she had dried off and climbed into her robe, against a recurrence of this morning, she tucked herself into bed.

Her dreams were not as strange as the night before, and easily explained; they were almost a replay of the things she'd learned. Stately trees heavy with red berries gave way to sumptuously appointed birthing rooms. Women rushed around purposefully while the men drank and made merry.

It was not the best night's sleep she'd ever had, but it beat the night before by an Irish mile. When she awoke, she felt refreshed and ready to take on the day.

* * * * *

With a flourish, Moira drew the board out of its simple black cotton covering and laid it on the table. It was a beautiful thing, and old beyond anything like it Heather had ever seen. The planchette was made of lovingly preserved ivory, and the board was solid oak. Reverently, she drew a finger over the smooth, varnished wood. The board fairly vibrated with a gentle, positive energy. There didn't seem to be anything sinister about it. Like nearly everything else she had encountered since she had arrived in Ireland, this board seemed to welcome her as if she was a long-lost friend.

Kathleen sat at the ready with a digital voice recorder and a notepad. It would be up to her to translate any response they received from the board. Moira was staring off into the distance, preparing herself. Heather, even though she had done such a thing before, felt like a Brillo pad of nerves.

What if the séance didn't work? What if the answers they got were too vague to have any meaning? What if...? Her mind delved back to some of Mike's horror movies, conjuring up delightful images of the wrong spirit coming through. What if something went wrong?

Finally, Moira opened her eyes and pronounced herself ready to begin. Heather clamped her jaw and nodded her own readiness. Kathleen sat with her pen poised over the paper.

Moira placed her fingertips on the planchette, and raised an eyebrow at Heather to suggest she should as well. Heather leaned forward and touched the planchette tentatively, as if petting a strange dog for the first time. The cool ivory, smooth and well-worn from decades of use, began to warm under her touch almost immediately. Without speaking, the women began to move the indicator around the board in a figure-eight pattern.

Just about the time Heather was beginning to despair of anything happening, the planchette jerked under her fingers, moving unerringly to the letter L. The women working the board said the letters aloud as they appeared in the window of the planchette. In short order, they had the following:

LEANAINACHBHFUILMORANAMAAGAINNISEANMBEANFHAILIGCUMHACHTAGANLAEISEANRUDAMHAINGOSPARESCEARTAGATANOISAGATARANLEANBHADHEANAMH

Kathleen bent to her work, picking out words that were clear: mBean, Leanai, Leanbh. In only a few minutes, she had resolved the jumble of letters into:

Leanaí, nach bhfuil mórán ama againn. Is é an mBean fháil i gcumhacht ag an lae. Is é an rud amháin go spares ceart agat anois agat ar an leanbh a dhéanamh.

Heather peered at the words narrowly. "What does it mean?"

Kathleen translated. _"Child, we do not have much time. The banshee is gaining in power by the day. The only thing that spares you right now is the baby you carry."_

Heather asked, "What about the ring?" holding up her right hand so that the black wooden ring was clearly visible. "Isn't it supposed to protect me?"

Kathleen spoke in a clear, strong voice. Clearly, she had decided that if she was going to go along with this insanity, she might as well do it whole-heartedly. _"Cad mar gheall ar an fáinne? Nach bhfuil sé ceaptha a chosaint dom?"_ she asked.

The planchette began to swirl around the board again, moving so fast that the women were gasping the letters as they were demarcated. Soon, the pointer stopped and returned to the simple figure eight motion. Kathleen began to dissect the message again.

Beidh an fáinne tú a chosaint, ach amháin a mhéid. Tá do arm is mó in aghaidh an bean'sidhe do chreideamh nach féidir léi díobháil duit. Beidh caill sin, agus caillfidh tú féin.

" _The ring will protect you, but only so far. Your greatest weapon against the_ bean'sidhe _is your belief that she cannot harm you. Lose that, and you will lose yourself,"_ Kathleen read mechanically.

"But I already _know_ she can harm me. She's already done it at least twice. Is there nothing more I can do?"

Kathleen dutifully repeated the question. Moira said nothing, her eyes hooded as though she was half asleep, lost in the work of getting the crucial information.

" _Ach tá a fhios agam cheana féin, is féidir léi a dochar dom. Sí a rinne sé ar a laghad faoi dhó. An bhfuil rud ar bith níos mó is féidir liom a dhéanamh?"_

The planchette paused, quivered, and began to fly again.

Beidh muid ag troid taobh leat nuair a bhíonn an t-am ceart. Ag an uair an chloig is dorcha, nuair is cosúil go léir cinnte caillte, beidh muid ann. Ní bheidh muid theipeann ort. Ná theipeann orainn. Tá a fhios agat ainmneacha do mháithreacha. Nuair is gá a bheith leis an mó, glaoch agus beidh muid ag teacht. théann na cinn d'aois a bhfuil tú, iníon. Téigh lenár blessing agus ár ngrá.

" _We will fight alongside you when the time is right. At the darkest hour, when all certainly seems lost, we will be there. We will not fail you. Do not fail us. You know the names of your mothers. When the need be greatest, call and we will come._

" _The old ones go with you, daughter. Go with our blessing and our love,"_ Kathleen recited. Her eyes were huge and staring; whatever she had expected, this was not it.

"So that's it, then," Heather said, moving her hand to cup her stomach. Was it just her imagination, or did she feel the tiniest bump between her hips? "There's nothing I can do until the baby's ready to be born."

"It doesn't seem that way," Moira said, rising to tuck the board away. "But they also seemed to imply distance might give you a little insulation." Heather noticed that the crisp flight-attendant pronunciation was back in her voice. Obviously, it only manifested when she was working, lecturing, or under stress. Right now, all three seemed to be in play.

"I agree," Kathleen said. "I've seen some strange things in my time, but tha' takes the cake an' no doubt of't." Her eyes were troubled and a worried look shadowed her pixyish face. "So, the question is, wha' d'ye mean t'do wi't?"

Heather forced a smile she didn't feel. _What indeed?_ "Well, I've got a publican to placate, my homeland to see, and no real plans for the next few days. And I have to get souvenirs!" She groaned as she realized that she had completely forgotten this small, but important facet of her visit.

Moira laughed behind her, where she was busy tucking the board away on a high shelf under a mass of various bric-a-brac. "Don't worry, love," she said. "In Ireland, we've a funny way o' findin' time fer all, an' then some." She twisted around and winked mischievously.

Her cheer was infectious, and could hardly be denied. Heather laughed with her, and even Kathleen cracked a smile.

"Where d'ye want t' start?" she asked.

Heather replied coyly, "Why don't you two decide?"

#  Chapter Forty-Two

Two hours later, they walked into McCormac's pub. To Heather's delight, the place wasn't busy, and Hugh himself was sitting at the bar, reading the local paper. He turned as he heard the door and grinned. "An' a fine mornin' t'ye, ladies!" he crowed, with a melodramatic bow. "What c'n I be startin' for ye?"

"Tea, if ye please," Kathleen ordered, looking around at her cohorts. They both nodded. "Three cups."

"As ye like," he assured them. "Anywhere ye take a likin' t'," he added, striding away to fetch the requested beverages. The women selected a table, and by the time they had divested themselves of jackets and purses and gotten thoroughly settled in, he was back with four cups of fragrant brew. Setting them down ceremoniously, he asked, "Now, wha' c'n I get ye t'eat?"

Heather met his eyes and felt herself blush furiously. "Actually, I think we need a few minutes. But I'd like to speak with you, if you don't mind."

Hugh arched one eyebrow, but other than that, gave no sign of what he thought of that one way or the other. "Oh?"

"I wanted to apologize for standing you up yesterday," she said. "I had some heavy personal things come up that needed to be dealt with."

He grinned. "Well, as luck would have it, I had to meet with my solicitor. Took half the bloody day, an' I realized about three hours int't that I dinna have yer number so I could let ye know. So as ye c'n see, there's no harm done," he finished gallantly.

Heather gave him a relieved smile. "I just wanted to do better by a man whose family did so much to help mine."

Both of Hugh's eyebrows shot up. "An' my forefathers'd rear right up out o' their sainted graves if I'd the bad taste or manners t' let tha' be a thought in me mind," he scowled. "Ye dinna owe me a thing. It's glad I am tha' ye had the thought, but I assure ye, 'tis no' necessary. Ye came when ye could, an' we've nothin' but time t'talk," he said. To make the point, he walked over to the front door and locked it, putting up a small "Closed" sign. Coming back, he said, "Lucky fer me, there's few enough in this town'll even notice if the place isn't open by two hours from now. Oh, aye, a couple o' the tosspots'll bitch a' me over't, but I dinna care that—" He snapped his fingers sharply for emphasis. "For any o'that," he said. "Now, this little mystery o' yers has been muttered and whispered about far too long. Ye dinna have t'tell me anythin' ye dinna care to, but I am that curious."

Heather smiled. "Let's eat, and I'll tell you everything."

* * * * *

Luncheon with Hugh was a treat. He listened courteously, never once expressing doubt, disbelief, or asking a question that might even obliquely make her feel like she might be less than fully compos mentis. In fact, quite to the contrary, he seemed to hang on her every word.

"Tha' explains a lot," he averred when she finally finished the tale. "An' tha' was just like Patrick, t'hear the rest o' the family tell't. Generous to a fault, 'e was, but still always seemed t'have more money. 'Twas said that th'pub girls 'e employed mourned 'im like 'is own children when 'e passed. Well-loved about these parts, e' was, an' all the more because 'e never spoke o' what was between yer grandmother Agata an' 'imslef. Indeed, it's become a wee point o' family pride tha' Uncle Patrick's memory be honored by doin' the same as 'e did. We dinna tell long an' tall tales. What someone tells one o' us, 'less they tell us they don't care or wish it known, goes no further than our own ears. An' tha' applies t'ye no less'n anyone in Malin Head," he said with finality.

Heather reached over and patted him on the arm. "You're a fine man, Hugh," she assured him. "Patrick would be proud of you."

Hugh smiled at her benevolently. "When d'ye leave?" he asked.

She thought for a moment. "Probably another three or four days," she answered. "I'd like to give Moira a little time to enjoy her vacation without some Yank hanging around cluttering up the house."

Moira reached over and took a half-hearted swat at her shoulder. "Ye dinna have t'go," she sputtered. "Y'know full well yer welcome as long as ye care t'be here."

Heather sighed. "I know," she replied. "But I also need to get back home and get ready for the baby...and whatever else might be coming." Her shoulders slumped a little as the thought rose unbidden that for all her work and efforts to learn, she might never be able to escape the curse her ancestor had unwittingly unleashed on her. In a moment, her demeanor shifted from cheerful to dour.

To break the mood, Kathleen leaned in toward the center of the table conspiratorially. "Well, then," she said, eyes twinkling, "we'll just have t'show ye a bit more _craic_ 'fore ye go, now won't we?"

Everyone laughed. It was decided that they would return the following night to "take more advantage of Hugh's hospitality," as Heather put it. He escorted them to the door, unlocked it, and kissed each of the women on the knuckles as though they were royalty as they departed.

Soon, the women were driving along the famous Inis Eoghian 100, a scenic circuit that wended its way around and through some of the most rugged and beautiful country that Ireland has to offer. They saw Banba's Crown, where an ancient lighthouse was taken over by the British in 1805 as a signal tower. They saw Hell's Hole, a great chasm in the cliff face where seawater blasted up several meters above their heads before subsiding with each ebb and swell of the tide. Heather was particularly delighted by the Wee House of Malin, an old hermit's abode in a cave set deep into the cliff face. Miraculously, the sun was out and the weather was very mild. Off in the distance, Heather could see the shores of Scotland and the islands of Islay and Tory.

The entire scene was heartbreakingly beautiful. In Heather's soul, she wished that she could stay forever, here in this wild land that had birthed her ancestors, sustained their lives, and even now held them in death. But she knew that this wistful desire could not be. America claimed her in its own way as surely as the dark, rich soil of Ireland itself.

She could hardly leave without going to see the resting places of some of her family, at least, so Moira and Kathleen drove her to the tiny cemetery hard by the church. They showed her where the O'Kellys and O'Cealleighs had been laid to rest through the windshield, and then stayed in the car to let her commune with her ancestors in peace.

Heather walked up and down among the graves, some of which had been in place for four centuries and more. It took her breath away to think that the oldest of these graves would have been ancient when the first English settlement in America was new. She felt empowered and yet insignificant in the face of such a grand sweep of history. It was a sweet sting in her heart to know that she might never experience anything so completely epic again. But to have experienced it once, and to have felt the swell of pride and glory that comes from knowing who you are and where you come from, walking your ancestors' footsteps, seemed in that moment to be more than sufficient; if she could never feel anything like it again in her life, she figured that would be a fair trade for having felt it here and now.

* * * * *

The next two days were a whirlwind of activity. Heather reported to Erin and gave her an abridged version of events; she promised to tell her and the rest of their group the entire tale when she got home. After some hashing out of details with regard to where and when she should be expected, she managed to get off the phone. Then the women were off again, loading Heather down with souvenirs, trinkets, and baubles until she began to feel serious misgivings about being able to close her suitcases.

All too soon, they loaded up the car for the drive to Derry. Heather had brought out her digital camera, as the uncharacteristically fine weather had held and the day was perfect for taking pictures. She snapped away, filling an entire memory card, and then another as they retraced their route.

At the airport, both women threw their arms around her. Kathleen seemed more enthusiastic than Moira, if such a thing were possible. "Ye take good care o' yerself," she growled. "An' if ye ever come back this way, an' if ye ever work out what 'tis ye're lookin' fer, we'll be glad t'help."

Heather blushed. Had she really been that transparent in her curiosity? She had thought she was playing so close to the vest; she had clearly been wrong.

Moira saw the discomfiture on her face and laughed. "Aye, love," she said, patting her on the shoulder fondly, "we both knew what ye wanted t'say wi'out ye sayin' a word. But 'tis no' our way t'push fer that from someone as isn't dead certain o' their own self." She grabbed Heather's shoulders and eyed her critically.

"I'll tell ye this much fer nothin', though. Any man, or woman, as has ye's a lucky one indeed." She pressed her lips lightly to Heather's cheek. A moment later, Kathleen did the same. Kathleen was starting to look suspiciously misty, her eyes glinting with moisture.

"Ye keep in touch wi' us, now, y'hear?" she whispered, and then turned and got into the car, where she stared fixedly ahead. Moira piled in beside her, and they were off with a wave, which Heather returned heartily.

The skycap hurried over to take her bags. She felt a strange, empty ache mingled with joy at the thought that she was leaving home...to go home.

#  Chapter Forty-Three

After the immediate whirlwind of returning home died down, everything settled back down for Heather. Every so often, in odd moments, she would pull out the notes she had made while she was in Ireland and let her mind roam over them.

The _bean'sidhe_ had not made another appearance since that terrible night with Moira and Kathleen. Heather suspected she was biding her time, much like her unknown allies on the other side of the Ouija board were. But those were the thoughts of idle moments, when she wasn't preoccupied with other things.

And it wasn't as if she had nothing to be preoccupied with. Her life had become an endless cycle of work, research, doctors' visits, and the minutiae of everyday life. Letters from Mike came as often as his duties would permit, and she always responded enthusiastically. She had sent him a thick packet of pictures from Ireland. It wasn't until he wrote back, commenting that Moira and Kathleen appeared in nearly every one of them, that she fully appreciated how much she had come to miss them. E-mails were exchanged almost daily at first. Then, as such relationships tend to do, the communication tapered off to weekly.

Heather was eating out more often than in her own home, she realized with a start one late evening. Erin had sent her home with a large pile of paperwork that she'd volunteered to work on over the weekend. To her credit, Erin had taken a similarly large stack of her own. Taking a break, she went to raid the pantry. The usual pregnancy cravings had begun to take effect, and she had a hankering for sauerkraut.

Ordinarily, Heather couldn't stand the stuff. The smell alone was enough to drive her right out of the house. If Mike wanted sauerkraut and kielbasa, he had to cook it himself. On such nights, Heather ate elsewhere, with a stern injunction to open the windows and let the house air out before she got back. But now it sounded like manna from Heaven, as much as the idea repulsed her. So she began to root around in the pantry.

Fifteen minutes of searching netted her nothing that would even make a reasonable approximation of the sour food she craved. To her alarm, she realized that she hadn't been grocery shopping in weeks. In fact, she hadn't been shopping since three weeks after she had returned from Ireland, she realized, thinking back. She ground her teeth and decided to make a quick run down the street to an all-night supermarket. Before she did, she sat down at her computer and pulled up a few pregnancy websites; they all assured her that her cravings were perfectly normal. As one site said, "If you find yourself craving dirt or clay, a condition otherwise known as pica, you should go see your doctor. But as long as your weight gain remains normal and you don't overdo the salt or sugar, there is absolutely no reason not to indulge your cravings."

The matter settled, she took a look at some suggested shopping lists. Pickles and ice cream, chocolate, chips, and a myriad other junk foods were universally repeated on the recommended "foods to keep on hand" lists. _Yum,_ she thought sardonically. _By the time the baby comes, I'll look like John Goodman._

But she slung her purse over her shoulder and hurried out into the warm early-August night. Taking a deep breath of the warm, salt-smelling air, it abruptly hit her that it was the height of summer. She had been running at such a frantic pace that it had quite escaped her notice that she'd been walking around in the evenings without a jacket for the last two and a half months.

There was good news, though; the constantly rushing hither, yon, and another direction had kept her in good trim. According to her doctor, she actually needed to tone it down a notch or two, or start eating more. Her morning sickness had come and gone, and had been mercifully mild. It had plagued her for a month at odd intervals, usually after she'd eaten something with a heavy tomato component like lasagna or pizza. Once she had figured out the culprit, she was able to simply cut it out of her diet. The change had helped, and although she was showing in her fifth month, it hadn't affected her face or her figure like pregnancy did so many other women.

This did nothing to endear her to a great many of her detractors, like Allison Burke. Heather winced as she realized that Allison would, in all likelihood, be working one of the registers at the grocery store. She had gotten wind of Heather's condition from a mutual acquaintance. Heather didn't ask who, because she really did not care to have to give birth to her child in prison because she had killed one of her friends. But every time the two women's paths crossed, Allison seemed to make it a point to ask how the pregnancy was going, in that sickly sweet tone women always adopt when they are trying halfheartedly to disguise cattiness as concern. The very thought of having to deal with Allison, her two faces, and her three chins was nearly enough to convince Heather to simply go to the nearest convenience store, stock up on junk food, and call Erin and Ellen over for a girls' night.

But, Heather thought, why should that bitch be any kind of a consideration in where I go or don't? What the hell am I even thinking, giving her that kind of power over me? Mike would jump my ass if he even knew I'd let that thought run through my head...and even worse, he'd be right.

Before she could give the matter anymore thought, she got into the car and started driving.

* * * * *

Her luck was in. Allison wasn't working that night. Instead, a slender teenaged girl with hair dyed a shocking bubblegum pink took one look at her swelling belly and asked, "Can I _touch_ it?" shyly.

Heather raised an eyebrow. For some reason, the moment she had begun to show, complete strangers had wanted to touch her stomach. In an effort to understand the urge, she had done some research on sociology websites. They seemed to universally conclude that it stemmed from ancient fertility rites wherein the members of a community had laid hands on a pregnant woman as a way of offering their blessings and prayers to the gods for a safe and healthy child.

It didn't make it any less jarring, but a lot more understandable. She was unable to think of a way to refuse which wouldn't sound just flat bitchy. So she tempered her initial irritation with a smile and said, "If you like."

The girl squealed with delight and hurried around the counter. Gently, through Heather's T-shirt, the girl put a reverent hand on the bump. "I can't wait until I can have one," she told Heather, her face lighting up.

This discomfited Heather; the girl didn't look old enough to have a job, never mind a child. "How old are you?" she asked. Okay, so in most situations the question would have seemed brash to the point of rudeness; but when someone a person doesn't know has their hand on the person's stomach, feeling the child inside them, it affords them a certain amount of _carte blanche_ with regard to social matters.

"Seventeen," the girl said, meeting Heather's intent gaze. "I... _ooh_ , it just kicked!" she cried, her face lighting up.

Heather's surprise that such a young woman would want a baby vanished in the wonder that her child had just moved. Quickly, she dropped a hand beside the girl's, and was rewarded with another tiny flutter of motion. The two women's eyes locked in a timeless, wordless communication as old as the species itself.

"Do you know what it's going to be?" the girl asked.

"A girl," Heather replied dreamily. The latest ultrasound had confirmed it, and now she was in a furious snail-mail conference with Mike over various baby names. "We haven't picked a name yet," she mentioned, to forestall the obvious next question.

"What's it like?" the girl asked worshipfully, her eyes alight.

"It's the most wonderful, uncomfortable, amazing, terrifying thing that's ever happened to me," Heather assured her. "What's your name?"

"Jennifer," the girl said. "You?"

"I'm Heather," she said, and held out her hand. Jennifer carefully disengaged her hand from the swell of Heather's abdomen and took it.

"So, Jennifer, why do you want a baby so much, so young?" Heather queried, hearing a vaguely condescending undertone to the question that made her wince.

"I—I just think I'd be a really good mommy," Jennifer said. "I want to know what it's like. I want to be up at three a.m. for feedings. I want to take the baby to the park, the beach, oh...just _everywhere!"_

Her face was ablaze with enthusiasm Heather couldn't bring herself to quash. Instead, she said, "Well, give it time. There's no hurry. Get your life together how you want it, and then the baby will come when it's time, okay?"

Jennifer's face fell a little, with a peculiar mixture of teenage defiance and relief. "That's what my mom says," she said through an expression that just barely escaped being a pout.

"Well, you might want to trust her on this one," Heather said. Jennifer went back behind the counter and began ringing up her groceries, chattering about how wonderful it would be to have a baby running around. By the time Heather paid and left with two bulging sacks full of groceries, her mind was whirling.

She unlocked the driver's side door and unlocked the rest of the truck so that she could load her plunder into it. Her cell phone caught her eye, and she picked it up, reflexively checking it for messages

There weren't any; not that she was really surprised. Erin and Jericho had moved in together, a state of affairs that appeared to have stunned Erin no less than Heather; Erin had stated very plainly that she would work until she didn't feel like it anymore, and then she and Jericho were having dinner. Erin made this sound like the jumping-off point for the night, rather than the end.

Heather's eyebrows drew together in thought. She hadn't had much of a social life lately, as busy as she'd been. All of her friends were just as busy as she was. Except—

Abruptly, she realized who had been conspicuous by absence since her return. Glancing at the display on the phone, she noted that it was only nine thirty. Early enough, she reasoned. Before she could talk herself out of the idea, she dialed a familiar number. Three rings later, the phone on the other end was picked up.

"It's Heather," she said by way of a greeting. "Are you busy?"

#  Chapter Forty-Four

Fintan answered the door in blue jeans and a black T-shirt. In bright green letters it read, "Full of good cheer." A large orange X crossed out the word "cheer" and underneath it, in stark white, "beer" was proudly displayed. He nodded politely at her.

"Heather," he said. "It's good to see you again. Come in, please."

"Hi, Fintan," Heather smiled as she moved past him. She looked around his townhouse, in a brownstone on a quiet street that straddled the neighborhoods of South End and Back Bay. The décor was masculine, but not overly so, with muted earthen tones interspersed with deep ocher and Tuscan red. On the walls were wooden bookshelves full to bursting with books. Heather perused the titles, and was surprised; in addition to the usual scholarly works and references she would have expected, she also discovered a great deal of popular, fantasy, and horror fiction. Stephen King, Mercedes Lackey, Dean Koontz, Terry Goodkind, Terry Pratchett, Jacqueline Carey, and Jim Butcher all had significant presences. A small section of Tom Clancy was flanked by Peter Straub on one side and John Sandford's _Prey_ series on the other. Frank McCourt began a parade of Irish authors Heather couldn't honestly claim to have ever heard of. It seemed that Fintan Fitzkillian was a man of multiple interests. No single-faceted man, him.

Stairs ran up from the floor beside her on her right. On the wall enclosing the outside of the stairs in place of a railing, family portraits hung, along with a Sacred Heart sculpture and an elaborate Celtic crucifix. A deep brown leather recliner occupied pride of place in the room, facing toward the alcove which housed the kitchen and the sliding glass doors leading out to the patio and the backyard. A paperback novel rested open, face down on the arm of the chair. On the adjoining wall, a sectional sofa divided the living room from the dining room. A picture of the Irish coast had been blown up to poster-size, and lovingly framed.

Overall, it was a cozy, masculine sort of place; in fact, calling it a lair would not have been overstating it. There was a warm, musky aroma in the air. It smelled of spices, good cooking, sandalwood, and a clean human male. Soft midnight jazz played from the stereo directly across from the sofa, carefully tucked away inside a low, modern entertainment center. The room seemed to suit Fintan perfectly.

Fintan looked even larger standing here, at the heart of his home. He turned to her and asked, "Can I offer you something to drink? I have tea."

"Tea would be nice, thank you," she said, looking around at the room. Without a word, he turned to go into the kitchen. Once he was safely behind the wall, he called, "So how have you been keeping?"

Heather replied, "Fine. Everything's going fine."

"Any word on that other thing?" he asked. A tinkling rattle of ice cubes made a counterpoint to the question.

"Nothing so far," she said. "Things have pretty much died down since I got back."

The sound of the refrigerator door opening and closing didn't quite mask Fintan's sigh. A moment later, Heather heard the trickle of liquid into glasses. The door opened and closed again, and then Fintan came around the corner, carrying two tall glasses full of iced tea. He handed one to Heather and waved her to the sofa.

When they were seated, silence fell. Fintan looked down into his glass of tea as if trying to decipher the mysteries of the universe in the deep russet brew. Heather studied him carefully. It seemed to her that she had never seen him so serious.

Finally, Fintan sighed and looked up, his eyes troubled. "Heather, I need to be perfectly honest with you."

That didn't sound anything like what she was expecting to hear. She drew herself up a little straighter, setting the glass aside so as to demonstrate that he had her undivided attention. "What is it?" she asked, hearing a slight catch in her voice and hating it.

"I've been offered a teaching post back in Ireland," he told her, rotating his glass in his hands. "They'd like me to be there in two weeks."

Heather's jaw dropped. She could only wonder why he would so suddenly uproot himself to go back to Ireland, when he so plainly loved it in America? Before she could ask, he continued.

"I'm going to accept," he said blankly. "The money's not bad, and it's a sight cheaper to live there than here." His jaw tensed as if there was more he wanted to say, but was trying not to.

"Why?" Heather croaked. Granted, he had been surprisingly diligent about avoiding her since she had come back, and she hadn't examined that fact any too closely. On the other hand, if his problem was Heather herself, he certainly didn't need to go all the way across the Atlantic to get his point across. Boston was not exactly a small town; they could live out the rest of their lives within ten miles of each other and never have to acknowledge that the other existed.

Fintan's eyes met her own, and his forehead creased as if willing her to understand that there was more being said than merely the words. "I can't stay here any longer," he said baldly. "There are just too many conflicts."

Heather's jaw dropped. "Like what?" she whispered, dread frosting her words.

"You."

And there it was. Heather had been half expecting it, but it still took her breath away to hear it stated so matter-of-factly.

"I don't understand..." she started.

"It's not complicated," Fintan snarled angrily. "I never planned for any of this to happen." His index finger came up and described a circle in the air. "But it has, and now I find myself in a situation where I can't focus on what I need to, because I went and started something I can't control."

"Which is?" Heather pressed. If he was going to push her out of his life, she was at least determined that she would know everything there was to know about why.

"You know how I feel about the idea of being with a married woman," Fintan grated. His expression didn't go with the hot, savage snarl of his words. It was the face of a man about to lose a limb. "But yet, like a damned idiot, I went and got too involved with you. Even though my head and everything I believe remind me that it's wrong, I'd throw all that over in a second, if I thought we had anything resembling a future together."

Heather recoiled as violently as if he had struck her. "I never meant any of this," she sobbed, her voice as pleading as Fintan's was implacable. Her vision began to blur with the precursor to the tears she felt forming.

"I know you didn't," he assured her. The steel underlying his words melted away, to be replaced with something much softer. "It wasn't anything to do with you. You were very clear from the outset on what you wanted. This is entirely my doing, and it's down to me to set it to rights."

He let his head fall forward into the basket of his cupped palms. Heather felt the urge to cross the room and throw her arms around him. But even to do that, in light of what he had just revealed, would be an unthinkable betrayal of Mike. She felt that she had enough to answer for, just having let a few fantasies have free play in her mind. To push this moment off the razor's edge it was balanced on surely invited a disaster of epic proportions.

She sat perfectly still and observed, "If I need to leave you alone, I will. You don't owe me anything. I can just stop calling, if that's what it takes."

Fintan looked up, his face drawn. "It's not that _simple,"_ he spat. "I would still have your number. I still know where you live. Who's to say that one night, in a drunken moment of whatever, I won't come knocking, looking for something that you can never give me?"

A tear escaped to leave a crystalline trail down Heather's cheek. "Then—then I guess I'd better be going," she said, standing abruptly and fumbling for her keys. Fintan didn't move, frozen in place as surely as any statue. She hurried to the door and opened it. Then she turned and gave him one last look.

"Goodbye," she sighed, and fled, before he could decide to come after her.

The world dissolved into a brightly colored smear through the prism of her tears as she threw the truck in gear and raced away.

In the Otherplace...

A brilliant flare of purple light seared through the window. Adan awoke from her slumber immediately, her unique senses probing the air like a snake's tongue. Immediately, she tasted the frozen iron tang of immense, cruel power violently stirring. Her eyes shot to the table, where the others were gathered. As one, they had all turned to look at the window as the violet strobe lit the room. Adan rose from her couch and clapped her hands once, sharply. "It begins."

" _It is too soon," Finella protested. "In the mortal world, it is the height of summer. The babe is not yet ready to be born."_

_Adan sketched a sharp negation with one hand. "It matters not whether the babe is ready," she rapped out. "The_ bean'sidhe _is moving against our daughter. Is all in readiness?"_

Raichael nodded. Cavana said, "Aye." The broadsword she had previously produced from the air was abruptly in her outstretched hand. Sorcha bowed her head. Tabitha gritted her teeth and flexed her fists so hard that her knuckles stood out white against the skin. Rowan smiled coldly. The air around them fairly crackled with carefully directed rage.

Finella, however, made no response. It was as if she had not heard the question. Instead, she continued to stare out the window. As Adan watched, however, her face drained of color.

" _What say you, Finella?" Adan demanded, moving to look her in the eye._

Finella met her raptor's gaze for only a brief second, and then looked away. "It is too soon," she repeated desperately.

" _Too soon for_ you," _Cavana spat. "I think now we know who the traitor is."_

" _I do not know..." Finella started._

" _You_ do," _Adan snapped. "You did not give as the rest of us did when the ring was empowered. And your failure may now cost our daughter her life. You should count yourself fortunate that right now, I do not have time to settle accounts with you as I may wish. But make no mistake, if this ends poorly for Heather, I will personally ensure that she has the first chance to send you screaming into oblivion."_

_Finella's face, if possible, went even paler. Adan pointedly turned her back to the Judas in the group and said, "Join hands, and be quick. There is still a chance that we might be able to forestall this." She slanted a dark look at Finella._ "You _are not welcome in this. We will do it without you. If it goes well, we will discuss what mercy, if any, to show. If it goes ill...well then, you need not concern yourself with it," she husked._

" _Sister—"Finella began._

" _Cavana," Adan overrode her, "if our traitor says aught else, you are to strike her head from her shoulders without a second's pause. Do you understand?"_

" _Aye, Adan, I do," Cavana smiled grimly. "I have no love for such a one as would betray her own blood," she added, voice low and cold as the grave._

Finella, for her part, did not so much as twitch while the women assembled around her. She seemed to understand that they were circling her to prevent her from causing any more mischief as much as to ensure contact among all of them.

It took only moments for the circle to form. When it was done, Adan looked around at her sisters, her daughters. She took a moment to study each face, and saw only bleak, icy resolve.

" _Whatever comes of this, I love you all," she said. Her head tilted back and her eyes slid closed as she invoked the names of gods and goddesses forgotten in the mortal world for hundreds of years. The other women concentrated on her lead, the gently cadenced ebb and flow of the ancient words and names of power, and ignored the outcast at their center as if she had ceased to exist utterly._

#  Chapter Forty-Five

A rumble of thunder was the only warning Heather had before the heavens let loose with a downpour that rattled against the metal skin of the truck's cab like machine-gun fire. The thought made her weep all the harder, because it made her think of Mike. In her confused, aching heart, she could not seem to work out what she wanted.

In the Otherplace...

Searing purple light cast weird shadows on the wall. Adan did not open her eyes, but she plainly saw the brightness even through her eyelids.

" _Hold fast," she commanded, ratcheting her grip down tighter on Sorcha's hand to her left and Raichael's to her right. A bit of her power quested out to test the bonds of the circle, and she felt the tightening of the group as it flowed through her sisters. She did not nod in approval, but all of them felt the emotion as clearly as if she had embraced each one individually._

" _There will be one more," Rowan said quietly._

" _And that is why we must be ready," Sorcha said._

Adan continued to chant, drawing strength and fortitude from the other women. They all, in their turn, fed every flicker of power they had to their mother and leader. Each in the circle had committed herself; they all knew full well that anything less than all would be the death of their daughter.

Heather saw the lightning flare, blinding her. Outside, the wind picked up, quickly gaining in speed and intensity. Oceanic storms could come up with surprising, even shocking suddenness. She had lived on the coast her entire life, and was well accustomed to the vagaries of the weather. But there was something odd about the wind. One moment it was a friendly, warm breeze, and the next it had redoubled its force even as the temperature dropped. She wiped at her eyes with her left hand, keeping her right on the wheel. An intersection was coming up, the light showing a reassuring green. Heather let off the accelerator ever so slightly anyway, just to be on the safe side.

With a roar like the sound the gates of Hell would surely make when they burst open at the Rapture, lightning sizzled from the sky and struck the stoplight squarely, blinding Heather and making her ears ring painfully. She blinked fiercely, trying to force the afterimage of the bolt from her field of vision. Her foot came down and goosed the accelerator. The truck shot forward on the rain-slicked street.

In the Otherplace...

The wind built to a feverish pitch around the cottage, rattling the walls and tearing at the thatch roof. Finella looked up, terrified. It seemed as if the roof would surely fly off at any moment. Around her, the women hemmed her in, fencing her physically with their bodies. Gentle waves of force seemed to lap at her, where she sat rigidly still, but she knew that if she were get up, those ripples would become a tsunami which would surely crush her right out of existence.

As the storm outside grew in magnitude, Adan's chanting swelled right alongside it. Her voice seemed imbued with awesome, ancient authority, and all of the women looked at her with awe. Somehow, they had the curious feeling that another presence, far older and more powerful than any of them, had joined the fray on their side. Comforted somewhat by the warmth suffusing the circle, they stepped up their efforts even more, hurling all they had to offer to Adan to transmute and shape into whatever she deemed necessary for the task at hand.

Adan's eyes snapped wide, and seemed to ignite from within. Their usual cool blue was now the exact shade of the very bottom of a flame, but so intense that it was almost painful to look at. Cavana, standing directly opposite Adan, was not the only one who felt an almost irresistible desire to break the circle and shield her eyes. But before she could, the roof was sheared off to reveal the boiling, frothing clouds above. Beneath, the walls began to dissolve like a chalk drawing in the rain, leaving the women exposed to the full wrath of the storm.

As one, the women's heads shot up to survey the destruction. It was the worst mistake they could have made.

The vermillion explosion that rent the livid sky made the titanic thunderbolts that had preceded it seem like mere popguns against a cannon by comparison. As the blast subsided, the last sound any of them had ever wished to hear again in any lifetime they might have lanced into their ears like daggers of frost and darkness.

_Aoibheall wailed her vengeful_ caion _as she tore asunder the veil between worlds, the better to corner her quarry at last. Adan screamed her own thunderous battle cry in answer, and the women added their voices to her own, hurling their power and fury after the_ bean'sidhe. _None of them dared let up, even when it felt to each as though their lungs must surely burst with the strain._

The stoplight had been blown by the lightning strike. Heather careened into the intersection, frantically trying to clear her tearing eyes. Just as the world finally came into focus, a black-shrouded figure appeared in her headlights. Heather had only an instant to see the flowing red hair and the pale face before the hood of the cloak was thrown back.

Where there should have been a face was only a skull framed by incongruously lush, straight coppery hair. The burning green eyes seemed to pierce right into her soul. The skull's jaw seemed to unhinge, and a triumphant, keening wail burst forth, as loud as the crash of the lightning strike scant moments before had been. The sound was a force unto itself, and it sliced through glass, plastic, and upholstery as if they didn't exist, wrapping around Heather like a sonic boa constrictor.

It felt as if a dull knife was being shoved into her, somewhere deep under her flesh. That hot, blunt dolor ripped through her. Her entire body seemed to become one monstrous convulsion as every muscle locked and every nerve ending lit up in a heart-stopping seizure. A vermillion haze flooded her vision as an agonized scream was torn from her lips.

In the grip of a galvanic spasm, Heather wrenched the wheel sharply to the left. A duller, deeper moan filled the air, almost unheard against the strident wail of the bean'sidhe. The twin beams of high-powered halogen lights filled Heather's vision, and then the aural assault choked the consciousness right out of her. Blessed darkness fell in front of her eyes.

The last thing she heard was shattering glass and folding metal.

She did not feel the impact as the semi slammed into her truck, destroying the front end and sending the Avalanche skidding back across the intersection, right through the space where the figure of the _bean'sidhe_ had just been. With another thunderous crash, the pickup, now thoroughly crumpled, came to rest against the streetlight on the opposite corner, leaking fluids out onto the ground.

#  Chapter Forty-Six

In direct contravention of all logic, Heather suddenly found herself able to look around. What she saw horrified her.

Somehow, although she was standing next to the hopelessly ruined truck, she was also slumped over the steering wheel, her eyes wide and staring at nothing. As she watched, her body seemed to spasm, and Heather felt a ripping pain in her abdomen that drove her to her knees. Reaching down, she felt a flutter, and knew at once what was happening. She forced herself to look up, to see the _bean'sidhe_ approaching her at a slow, stately glide that terrified her. It was the slow, grinding progress of inexorable, grim fate finally taking its due.

Heather gritted her teeth and held up her right hand, where the rowan ring hand somehow managed to remain during the collision and its aftermath. To her horror, she saw that the wood had splintered on the crown. The symbols that had been intended to protect her were obliterated, useless now in this final extremity. The _bean'sidhe_ stopped a few paces away and cocked her fleshless head questioningly as another wave of liquid fire exploded through Heather's middle. Panting, Heather folded onto her side, unable to do anything but stare up at her fate.

The _bean'sidhe_ staggered then. She looked around, and something in the set of her head and the parts the cloak concealed suggested rage. Another piercing, unearthly wail arose, and Heather knew she was out of time. Out of options.

Out of hope.

While her body was locked in the most natural struggle in the world, the battle to bring her baby safely from the womb, her mind and soul were concerned with combat of a very different kind. She was fighting for her very life, for her right to continue on this plane.

To simply exist.

With painful deliberation, she pulled herself to her knees. Silver threads of flame seared through her body, but she fought her way to her feet. Swaying, she summoned all the love for her child and Mike, all the terror of the past months, and all her rage at the part she'd been unwillingly forced to play in this generations-long game.

An inarticulate scream burst from Heather's lungs and a violent pulse of energy wrapped around the _bean'sidhe,_ trapping her in a chrysalis of seething violet light. Heather shouted, "You cannot have me, you Faerie bitch!" Deep within her soul, she felt the Celtic warrior stir again as it had when she'd first looked on the sere, wild headland of Malin Head. Whether this battle was won or lost, she would be on her feet for all of it. She would not go down meekly, cowering in a ball and praying that the _bean'sidhe_ would simply pass her by.

She focused all her will into the flaring purple orb of light that ensnared Aiobheall, and for just a moment, a savage satisfaction spiked through her as her nemesis faltered and staggered a little. But her joy was short-lived. The _bean'sidhe_ drew herself back to her full height with a cry that reduced anything she'd produced before to insignificance. One bony hand came up, twisting and gyring in the air, describing a complex series of figures. With a final, wrenching motion like the turning of a door handle, the searing ball of light shattered and rebounded into Heather.

The recoil of that much energy slamming into her knocked her off her feet, and she panted as she tried to summon the will to get up one more time. She felt she had Aiobheall's measure, if she only had a little more time to use the knowledge...

Aiobheall's hood fell back, revealing the shrunken flesh of her once-lovely face wrapped tightly against her skull. Wild tendrils of copper hair stood out at all angles as if she stood in the presence of a vast static electricity generator. Her green eyes glowed like putrid chartreuse lamps as she stabbed a finger at Heather, five hundred years of hatred and poisonous fury lashing Heather like the tongues of ten thousand cruel whips.

And, as that liquid-nitrogen agony splintered through her again, Heather knew that any chance she had of surviving was gone.

In the Otherplace...

Adan swore. The air around her was literally glowing, the very molecules of whatever substance held this place together vibrating with the force of her rage. "Give it all you have!" she cried. "We're losing her!"

Cavana sagged to her knees, unable to continue. She was a warrior in a very physical sense; this war of the mind had taxed her resources beyond her limits. "I have no more to give, sister," she husked. "Forgive me."

Finella tried to stand, but the shield that pinned her in place held firm. "Let me help!" she pleaded. "I am fresh. I will not fail."

Rowan spared her one contempt-laden glance. "We will do no such thing," she snapped. "You had a chance to work with us, and failed. Now, it is up to us."

Sorcha had kept her flow of power up as well, but now she, too, was flagging. It was plain to Adan that they had only seconds left, if that.

Heather felt herself being crushed right out of consciousness, even though she had no body at present. The next to last thing she saw was the _bean'sidhe_ melting through the crushed door of the truck and into Heather's body. If a skull could be said to wear a look of triumph, she did, and she gave Heather's disembodied spirit a final, dismissive glance before she vanished into Heather's flesh. Heather tried to fight, to scream, to move, but she was paralyzed so completely she couldn't even breathe.

The last thing she saw was the strobing of red and blue emergency lights.

The last thing she heard was the banshee wail of a chorus of sirens.

Adan sighed and broke the circle. "There is naught more to be done," she said, her eyes sinking closed in grief and exhaustion. "We have failed."

The women all collapsed into chairs or knelt on the floor. The storm had abated as quickly as it had come; now all was unnerving silence. Sorcha, on one knee, was staring toward the headland. Abruptly, she pointed and let out an inarticulate cry.

_A pale form rippled in the darkness, and resolved into Heather. She was curled up on her side, her eyes closed and her breathing shallow. Adan forced her own eyes open at Sorcha's cry, and followed the direction of her finger to see another of her sister-daughters, now another victim of the_ bean'sidhe. _Grimacing, she forced herself to her feet. The other women gathered around her, save Cavana; Adan gave her a wordless but pointed look to indicate that she was to continue to guard Finella._

The women closed the distance quickly, and Adan looked at Raichael. "Can you do something about the house?" she asked. "This is no fit reception for our sister."

Raichael grimaced and closed her eyes, her forehead furrowed in concentration. In seconds, the cottage shimmered back into existence as if it had never been in anything but mint condition, denying the horrific damage that it had sustained so recently. Adan nodded her approval and knelt beside Heather, taking her cold hand and chafing it lightly.

Her eyelids fluttered, and Heather peered around drunkenly, as if trying to focus. Her eyes glinted as she took in the women standing about her. Adan glanced around in a silent command, and as one, the elder women spoke.

"Failte, inion."

Welcome, daughter.

Heather's expression went from slack confusion to tight anger to irrepressible fear to horrified comprehension in the space of a moment. She raised herself to her feet with a full-throated wail of anguished rage. The sky began to churn more violently than it had at Aoibheall's passing, and the floodgates of the heavens opened to unleash a deluge of Biblical proportions.

The look on Heather's face could only be described as murderous. The scream built in intensity and fury until the entire world became a horrific onslaught of enraged sound. Heather's hands twisted into talons which raked the air before her, and so great was her wrath her feet rose up off the ground to leave her hovering in the air like an avenging angel.

All of the women had dealt with their appearance in this place in different ways: grief, fear, and confusion. But none of them had ever seen this pure, unholy wrath before. A questioning glance ricocheted between the older denizens of the realm as their new arrival, all unknowing, wracked the very fabric of their demesne with her birthing wail.

None of them had an answer to the unspoken question, or could offer any suggestion to assuage the sudden fear that rippled through all of them as one. What stood before them, their own daughter by blood, had just shown herself potentially to be something even more dangerous than Aiobheall herself.

Finally Heather subsided, her infuriated cries fading to aching sobs as she crumpled onto her side, her hands covering her face.

#  Chapter Forty-Seven

Staff Sergeant Michael Charles Hansen, USMC, did not waste time going home to change into civilian clothes when he arrived at Logan Airport. Erin met him and they hurried to Brigham and Women's Hospital.

On the way, Mike asked, "How is she?"

Erin gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile. "She's doing okay," she said. "The doctor says that she suffered some head trauma in the crash. She has a hard time talking."

"Like how?" he rasped, studying Erin intently.

"Have you ever heard one of those text readers they have on computers?" she hedged.

"Yeah," Mike said impatiently. "What does _that_ have—?"

"That's what she sounds like," Erin interrupted. "It's like she has trouble remembering what the right words are. She doesn't always get the pronunciation quite right, like she puts the ack- _scent_ on the wrong syl- _lah_ -ble, you know?"

Mike ruminated on that for a moment. "Okay," he finally said. "How's the baby?"

"She's tiny," Erin said. "The doctor said if she'd been two weeks earlier, there was a seventy-five percent chance she wouldn't have survived. She's in an incubator right now, but they say she should be safe to go home in another week."

"How is Heather otherwise?" he asked, his strong jaw set in a way that would not have looked out of place if he'd been staring down the scope of a sniper's rifle.

"She's bruised up pretty good, and said it hurts to smile or make sudden moves, but she's getting around on her own. She spends a lot of time up in the NICU."

"The which?"

"Neonatal Intensive Care Unit," Erin elucidated. "I've been spending so much time there that I've gotten used to using all the acronyms."

Mike gave her a tired smile. He had been up for forty-eight hours, ever since the message had reached him about Heather's accident. His command had immediately given him hardship leave orders, and he had flown from Afghanistan to England's RAF Lakenheath Air Base aboard a C-130. From there, it had been twelve hours before he could get on a flight heading to the States. Fortunately, Logan International had a designated runway for military traffic; he had been able to fly straight in without having to deal with any of the usual civilian air travel hassles. Leaving aside the absolute lack of amenities aboard a standard military transport, it actually hadn't been a bad flight.

The rest of the drive passed in silence, unless one counted the occasional murmured curse from Erin as she threaded her way through the mid-afternoon traffic. Soon, they arrived, and Erin guided him through the labyrinthine hospital, smiling and exchanging casual greetings with the staff on duty as they passed. In minutes, they found their way to the NICU, where Heather was standing at the large viewing window, staring in at her baby.

Mike rushed up and threw his arms around her. To his surprised dismay, she stiffened and didn't return the embrace. After a moment, he forced himself to pull away and looked at her critically.

Her face was a mass of greenish-yellow bruises and small, healing cuts. Her hair was disheveled and lifeless. There was no spark of recognition in her eyes. Mike felt his heart break. Was it possible that she didn't know who he was? Could she have some form of traumatic amnesia?

Erin spoke, her voice calm and gentle. "Heather, it's Mike. Remember, I told you he was coming today, sweetie?"

Heather's face screwed up in thought, then cleared. "Oh, yes. Mike. How was your flight?"

Mike listened carefully to the greeting. Her inflection was just as odd as Erin had indicated, almost as if she had forgotten how to speak English properly. Even stranger to him was the faint undertone of a lilting accent he thought he picked up.

Forcing a smile, he said, "The flight was fine. Long. You know how it is."

Heather smiled hesitantly. "Come see the baby," she beckoned.

Mike looked through the viewport. Inside, the tiny little girl slept in her artificial womb, intravenous tubes and various unidentifiable wires and gadgets snaking to and fro around her. The nurse inside, covered from head to toe, masked, gloved, and gowned, was preparing a bottle for her. She turned, feeling Mike's gaze, and offered him a nod.

Erin said, "That's Julie. She's a sweetheart. She really dotes on the baby."

Mike nodded and asked, "Have we decided what to name her?"

Heather's eyes cut toward him, and then away quickly. "Aoibheall," she said firmly.

"Evil?" he choked. "We can't name our daughter...!"

"No, not Evil," Erin broke in gently. She pulled out a piece of paper with the name spelled out. "It's Irish. She was a fairy queen."

Mike thought for a moment and reached out to put a tender hand on Heather's arm. "If that's what you want," he said soothingly.

Heather turned to face him. For just one second, before she closed her eyes to kiss him, Mike could have sworn that instead of their usual, warm hazel, Heather's eyes flared a malevolent green.

But that would have been impossible.

~The End...?~

#  About The Author

Born in Amarillo, Texas, J.S. Wayne has lived, worked and traveled through roughly ¾ of the contiguous United States. An author in multiple genres, a misanthropic humanitarian and cynical optimist, he spends most of his time turning words into money as an SEO consultant and article and blog writer, filling the balance of his hours as a storyteller, novelist and polyamorous kink practitioner and educator under the nom de guerre "Lord Unicron." He is fascinated by the use of language, human sexuality, occultism, quantum physics and trying to figure out just what the hell the lyrics to "I Am The Walrus" were actually trying to say.

J.S. enjoys hearing from his readers, fans and those in the kink community. He can be reached by email at jerichoswayne@gmail.com; on Facebook at Jericho Wayne; or through Twitter and Tumblr @iamlordunicron.

### If you enjoyed this book, I would greatly appreciate it if you would take the time to write a review. I personally read all of these to ensure I consistently deliver the best, most accurate and enjoyable work possible. Thank you for your attention!

#  Other Books by J.S. Wayne

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