Celtic Sister (21 page)

Amy gazed out the window. “You know, it’s just so green here.”

“It’s beautiful.”

“I mean like every shade of green imaginable. Look at that bush.” Amy pointed in excitement. “What color is that? I could bring a color chart here, and I’ll bet you every single shade of green would be represented in a five-acre plot of land.”

He glanced at her skeptically.

“Look, Sam. Seriously.”

“Okay.” He held up one hand in defense. “You’re right. Absolutely every shade of green invented by God is right here in Ireland.”

She folded her arms and looked out the window. “Yup. That’s what I’m saying.”

As they continued down the road, the houses were fewer and the fields were larger. In many places, the road barely allowed for two cars to clear one another. On several occasions they had to move to the curb to allow an oncoming car to pass. Sam soon learned that the gesture of courtesy was a small wave that consisted of the index finger lifted off the steering wheel while the palm remained in place.

They passed through a few small towns, but things didn’t get busy until they reached the outskirts of Clonmel. There the road opened up to a decent-sized two-lane.

“I suppose we ought to find a place to stay first. I could have planned this out to the detail, but I didn’t want to commit to any one hotel, since we aren’t sure where we’ll be headed next.”

Amy reached into the side pocket and pulled out an envelope labeled
Places to Stay.
“You printed out a few ideas. I’ll keep my eyes peeled.”

They cruised randomly around the streets of the downtown area, which consisted of rows of shops housed in two- and three-story structures. Eventually, they found a quaint two-story hotel on Sam’s list.

“I love the colors,” Amy said.

“Better than green?”

“Ha, ha. The buildings are just so colorful, going from one to the next, each one unique. It’s refreshing.”

“I could use a refreshing shower.”

They parked on a nearby street and headed for the check-in desk.

A burly white-haired man with a beard and mustache stood up and met them with a huge smile.

“What can I do for you today?”

“A room, please. For one, maybe two nights.”

The man reached into a drawer and pulled out a key. “An adventurous traveler. Don’t want to be tied down?” He smiled coyly at Amy. “Except, of course, to this lovely lady.”

“We’re looking for something,” Sam said hastily, seemingly embarrassed.

“Someone,” Amy corrected, and she nudged Sam with a light tap of her elbow.

The man behind the desk raised a bushy eyebrow.

“We might as well start now,” Amy said. “Show him the picture.”

Sam gave Amy a subtle glare while he pulled out his wallet and produced the picture. Then his face relaxed, and he showed Emma’s photo to the man.

“Aye. Beautiful.” He took the picture in his hand. “A little young for you though.”

“It’s my sister. She’d be thirty-two now.”

“A runaway?”

“No. Well, in a way. It’s hard to explain.”

He smiled. “These stories often are.”

“Does she look familiar?”

“No. I’m afraid not.”

Sam nodded, obviously disappointed. “Thank you anyway.”

They made their way up a narrow staircase. The small room included a double bed, one nightstand, a dresser, and an antique chair. A tiny bathroom held a shower stall and a toilet with chipped porcelain. But the facilities had been freshly scrubbed and the room smelled pleasant enough, floral with a hint of a natural cleansing product.

Amy plopped her suitcase on the bed. “Why did you get mad at me for wanting to show him the photo? I thought that was why we were here.”

“I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me. Fear of disappointment, I guess. He didn’t recognize her. We may go from person to person and get the same response. I’m already depressed by that encounter.” He shrugged. “I know it’s illogical, but that’s where my head is at.”

She crossed the room and drew him into an embrace. They stood there for a long time, just holding one another.

“You know,” Amy whispered, “somehow we ended up in one hotel room.”

He looked at her quizzically. “You don’t remember? You said we should?”

She stood back and placed her hands on her hips. “Of course I remember. I’m just being provocative.”

“Provocative, huh?”

He pushed her on the bed. It made a dreadful squealing noise.

“Oh, no,” she said. “Not the infamous squeaky bed.”

He lunged onto the bed beside her, and it made such a horrible groan Amy thought for sure it had broken. She sat up and bounced to make sure it was in one piece. Sam joined her, and they both started laughing simultaneously. After about three minutes, they wiped their eyes, plopped backward, and stared at the ceiling.

“I don’t think anything is going to happen,” Sam said when he finally stopped laughing and regained the ability to speak. “I’m really distracted. We should find Saint Patrick’s Well. I desperately need a shower, and—”

“Shh. It’s okay. You take a shower. I’ll walk down to the market and grab some fruit and nuts. It’s always good to have snacks in the room.” She stood up.

“Brilliant idea.”

Amy bowed and grabbed the key. “May I take this?” she called as she crossed to the door.

“Sure.” He pulled his shirt off and winked.

Nice,
she thought, and she lingered for just a moment. Then he disappeared into the bathroom so she slipped through the door.

Market.
She definitely wanted to go to the market, and she fully agreed with her assessment that one should always have snacks on hand. But Amy also had another agenda. She figured the market would have some kind of liquor, even if it was only wine, and the alcohol craving had set in heavily since lunch.

Amy was thrilled when she found a small liquor aisle in the market. She joyfully purchased three flasks of Irish whiskey which would fit in her purse. She also purchased a bottle of wine, some grapes, four apples, and a can of peanuts.

She walked back to the hotel and waved at the innkeeper before bolting up the stairs.

Amy used her allotted time in the shower to get a start on the whiskey. She turned on the water for a cover noise. Then she slid to the floor, pulled one bottle from her purse, and quickly consumed several gulps. Once prelubricated, Amy took the bottle into the shower, so she could drink and wash at the same time. When she emerged – fresh, showered, and fairly buzzed – she was ready for the next part of their journey.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Amy sat on the bed towel drying her hair while Sam spread the map and some printouts on the comforter.

“So I have three different maps of this Saint Patrick’s Well that I downloaded from blogs, and they all point to a different spot. However, I also printed these three travel guide descriptions which say it’s easy to follow the signs off the road from Clonmel to Cahir.” He pointed at the map. “I guess that’s the N24. So we should just get on the N24 and drive toward Cahir, and it’ll be a cinch.”

About thirty minutes later – having gathered their stuff, maneuvered the car out of town, and found the highway – they reached a roundabout that let them choose between continuing northwest on the N24 or taking a hard left toward Cahir.

“This isn’t right,” Sam said as he took the left to Cahir and found a safe place to pull over.

Amy was examining the printouts. “Yeah. It should have been closer to Clonmel. All of these sources say it’s just outside Clonmel to the south.”

Sam rubbed his head. “The yellow on the outside and white in the middle is making me feel even more backward than the driving on the left.”

Amy looked out the window and inspected the road. The two-lane road was marked with a white line in the middle. Yellow lines indicated the shoulders.

“Sometimes that white line is dashed,” he said. “That’s when it throws me.”

Amy realized how an American driver would react to lanes separated by white dashes. “Because suddenly you feel like you can drift over to the other lane.”

“Yes, especially when my mind is on finding a side road.”

“No worries. You’re doing really good.”

“Yeah. Just getting us lost.”

“No, I mean I’m really impressed with how well you are driving. I couldn’t do it. You’d be crawling in the back seat screaming if I were driving.”

“So I take it that you being here in the front seat is a good sign then?”

“A very good sign. Now let’s head back, and I’ll keep my eyes peeled on the south side.” She was in that wonderfully precise point of a buzz where she felt calm, yet completely able to concentrate on what she was doing. Nevertheless, twenty minutes later they were on the N24 driving north around Clonmel, having clearly missed their turn in spite of Amy’s rapt attention to the side roads.

“Go back to that roundabout,” she suggested. “The one we just passed two minutes ago.”

Sam found a safe place to turn around and headed back to the roundabout at the west edge of Clonmel.

They passed through it and headed back toward Cahir.

“No. Go back. Try this side road.” She waved the map in the air.

“Okay. I get it.”

Sam reversed directions, and they traveled on the side road for about a mile before turning around and heading back toward the roundabout once again.

“I give up. This well is a phantom. Impossible to find.”

“Maybe we can ask someone in town. Have them draw it out for us.”

“Okay. We’ll stop at one of the churches on my list. Ask them about Emma and at least get something accomplished. What time is it? Eight already?”

“Wait,” Amy shouted. She jumped up in her seat. “There it is.”

As they approached the roundabout for the fourth time in the past hour, they saw a brown sign which indicated that Saint Patrick’s Well was down a small road to their left.

“Whoo-hoo!” Sam shouted.

Amy grabbed his arm. “We did it.”

“Okay, Saint Patrick. Where is your well?” He turned onto the side road.

“This road doesn’t have any colored lines. No lines at all.”

“Believe it or not, that’s less disconcerting.” He moved slightly to the left to give an oncoming car room to pass and exchanged a friendly index finger salute with the other driver.

Amy smiled. “You’re fitting right in.”

It was a scenic little road. Fields on the left, trees and bushes on the right. They passed a house with a stone fence.

“I see what you mean about the shades of green,” Sam admitted. “Look at this hedge. There must be at least five shades of green in this hedge alone.”

“I know, right?”

“It’s really nice. I think Emma would like it here.”

On their right, a very old stone wall about twelve feet high appeared. A lush creeper plant spilled over the top.

“Take this wall for instance,” Amy said. “The stones: how old are they? And the magical way green grows from the ground up the wall as well as over from the other side. Oh, look, a blocked gate. Is this someone’s property? I think I want to climb this wall.”

Sam pulled over in a little space next to the wall where three roads came together.

“I’m kidding, Sam. What are you doing? I’m not really going to climb the wall.”

“I know.” Sam sat in the driver’s seat, a devious smile on his face.

“What?”

“Look over your shoulder.”

Amy turned around and saw a brown sign that pointed up the hill.
Saint Patrick’s Well.
She grinned. “What are you waiting for?”

Sam savored the moment for just a second before he proceeded, maneuvering right onto a narrow road. They continued around the same property with the tall stone wall.

“Still itching to climb it?” Sam asked.

“No. I’m eager to see the well.”

They passed two old houses before they found a pullout on the left. Once they were both out of the vehicle, Sam patted the sign.

Tobar Phadraig

Saint Patrick’s Well

“Easy signage,” he said.

“Visible from the road,” Amy added playfully.

He took her hand, and they walked toward the entrance. A long ramp with a foot-high stone wall led to a flight of stairs dozens of steps long. The air smelled fresh, a blend of wet foliage and damp dirt.

As they descended the stairs, they saw water peeking from behind the trees. When they were about halfway down, Amy noticed a very old stone structure standing in the water. It appeared to be a Saint Patrick’s cross. By the looks of it, the cross could easily date back to the age of the now-beloved saint. At the very least, it was over a thousand years old. A tingle sprinted up Amy’s spine, and she grabbed Sam. She pointed at the cross but didn’t make a sound.

When Sam wasn’t looking in her direction, Amy spontaneously made a sign of the cross. It all happened before she could consciously make the decision to perform the movements, as if her body subconsciously carried out the ritual.

At the foot of the stairs, a white statue of Saint Patrick stood on a pedestal. Two bundles of wild flowers and a pink bouquet of carnations had been laid near his feet.

Amy turned away from the statue and looked out over a very large, oblong pond about a hundred feet long and forty feet wide. At the far end, the stone cross seemed to float above the water. It rested on a submerged pedestal. On the other side of the pond, a cluster of walls looked like a tiny house with no roof. A man and a woman lingered near the house-like structure, and they took a photo of the old cross in the water.

Sam made his way along the path to another curious item on the property. To the right, branching off from the pond, a small canal linked the main body of water to something surrounded by a one-foot wall constructed out of stones. The wall made a circle around a little pool of water. A gate with a cross was the only opening in the wall. There was a walkway around the inside of the enclosure. If they wanted to, they could go inside, sit on the ledge, and dangle their feet in the shallow water. Smooth stones graced the bottom of the well, no more than six inches from the surface.

“This is the actual spring,” Sam said. He pointed along the canal. “It goes into the pond there and out the other side.”