Haunting Beauty (33 page)

“Why’d you do that?” Rory asked.

Dáirinn slid back on her stool without answering. Still watching Danni, she took her brother’s hand and held it. The gesture was not random, nor was it insignificant. If she hadn’t known it instinctively, Danni would have guessed it by the solemn expression the twins wore now.

She felt suddenly diminished in the shadow of their union. She was shrinking as the world around her enlarged until she was only a speck about to be blown away. Expressions flitted over Rory’s face, and she realized with a plunging awareness that the twins were communicating. Somehow, in some complex and unfathomable manner, Dáirinn was downloading whatever it was she knew. In a moment, it was over, and now both sets of eyes watched her with that peculiar
knowing
.

Disturbed, Danni cleared her throat and scooped flour from a canister, trying to hide her uneasiness. But she was chilled by what she’d seen. Shaken by the calm composure with which the children watched her. She wondered how Sean had felt when he’d looked at her this morning—had he experienced the same hair-raising disquiet?

Taking deep breaths, she stirred the ingredients in her bowl.

“Is it the Book you’re here for?” Rory asked softly.

Danni’s head snapped up. “What?”

“I told you, she doesn’t know why she’s here,” Dáirinn scolded.

“Is that true?” Rory said.

Numb, Danni nodded and shrugged at the same time. At this point, she didn’t trust anything she might think she knew.

“Did Dáirinn bring you here, then?” Rory turned in his seat and faced his sister. “Did you?”

Danni was holding her breath, waiting for the answer. But Dáirinn only stared calmly back.

“How would Dáirinn bring me?” Danni asked, though she was afraid of the answer. The idea was too complicated, too bizarre to contemplate.

“You’ve seen the Book, haven’t you?” Dáirinn said. “I can tell that you have. It’s frightening, isn’t it?”

“You’ve seen it, too?”

Dáirinn nodded. “I don’t understand why you want it, though. It’s not good.”

“Do you know where it is?”

The siblings exchanged another silent conversation before answering. Danni watched them, holding the measuring cup filled with flour in her hand. What she felt went beyond shock. Beyond fear. Deep inside an ancient instinct to flee rose up. She had to get out of here.

Finally, Rory spoke. “The Book moves,” he said.

Moves?
Danni cleared her throat and set down the measuring cup. Trying to appear relaxed but failing—dismally failing—she said, “What does that mean, it moves? You
are
talking about the Book of Fennore?”

“It was here,” Rory said. “But then it went away, and we don’t know where it went to.”

“Was it stolen?”

They both shook their heads.

“How can you be sure?” Danni asked.

“I feel it,” Rory said simply. “It talks to me sometimes.”

Dáirinn made a small, jerking motion at his words. She didn’t like that he’d said it aloud.

“I won’t tell,” Danni said.

“I know it,” Dáirinn snapped. “Why else would we be telling you anything? But I know what the Book can do, and it isna right to talk of it.”

Danni’s chest was tight and her throat burned. “You know what it can do?”

“She means what it does to people,” Rory said softly.

“It drives them mad,” she finished.

“But . . . ” Danni chose her words carefully, not sure what it was she wanted to say. “I thought it brought power.”

“Aye. It can. It does. But that’s not all that comes through when the door is opened.”

Danni swallowed hard. What else? What else came through?

“Are you hoping to see its magic?” Rory asked.

“I’ve seen magic,” Dáirinn said importantly. “Many times. One night I flew from my bedroom to the docks, and I saw my cousin get tangled in the nets. He was pulled under and no one knew. I told me Mum and she told Uncle Patrick and he set to watching my cousin. And do you know when my uncle was below deck who should get tangled in the nets and go under but my cousin? My uncle wouldn’t have known if Mum had not told him, but he did know and so he pulled up the net, and there was my cousin nearly drowned.”

“So you saved his life?” Danni said, searching herself for the memory. But if it was there, it eluded her.

“Aye. And one Sunday at church I heard Father Lawlor tell of how he’d been robbed the night before by a poor soul who thought Jesus had forsaken him. Father said he would have helped the man because sure enough Jesus had brought him to the church to be the worker they needed. If the man had only come with open hands and heart, he would have been fed and loved. So I flew to the night before and I told the poor man not to steal, because Jesus loved him. And to come in the morning and Father Lawlor would give him a job where Jesus could watch over all he did.”

Danni stared at the child, stared into her own face, hearing the sweet voice, the sincerity in her tone. And feeling the echo of memory deep, deep inside. She could picture that night at the church, walking through the doors without opening them first. Finding the beggar ransacking the sacred altar. He’d been terrified to see her, a child in a white gown with silky curls and gray eyes. He’d thought her an angel with a heavenly message.

It had been a vision, and yet he’d seen her. Spoken with her. She had turned back time and changed the outcome. She’d
changed the outcome . . .

“She can’t really fly,” Rory confided. “She just thinks she can.”

“And you can’t really talk to the horses,” Dáirinn snapped back.

“You’re jealous,” he quipped. To Danni, he said, “It’s not just horses I understand.”

“No?” she said, thinking she needed to sit down. She needed to sit down quickly.

“Mum told you not to tell,” Dáirinn said.

“She told you not to tell either,” Rory shot back. “And you blathered your story, didn’t you?”

Dáirinn scowled and crossed her arms. Danni stared at Rory, watching him make his decision about whether he would say more. But she’d already remembered what Rory could do. He understood. He understood not just people, but animals, too. All kinds, from birds to beasts. Not like a language, but a comprehension. As if their wants and needs became pictures in his head. And it didn’t stop there.

“Once there was a man who came to our door,” Dáirinn began.

“It’s my story, I’ll tell it,” Rory interrupted.

Dáirinn clamped her mouth shut and sat back with a huff.

“He was a tourist,” Rory picked up where Dáirinn had stopped. “And he didn’t speak English or Gaelic or any other language I’d heard.”

“But Rory knew what he was saying. Sure and he could tell Daddy what it was
and
—”

“I said I would tell,” Rory said crossly.

“G’wan, then.”

“And I could speak what my Daddy said back to the man. It was Russian, I learned later. I could speak Russian.”

“He can’t do it now, though,” Dáirinn said, a little smugly. “Only then.”

Rory shrugged, shooting a dirty look at his sister.

“Tell us what you are going to do?” Dáirinn asked next.

“What I am going to do?” Danni said.

“Well, you’re not here to make pasties are you?”

Danni looked down at her hands. “Casserole,” she said.

The twins snickered, watching her with expectant eyes. Danni knew what they wanted, but how could she answer their question? Did she really know why she was here? Was there an actual reason? Or was it an accident that had tumbled her through time? Colleen had seen it coming. Dáirinn looked as if she’d anticipated her arrival. What did that mean?

You can do whatever it is you put your mind to . . . .

She thought of Sean and her heart ached. Here, now, he was so real. Solid, achingly beautiful.

“I’m here to save someone,” she said softly.

“You’ve the right of it,” Dáirinn said, as if she’d already known the answer. “But the Book is gone, if using it was your hope. ’Tis a blessing, though. Do you understand?”

“No.”

Rory said, “If it is a life you want saved, the Book can make it so. If it’s a treasure you’re wanting, it can give that, too. Whatever dream you may have, the Book brings the power to grant it.”

“But it cannot be used in such a way,” Dáirinn said. “It does not give without taking, and the greater the gift, the higher the price.”

“It will take a piece of your soul,” Rory said softly. “Take it like a coin from your purse. You might not even notice that it’s gone until one day you need that coin and you no longer have it.”

A piece of her soul. Would it be a worthy trade for Sean’s life? For those of her mother, her brother . . . herself? Would the piece she gave today—from her grown self—affect the young one sitting in front of her now?

“Aye, it’s a puzzle, isn’t it?” Rory said. “You may not miss the piece you’ve given up, but someone else might.”

“What do you mean by that?” Danni said.

“Well, a heart you’ve lost cannot break,” Dáirinn answered. “But what would your one true love feel if the part he most loved of you was gone?”

“She read that,” Rory said.

“I didn’t.”

“In a fairy tale.”

Dáirinn opened her mouth in hot denial but Danni interrupted. “How did you get so smart? You seem much older than five.”

Both pairs of eyes swiveled to her face. “Do you think the world is made up of only what you see?” Dáirinn asked instead of answering.

Danni shook her head.

“Neither do we.”

The statement felt heavy in the air between them, and Danni didn’t know how to respond to it. She sensed the simple declaration should answer her query, but it only left her with more questions, more confusion. Since she’d awakened yesterday morning, she’d been trying to find out why they’d been brought here. Now she sensed she was close to the truth. These two children knew—not only why she was here, but what would happen next.

Colleen’s harsh, pained voice whispered in her head.
Even then you could have stopped it.

Danni stared into Dáirinn’s eyes, believing it now. Dáirinn might be able to change the course of fate, but she was afraid—afraid of the cost. Afraid of the Book. Danni was afraid, too, but she would risk it. If it meant holding back the tide bent on washing her life away, she would risk everything.

She needed help though, and perhaps she could find it here, with the two of them.

“There’s something . . .” Danni began, but she stopped, trying to decide how or even what to say.

Suddenly Dáirinn leaned forward and held out her hand. Danni looked at it, so small and innocent there in front of her, but she hesitated, knowing that touching Dáirinn—touching
herself—
could open a door she didn’t know how to close. Dáirinn raised her eyes in mute challenge.

Before she could change her mind, Danni clasped Dáirinn’s hand in her own and then Rory put his over both of theirs. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Danni felt a humming, a low vibration that trembled through her fingers, up her arm to the heart of her. She wanted to shy away from it, to pull her arm back and break the connection, but she didn’t. She was done with running away and denying what she didn’t want to face.

In her mind an image formed. Frowning, she realized it was Sean’s brother and she was seeing him on the floor of the kitchen, lying in a pool of blood beside his mother. Dead. She frowned, not able to comprehend why she would be seeing this. Sean’s brother hadn’t been on the floor, hadn’t died. Why . . .

Before she could ask why she’d seen something that hadn’t happened, the kitchen door swung open. And Cathán MacGrath walked in.

Chapter Twenty-eight

S
EAN slowly made his way to the bay where the
Guillemot
was docked. The fog was thick as the sun shot its first ray over the horizon, making him feel as if he walked through a damp web. It obscured the harbor and the ocean beyond. Only the road and the thundering crash of waves let him know he was going in the right direction.

The heavy gray mist fit his mood. He’d grown up around strange and unexplainable things. He was Irish, and who among them didn’t believe in another way, another reality? He didn’t expect fairies to emerge from the hills and start with their mischief, but he knew the world was much more than rich earth, roiling seas, and the heavens above.

He looked around him. Here he was, a man out of time. Misplaced, out of step with his own rhythm. Yesterday, when he’d tried to put an explanation to how he’d come to be here, he’d blamed—or credited—his grandmother. But now . . . after this morning, he thought it was Danni. . . . Could she have brought them here in the same way she’d brought him to the worst of his childhood horrors in those dark hours before dawn?

He remembered how she’d looked yesterday when she’d awakened in his arms. She’d been as baffled by what was happening as he. She couldn’t have faked her shock when they’d both realized that somehow, impossible though it was, they’d awakened twenty years earlier. If she’d done it, it hadn’t been intentional.

So where did that leave him? Them?

He rubbed his hands over his face, feeling the rasp of stubble. He’d forgotten to shave this morning. He forgot a lot, but he couldn’t recall ever feeling the whiskers on his cheeks and chin being so rough, so crisp and abrasive before. The feeling brought another sense of disquiet into his head. How many times in the past twenty-four hours had some ordinary sensation caught him like this? Made him think that it had been an eternity since he’d felt the things he was feeling now?

“For fuck ’s sake,” he mumbled, increasing his stride, now desperate to reach the
Guillemot
and busy his hands so he had no time for this pensive idiocy.

But the train of his thoughts chugged on, taking him up a winding track, past harrowing canyons, clanging over defunct switch-backs. Last night, with Danni . . . He closed his eyes and everything inside him tightened at the memory of her body wrapped around his. Her soft mouth touching him, kissing him, making him feel like nothing else in the world mattered—had ever mattered. Jesus, it had been like a sensory explosion—every second of it. So real, so tangible, so opposite anything he’d known. Again, he saw his existence before her through the insulation of a cocoon, shielded from the experience, the taste, the scent of life itself.