Of Blood and Honey (Fey and the Fallen) (6 page)

Bran moved closer. His warm breath caressed the side of her face. “Come with me, Kathleen. As the Fallen gain more power this place will only become more dangerous. Let me take you away.”

“I must get home,” she said, fearful that a neighbor might spy her. “I’ll see you in the churchyard.” She fled the doorway before he could stop her.

“This is very old,” Father Murray said. “How did you come by it?”

Kathleen bit her lip. It wouldn’t do to lie. He needed to know all there was to know if he were to help her. She’d confided in Father Murray before, and not only had he treated her as if she were perfectly sane as she’d spoken to him of spooks and fairies, he’d been a great help with her Liam. He’d been understanding of her Liam’s circumstances—more so than she’d ever expected or hoped. If there was someone who could help, Father Murray was the one. It was safe enough. There wasn’t a chance in the world of Patrick overhearing anything she said in the parochial house kitchen. She breathed in the scents of comfort and spiritual home but restricted her gaze to the inside of her teacup. “I got it from
him
, Father.”

Father Murray reacted as if the coin were red hot, dropping it onto the table and spilling his tea. He hopped up from his chair. “What is it?”

“Only a wee coin, Father,” she said, attempting to hide her amusement.

He looked down at the shilling. “Oh. Yes. I see.”

She went to the sink for a towel in order to clean up the mess. “I must know where it came from. You went to University. I thought maybe you’d know.”

“Didn’t you say that
he
brought it to you? Doesn’t he know?”

Although she’d once told him Bran’s name, it seemed neither of them were willing to bring themselves to speak it. “He needs its origins and history, if that’s possible. It’s important.”

Father Murray frowned and then got up, checking the hallway before shutting the kitchen door. “I’ve never asked this before.” He paused. “But how often do you see… him?”

It was her turn to be uncomfortable. “Before Liam was born, I saw him every day. But now? Sometimes I don’t see him for years. We’ve met twice in the past three months. And he keeps pressing me to leave with him. Something is wrong, Father. I’m frightened.”

Father Murray’s expression grew more distressed.

“Don’t worry, Father. It’s married I am and married I’ll stay. I may not be a good woman, but I’ll not break my vow.” She sipped her tea.

“Don’t be so hard upon yourself. You were young. Such beings can be very persuasive.” He stared out the window, thoughtful. “You must be careful. They have great power to do harm.”

“Not my Bran,” she said, but doubt lurked in the back of her mind. She’d seen Bran angry only the once, and that was after she had married. She had been angry too, telling him to leave her forever. He’d said he never would and that he’d kill Patrick. The fierceness of Bran’s rage had been terrifying, and that, more than any other reason, had been why she’d kept Liam from him. Patrick could be cruel, she knew, but it was a mundane cruelty—a cruelty that had boundaries and could be reasoned with. “Bran has good in him. I told you so before, Father. If he didn’t, would my Liam be such as he is?”

“The Bible says that fallen angels can give a fair appearance.”

“He’s no angel, fallen or otherwise,” she said. “He’s a púca. Didn’t I tell you so? And sure, all the stories of them are dark and foreboding, but that’s not my Bran. He’s a good man. I trust him. He’s looked after us even after I married another. He always has.” She didn’t look Father Murray in the eye. Even she could hear the self-deceit in her words.

Father Murray sighed. “I hope you’re right.”

“I am.” She said it with more confidence than she felt, and knowing that he was only humoring her made the silence that followed stretch raw across her nerves. “I’ve something I wish to ask you, Father. It’s about my Liam.”

He looked up from his tea. “What is it?”

“You told me to watch for… unnatural things around him.”

“Has something happened?”

“I don’t know. But Bran said he’d seen him at the Kesh and that he’d used ‘the Glamour.’”

“How?”

“I was too afraid to ask.”

Again, the silence pulled at the tension in the bright hominess of the kitchen. Father Murray shifted in his chair and then took a sip of tea.

“I can have someone check on him,” Father Murray said.

“But we’ve tried to get a visit. No one will let us in.”

Father Murray nodded. “I’ve made arrangements to meet with a member of the Advisory Committee next week. It’s worked before. Liam has no political connections. They’ll have to release him.”

He sounded so certain that she breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Father.”

“Now, about this coin,” Father Murray said. “What makes it so important?”

“Bran says we must discover the name of a monster before the creature harms my family.” She didn’t mention that it was actually Bran’s safety and not her own that was the worry. As good a man as Father Murray was, his understanding did have its limits, and it seemed those limits began at Bran.

As if to illustrate the point, a skeptical look flitted across Father Murray’s expression. “What sort of monster?”

“A Redcap.” She whispered it and put her hand to the crucifix at her neck lest the creature hear its alias spoken and come calling.

“All right, Mrs. Kelly,” Father Murray said. “I’ll check my sources at Queen’s University and Dublin. We’ll see what they have to say.” He reached into a pocket and produced a clear vial. “In the meantime, keep this with you. It’s holy water.”

The tension in her neck loosened at once. “Thank you, Father. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Father Murray escorted Mrs. Kelly to the door and then watched her until she vanished down the street. He didn’t look forward to the call he was about to make, and he wanted to give the situation full consideration before he did so. From the day he’d first seen Liam he’d known there was something different about the boy. Dangerous—even at the age of thirteen. All Father Murray’s training and experience said as much, but after he had spoken to the lad—a mistake, so certain members of the church leadership had claimed—it had been difficult to believe Liam anything but an innocent. Even so, it had been quite a struggle keeping him in school and out of trouble for as long as he had, but it had been done to positive result. Father Murray had previously maintained a distance from his subject lest others view his observations as muddled with an overabundance of sentiment. Nonetheless, it was easy to see that Liam had grown into a good lad with a good heart. And if that were so, was it possible Mrs. Kelly was right about the boy’s father?

Careful, Joe,
he thought.
That is an argument you won’t win.

The thing that worried him was the report of Liam using “the Glamour.” If that were the case then the situation was far worse than Father Murray had thought possible, and his experiment had failed. He didn’t want to believe it.

St. Francis, give me guidance,
he prayed.
What am I to do?

Returning to the kitchen, he cleared away the tea and washed the dishes. When he was done he went to the table and picked up the coin. It was a shilling piece, he was fairly certain, and based upon the woman depicted on the front it appeared to be from the Tudor era. If that were the case, it was quite valuable. He decided to give his friend at the University in Dublin a call first. See what could be discovered.

As for the disturbing report about the Glamour, well, that was second hand, was it not? He would do some checking before he made that call. If he weren’t allowed to visit Liam directly for whatever reason the British were concocting this month, there were other internees in the Kesh. The first to come to mind was Mrs. McKenna’s son, Michael—although, it was said the lad had taken a turn for the worse. Father Murray had heard rumors that conditions in the Kesh were appalling. Illness was common. Michael McKenna was but one name among the many recited each Sunday at Mass. With both husband and son interned and eight children still in school, poor Mrs. McKenna was beside herself. Were it not for the community pulling together to help, the McKennas would’ve been hard pressed to make ends meet.

Mrs. McKenna has enough concerns,
Father Murray thought.
Perhaps it would be best to start with Kevin O’Donohue.
He’d been released a day ago. The two lads had attended the same school. They knew of one another. Surely, it was possible Kevin might have news of Liam Kelly?

Father Murray pocketed the coin, putting off his report to Bishop Avery, certain in the knowledge that the right decision would come to him. He did, however, go to the phone and request to be connected to his friend, Paul, in Dublin.

Chapter 6

Londonderry/Derry, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland

16 January 1972

“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he hath visited and redeemed his people.”

Kathleen bowed her head while Father Michael began the graveside ceremony. Father Murray handed off the thurible to one of the altar boys—the eight-year-old McGowan boy whose name Kathleen couldn’t remember at the moment — and the heavy scent of burning frankincense faded away. The second altar boy, another of the McGowans, stood straight as a soldier, holding the parish’s brass cross like a banner. His fingers were white, and when he shivered the big cross at the top trembled with him. A cold wind saturated with mist blasted the mourning huddled shoulder to shoulder around the open grave. Father Murray quickly moved to assist Father Michael with the open Bible, saving his place in the reading. Black umbrellas dotting the crowd recklessly propelled their owners against one another like sailboats anchored in a harbor during a brutal storm. Kathleen kept one hand on her scarf to keep it from flying off her head. Seemingly untroubled, Father Michael droned on.

“That we should be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all that hate us—”

Geraldine McKenna sobbed into a sodden white handkerchief. Kathleen stood tense at Geraldine’s right, watchful of those around her. Old Mrs. McKenna scowled from the opposite side of the grave, claws at the ready like a harpy. Kathleen damned well knew who that look was for, and it wasn’t Geraldine or Barney McKenna, but there was nothing to be done. As always, she must endure.

Barney sniffed and put a supportive hand under Geraldine’s left elbow. The remaining McKenna children, ages four to thirteen years, had lined up next to their father who’d been temporarily released from Long Kesh for the funeral. In spite of the news reports, the make-shift prison had a frightful reputation among nationalists. The Kesh had certainly left its mark on Barney. His back was stooped, and his face was grey with grief. The damp hair sticking out from under his flat cap was now mostly white. Kathleen could’ve sworn he’d aged twenty years.

And Michael lasted less than five months in that place,
she thought. Michael McKenna had been a strong lad when he was arrested—just like her Liam.
Young. Healthy.
Nonetheless, it’d been the pneumonia that had killed Michael. The corpse they’d returned to his mother had been thin and bruised. Kathleen tried not to consider what that might mean in relation to her own son.

She’d been in the hallway when she heard Geraldine’s scream through the open door and had rushed into the McKenna’s flat. Shoving past the stone-faced constable, she’d wrapped her arms around the hysterical Geraldine. Years of unacknowledged resentment had vanished in that instant of terror and sorrow. Alone, Geraldine had collapsed under the weight of her grief. So it was that in those first hours, there’d been no one but Kathleen to answer the phone or to meet the children on their walk from school or to see to the baby or to make the dinner. And there she’d remained until Geraldine’s in-laws had returned from Belfast late in the evening. She had tried not to take old Mrs. McKenna’s cold thanks personally, but it hadn’t been easy.

Some sins are never forgotten, no matter the penance,
Kathleen thought.

Unfortunately, Geraldine didn’t seem to be dealing with the shock of losing her eldest son. She’d done little more than stare at the walls and weep. Dull-eyed, she wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t dress. Were it not for the Valium prescription Kathleen didn’t think Geraldine would’ve slept either.

And how is it I would be, were it my Liam lying in that hole and not young Michael? And him only seventeen,
she thought, blinking back a fresh bout of tears.
Liam will be seventeen soon.

Mary, Mother of God, please,
she prayed.
Don’t let them give him back to me in a box.

Liam was healthy and safe for now. Father Murray had whispered the news to her in Geraldine’s kitchen during Michael’s wake. Recently released from Long Kesh, Kevin O’Donohue had seen Liam three days ago. It’d been all Kathleen could do to keep from sobbing her relief into Katie Molloy’s pickled cabbage. Later, her joy turned to shame when old Mrs. Cunningham asked her what it was she had to be happy about.

All were reasons why Kathleen would have preferred to be safe among her own, but Geraldine had asked if she would stand by her during Michael’s funeral, and Kathleen had found it impossible to refuse.

“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the Beginning, is now and will be forever. Amen.”

“Amen.”

Father Michael circled the coffin, sprinkling the holy water and muttering a blessing in Latin. Kathleen scanned the crowd for Patrick. Most of those attending the funeral were women and children. The news headlines, television and radio were dominated by crowing Unionist MPs proclaiming that all those arrested were IRA or terrorists. Kathleen considered herself a moderate. She held no animosity for the British. Her own father had lived and worked in London, but even she was finding the reporters more and more difficult to believe.

Shifting in order to view the back of the cemetery better, she spied Patrick standing by the gate. He hadn’t taken a place with her sister, Sheila, and the children. Kathleen felt her mouth pinch into a flat line. Bleary-eyed, he hunched inside what passed for his best jacket, shirt and tie. He’d been at the wake most of the night and had been sound asleep when she and the children had left for the funeral Mass.