The Crow of Connemara (4 page)

“I'll bet,” he said. “Sorry for the interruptions.”

Aaron grinned: a pleasant, self-deprecating smile. “No problem. Brothers always rank over boyfriends, as they should.” The smile faded into the beard. “Really sorry about your dad. That's a hell of a reason to have to come back home.”

“Yeah,” Colin answered. “It pretty much sucks all around.” He took off his glasses and cleaned them on the hem of his sweater. Without intending to, he yawned, hard and suddenly. “Sorry,” he said as he put his glasses back on. “Jet lag, I guess. Plus I think I've had about three hours' sleep in the last thirty hours.”

An orange-and-white cat appeared, rubbing against Jen's ankle. She picked it up and scratched its neck. It purred loudly. “This is Finnigan,” Jen told Colin, and pointed to the hallway. “Your room's down there on the right. Bathroom's at the end of the hall if you need it. Close the door unless you want Finnigan coming in.”

“It's too early to go to bed.”

“It's eight o'clock—so don't worry about it. Get some sleep, and hopefully by morning you'll be feeling better. I'll get you up when Aaron leaves tomorrow morning.” Jen let Finnigan down and pecked Colin on the cheek, then moved over to give Aaron a kiss as well—that one longer and far more lingering. Aaron's arms went around her, and she leaned against him easily.

They look like they're comfortable and familiar with each other . . .
He wondered at that—Jen had had boyfriends enough before, but they had generally been around only a few months before vanishing. Colin had found most of them a bit stodgy and self-absorbed: like Jen, the majority had been academics and university teachers. He'd thought that, now in her late twenties, Jen would never find herself in a long-term relationship; it seemed he might be wrong. “Go on,” she said. “We can talk tomorrow and do that catching up.”

Colin nodded. The thought of a bed was enticing and made the exhaustion even more oppressive. He yawned again, then picked up his suitcase and the guitar. “Aaron, it's good to finally meet you. I promise I make a better impression when I'm actually awake.”

“Hah,” Jen laughed. “Aaron, I'm afraid the impression he makes is about the same either way, honestly.”

“Love you, too, Sis. I hope my snoring doesn't distract the two of you too much.”

Jen laughed. “In that case, it's another reason to close your door. Besides, I'm getting used to snoring.” She dug a playful elbow in Aaron's side.

“Guilty,” Aaron said. “At least, that's what she tells me.” He leaned toward Colin and said in a stage whisper, “She snores, too. She just won't admit it.”

Colin laughed. “Yeah, I know. I grew up with her.”

“It's good to finally meet you, Colin. I hope we have a chance to chat while you're here.”

“I'm sure we will. See you two in the morning, then.”

With that, he left them. He went to his room, shut the door, and stripped off his clothes without unpacking anything. The bed beckoned.

He was asleep within minutes.

3

S
HE COULD SEE the green land spread out before her, tantalizingly close—as if she could step from here into that world. She could hear the lyric melody of some ancient song in the air, as if the strength of the tune itself was holding open the portal. Strands of color danced and shimmered in the sky, and her hand ached to hold them, to use them, but she no longer had the cloch, the jeweled stone that would allow her to do that . . .

“Most of the Old Ones have gone on, an' we'll never see that land of yours.”

Maeve started at the sound of the voice. With the interruption, the vision in the smoke vanished as if it had never been there, and a weariness came over her. She sagged, letting her head drop, her long, dark hair falling around her face like a curtain. The kitchen table at which she sat was scattered with herbs and potions; a brazier with burning peat inside it sat on a brass tripod before her. Keara, the young woman who'd been helping her create the spell, swept a tattered woolen shawl over her shoulder and glared wordlessly at the speaker with pale eyes. Maeve lifted her head, sighing. She glared at Niall herself for having spoiled the work she'd spent the morning preparing.

So close. I could feel the bard; I could nearly talk to him. So close, and now I have to start again.

“Yer wrong, Niall,” Maeve told the man, swallowing her anger. Niall's brown eyes were as hard as winter acorns. His nose looked as if it had been broken once or twice in the past, set over tight and thin pale lips cracked with cold and salt. “There's time yet for us to go there.”

“So yeh keep saying, year after year, decade after decade. I just wonder whose time it is yer talking about—yers or that of those like me. Like that poor soul yeh took last week, we're too few and dying too fast.” Niall tossed a crumpled envelope on the table, ripped open and with an official-looking document sticking up from the torn seal. “They've given us notice. I just talked to a garda at the harbor who came on a boat from the mainland and handed me this. They say this ain't our island and that we have'ta leave. How do we do that, I want t'know, when we got nowhere else to go and yeh say it must be here or nothin'?”

Maeve glanced at the document. “'Tis just empty words the
leamh
are spouting,” she told him. Keara laughed at that, as did Niall, though more bitterly:
leamh
was the right word for those on the mainland—the mundane people, the ordinary ones. “I tell yeh, Niall. I know now what we need, and I
will
get it. Yeh tell yer people that.”

“I will, Maeve. But yeh should know that me folk won't wait forever, nor will some of the others who are here. I'll be taking 'em elsewhere if we need to in order to survive. Yeh and those who sleep under the mound see time differently than we do.
We
can't be waiting forever.”

“Yeh won't have to. 'Tis certain.”

Niall lifted his chin at that, but his eyes challenged Maeve. She held his stare, unblinking, and eventually his gaze dropped. “Yeh better be right,” he mumbled to the floor, then turned and left the room. They heard the front door of Maeve's cottage slam. The wind set the flames dancing above the turf fire in the kitchen hearth.

“Sorry,” Keara said to Maeve. “Do yeh want me to set it up again?”

Maeve shook her head. “Neh. I'm knackered, I'm afraid.” She glanced toward the front door. “Niall,” she said, the name summing up everything she felt. Keara gave her a soft smile as she touched Maeve's hand.

“Not to worry, m'Lady. Niall do'nah think before he talks. 'Tis his way. He'll be back tugging his forelock and asking your forgiveness tomorrow.”

“Maybe.” Maeve rubbed at her eyes, stinging from the peat smoke in the brazier before her. She leaned back in her chair. “G'wan home,” she told Keara. “We'll do this again tomorrow and see if the signs are better. And I can reach out to the bard. Aiden must have supper waiting for yeh.”

“Should I bring supper to yeh as well?”

Maeve shook her head. “Nah tonight. I'll just make do here. Now, g'wan with yeh.”

She watched Keara gather her things, curtsy once to her, then leave the cottage. Maeve waited until her footsteps had faded on the pebbles of the walk. She cupped the brass legs of the brazier, looking at her hands as she pushed it back from her. They were the hands of a younger woman, aye, but there were lines there now that had never been there before, fine creases in the skin. She saw the same thing in the mirrors when she glanced at them.

Yer not so different now. Once yeh were, but no longer. Yer dying slowly, like all of them. Yeh even think like them now sometimes. An' if yeh can't do this now, then they will all die soon enough.

“Nah,” she said aloud, her voice no louder than the crackling of the fire in the hearth or the sound of the gulls along the harbor quay. “I won't let that happen.”

Her fist pounded the table once with the denial, but it only rattled the crockery there and didn't convince.

4

I
N THE DREAM, at first, he was in Ireland, and his playing held the audience in thrall. They were silent, listening to every word and every chord, and his voice was like liquid fire coming from his throat. When the song ended, everyone rose in applause, shouting . . .

...and the dream, as dreams do, shifted and became dark. He was still on stage, but the magic of his voice was gone, and he was feeling frantic because he was playing a set with several Irish-born musicians. Someone called a new song, and he couldn't remember the chords; when he guessed at the key and strummed a chord, his guitar was terribly and hopelessly out of tune. He frantically turned the tuning pegs, putting the strings seemingly in tune, but the D chord he hit was dissonant. The lead musician—Lucas, his name was—glared at him; and one of the other people on stage with him struck his Gibson from behind, with a sound like a fist knocking on a door. “What the feck?” Lucas snarled. “How can yeh not know this song? Every idjit knows it.” Again the knocking came, a little louder than before, and the Gibson shivered in his hands.

“Breakfast in ten minutes,” a dark-haired woman said, getting up from her seat in front of the stage. She felt somehow familiar to him, and her full smile made him smile at her in return. Vivid green eyes sparkled in her face, and she pulled a red cloak around herself. “Better wake up.”

The dream dissolved and fled, and Colin felt a momentary panic, not sure where he was. The sun was spilling in through blinds, throwing long, out-of-focus slanted stripes across the opposite wall and over the small desk and bed in the room. Colin rubbed his eyes, yawning. His mouth was dry and tasted like someone's trash can. He struggled to bring saliva into his parched throat as he fumbled on the bedside table for his glasses. He put them on and the room jumped into focus. On the table, a radio with an iPod sitting in the slot atop it proclaimed that it was 9:17 in the morning. Sitting up, Colin saw that someone had unpacked his suitcase. A new pair of jeans, a green long-sleeved polo, underwear, and socks were neatly folded on a chair near the door. The clothes he'd peeled off the night before were gone. He threw aside the covers and sat up, rubbing at his head. He put on the clothes and opened the door. “Hey, sleepyhead,” Jen called from the kitchen. “I'm putting stuff on the table now.”

“Give me a minute or two,” he answered. “I really have to pee.”

“Then don't let me stop you. End of the hall, remember?”

A few minutes later, he padded barefoot into the kitchen. Jen was already sitting at the little table near the window. Finnigan stared at him from the counter; Jen also looked him up and down appraisingly. “Not bad,” she said. “You look almost human again.”

“Right. Where are the rest of my things?”

“In the dresser in the room. The clothes you were wearing yesterday are in the dryer now.”

He nodded and sat across from her. “Thanks. You didn't have to do that.”

“Yes, I did. Those clothes were beginning to stink. Y'know, you don't have to wear your jeans for a week at a time.”

“Yeah,” he told Jen. “I should've changed before the flight, but there just wasn't time.” He took a sip of the coffee in front of him and a bite of the eggs. “I keep thinking about Dad. That was such a shock when I got your message about him.”

“I know. This doesn't seem possible. Just three days ago, I had lunch with him down in the Loop . . .” She pressed her lips together and Colin could see tears gather in the corners of her eyes. She sniffed and scraped her eggs across her plate with her fork. “That first night, after they . . .” She stopped and he saw her throat convulse. “. . . after they found him, I thought I'd wake up the next morning and find that it was just a dream, that Dad was back to his old self.”

That brought back Colin's own memories. “I keep thinking about the last time I saw Dad before I left for the university. We argued. As usual.”

“Dad knows how you really felt about him. You shouldn't worry about that.”

“That's the thing, Jen. I
don't
really know how I felt about him. Sometimes I loved the man; other times I thought he was a gigantic pain in the ass and a totally self-absorbed person, and I'd just as soon be as far away from him and Mom as possible. It's all mixed up.
I'm
all mixed up. Fuck . . .” He took a bite of his eggs, then took a long sip of his coffee. The heat steamed his glasses; he looked at Jen through the fog. His thoughts had drifted into dangerous territory, and he still didn't want to broach the subject, not even with Jen. “Aaron seems a decent guy. He's a lawyer?”

She let him change the subject without comment. “He's actually in Finance,” she answered. “But he does have a law degree. And yeah, he's a decent guy.” She lifted her own coffee mug, looking at Colin over the rim. He could see a slight blush in her cheeks. “It's too early to say much more.”

“Have you used ‘those words' yet?”

She laughed quickly and set the mug down. “None of your business.”

“Aha. Then you have.”

“What about you, Mr. Grad Student, since you're being so nosy about my love life? Have
you
used those words with anyone?”

“No,” he answered. “I haven't. I had a couple dates now and then with a few women, but . . .” He shrugged.

Jen didn't look convinced. She took a bite of toast and chewed it, her gaze on Colin, who took refuge in the appearance of his coffee mug. “So what have you been doing with yourself? How's the dissertation coming along? You haven't sent me that draft you promised me.”

Colin hid the flush that erupted then behind the coffee mug. “Yeah, I know. Things have been hectic.”

“How hectic can they have been? You having trouble with it?”

He shrugged again. “Can we not talk about this now?” he asked.

“And
that
tells me that there's more that you're not saying. I could always read you, little brother. Talk.”

“I will. I promise. We'll have time. Just . . . not now.”

Jen gave an overdramatic sigh. “Okay,” she said. “You don't want to go into details, that's fine. I can wait. But you know Mom's going to notice, too, and she'll worm it all out of you.”

Colin shook his head. “Not this time. I promise.”

“Right.” She put her fork down. “So what do you want to do today? I'm off; with everything going on with Dad, the Chair has some of the other professors in the department covering my classes this week.”

“I want to go see Dad again. I'd like to talk to the doctors so I know what's going on before tonight.”

Jen nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me. Finish your breakfast, let me get myself ready, and we'll head over there.”

Jen stayed in the lobby with their mother, who was also there when they arrived. Colin walked back to his father's room alone.

The doctor on duty that morning—Elizabeth Pearse, the hospital badge clipped to her pocket declared—entered the room just as he pulled up a chair to sit next to his father. He placed one hand over his father's, which felt cold and clammy to him. “Doctor,” he said, “has there been any change?”

She shook her graying head. “You're the son who was in Seattle?”

He nodded.

She tapped at the keyboard and monitor next to his bed. “Your family should have already told you how it is.”

“Tell me again,” he told her. “Without the sugar coating. You know how families are.”

She smiled at that, lines deepening around her eyes. “All right, then. Bluntly, all the medical signs indicate that your father has suffered brain death. There's no response to a light shone in his eyes, and when we removed him briefly from the vent, he made no attempt to breathe on his own. None of the other tests have given us any indication that there's any significant activity from the brain stem. Unfortunately, he was brought here to the hospital too late. If he'd been found earlier, or had been able to call for help when the event happened . . .” Dr. Pearse shrugged. It was a more telling statement than anything that she could have said. “In my opinion, and I'm sorry to say this, your father's clinically dead at this point. The only thing sustaining his life are the machines. Your family needs to think of what his wishes would be in this situation. Did he have a Living Will, or had he talked to any of you or your mother about what he might want?”

“I don't know,” he told her. “I've . . . been away for some time.”

She nodded. “I'm very sorry,” she told him. “I wish I had better news for you.”

A few minutes later, she logged out of the computer and left the room. Colin turned back to his father. “Dad?” he said. “It's Colin again. I'm here.”

There was no answer except the hissing wheeze-and-thump of the ventilator.

It wasn't any better, even knowing what to expect this time. The noise of the machinery keeping his father alive and monitoring him contrasted ironically with the man's silence and obliviousness to the world around him. It was hard to imagine the husk in the bed as the same driven and intense man who had shaped and manipulated Colin's youth, with whom he'd had epic battles and arguments, whom he'd loved, hated, and feared—all at once. And that last time . . .

Colin had entered into the conversation knowing what to expect, but he still hadn't expected the vitriol that spewed at him from the volcano of his father . . .

He'd met his dad in his office in the Loop. Outside the window high in one of the towers, Chicago was spread out around them, gleaming and bejeweled with lights in the evening, with a glimpse of Grant Park and the expanse of Lake Michigan between the buildings around them. Tom Sr. was standing at the window, with a glass of whiskey already in his hand. “There's a bottle of Redbreast on the bar,” he said without turning. “Help yourself, son.”

He did exactly that, figuring it might fortify his courage. He took a long sip as he stood next to his father. He could see his father's reflection in the glass of the office window, staring outward almost possessively, as well as his own: torn jeans and T-shirt as opposed to his father's gray, three-piece business suit; perfectly trimmed, salt-and-pepper hair against Colin's hand-combed mop of brown. “So what's up?” he asked Colin, still not looking at him. “You said you had something important to discuss.”

Colin was sweating even though the office was cool. He pushed his glasses firmly up his nose, took a deep breath as if he were about to dive into cold water, and plunged in. “You know how interested I am in Irish folk and traditional music—right, Dad? Well, I'd like to go to Ireland. I want to get a visa and study music there. I could probably get approval for the visa pretty quickly.” He'd glanced up then, but his father wasn't looking at him. Instead, he was still staring out toward the downtown towers. “Especially with your contacts at the Irish consulate,” he added.