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Sion points at a textbook Gothic revival church. “We’re here.”
A handful of vehicles park by a sign for St. Aedan’s Church. “This isn’t it.”
He nods to a set of ruins behind the building. “It was.” Only a few people stroll through the old graveyard. According to the sign, there are no services today. We can snoop at will.
Wind whips hair across my eyes. I do my best to grab it into a ponytail, knowing the futility. As long as we’re outside, it’ll surround my face in a wispy mane of cotton.
“Didja find where to start looking for our friend?”
Unfortunately, what I did find on my quickie Internet search was that Strongbow being interred here is likely hearsay. I haven’t broken the news to Sion to buy myself poking around time while I muster the nerve for tonight’s Veil jump.
My voice quavers. “Let’s try inside first.”
We start up the long, carpeted aisle that’s flanked on either side by rows of reddish-brown pews. Ahead, a huge, pointed arch frames an altar backed with a trio of floor to ceiling windows. Afternoon light passes through the stained-glass images on the center strip, spilling color onto the altar.
Suddenly, Sion grabs my arm and drags me toward the nave. “Up there.” His voice bounces off the walls, disrupting the reverence the space deserves.
Tucked in a corner is the stone effigy of a man draped in robes with arms crossed over his chest. The figure lies in a gothic-shaped coffin that reminds me of Pwyll’s. Sion is already on his knees grasping the edge to find a way to move the slab top.
My heart drops when I read the plaque on the side of the tomb. I grip Sion’s shoulder. “Stop.”
He throws himself into his effort. “Open, you fecking box.”
“This isn’t Strongbow.” The muscles beneath my fingers go as hard as the stone effigy. “It’s an old bishop of Fern’s.”
Sion releases the lid and sits hard on the ground. He rests his forehead against the tomb. After a few heavy breaths, he raises his face to the stained glass. “I’m willing to push my body and mind past their limits, do what it takes, but why is it always so damnably hard?” Without another word, he walks down the aisle and out of the church. A sense of failure clings to me like a stalled storm cloud, black and filled with the unspent rage of thunder and lightning.
A sickening wave of understanding makes my stomach clutch. This despair, the utter feeling of uselessness, is what Sion has dealt with since he was given the stewardship of the soulfall. It’s not the cut of knives or spears, but an unbearable weight that cannot be shed.
Have I hurt him by playing on the trust he has in my help, bringing him here, and offering misguided hope? Worse, did I waste some of the precious little time we have to succeed? A chilling thought follows. If we do fail, will I lose any chance for Sion to help me find Máthair?
Teacht Orm.
I run through the doors after him. At first, I’m afraid he escaped into the Veil, but then I catch sight of his peacock jacket as he limps through the graveyard in the direction of the original cathedral’s ruins. I’m about to call his name when his voice floats to me on the quickening breeze.
“Peace to you McCloud. Peace to you Keatons.”
He’s addressing the headstones, taking care to accurately bless a single inhabitant or the family beneath the grass. Máthair called this grave walking. We’d visited the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery on a trip to New England when I was ten, and she’d done what Sion is doing now.
“There may be none left who remember these souls, Ella, so we will.”
Clumps of purple flowers sprout here and there between markers. Lavender. Máthair called lavender the great healer of restlessness. She devoted an entire corner of the greenhouse to different species of lavender. Whenever she was agitated or worried, she’d drag a stool over and sit with her eyes closed, breathing in the scent until calm returned. I suppose there couldn’t be a better plant to occupy a space where restless souls may be searching for peace beneath the sod.
Sion’s put significant distance between us as he reaches a craggy wall of stone.
“Sion, wait.” He doesn’t face me but goes no further until I catch up. “The tomb inside. I misled you. I’m so sorry. I didn’t find any proof online Strongbow was here. I went along with the rumor about this being a possible burial site.”
He raises a hand to silence me. “And you didn’t think to tell me you’d come up empty?”
I turn away, upset with myself that I’ve disappointed him. For once, I’m grateful my hair has a will of its own since it shields me from the look on his face.
He drops his head into his hands. “I’m so weary of it all.”
Afternoon light fades and shadows stretch across the ground. I spot a squat rectangular gravestone by itself not far from the side of the church. The image from the Internet search comes to me along with a name whose significance is on the tip of my tongue.
“Remind me. Who is Diarmait MacMurrough?”
Sion’s voice is rough and strained like it was when he spoke to me before I knew his truth. The way he spoke to a woman who frustrated and annoyed him. “Not the King of Leinster we’re after. Diarmait is Strongbow’s father-in-law.”
