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father while I cry a little.”
“Well, you got her mind off the editorial on handguns.” Dennis Magee’s voice boomed over the wire. “How’s the job going?”
“On schedule, on budget.”
“Good to hear. Going to keep it there?”
“Close to there, anyway. You, Mom, Doro, and her family better keep a week next summer open. The Magees should all be here for the first show.”
“Back to Ardmore. I have to say, I never figured on it. From the reports, it hasn’t changed much.”
“It’s not meant to. I’ll send you a written update on the project, but that’s not why I called. Dad, did you ever visit Faerie Hill Cottage?”
There was a pause, a sigh. “Yes. I had some curiosity about the woman who’d been engaged to my uncle. Maybe because my father so rarely spoke of him.”
“What did you find out?”
“That John Magee died a hero before he ever had the chance to live.”
“And Grandfather resented that.”
“That’s a hard way to put it, Trev.”
“He was a hard man.”
“What he felt about his brother, his family, he kept to himself. I never tried to get through. What was the point? I knew I would never get through to him about what he felt about anything, much less what he’d left behind in Ireland.”
“Sorry.” He could hear it, that weariness, that vague tone of frustration in his father’s voice. “I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“No, that’s foolish. It would be on your mind. You’re there. I think—looking back, I think he was determined to be an American, to raise me as an American. Here is where he wanted to make his mark. In New York he could be his own man. He was his own man.”
A cold, hard man who paid more attention to his ledgers than his family. But Trevor saw no point in saying so when his father knew that better than anyone.
“What did you find, for yourself, when you came back here?” he asked instead.
“Charm, some sentiment, more of a link than I’d expected.”
“Yeah, exactly. That’s exactly it.”
“I meant to go back, but something else always seemed to come up. And truth is, I’m a city boy. A week in the country and I’m itchy. You and your mother never minded roughing it, but the Hamptons is about as rural as I can manage and stay sane. Don’t snicker, Carolyn,” Dennis said mildly. “It’s rude.”
Trevor scanned his view again. “It’s a long way from the Hamptons to here.”
“Absolutely. A couple of weeks in that cottage you’re renting and I’d be babbling. I don’t do quaint for long.”
“But you visited, saw Maude Fitzgerald.”
“Yes. Jesus, must be thirty-five years ago. She didn’t seem old to me, but I guess she was well into her seventies. I remember her being graceful, not creaky the way I, being callow, expected an old woman to be. She gave me tea and cake. Showed me an old photograph of my uncle. She kept it in a brown leather frame. I remember that because it reminded me of the song—what is it—‘Willie MacBride.’ Then she walked with me to his grave. He’s buried on the hill by the ruins and the round tower.”
“I haven’t been there yet. I’ll go by.”
“I don’t remember what we talked about exactly. It was all so long ago. But I do remember this because it seemed odd at the time. We were standing over his grave and she took my hand. She said what came from me would journey back and make a difference. I would be proud. I suppose she was talking about you. People said she had the sight, if you believe in such things.”
“You start to believe in all sorts of things once you’re here.”
“Can’t argue with that. One night while I was there I took a walk on the beach. I could swear I heard flutes playing and saw a man flying overhead on a white horse. Of course, I’d had a few pints at Gallagher’s Pub.”
Even as his father laughed, Trevor felt a chill skate down his spine. “What did he look like?”
“Gallagher?”
“No, the man on the horse.”
“A drunken delusion. Well, that set your mother off,” Dennis muttered, and through the line Trevor could hear his mother’s delighted laugh.
“I’ll let you get back to breakfast.”
“Take some time to enjoy yourself while you’re there. Get me the report when you can, Trev, and we’ll all keep next summer in mind. Stay in touch.”
“I will.”
He hung up, then continued to stare thoughtfully out the window. Delusions, illusions, reality. There didn’t seem to be very much space between them in Ardmore.
He finished up what business could be done before New York opened, then took a walk to John Magee’s grave.
The wind was high and the graves were old. The shifting of ground had tipped and tilted many of the markers so they leaned and slanted toward the bumpy grass to cast their shadows over their dead. John Magee’s stood straight, like the soldier he’d been. The stone was simple, weathered by wind and time, but still the carving was deep and clear.
J OHN D ONALD M AGEE
1898–1916
Too young to die a soldier
“His mother had that carved in her grief,” Carrick said as he stepped up to stand beside Trevor. “In my estimation, one is always too young to die a soldier.”
“How would you know why she had it carved?”
“Oh, there’s little I don’t know and less I can’t find out. You mortals make your monuments to the dead. I find it an interesting habit. A peculiarly human one. Stones and flowers, symbols, aren’t they, of what lasts and what passes away? And why do you come here, Trevor Magee, to visit those you never knew in life?”
“Blood and bonds, I suppose. I don’t know.” Frustrated, he turned to face Carrick. “What the hell is this?”
“By that you’re meaning me. You’ve more of your mother in you than ever your grandfather, so you know by now the answer to that, even if your diluted Yank blood doesn’t accept what’s in front of your face. You’re a traveled man, aren’t you? You’ve been more places and seen more things than most who are your age. Have you never found magic on your journeys till now?”
He wanted to think he had more of his mother in him, much more than he had of his grandfather. But there was nothing in Carolyn Magee of the easy mark. “I’ve never had conversations with ghosts and faeries till now.”
“You talked with Gwen?” The amusement died out of Carrick’s eyes, turning the bright blue dark and with an edge. He gripped Trevor’s arm with a hand that transferred a jolt of heat and energy. “What did she say to you?”
“I thought you knew or could find out.”
Abruptly, Carrick released him and turned away. He began to pace through the grass, around the stones in quick, almost jerky movements. The air around him sizzled with a visible color and spark. “She’s the only thing that matters, and the only thing I can’t see clear. Can you know, Magee, what it is to want one person with all your heart, with all that you have in you, and for her to be just out of your reach?”
“No.”
“I blundered with her. Now that’s a deep score to the pride, make no mistake. Not that it was only my fault. She blundered as well. It hardly matters who holds the heaviest weight of the blame at this point.”
He stopped, turned back. The air grew still again. “Will you tell me what she said to you?”
“She spoke of you and regrets, of passions that flash and burn, and love that lasts. She misses you.”
Emotions swirled in Carrick’s eyes. “If she—should you speak with her again, would you tell her I’m waiting, and I’ve loved no other since last we met?”
For some reason it no longer seemed odd to be asked to deliver a message to a ghost. “I’ll tell her.”
“She’s beautiful, isn’t she?”
“Yes, very.”
“A man can forget to look past beauty and into the heart. I did, and it’s cost me dear. You won’t make that mistake. It’s why yo
u’re here.”
“I’m here to build a theater, and to acquaint myself with my roots.”
His humor restored, Carrick strolled back to Trevor. “You’ll do both, and more. Your ancestor here was a fine young man, a bit of a dreamer, with a heart too soft for soldiering and what war makes men do to men. But he went out of duty and left his love behind.”
“You knew him?”
“Aye, both of them, though only Maude knew me. She gave him a charm before he marched off, for protection.”
He snapped his fingers and from them dangled a chain with a little silver disk. “I expect she’d want you to have it now.”
Too curious for caution, Trevor reached out and took the object. The silver was warm, as if it had been worn against flesh, and on it the carving was faint.
“What does it say?”
“It’s in old Irish, and says simply ‘Forever Love.’ She gave it to him, and he wore it faithful. But war was stronger than the charm in the end, if not stronger than the love. He wanted a simple life, unlike his brother, who went off to America. Your father’s father wanted something more, and he worked for it and brought it to be. That’s an admirable thing. What do you want, Trevor Magee?”
“To build.”
“That’s an admirable thing as well. What will you call your theater?”
“I haven’t thought of it. Why?”
“I have an idea you’ll choose correctly because you’re a man who chooses carefully. That’s why you’re still living alone.”
