1
RU STEPPED OUT of the terminal building at Dublin airport and froze. For twelve years, he’d carried the weight of grief and despair on his shoulders and as he’d sailed away from Ireland three weeks ago, he’d been able to throw that weight off. Now, it had slammed back.
He rocked forward as someone banged into him, and a suitcase hit his legs before he managed to make his feet move. Edging away from the doors, he found a place to stand where he wasn’t in the way while he calmed down. Exhilaration over his first ever time on a plane hadn’t lasted long. He hadn’t wanted to come back here, but he’d promised Cookie and Joni and the others that he would.
Promises were things that needed to be kept. His brother had told him that when they were boys. Ru knew the horses wouldn’t have understood his promise, but that didn’t matter. He’d told them he’d be back, so he was back. Ru had arranged for them to be taken care of while he was away, but they’d been his responsibility for so many years that he couldn’t just walk out of their lives without ensuring their future happiness.
Not that he’d actually be able to do that. Ensuring future happiness wasn’t within anyone’s power. No one knew what the future held, but he’d do his best to make sure the horses had the chance of a good life ahead of them. It was hard to get his head around the idea that happiness for himself might lie within hisgrasp too, but first he had to do the other thing he’d come here for and speak to the Garda, the Irish police. Not something he was looking forward to.
Ru had checked how to catch the bus to Wicklow, but for the time being, he still couldn’t move, skewered in place by his backpack and leaden feet, but maybe more accurately by his heavy heart. His pulse was still racing.There was nothing here to hurt him, not anymore.Breathe!He clenched his fists inside the pockets of his jacket.I’m safe.He repeated the words several times. Hewassafe. He had a ticket back to the UK in his rucksack. His aunt and uncle couldn’t touch him. Though they still had the capacity to hurt him with their words, if he let them.
If he let them.That was the difference. Ruhad the power now. He was free and they were not. Twelve years spent being what they wanted him to be and not who he was. He still struggled to get his head around the lies he’d been told. He’d dyed his hair a lighter colour in the hope that making himself look physically different would make him feel different inside, though he wasn’t sure it had worked. He was still startled when he caught sight of himself in the mirror.
But what he really wanted was that no one would recognise him. He’d been on the front page ofThe HeraldandThe Irish Times,as well as English newspapers, though now he was yesterday’s news. Well, as far as the general public were concerned, but not the Irish police, and in a couple of hours, he was going to be reliving what had happened. He wanted to believe it would be for the last time, but suspected that was unlikely.
His life might be his own again, but it wasn’t the life he should have had and it was going to be a struggle to turn it into the life he wanted.Do I even know for sure what I want?His heart fluttered. He’d sounded confident when he’d told his brother that he wanted to be an equine vet, but even contemplating the chances of that overwhelmed him. Ru moved so swiftly between certainty and indecision, between confidence and insecurity that he never felt balanced, never felt comfortable.
Quite an irony that after he’d been deprived of his freedom, and of everything and everyone he held dear, apart from Bela, his crow, he’d eventually settled into an acceptance of the way things were.This is the life I have.He’d woken up to it and gone to sleep to it for twelve long years. He hadn’t known the extent of the fantasy he’d been dragged into until a short time ago.
There was so much to learn about the world he’d not been allowed to be part of. He’d not watched television, never been to a village or town for the whole of the time he’d been in Ireland, not until after his uncle had to go to hospital. Ru had thought he was lucky to never have needed a dentist or a doctor. Now he thought he’d been unlucky, because things might have unravelled sooner if he’d been ill. Though maybe his aunt and uncle would have let him die rather than risk the truth coming out.
Ru’s life had been the farm, the wild land around it, Bela and the horses. It hadn’t been enough, but he’d made it enough. Though now he regretted not trying harder to leave when he was older. He didn’t fully understand why he hadn’t. Anxiety about his aunt, the horses, a sense of duty? Two of those had been lost the moment he learned the truth.
But now life was different. He finally had a phone. It held five numbers. The most important one was his brother’s, then that of his brother’s boyfriend. Ink and Tay were his family now and though Ink had wanted to come with him to Ireland, he had no passport and really, this was a trip Ru needed to make on his own. Ru’s British passport had been fast-tracked and maybe Ink could have got one that way too, but Ink had understood Ru’s need for independence.
The third number was Vicki’s, the reporter from the English newspaperwho’d helped him find his brother, but Ru had done enough talking to the press. He’d been told he shouldn’t have spoken to the press at all, that he’d jeopardised his chances of justice for what had happened and that had worried him until Vicki reassured him that they’d been careful not to overstep the law.
His father’s number was on his phone too, but Ru hadn’t yet decided how he felt about his parents. Maybe that wasn’t true. He knew; he just hadn’t come to terms with his feelings, how love could change to hate so fast. But emotions were difficult things. Ru couldn’t trust them yet. In some ways he was a child inside a man’s body. He shouldn’t be clinging to Bela in the way he was still doing, but she meant so much to him. Had it not been that it was too far to take Bela north to stay with Ink, there was no way Ru would have left her with his father. Bela could look after herself but Ru still worried about her. In a way, she’d been as trapped as him.
His parents had both cried when he’d walked into their house a few weeks ago. The first time they’d seen each other in twelve years. Ru hadn’t shed a tear. He’d done his best to show no emotion at all because the feelings that boiled inside him were anger, resentment, disappointment, desperation and a mixed-up love that he didn’t want to feel. His parents might not have died twelve years ago as he’d been told, but they were not what he needed now. He wasn’t a little boy anymore. He couldn’t be the son they wanted.
The last number in his phone belonged to the Irish policeman in Wicklow who was in charge of the investigation into Ru’s kidnapping. Ru hadn’t yet met him. That was where he was going, once he could move.
He took out his phone.
“Hi, Ru!”
Ru smiled when he heard his brother’s voice. “Hi, Ink. I’m here. It feels a bit strange to be back.”
It still felt odd to call him Ink when to Ru, he’d been Killian, the brother he’d adored, the brother he’d thought was dead.
“Are you okay?” Ink asked.
“I’m grand.” The truth was no, but Ru wouldn’t admit that. Ink had enough to deal with. Ru never wanted to be a worry to his brother.
“How was the plane?”
“Exciting. A bit scary.”
“I wish you’d let me go with you. I could have had a passport rushed through.”
“I’m not going to be here long. I just need to speak to the Garda,then sort out the horses.”Then what?Ru struggled to think further than a day ahead.
“If you need help, call me. Anytime.”
“I will.”I won’t.
“Keep in touch, okay? I love you.”
