Chapter 3
The rain went on all day, and Inkiri and I eventually made it from the kitchen to the living room. It took up most of the rest of the first floor, not counting the conservatory. The wooden rafters continued here, and several carpets spread out every which way to cover the nice hardwood floor. A large shelf with a Bluetooth speaker, an old radio, and an even older TV narrowed the room before it opened up to the wide glass sliding doors into the conservatory. Then there was a second set of doors that led outside, where I could see a nice big patio. Rubber boots stood on a large metal plate just inside the door, while outside, puddles had already formed on the patio and the lawn beyond.
Inkiri decided to park us on Donna’s couch, and I promptly zoned out there, soothed by the sensation of Inkiri’s chest rising and falling evenly under my cheek. He’d become my voluntary pillow and kept himself occupied with a book he’d picked out from Donna’s shelf. It was a romance, and he’d sunk into the story, an expression of intense concentration on his light blue face.
We ended up falling asleep on the couch, or at least I did. As soon as I drifted off, my awareness spread, and I somehow knew Donna was busy preserving apples in a shed outside. Wilson had followed her, and the chicken stared up at Donna. She knew humans could be mesmerized into doing all kinds of things for a chicken, such as dropping a few apple slices. If that didn’t work, there were always the snails the rain brought.
Kinnek and Vergis actually weren’t around, or at least, they weren’t anywhere near the farm.
That made me jolt and groan in my half sleep, and Inkiri clicked softly and checked to make sure I was under the blanket and tugged snugly against him. Seriously, how did I deserve someone so caring and kind?
I found Kinnek and Vergis moments later when my awareness drifted farther out. I’d started looking for them without even realizing it. They had hopped through the veils, I was pretty sure. Right now, they were at the Stone of Destiny. The Hill of Tara was bathed in a red and golden sunset, the rain that had made the day look gray on our end not stretching that far to the east.
Kinnek and Vergis were both armed, their hands resting on the handles of the pistols holstered at their sides.
Kinnek looked at the ground and nudged something with his foot. “Spent cartridges, and plenty of them. It must’ve been quite a fight.”
Vergis let his sharp gaze wander over the Hill. “You have no idea. It was more like an ambush. They were coming from all sides. Inki’s group said they checked the area when they first got here though.”
“Vergis, he’s Inkiri to you.” Kinnek sounded stern, almost like he was ready to cut Vergis’s allowance on top of grounding him.
“Gee, sorry. Anyway, they said there wasn’t any sign of people here. And they’re good—they wouldn’t have missed that many humans hiding in the bushes.”
Kinnek gave a clipped nod. “Yes, I’m inclined to trust them on that as well, but I think we should check the wider area for more traces of magic, not just the Stone.”
Vergis nodded, and the two of them walked around the Hill. I wanted to leave them to it and sink into proper sleep, but it made me uneasy. What if there were more people lying in wait there to ambush them? What if they needed help?
With a pang, I realized that no one was close enough to get to them if that happened. That grain of panic rolled down the steep hills of my mind, gathering momentum and mass.
I am here, I heard—or felt—that foreign yet familiar presence say in my mind. They will be safe, Rory.
Would they? That opened up so many questions. I wanted to ask, but wasn’t even sure where to begin, especially since a part of me didn’t want to know.
What I did do was trust in the voice and allow myself to fall deeper into sleep. Inkiri brushed a finger over my cheek, and I smiled just before I drifted off.
Sleep came, but it was the magic-tinged kind I’d experienced right after the shootout at the Stone, only worse.
I was back on the Hill of Tara, or at least close enough to recognize the shape it cut against the horizon. Everything looked different. The church was gone. There were more trees. The vegetation I could see grew where earlier, Vergis and Kinnek had looked out over the sunset-tinged field. But it was the same place, I just knew.
The scene took a while to come fully into focus, like how your eyes needed a moment if you got woken from deep sleep, but when it did, I could see smoke rising in the distance and feel rain on my skin. At the same time, I knew I wasn’t really there. It was a suspended and unreal feeling, although I understood that all of it was real in some sense of the word.
“Hello?” I heard myself speak over the sound of the rain falling, even if I shouldn’t have had a voice here that could carry.
I spun around. The Stone of Destiny wasn’t far away. I could see it through the bushes and trees that now grew here. Something moving on my other side made me peer harder through the rain. There. People were coming this way, two of them, their hoods drawn over their faces while they pulled their cloaks tight around their shoulders to shield themselves against the weather.
One person was taller than the other, and when they looked up, I saw a woman with green eyes, her expression haunted. The other person turned their head to look over their shoulder. When they looked back, I saw that they were just a girl, wide-eyed and scared.
They spoke to one another, but the drumming rain carried the words away.
The two of them were holding hands, their steps quickening as they approached the Stone, first into a jog, then a run.
“Spergho,” I heard the taller one say, voice hushed, as she passed. There was a moment there where she looked up, and I could’ve sworn she locked eyes with me. But the moment passed, and she didn’t acknowledge me beyond it.
With nothing better to do and no reason I could see for a weird dream like this, I followed them. The girls’ clothing was rough and muddy, a thin, thorny piece of branch sticking to the hem of the younger girl’s coat. Their shoes were leather, sewn together and tied with rough string.
I had seen shoes just like those two years ago when Cat and Jacob and I had spent two days in Dublin. While Cat and Jacob had made use of the hotel bed, I’d gone to the museum where a bog body’s clothes had been on display, and these shoes looked really similar to what I’d admired behind glass that day. Sure, the weave of the bog body’s clothing had been pretty elaborate, and what they wore didn’t look like that, but…there was some connection there.
This was a dream, so I couldn’t sigh, but it was pretty unfair that I couldn’t dream about normal stuff, like standing naked on stage in front of a packed theater with my parents and friends sitting in the front row and gaping.
