Prologue
Mary Fallon Delaney dragged her feet as she trudged down the hallway, her stomach tighter than the knot in her crisply ironed hair ribbon, her fingers crumpling handfuls of the snowy-clean gown old Nurse had laced her into minutes before. Her face still stung from a ruthless scrubbing. Her scalp tingled where the hairbrush had raked it as nurse tried to bring to order to the red curls wild Irish winds had made a mad tangle.
But she would have let Nurse scrub the skin right off her nose and not made a peep as long as she didn't have to go into The Room.
Fallon hated The Room.
Shadow monsters stretched their bodies in the corners, scritch-scratch-scritching to sharpen their claws. Even when she was tucked up in her own bed, clear across Misthaven House, Fallon could feel how hungry they were. They laughed at her. Dared her to come inside where the air was too thick to breathe.
She was afraid.
Not that she'd ever admit it. She was six and one-half years old, after all. Not a baby. And she never cried anymore. Not even when the tears poked against her eyelids trying to come out. But it got harder and harder to keep them locked up inside.
Maybe that was why Papa stayed away from Misthaven House now. He heard the monsters, too. But he was lucky. Nobody could make him go into The Room, Fallon thought, wistful.
Fallon chewed at her bottom lip. Only Nurse's gnarled hand against her back kept her moving forward. Fallon could almost remember Nurse laughing, her eyelids so crinkly only sparkles of blue peeped out as they'd played hoodman blind, just like Nurse and Mama had played when Mama was a little girl.
But Nurse had caved in on herself, just like everyone else at Misthaven House, too sad and solemn to bother about Fallon anymore. She'd heard servants whisper that Nurse let Fallon run wild. She liked to be wild. Except when she was sad or afraid. Then she liked to climb up on someone's lap and pretend she was tired. But nobody's lap had time to hold her anymore. Not Nurse or Papa or Mama or even her big brother, Hugh, so she'd just quit asking.
Fallon's eyes widened, and she fought the urge to turn and run. The door loomed ahead, like a dark mouth trying to swallow her. Fallon dug her slipper heels into the roses on the carpet, her chin jutting out at a belligerent angle. "I don't want to go in there," she insisted. "It smells all sicky and makes my nose itch."
"Selfish girl!" Nurse looked as if she'd like to slap her, and Nurse's slaps had gotten harder and harder, maybe because she'd been practicing lots more lately.
"With all the sufferin' in the world, you could surely spare a bit o' your precious time! Not another word, now, or you'll be sorry, I swear you will!"
Fallon's cheeks stung with shame as Nurse thrust her into the chamber.
"Don't scold her, Nurse." The voice was like melodies that drifted from the music-room harp when Fallon sneaked in and plucked it. Soft and pretty and gentle. But the voice only made Fallon's stomach hurt worse. Fallon dug her fingers into her skirts so tight her hands shook. Maybe Nurse could make her come to The Room, but she couldn't make Fallon look up. Couldn't make her see...
"Don't upset yourself, treasure. This is not a fit place for a little girl, is it, Fallon-my-love?"
Nothing except the understanding in that voice could have made Fallon raise her eyes to the woman lying in the big bed.
"You shouldn't be trapped in a sick room, little one," the woman said. But eyes blue as her own gobbled Fallon up, as if she were a plate of sweets someone was about to snatch away.
Fallon nibbled on her lower lip, staring at the woman beneath the coverlets. She wore Mama's favorite nightgown with the lace lilies on the collar. The heathery blue bed shawl Nurse had knitted on wicked-looking needles draped about her shoulders. But she didn't look like Mama any more.
The fire that always seemed to burn in Mama's hair had grown cold, and someone had pinched great hollows around her eyes. Worst of all, whenever Fallon dared to hug her, she wasn't soft anymore, or warm. Bones poked into her wherever she touched. And Mama was cold and so thin she made Fallon think of the china lady from the drawing room. She'd sneaked her out to take tree-climbing with her one day when she'd been lonely and broken one arm right off her. Maybe Mama would break, too?
Stinging things nipped at Fallon's eyelids. She could almost remember what it had been like at Misthaven before the coughing had come, and the lace-edged handkerchiefs Mama loved had come away from her lips stained with blood. Before Nurse started clucking and crooning over Mama as if Mama were a little girl instead of Fallon. Before Papa had ridden off on his horse pretending Mama wasn't sick and Fallon wasn't frightened, and Hugh didn't even exist.
On those long-ago days Mama had taken Fallon everywhere with her—whenever she went to the snug white cottages, her arms laden with baskets of food and clothes, sewing needles, writing things and books and medicines. Even little as Fallon had been, she'd known Mama was something special to the people in those cottages. Something that made angels shine in people's eyes. She belonged to them, somehow, like the standing stones on Finnegan's Hill, or the cliffs on the shore. She wondered who put angels in the people's eyes now.
A frail hand reached up, twisting one of Fallon's curls around a finger. The red strands were so bright against the thin white skin that it seemed they should burn it. Fallon tried not to pull away, expecting the bitter scent of medicine to sting her nose. But a baby pink rose tucked in the bosom of mama's nightgown covered the smell a little.
Hugh.
Fallon winced. She wished she'd thought to bring mama a flower. No one had to make Hugh come here. He just did it all on his own. He'd even tried to coax her to come with him sometimes. But she shook her head and ran off into the fields and stayed until long past dark.
She'd never told him why. The truth was too big, pressing on her chest until she couldn't breathe. She was afraid. Afraid that someday they'd make her give Mama a kiss, and Mama's cheek would crumble like the curl of ash she'd touched once at Potter Dan's when the fire on the hearth had gotten cold.
But tonight something was different from all those other times. There was a peacefulness about Mama's face. A shine in her eyes, almost as if... as if she were getting better. Fallon's heart lurched with hope.
"Fallon, do you remember when I first was sick?" Mama asked. "You'd come and sit beside me in the garden, and I'd tell you stories."
Fallon shrugged. But she did remember. Remembered so hard it hurt inside. Then Mama had only been tired and a little pale. She'd filled Mama's lap with flowers and filled up her imagination with Mama's stories of mischievous fairies and bold heroes that rode in chariots.
Cuchulain, half god, half man, the bravest of Irish heroes. Finn MacCool, who had led his bold army, the Fianna, into a glory so bright its blaze still shone in the Irish mists. And always, theTuatha de Dannanshone like bright gold threads woven through the tapestry of tales. Thesidhe, magical folk of the other world who made their home in the hills and the trees, the seas and the cliffs, more a part of Ireland than the very earth beneath Fallon's feet.
