“That works. I’ll set up in the bedroom down here for work.” She wandered that way and into the room that opened to the garden. “Scratch that. They’ve done it for me.” She brushed a hand over the laptop already on her little desk, noted her yoga mat—which she hadn’t thought to grab—neatly rolled and standing in the corner.
“Sedric’s already come and gone,” she told Marco.
“What? How?”
“You’ll sort of get used to it.” She walked back to open the door for Bollocks, who pranced his way to the living room fire, and after his habitual three turns, settled down with a contented canine sigh.
“Do you think my stuff’s up in the room I used before?”
“Let’s go find out. I want to unpack, then I’m going to get some writing in. I should probably do a blog, too, about coming back to the cottage. And you can set up wherever you want to read.”
They walked through the living room with its forest-green sofa, its candles, crystals, flowers, its views of the blue water.
The fire sizzled and snapped in the hearth.
Through the foyer, and up the stairs, where the dog scrambled up to follow them, Breen turned at the head toward Marco’s room.
His guitar stood on its stand, and the harp, out of its case, gleamed on a table along with his keyboard.
Because he was busy staring, Breen opened a drawer. “Sweaters, shirts.”
He opened the closet. “They put everything away.”
“It’s a kind of welcoming. I’ll bet your jackets and rain gear—and mine—are in the closet in the foyer.”
“You really think I’m going to get sort of used to it?”
“I hope you do.” Her heart squeezed a little. “This is who I am.”
“I’m always going to love who you are.” He moved over to the table, ran his finger over the harp strings. “I want to learn how to play this. It’s the best gift I ever got.”
“I remember a little, what my father taught me. I can show you, and I know you can more than take it from there.”
“Okay. Okay.” He walked around the room he remembered, looked out at the view he remembered. “Maybe we’ll have us a musical evening after dinner. Cooking and making music, that might help me with the ‘sort of.’ I’m going down, start that sauce so it can simmer its way to heaven, then I’ll call Sally.”
He reached out, ran a hand over her bright red curls. “You do what you do, Breen.”
She went down to do what she did, with Bollocks curled on the bed behind her. She’d do the blog first, she decided, just a brief one. And would wait to post it until Marco spoke with Sally.
How to begin? she wondered. She couldn’t write, not on the blog, about the taoiseach of Talamh, or Marco jumping through the portal with her.
She simply sat a moment, let it sink in that she was back, well and truly back. She’d enjoyed her solitude in the cottage over the summer, and finding herself by living on her own for the first time in her life.
But as she sat now, hearing Marco in the kitchen, singing as he did whatever he did to those prime tomatoes, she found his presence like a warm blanket on a chilly morning.
Simple comfort, like the dog napping behind her, or knowing outside the garden doors the flowers bloomed.
So she wrote about returning to Ireland. For the first time on the blog, she wrote about finding her grandmother, learning of the loss of her father. And how the grief of that balanced with the joy of finding family and friends.
How finding them helped her find herself.
Satisfied, she set that aside, and opened herself to the story.
She dived in, let it surround her.
CHAPTER THREE
When she finally surfaced, she found herself a little stunned. She’d worked well in the apartment in Philadelphia when she’d gone back at the end of the summer. But not like here, she admitted. Maybe it came from the initial burst of energy from being back where she’d really started this part of her journey, but she’d poured out ten pages.
Now, out of the writing haze, she caught the scent of Marco’s red sauce, noted the change of light as dusk crept closer.
And saw Bollocks had left his post.
She shut down, stepped out. She saw Marco sitting at the dining room table, his brow furrowed as he read on his laptop. Bollocks rose from his spot in front of the kitchen hearth to lean against her legs.
“Sally?”
“All good. He’s glad I came with you.” He looked up then, straight into her eyes. “What’s in here, Breen, it’s not good. It’s not good. Holy shitballs, you almost got yourself killed. Twice.”
“But I didn’t. And he doesn’t want me dead, Marco. What he wants is worse.” She walked into the kitchen to fill the dog’s food bowl. “I’m stronger than I was, and I’ll get stronger yet.”
“How are you going to fight him?”
“I don’t know the answers right now.” She chose a bottle of wine. “But I think it may come down to power against power.”
“He’s a freaking god. He’s Loki, girl, without the fun parts.”
“I’ve got his blood in me, and more. I have more. You’re not asking if I’m afraid.”
“You’re not stupid, you’re not crazy, so I know you are. Can’t Keegan take him down? Okay.” Rising, pacing, Marco waved a hand in the air. “I get he would if he could. I’ve got a better picture of him, of everybody over there now. I haven’t finished it all, but I’ve got a better picture. Your picture, anyway.”
“My father died trying to stop him.”
“I know, baby. I know. But that crazy witch lady with the two-headed snakes.” He shuddered before he took the wine Breen held out. “I’m with Indiana Jones on snakes.”
“Fool me once.” She toasted, drank. “She won’t catch me off guard again.”
He gave her a long look. “You’re not as scared as you were last night.”
“Maybe I had to come back to lose some of it. Not all because not stupid, not crazy. And I know I’m going to be really scared again. But what I’ve learned, what I will learn? The more I learn, the more I feel.
“I was afraid to try to write, but you pushed me until I did. And I’m good at it. I’m going to get better, but I’m good at it. And it gives me joy. I’m going to get better at the craft. I’ve gotten pretty good, and I’ll get better. It gives me joy.”
He walked into the kitchen, stirred his sauce. “Writing doesn’t put you in a death sleep.”
“Have you read about my vision—the boy on the altar, what Odran and his demons did to that boy?”
“Made me sick. Made me sick because it wasn’t like a movie where it’s all pretend. It was real.”
“How can I just walk away from that when I might be what stops it from ever happening again?”
“I don’t know, but the thing is, lighting some candles? That’s wild stuff, girl, but it’s not the sort of thing that handles all this.”
“Fire is often the first skill learned.”
She set down her wine, held out a hand. And brought the red flame over it. “It can burn hot.” In her other hand, she brought the blue fire. “Or it can burn cold.”