Page 32 of Heart of the Wren (Haunted Hearts: Season of the Witch #2)

DARA

I FOLLOWED Lorcan out of the front door.

The snow had already obscured Bullseye’s footprints.

Lorcan thundered across the arched bridge and instead of going to the sheep shed, he stopped at my van, next to the brown bear door.

Snow gathered half an inch thick on the roof.

He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Go on, then.”

I breathed deeply of the icy air. “The morning I arrived, I drove past the farm and I sensed an energy in the air. A kind of electric charge that made my hands and spine light up. So I stopped, turned around, and drove back. I didn’t know you then.

I didn’t know who lived here, and I suspected they wouldn’t appreciate some stranger poking around their home.

So, I, uh, I made sure to overheat the engine so it would conk out at your gate. And then I knocked on your door.”

Lorcan closed his eyes and lifted his head to the sky. Snowflakes landed on his beard.

“I thought I'd only be here for a few hours, at most,” I said. “But once I was here I could tell there was trouble brewing.” I held the black cube in my hand. “And when we went back to the van, I needed to make sure it wouldn’t start so I pulled this out and slipped it into my pocket. I kept meaning to hide it properly.”

Lorcan pointed to the van. “Put it back. The part. Put it back in.”

I opened the engine cover and replaced the radiator relay.

“Start it.” He wouldn’t look at me.

Swallowing hard, I slipped the key into the ignition. Nothing happened. I tried again. Still nothing. My armpits started to sweat.

“Keep going.” He stood by the driver’s side door.

On the third attempt, the engine spluttered to life.

He slammed the door closed, leaving me alone in the van. I gripped the wheel, uncertain what I was supposed to do. Did he want me to drive away? I flicked on the windscreen wipers to clear away some of the snow.

He walked slowly around the van, finally climbing into the passenger side.

We sat in silence while the engine idled. Every window in the van slowly fogged up .

“You faked the problems.” He brushed the snowflakes from his beard and rubbed his hands together to dry them. “And you didn’t tell me.”

“I meant to but in all the excitement, it sort of slipped my mind.” I kept both hands on the wheel.

“You faked the problems,” he said again, “because you wanted to help me?”

I turned to face him. “It’s all I wanted. I didn’t know you were going to invite me into your home. I would have been perfectly happy sleeping here in the van from the start. I didn’t know you were going to be so kind and generous, I didn’t know I was going to…”

“To what?”

My mouth ran dry. “To care for you so much. I thought I’d be here for a day or two, banish whatever energy was building, and then I’d be on my way.”

Lorcan sucked his top lip into his mouth. Then he sniffed. “You haven’t been prolonging it, have you?”

“Prolonging what?”

He shrugged. “This. All of it. You haven’t used magic to drag it out?”

“Why would I?”

He frowned and blushed. “To spend more time with me.”

“Is that what you think, though?” I grabbed the steering wheel again. It grounded me.

“I can see how it might look. I’ve got a roof over my head and a job. Hot water. Hot meals. And I can see how some people might think I’m taking advantage. But I swear to you, I’ve only tried my best to fix what’s been going wrong.”

Lorcan slipped his hands into his coat pockets.

“And once it’s done, I’ll… I’ll be on my way. You won’t have to see me again.”

He used the sleeve of his coat to rub a clear spot in the windscreen. “You’re telling me you could have left at any time? So why did you stay? After our fight? Why didn’t you leave?”

I loosened my grip on the wheel. “I… It never crossed my mind to go. I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. I wouldn’t abandon you, no matter what happened between us.”

He lifted his chin. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. The windscreen wipers squeaked as they swished to and fro. He tried again. “What time is it?”

I checked the clock on the dashboard. “After midnight. The day’s flown in. It’s St Stephen’s Day. Wren Day.”

He leaned forward, peering out into the darkness. “Is someone out there?”

I flicked on the van’s headlights and almost jumped out of my seat when a figure scurried out of the lights. “Who the hell is that?”

Nothing stirred in the farmyard save for the gently tumbling snow.

Lorcan yelped when his door knocked twice in rapid succession. He threw it open and stuck his head out. Another knock came from the back of the van.

“Shut the door.” More knocks then, on my side.

They travelled up the door and onto the roof.

A great crash came from inside the van, behind us.

I spun around to find every one of my potion bottles gone.

Every rack, empty. Something thumped onto the windscreen.

Again and again, then at every window. My bottles, my vials, my potions hurtled out of the darkness, thrown by unseen hands, and struck the van, over and over, some smashing to pieces, some landing in the snow.

I threw the van into gear and reversed, glass bottles popping under the tires. The lights swung wildly across the farmyard. The van stopped. The lights landed on a figure, small and spiky.

The figure moved slowly forward from the darkness. Rough edged, rustling, hopping from foot to foot, it inched closer and closer until it came fully into the glare of the floodlights.

From head to shoulders, the figure wore a conical mask of straw, completely obscuring their face.

They carried a bodhrán in one hand and a tipper in the other.

They continued their dance, from side to side, hopping and twirling, banging the tipper on the drum, over and over again.

A hop, a bang, a hop, a bang, until, without warning, they stopped.

Snow fell silently. The figure dropped the drum and tipper stick. Then they raised their tiny bare hands and pushed the bottom of the straw mask up, up, and off. It fell to the ground.

Lorcan gasped. His hands trembled.

The figure remained still. A small girl, with freckles across her nose and a shock of white hair.

Lorcan flung open the door and all but fell out the van, landing heavily on the ground. .

“Lorcan, stop! Come back!” I got out but kept my distance.

He ignored my warning and paced towards the girl. He knelt on the cold, hard ground in front of her and flung his arms around her, hugging her tightly. “You’ve come home.”

The girl didn’t speak and she didn’t hug him back. She stared dead ahead into the full glare of the van’s headlight.

It took me a minute or two to convince Lorcan to get back into the van and he insisted on bringing the girl with him. They both sat silently in the back and held hands as I drove across the flat bridge to the farmhouse, my heart thumping like the beating of the girl’s drum.

I rushed ahead of them into the hallway and, touching a tattoo on my arm, I closed my eyes and cast a protective seal over the front door, hoping to stop any dark forces from crossing the threshold. Behind me, Bullseye was putting his arm into a coat sleeve.

“Ah, you’re not leaving already,” I said.

“It’s late,” Bullseye said. “I’d better be going.”

“Not at all, not at all.” I slapped on my biggest smile and stopped Bullseye from putting his coat on fully.

I all but stripped it back off him. “Get back in there now and we’ll all have a nice cozy drink and, ah, and we’ll talk about the hurling match and you can tell me how you beat them last year. ”

“Ah, well, you know I scored the winning point, of course. And—”

“Carol, pour your dad a drink.” I made wide eyes at her, hoping she’d get the message.

Thankfully, she did. She took a bottle of Jameson and poured some into a glass .

“—no one’s ever beaten my record of—”

“Good, good.” I guided him back into the living room as gently as I could. “Now, we’ll be with you in a second. Eddie, Carol, can you give me a hand in the kitchen? Won’t be long.” I smiled again at Bullseye who slowly sat on the couch.

Carol shut the living room door behind her and hissed at me. “What’s going on?”

I told her to keep her voice down. “We saw someone out in the farmyard.”

“Who was it?”

Lorcan led the small girl by the hand into the hallway. His eyes were wet. “Carol. Eddie. This is Mairead. This is my sister.”