Page 7 of Heart of the Wren (Haunted Hearts: Season of the Witch #2)

DARA

AT THE end of my first week on Twin Bridge Farm, I used some of my wages to buy a drink in Casey’s pub for myself and Lorcan. “How’s the cold?”

Big Tom pulled out the scapular from under his shirt. “This yoke is a miracle!” He sniffed deeply to demonstrate his clear sinuses. “I’m keeping it on for another few days, though. Just in case.”

I sat with Lorcan in a quiet corner of the smoky pub.

Though still early, darkness had settled in and a weak bulb overhead cast deep shadows on us both.

I hadn’t seen much of Lorcan since our chat in the greenhouse a couple of days earlier.

Despite working together and living under the same roof, the chances to sit and talk had been few and far between.

There was always work to be done on a farm, and early nights were essential.

As December was approaching, the bar had a few strings of scraggly tinsel half-hardheartedly dotted about.

“Big Tom doesn’t go overboard with the decorations, does he?”

“He doesn’t see the point,” Lorcan said. “We have it in common.”

“Ah, I love a bit of Christmas sparkle,” I said.

“All the lights, the tinsel, the glitter… It brightens up the darkest past of the year. Yuletide! The time when we bring greenery into our home to remind us of the cycle of nature and the promise of new life to come. Do you not put up any decorations yourself?”

“Mam and Dad used to,” he said. “I never bother with it.” He picked at the corner of his beer mat. “I did used to love it, though. When I young. But it’s not the same when you get older.”

“I can picture you as a boy on Christmas morning, running down the stairs to the living room. I’m surprised you’re an only child. I would have thought, going by the size of the farmhouse…”

Lorcan pursed his lips tightly.

My shoulders dropped. “Oh, no. I’ve said the wrong thing.”

Lorcan tapped me lightly on the forearm.

“No, no, it’s not your fault. My parents built the house when they married.

They had planned on having lots of children.

I was the first and when I was five, my sister Mairead was born.

” He took a drink of his pint and licked the foam from his moustache.

“Which was already more of a gap than my parents expected. She was the spitting image of me. The same eyes, the same mop of chestnut brown hair… But anyway, you know the stream that runs through the farm? When Mairead was four she drowned in it.”

My stomach clenched again.

Lorcan cleared his throat. “She didn’t even make a noise. No one heard her. I found her floating in the stream, face down, caught in some bushes. I pulled her out and called for Mam and Dad but sure we were too late. She was gone.” He snapped his fingers. “In the blink of an eye.”

“Ah, Jaysus, Lorcan. That’s awful. Awful. I’m so sorry.”

“They didn’t have any more children after she died.

And you can’t blame them, really.” He drained his glass.

“I was left with the house and the farm when they passed away. Mam went first. Cancer. It must be fifteen years ago, now. And afterwards, Dad sort of faded away. He was gone within a year. On his deathbed he made me promise not to sell the farm. He wanted it to stay in the family. I was supposed to carry on the family name.” He stopped, his eyes glazing over.

“But you never married.”

Lorcan shook his head. “No wife. No children. What a disappointment I must be to him.” He pointed to the ceiling.

“He’d probably looking down and wondering why I’m not out chasing some girl to make some grandchildren for him.

Anyway, enough about me. What’s the craic with you?

Wandering around all alone, like the Littlest Hobo ? ”

“I don’t know who he is,” I said.

“It’s a dog on the telly, he… It doesn’t matter,” Lorcan said. “How lo ng have you been on the road?”

I smiled and sat back. The seats were padded but not very comfortable.

“For a good long while, now.” The spongy interior of the booth breached through frayed holes in the burgundy fabric.

“I didn’t choose this life for myself, I can assure you.

” I rubbed my nose. “When I was very young — around thirteen, I think — my father threw me out of the house with nothing but the clothes on my back.”

“The bastard,” Lorcan said. “Why did he do that, if you don’t mind me asking?”

My knee bounced under the table. I glanced around the busy pub.

The general hum of chatter provided the paradoxical privacy of the crowd.

Big Tom was at the far end of the bar talking to Paul Regan, the butcher.

The Monk sat in his usual spot, cigarette in one hand, drink in the other. Lorcan’s aura flashed a shade of peach.

“A year or two earlier,” I said, “I had found a big envelope in the woods near our home, stuffed into a hole in a tree trunk. Inside was a stack of French postcards with photographs of naked people on them. I took them home and hid them in a biscuit tin under my bed.”

“Oh, ho,” Lorcan said. “Nudey women with their tits out, was it?”

I scratched my cheek. “Not women, no.” I waited to see what Lorcan’s reaction would be, lowering my voice even further and mouthing the word: “Men.”

Lorcan lay his hands flat on the table and said nothing.

I focused, trying to read his aura again but there was nothing. His walls were doing their job well .

My knee continued to bob up and down. “My dad found the tin and flew into a rage. He tore them up in front of me and the rest of my family. I always remember standing in our kitchen with the fireplace blazing, pots bubbling, and pieces of these dirty black and white pictures falling through the air like snowflakes. The tin clattering on the tiles. Spit flying from the corners of Dad’s mouth.

His face red as a slapped arse. He called me every name under the sun and threw me out by the scruff of the neck.

Literally. Grabbed my belt with one hand, the back of my shirt collar with the other and hooshed me out of the door like he was emptying a bucket of water.

I ran as fast as I could. I didn’t know what else he was going to do.

And I’ve been running ever since. Well, walking.

I’m not made for running.” I slapped my beefy thighs and forced a smile, hoping to lighten the mood.

Lorcan sat quietly for a moment. “I’m sorry for what happened to you. That’s no way for a father to behave.”

I shrugged. “I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.

To put myself in his shoes. He was young when he had me.

There were four of us, and a fifth on the way.

It can’t have been easy for him. I imagine, like the rest of us, he was struggling to get through life and making it up as he went along.

He didn’t know what he was doing, I suppose. Still. Feck him.”

Lorcan lifted his pint glass and clinked it against mine. “Feck him.”