Page 8 of Heart of the Wren (Haunted Hearts: Season of the Witch #2)

LORCAN

AT CLOSING time, me and Dara left the pub and crossed the road, the way home lit solely by the light of the moon. We staggered a bit, the drink giving us a lightness in our step.

The delicate clouds parted, revealing a bright silver ring around the moon.

Dara stopped in his tracks and took a deep breath.

He closed his eyes, tilted his face to the sky and yelled out a blessing, “Thank you, Goddess, for this beautiful night and may your light guide us safely to our beds.” He clapped his hands together and marched on past me.

I stopped and laughed. I couldn’t help myself. “What in the name of Jaysus was that?” From the painting on his van I’d guessed he liked the moon but I didn’t think he worshipped it.

Dara blinked at me. “It behooves us to give thanks to the moon for watching over us.”

I followed him along the lane, still laughing. “Oh, it behooves us, does it?”

“It behooves the bejaysus out of us.” Dara giggled as he talked. He stopped again, this time at some moths hovering in the hedgerow. He held out a finger and whispered. A large emerald moth fluttered out and landed on him.

I hesitated, mouth agape. “It’s beautiful.”

He straightened up and the moth took flight. He closed his eyes and tapped his thumbs and fingertips, over and over. A cloud of moths lifted from the hedges on either side of the lane. One after another they came, green, and brown, and grey, and even blue.

I staggered to his side. “What’re they doin’?” I admit my vision was a touch blurry but I was fairly certain what I seeing was actually happening.

Dara opened his eyes as the flying moths settled into a circle around us. A fluttering ring of moths around our waists, dancing in a loop.

“How do you make them do it?”

“I don’t make them,” he said. “I ask them. There’s something else I should tell you.” He gazed into my eyes. “I’m a witch.”

I scratched my head. “Ah, yeah, that explains it.” I marvelled at the moths still doing their dance around us .

Dara frowned and smiled at the same time. “I’ll be honest,” he said, “I thought it might have come as more of a surprise.”

“I knew there was something up with you from the moment we met. My dogs like everyone but they love you. So do the cats, even the wild one. The fire in the shed followed you, like you were controlling it. And then there was all that business with the wad of herbs in the kitchen. Spiders, my arse.”

He chuckled. “Well, there’s a weight off my shoulders. I thought I was going to have to convince you.”

“What would you have done, ridden a broom? I’ve got one out in the cottage, if you want to borrow it? Proper old fashioned one. Bunch of twigs tied together. My grandmother made it herself.”

One by one the moths slowly dispersed, returning to the hedges.

“The wad of sage in the kitchen was to cleanse the energy of the room,” he said. “For all the good it did.”

I walked on. “My granddad was into all sorts of pagan stuff. You know the big holly tree up on the top field? He said there were fairies living in it. He first saw them when he was a young lad and he’d talk to them all the time.

There’s a hole in the trunk and he’d leave some sugar or cake in it for them.

Maybe a drop of whiskey at Christmas. He used to dance naked around the tree on the summer solstice.

We’d all be in the yard watching his bony arse and little wrinkly willy bouncing around.

” He wiggled his finger for emphasis. “But sure he wasn’t harming anyone and he still went to mass every Sunday.

I thought you might be up to the same sort of thing when I saw you outside the other night. ”

“ Hah! So you saw my little willy too? ”

“Ah, no,” I said. “Sure the weather was so cold, I couldn’t see it at all.”

Dara bumped my shoulder and laughed again. “I didn’t see any fairies up there but I could tell your holly tree was old and important. I wanted to show it respect and ask for its blessing while I stayed at the farm.”

We veered off the laneway and onto the road leading to the farmhouse. It stood in the distance with a single light on in an upstairs window. I paused on the flat bridge. The stream gurgled beneath us. “You know I am, too?

Dara shoved his hands into his pockets for warmth. “Are what? A witch?”

I puffed out my chest. A cloud of vapour filled the air between us. “No, not a witch. I’m, you know…” I found the words stuck to my tongue. “Gay.” Had I ever said it out loud before? Had I ever needed to? I didn’t think so. My belly filled with ice.

“I guessed as much,” he said with a sly smile. “And thank you for telling me. I know it isn’t easy.”

We walked to the front door where I fumbled for my keys.

“I thought you never locked your door?” Dara blew into his hands for warmth and rubbed them vigorously.

“I don’t, usually. But I’ve had a bad feeling recently.”

He stopped rubbing his hands. “Not because of me, I hope?”

I found my keys and held them tightly. “Not at all.” I slipped a key into the lock. “It’s like there’s… I don’t know. Someone watching me?”

He studied my face. He did it a lot, I’d noticed. I felt he was searching behind my eyes. “I’ve noticed it too. I can do a cleansing of the house. Get rid of any bad energy.”

“Can you? Well, aren’t you useful to have around.” The door edged open.

Dara’s cheeky eyes twinkled in the porch light. “You don’t know the half of it.”

We held there, for a moment, so close we were almost touching.

My lips parted and I leaned my head in, only a hair’s breath, and then the dogs arrived, tails wagging, jumping with excitement at the open door.

Their tails must have knocked over the hurleys I keep by the coats in the hall as they clattered to the floor.

Their paws hooked the door fully open and they rubbed themselves against our legs. The moment was over.

I stroked them and told them to calm down. In the hallway, we stripped off our coats.

“Will you do me a favour?” Dara asked.

I nodded. “Anything,”

“Remember the stone I gave you when I arrived? Will you keep it on you, as much as you can? In your pocket will do. For me. It’ll help, I think.”

“It’s not a family tradition at all, is it?”

His cheeks flushed. “I hope you don’t mind.”

I smiled back at him. “Not one bit.”

The dogs were by his side, to my mild irritation. “I’d almost swear they prefer you to me.”

“I’m a novelty,” he said, petting them both on the head. “They’ll soon get bored of me.”

I ducked at the sharp, loud cracking behind me. A piece of stained glass in the front door shattered like ice on a pond.

“I suppose the door is old, like the mug?” He carefully examined the glass. It remained in place but with a spider web of fissures. “This sort of thing does happen to you a lot, doesn’t it?”

I turned away. “It’s the icy air.”

Dara put his hand on my shoulder, only for a moment. “It’s alright. You can tell me. I know a thing or two. I might be able to help.” He had a very comforting way about him and talked to me as if we were lifelong friends.

I sighed. “It started before you arrived but I wasn’t surprised when it did. It’s like I knew it was coming. I’d felt this iciness following me for a week or so. Like a shadow.”

“Have any mirrors broken?”

“Not yet,” I said. “The last thing I need is seven years bad luck.”

“A week.” Dara pointed to the barn. “So, from around the time the trio of birds arrived?”

I scratched my elbow. “Can I trust you?” Dara’s green eyes twinkled. “I know we just met. But yes. You can trust me, Lorcan.”

I exhaled slowly. “Okay. Then come up to my bedroom.”

???

I flicked on the light and rummaged in the chest of drawers, moving aside a stack of identical pale blue underpants. I’d found a pair I liked on a shopping trip into Cork last summer and bought ten pairs of them. “I found this last month. Dug it up in the top field.” I handed over a vest.

Dara unbundled it to reveal the gold brooch. Even under the weak light of the bedroom lamps, it glowed with unearthly warmth. “Wow, now this is old,” he said. “Bronze Age, at least.” The saucer-sized brooch was circular in shape, engraved with complicated knots, and heavy, with a long, fat pin.

“I was meaning to clean it up but I haven’t had a chance.”

He turned it over in his thick hand, running a plump finger over the surface, and scratching at the dried mud. “It must be worth a fair bit.”

I shrugged. “I suppose so.” I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind.

He continued to clean the mud and rubbed the brooch with the vest. “Look, can you see this engraving here?”

I leaned in close to him, my breath on his neck.

“See there? Birds. Three little birds.” He set the brooch down. “Things started breaking after you dug this up?”

“The first time it happened, it scared the bejaysus out of me. I’d dried myself off after a bath.

I was standing right there, in the nip, putting my underpants on, and a photo frame on the wall smashed.

Right in front of me. Glass everywhere.” I lifted the photo frame.

The glass was gone, but the photo remained.

“There’s me,” I pointed to the boy on the left of the photo.

“And there’s Bullseye.” Like the rest of the children in the photo, we both wore straw masks covering our entire heads.

A taller figure in the centre was dressed head to toe in straw and looked for all the world like a walking haystack.

“Our teacher took it in front of the national school in the village. The same one Bullseye is headmaster of now.”

“You were all Wrenboys,” Dara said. “You don’t see many of them around these days.”

“Bullseye is determined to keep the tradition going.” I lay the photo frame down on his sideboard again.

“I thought a bird was after flying in and crashing into it but sure there was no bird, no feathers, no nothing. I looked around for a stone, thought maybe some kids had thrown one but the window was closed and it wasn’t broken. And kids never come up here, anyway.”

Dara slapped his hands together. “Well, I think I know how to fix this. All we have to do is put this brooch back where you found it. Whoever owned it clearly isn’t happy with you.”

“We just put it back?”

He grinned. “We just put it back.”

I rubbed my hands together. “That’s a lot of money to bury in the ground…”

“You’re right. Sure, leave it so, and who knows, maybe the next thing to break won’t be every mirror in the house. Or your farm equipment. Or you car’s brakes. Or your neck.”

My eyes widened. “Fair enough. It’s supposed to be bad tomorrow. Snow from early on, they said on the radio. The top field will be a muddy mess, if it doesn’t freeze over first.”

“I wouldn’t worry.” He winked and chuckled.

“Are you telling me you can control the weather? ”

“Not control, no. Influence, maybe. We have a conversation.”

“A conversation? You and the weather?” I took a step back. I didn’t mean to.

“The weather tells me what it needs, I tell it what I need, and we come to an understanding. So maybe the snowfall needs to happen but it doesn’t need to happen tomorrow morning.

Maybe it can wait until tomorrow night. Or even the day after.

But it has to happen sometime.” He wrapped up the brooch.

“Well. It’s late. I suppose I’d better say goodnight, so. ”

My mouth ran dry. I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know what to say.

Except I did. It had been a long time since I’d had a man in my bedroom.

I wanted Dara’s arms around me, I wanted Dara’s lips on mine, I wanted Dara’s flesh pressed against my own.

I wanted the warmth, the comfort, the connection. I wanted it all and more.

“Goodnight.” Dara softly closed the door behind him on his way out.