Chapter Nine

Ronan

“Mornin’ to yer, Sal. What’s the craic?” I nod to Sally Reardon as she shuffles about behind the bar. The lady’s nearing seventy but can always be found lending a hand to someone. She’s the kind of lady I respect and admire above all else. A lady like my ma. Occasionally, her good deeds occur at any local business in need. Today, it’s behind the taps of O’Farrell’s pub. She nods her graying head, still thick with wavy curls. Like me, she’s never cut it since she was a wee lassie.

“Aye, and mornin’ to yer, Ronan.” She slaps a hand on the wood. “What brings yer here so early? I expect the roads were a right fright after that storm. Why, Mateo must ‘av clear sunk to his knobby knees.”

“Oh, just a few errands. Nothin’ like a snowstorm to remind yer to stock up on things.”

“Aye. Yer fancy some breakfast, then?”

“So I do, Sal. And a pint. One for yerself too, if yer in the mood to share some conversation with a youngster such as meself.”

Sal cackles and flaps a wizened hand at me as she moves to the taps. “Go on, yer lippy laddie. A tad early for me. Yer wouldn’t be tryin’ to get a gal tipsy and take advantage, now would yer?” She gives me a saucy wink.

“Aw, Sal, hardly need to get yer tipsy now, would I? Yer know yer the only lassie for me.” I play along, enjoying the way her eyes dance like a schoolgirl’s.

She laughs again. “Caris will be pleased to see yer. I’ll pull yer that pint right quick ‘afore I go back to the kitchen, so I will.”

I nod and slide the weekly paper over from the corner of the bar to look it over. From the corner of my eye I watch Savannah talking with someone in the far corner booth. Not that it’s that far away. The pub has only three of them. The rest of the room contains just a few freestanding tables with chairs and stools at the bar. Must be this Mel fellow she’s been speaking about since I found her.

She’d quickly ducked inside as I held the door for her upon our entrance. It wasn’t obvious we were together, but the few of my folk who’d noticed intermittently hoked a knowing eye toward me. Nothing escaped notice—or gossip—in Wintervale. The bane of being the Bard of a small town.

Before I can tear my eyes away from Savannah, a major pain in my arse appears in the doorway. He’s a friend, so he is. Most days, I wonder why.

“What’s the craic, me boy,” Cosgrove Magee stomps into the pub, and slaps me on the back so hard I almost spit my Guinness on the mahogany bar top. “Yer usually not about this early in the morn. Yer must be here due to the townie I been hearin’ about. Heard she’s a right feckin’ rosspot, so I did. Puts me in mind to doin’ a line.”

His beady eyes scan the perimeter and when they land on Savannah, they light up like an oil lantern.

I shake my head at him. “Yer long-sufferin’ wife would serve yer arse on a platter, so she would, thicko.”

I watch Cos scan Savannah’s body up and down. Something deep inside me roars to life from a long-neglected spot that I haven’t shone a light on in years. My fingers itch to grab my lippy friend by the back of his scraggly neck and shake him until his teeth rattle.

“Best yer get yerself gone afore Caris catches yer in here.” My sister doesn’t give Cos the time of day, and right now, neither do I.

At the sound of the swinging doors to the kitchen popping open, Cos flees the scene. Caris would blister his ears and he knows it.

“Ach, yer look some touch, yer hulkin’ oaf,” a familiar lilting voice says. “Give us a kiss, now.” Caris leans over the bar and tugs on my beard to draw me close enough to plant one on me. “Yer made it back to the cottage all right? I know yer set out for gatherin’ yesterday.”

“Fine, yeah. Snug as a bug, sis. I found yer Skimmia by and by. Woulda brought it but left in a bit of a hurry this mornin’, so I did. I’ll dry it for yer and bring it over next time.”

“Brilliant,” Caris says. “Alban Arthan is less than a week away. I hope we don’t get another storm the likes of this afore then.” She touches me on the arm. “Some excitement here last night, don’t yer know.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

Then I’ll tell yer mine.

“A fellow, an American so he was, came strollin’ in out of the snow last night, lookin’ for a…um, tow truck, he called it. For a motor coach stuck on the highway, not far from yer place. Did yer hear anythin’?”

“Another pint, please if yer not too busy.” It isn’t a lie, more of an avoidance tactic. I hadn’t really heard the motor coach until I’d stumbled across it.

“A’course, love.” She takes my mug from the bar top and turns to the taps. “I rung Declan straight away, and he made arrangements from the garage in Drogheda. The beastie’s here now, dead as a doornail in front of his place, it is. There’s nothin’ for it, he says, and the coach company’s goin’ to be around to collect it. Lucky for Mel I ‘av a vacant room upstairs.”

“Yer spy any badgers causin’ trouble of late? In yer rubbish bins, or somethin’?” I ask, steering the topic askew for a moment.

“Badgers?” Her excitement is immediately dashed. “No. Why do yer ask? I hate those foul creatures. Scary as feck, so they are.”

“Well, somethin’ was pokin’ ‘round my cottage early this mornin’. Snarlin’ and scratchin’. Upset Mateo. Didn’t get a good look at it, but it has dark fur and big curved claws. Like a bear, apparently. I saw the tracks leadin’ into the woods.”

“Sounds a lot like a badger,” Caris agrees, setting another foaming pint on the bar in front of me. “But they’re not about this time of year. They’re in winter sleep.”

“Well, this one must ‘av woken up.” I hoist the mug and take a grateful sip of the bitter but tasty house ale. After everything that’s already transpired this morn, day drinking seems the most sensible way to calm my overwrought nerves and numb my throbbing cock. After Savannah’s screaming orgasm, my wee head hasn’t stopped to consider much else.

“Perhaps so. Mayhap he’s lonely like yer, lunkhead, and yer startled him out of hibernation with yer horny moans in the night as yer be pleasurin’ yerself.” She gives me a saucy smile and a wink.

That’s my Caris, never missing an opportunity to get a rise out of me, metaphorically speaking. If she only knew what I’d been about today. I shoot her my best side-eye, warning her away from the subject with the strength of my gaze. “Oh, yer a bag of laughs.”

“Well, it shouldn’t be long now, brother, for yer to find that wife of yers. The Cailleach Baere said she’d be along durin’ Yuletide, remember?”

I force myself not to look in Savannah’s direction. “Ach, and the old crony said Wintervale would prosper too. Seems she’s a might touched, so she is.” I take another sullen sip from my glass. I still feel I should be doing something about it. But what?

“Ach, she’s never wrong with her prophecies.” Caris shot me another wink. “There’s still time.”

“Nay, not usually. But things can’t be too prosperous if she’s helpin’ yer pull pints and cook hotpot in yer kitchen, now can they?”

“Sally just likes to be of use, aside from her official duties. ‘Tis good for her. And I can always use an extra pair of hands.”

“I suppose. This American fellow, Mel. That him over there?” I nod toward the corner booth.

Caris glances over in that direction, her auburn hair bobbing about her shoulders. “Aye. Who’s that with him? He was alone just this mornin’.”

“’Twas my houseguest last night.” I swill more of my ale. “The most vexin’ creature on Earth, I do swear.”

Her eyebrow shot up. “Houseguest?”

“I was out gatherin’, like yer say. Went as far as the ditch on the highway, and there ‘twas, banjaxed. Didn’t see what ‘twas ‘til I was almost on top of it. Engine idlin’, stinkin’ up the forest. The most arse ugly hunk of metal beast I ever saw.”

“The motor coach? Yer saw it?”

“Aye. Went up to see if someone was about so I could tell ‘em to get their feckin’ toxic fumes out of me forest. Just then the motor died, and she,” I jut a thumb in her direction, “was inside, frettin’ her knickers off. Said her driver had gone off on foot to get help. I sat with her for a bit, but ‘twas getting’ dark.” I shrug like it’s the most natural thing in the world. “I offered to get her to town but couldn’t manage ‘til this mornin’ with the snow.”

“Yer took her to yer cottage? Overnight?” Caris eyes grow like an owl’s in her face. “Yer shag her? Please tell me yer aren’t up to yer old tricks?”

I scoff. Of course, I’m not going to admit to making Savannah scream out her pleasure into the cold, frosty air. No cock in pussy, sister dear. No midnight confessions to one’s overbearing family.

“Comfortin’ to know yer ‘av such a low opinion of me, sis. No, I did not. Not that I could get within a cat swing of her. She’s a right pill, that one. Not enough ale in the land to swallow her.” I ignore my pulsing cock and brandish my near-empty glass. “In fact, I might need another.”

Caris takes another long gander across the room, then straightens as though I’ve poked her with a stick. She looks down at the newspaper I’ve laid on the bar and twists it toward her.

She gasps, her fingers pressing against her lips. “Feckin’ ‘ell. Yer great lunkhead. Don’t yer know who that is?” Her voice comes out in a hiss as she points at the paper’s headline and photo. “That’s Savannah Starr. She did a concert in Waterford day afore last. See here. Sold out within minutes, it did.”

I glance at the paper. Starr Quality, reads the headline, and beneath it is a photo of a woman at the microphone with her bonny mouth wide open. Yeah, that part’s certainly a coincidental similarity. Those pleasantly rounded tits also look familiar, clad in a revealing, halter type shirt molded to them like a second skin. So does the dark hair and green eyes. No getting around the name, however. It’s her all right, gracing the daily edition in living color.

“Could be. Said she was a singer-songwriter, so she did. Yer heard of her?”

“Heard of…?” Caris sputters, her azure blue eyes flashing fire. “She’s as famous as Taylor Swift, yer eejit. And she stayed at yer cottage? Jaysus, lunkhead, yer had a brush with fame and yer didn’t even know it!”

“Careful, sis, yer don’t hit the floor with yer jaw,” I say, bemused at the gaping round ‘O’ her lips have formed. Slowly, they transform into a gleeful smile. That gleam that I’ve come to know means ‘head for the hills’ light up in her piercing orbs. It’s never bad, exactly, just always foreshadows some deep, inextricable involvement on my part. It makes me nervous more than anything else.

“Blessed be,” she says, her hair flopping forward as she bows her head, then turns the full force of her machinating gaze on me. “She’s the one, Rone. The one yer saw at Samhuin. The one the Cailleach saw in yer stone. Feckin’ ‘ell. Savannah Starr is yer soul mate! ‘Tis come to pass. I knew it would, I did.”

“Shite the bed, yer off yer nut, yer nilly. I’d nay touch that one with a barge pole. Clean mad, she is. And so are yer, if yer fancy me and her in the same sentence.” A part of my brain recognizes that I’m protesting too much, but I can’t seem to stop. “Egads, I thought yer loved me like a brother. Yer only brother.”

Caris looks insulted. “Why not? Yer both musicians. Yer both smashin’-lookin’, though who would know that about yer with all that fur, yer muck savage. Why, I’m surprised Cos hasn’t already sauntered in here just to call yer a muckshite. Are yer sayin’ yer doubt the Cailleach Beare’s word?”

He has sauntered in here. Taking shite about Savannah.

“No,” I say, measuring my response. “But I’m certain she meant some fair, agreeable lass from the next county, who already knows our ways and her place in both the rituals and in the house. How to plough and sow, know thistle from yarrow, and to bend over whenever the wind blows my flute to attention.”

My sister jams her hands on her hips. “Ronan O’Farrell, I’m surprised at yer. Is that the kind of role yer wish on me if I were married?”

“Ah, but yer not married, are yer? Except to this fine establishment.” I say gesturing with my pint mug. “Which is a fortuitous circumstance, being my sister and all. Keeps me in cups, so it does.”

“Ach, think what yer like, yer lunkhead.” In annoyance, she waves a dismissive hand. “But it can’t be coincidence that Savannah Starr broke down here. What are the odds someone so famous would come to be in Wintervale durin’ the Yule interval? And that yer be the one findin’ her? ‘Tis fate, Ronan. ‘Tis what’s meant to be and don’t yer even bother denyin’ it.”

I hold up a hand as if the gesture can stop her words from hitting my ears. “If ‘tis fate yer be wantin’, then don’t be temptin’ it. Let it be. I know yer when yer get fixated on an idea, yer like a dog on a bone. Yer give me head nay peace.”

“I’d not be dissin’ the Samhuin prophecy if I were yer,” Caris practically hisses at me, her eyes narrowed in a combination of disbelief and disgust. “Think of yer community, Rone. They’re countin’ on yer, our Bard, to lead and protect Wintervale. To keep our circle, our very way of life goin’.”

“I—”

She isn’t to be interrupted. “Yer need to believe, ‘av faith in the prophecies, or else nay one will. Because that would mean the end of us, the end of the old, true ways we’ve guarded for centuries. Is that what yer want? To ‘av the seeds of the soulless, greedy, and materialistic world take root here? Crack Wintervale apart as it grows its fruitless, barren tree?”

I’m tempted to argue, to point out all the ways the materialistic world has already infiltrated our wee area of the world. My own sister being one of the most material in the bunch.

But I want this conversation over. “By Jaysus, sis,” I tease. “Perhaps yer should take over. Yer make a terrific Bard, waxin’ philosophic like that.” Humor is my only way of winning any argument with my hard-headed sister.

She yanks my empty mug away. “Yer know that can’t be. ‘Til I am Cailleach, a man has to lead the flock and teach his children how to do the same. So be a man. Heed the prophecy, and mayhap yer ‘av a chance at startin’ a family of yer own. Yer not gettin’ any younger, brother.” She snorts. “Besides, there’s nothin’ wrong with blendin’ two worlds, so it be.”

I thump my fist on the bar, irritation like insects on my skin. “I’m growin’ older by the minute listenin’ to this muck. Pull me another afore yer talk me into me grave while dyin’ of thirst.”