Chapter Eleven

Ronan

Caris has seriously flipped her lid this time, but I have to admit that my elder sibling is a master manipulator and resourceful to no end. In the space of a few minutes, she alerted the entire town to be on the lookout for any kind of unknown vehicle approaching Wintervale, and to stop it by any means necessary. Fallen logs, rocks on the road, whatever it took to turn it around. She even has the local law enforcement in her back pocket. The only thing necessary is one of her winsome smiles and some of her homemade food and Guinness, and men fall at her feet in puddles of rapt appreciation.

Would she go so far as to feed bad food to Savie’s driver? At least a wee bit?

Her duplicity doesn’t please me, but I also know there’s no stopping her once she’s set her mind to something.

And all because she thinks that vexing woman is my soul mate. Bollocks!

Her manipulations don’t end there. She wheedles it out of me, the one thing I’ve been stubbornly denying since yesterday, to myself as well as to her. I can’t take my eyes off Savie Starr. With all Caris’ blathering about the prophecy, images coalesce in my mind. The face I saw in the cauldron at Samhuin is Savie’s. The more I look, the more I’m convinced it’s true.

But that doesn’t fecking mean I accept it.

Her coal black hair, flashing green eyes, and voluptuous curves have pulled me in from the start. I honestly only meant to help her out—she’d seemed so terrified and alone on that bus. But deep down I know there are other forces at work. Forces of nature. And I’ve lived my whole life respecting those forces, along with generations of O’Farrells before me.

The ancient druids of County Meath never truly left. They live on in their descendants. My parents, Caris, and me. The entire village of Wintervale, in fact. We’ve chosen to live in isolation, and to carry on the traditional practices of druidry, away from prying eyes and the intrusion of technology and commercialism.

Well, for the most part. I glare at my sister again.

But with isolation comes loneliness, and a shrinking gene pool. Our beliefs might shield us from materialism and the politics of organized religion but can’t protect us from biological fact. As the leader of our grove, I have a double responsibility. What’s the point of practicing the old ways if there are no new people left to carry it on? I’m a practical man, and certainly not uninitiated in human sexuality, as many of our rituals involved symbolic sexual acts. But I want to choose for myself who will share my bed, my home, and my way of life. Who will bear my children if I am to be so blessed. I want to feel more than the natural urges of my body. I do really want a soul mate, as the Cailleach predicts.

But could my world ever mix with the blatantly crass and money-driven one of someone like Savie Starr? It’s not even possible. It has to be wrong, somehow.

“She said aye,” Caris whispers excitedly as she returns to the bar. “They’re goin’ to wait one more hour for their transport to show up—which it won’t—and Declan can take yer both back to the cottage along with her things.”

I glance over at the row of wardrobe cases stacked against one wall. “All of ‘em?”

Caris nods. “He can fit it all in the back of his truck, and yer lot can ride in the front.”

“What about Mateo?”

“I’ll ride him out tomorrow, see how yer getting’ along. He’s fine where he is. Yer put him out back, didn’t yer?” I nod. Since he’s my only mode of transportation, Caris keeps a sheltered stall for him behind the pub. “Right. ‘Tis settled then,” she says with a wink and a clap of her work-worn hands. “This is all comin’ together, just as the prophecy foretold. Isn’t Yule magical?”

I watch Savannah’s arse walk up the stairs and grunt. “Magical.”

* * *

Savie sits sandwiched between Declan and me on the lumpy bench seat, not saying a word on the drive out to my cottage and round two of our budding relationship as host and guest.

Caris treated us to a fine supper at the pub, so at least I didn’t have to cook anything until morning. She’d actually seen to that as well, loading me up with food enough to last through a military siege. Milk, eggs, butter and biscuits, porridge and fruit along with hefty portions of ham and sausages. Vegetables I already have since I like to put them up for the winter after the harvest.

Declan and I move Savie’s cases into the main room just outside the bedroom and loft. I can’t imagine what’s contained inside them or why anybody, even an entertainer, would need so much gear at their fingertips. With a smile and tip of his tweed cap, Declan leaves us alone. The old bugger is in on Caris’ scheme, I’m certain.

I stoke up the fire good and hot. The night promises to be a cold one. If not from the weather, then from the frosty countenance of my new roommate. I might even have to admit that I liked her blathering better than this silent treatment.

“I expect yer be more comfortable this go ‘round, ‘avin’ all yer things at hand,” I say, avoiding her cold glare. “If yer just give me fair warnin’ when yer be wantin’ to take a shower, I’ll make sure there’s hot water in the tank and nay beasties in the vicinity.”

“I’m sorry about all the fuss I made.” She settles herself regally in the wide armchair I left in place by the hearth. “I appreciate it’s not easy living here without conveniences and…creature comforts.”

“Creature comforts?” I ask, poking the logs. “I know ‘tis different here than what yer used to, but I don’t find it difficult in the least. In fact, I’m the most comfortable I can be when I’m here. In the woods, away from lights and noise and the…complexity of the rest of the world. Just me and me music.”

The fire crackles to life, and I stare into the flames, keenly aware of Savie’s eyes on me. Under all her haughty rage and name calling, I wonder what she really thinks of me. Of Ronan O’Farrell, the man. Of my appearance, my lifestyle, of shattering her into shivering pieces of feminine release like I did on a simple whim. There’s more where that came from, woman.

After Caris told me what she knows of the famous Savie Starr, I realize I had no idea who I was dealing with at the time. Is there any hope of salvaging even a friendship, much less a relationship with this famous lass?

“I know how you feel about music,” she says, wrapping her arms around her legs. “We have that in common.”

“Aye, we do.” I rise from the hearth and sit in the other chair that also hasn’t moved since last night. “I see yer brought yer guitar. Mayhaps ‘tis yer turn to play somethin’ for me?”

“Would you like me to?” A smile plays on her lush lips. She seems almost shy about it, despite my being told she performs before crowds of tens of thousands on practically a nightly basis. That thought makes me feel foolish for asking.

“I would. But since yer make a livin’ at it, I suppose I’m being out of line askin’ yer to go to work. Without pay.”

Before I’m finished, she smiles full on, her lovely red mouth curving into a white crescent of delight. It makes me smile in return. She’s truly a beauty, even more so without all the heavy makeup she wore in the newspaper photo. The room suddenly lacks oxygen, and I feel the need to gasp for air at the sight of her happiness. “Well, since you won’t take my money, perhaps singing for you is the only way I can repay you, Mr. O’Farrell.”

“I’d like to hear yer call me Ronan.”

She blinks her green eyes, then licks her lips as if tasting the sound before she speaks it. “Ronan.”

The sound of my name on her lips is almost music enough. A shiver crawls up my spine and I clamp my mouth shut so I don’t invite her to my bed to finish what we started earlier in the day.

“My friends call me Savie. You’re welcome to, if you’d like.”

I nod, feeling this honor isn’t bestowed on many. “Savie, right.” The name echoes in my sparse abode, bouncing off the stones of the fireplace and the wooden beams above, rebounding into my ears like an incantation. “I like that.”

“Good,” she nods, moving to rise from her chair.

“I’ll fetch it,” I say in a rush, wanting to please her. “Yer me guest, after all.” I bring the guitar case over to her. I fall entranced as she strums a few experimental chords and adjusts the tuning pegs. I watch her bright painted nails and suddenly imagine them raking the skin of my back as I fuck her. I’m getting way ahead of myself. “Did yer always want to be a musician? What’s it like to perform in front of so many people?”

She considers her answer as she strums her fingers over the strings. “Whether one person or ten thousand, or no one at all. The size of the crowd doesn’t make any difference. I sing because I was born to. I can’t imagine doing anything else.” She cradles the guitar in her arms like a lover. Jaysus, I want to be in her arms instead. “What about you? Did you always want to be a hermit?”

“A what?”

“A hermit.” Those lovely eyes land on me again. “Someone who lives in solitude, hidden away from others, by choice. Don’t you get lonely?”

Her question catches me off-guard and guts me like a spear to the chest. Thoughts of loneliness have only been a recent phenomenon for me, but one that grows stronger with each passing season lately. “Aye, sometimes.”

Her green gaze locks with mine for a glorious second as I wonder what it would feel like to claim this independent and fiery woman as my wife. “I wrote a song about that,” she says. “It goes like this.”

She plays me a slow ballad with haunting chords, yet with an uplifting melody and words of love and loss and hopefulness. Her voice rings true, unlike any I’d ever heard before. Sweet and clear, like it comes from the elements themselves, of air and water and earth.

I can’t even describe the sensations it evokes deep within my soul, because I’ve never experienced anything like them before. I’ve felt a mix of rapture in communing with nature, and unity with my grove at our rituals, but nothing like this. Like the universe itself is moving within me. I feel paralyzed in my chair.

All too soon, the song’s over. She looks at me expectantly, but my tongue feels thick and twisted in my mouth. I can’t answer.

Her shoulders fall. “Didn’t you like it?”

“Very much, I did,” I finally manage to say. It’s the most lilting, honest thing I’ve ever heard. “Yer ‘av an incredible voice. Yer must bring yer audiences to tears.”

She smiles, and I easily could become addicted to the expression on her face. “Sometimes. But that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Making your audience feel something?”

I nod in understanding. “Aye. Too true.”

“So, tell me about Wintervale. Your sister seems excited about the Yule. Why aren’t there any Christmas trees around?”

I take a deep breath, knowing this will be a turning point. She’s either going to accept me for who I am, or she won’t. And if she doesn’t, it could turn bleak…just like my past experiences with townies.

“We don’t celebrate Christmas in Wintervale. We celebrate the Yule, the eighth and most important interval of the Wheel of the Year. It’s far older than Christmas, so it is. Christmas is just a convenient Christian appellation for an already sacred celebration that’s very, very ancient.”

Savie hugs her guitar like a long-lost child as she listens. For once, I see no judgment in her verdant eyes. “Wheel of the Year? So, Yule doesn’t mean Christmas at all? No presents, or carols, or Santa in his sleigh?”

I shake my head. “Father Christmas definitely makes nay stops here.”

Her brow wrinkles in thought. “So how do you celebrate Yule then, exactly?”

Here we go…

“We hold a Solstice Festival. Singin’, dancin’, lots of food. On December twenty-first, we light the Yule log, and celebrate Alban Arthan, the Light of Arthur. Bringin’ a new year and new life to the world at its darkest time.”

“You mean the longest night of the year? And Arthur, as in King Arthur?” she asks, her pretty mouth falling slightly open. “And Guinevere?”

I nod. “Right on both counts. The Winter Solstice. The time of death and rebirth. The sun journeys steadily away from us after midsummer. The ancients had nay certainty that it would return each year, to bring crops back to life and animals back to the land. They made offerin’s to the Earth on the darkest day, to speed its renewal. They also built special structures that captured the first light of dawn on the new day, provin’ it has returned to connect with the Earth once again.”

“Stonehenge,” she says, her emerald eyes widening with awe and wonder. “Like in Outlander?”

Outlander? What is that?

“Stonehenge is one place, but ‘tis not the first. The oldest solstice site is not far from here, called Newgrange.”

“Newgrange? Is that where you hold your festival? Does it have giant stones in a circle too?”

“I wish we could hold our festival there, but ‘tis full of tourists nowadays. And there’s no stones. Newgrange is an underground chamber, datin’ back almost five thousand years.”

“A five-thousand-year-old cave? Why would you go underground in order to see the sun? That doesn’t make sense.”

I chuckle, wishing I had a photograph to show her. “It has a special aperture. Nay one knows how ‘twas erected in exactly the right spot, but when the sun rises on the next day, it shines directly through it and illuminates the whole chamber, signifyin’ the ‘matin’’ of the sun and the Earth, so to speak.”

“So, you’re not Catholics…not even Christians?” She appears to search for the word. “You’re…pagans?”

I sense panic and confusion rising in her. Revealing my druid ways usually does have that effect, not that I’ve told many outsiders in my life. I don’t have to. I’ve lived in Wintervale since my birth. Paganism is as old and earthy as Mother Nature herself, but for some, it seems to bring to mind the evil of the black arts and all that entails. Nothing could be further from the truth.

“Some call it that, tis true. All ‘pagan’ really means is beliefs that pre-date Christianity. If yer think about it, we’re the first religion, if religion means a code of ethics, and personal spiritualism. Worshipin’ nature, the earth, the elements, the light and the dark. All the others are just recent inventions meant to generate profit for their leaders.”

She frowns, still holding tight to her guitar. “That’s not true. Religious groups do humanitarian work. Raise funds for worthy causes. What does yours do? Who’s your leader? What are you called?”

I’m glad I’m being more acquainted with her way of speaking or all of her questions would have fallen on uncertain ears.

“Well, our community is called a grove. Of the Wintervale grove, I am the leader. I am part of the order of the Bard. We practice druidry.”

She looks stunned but fascinated at the same time. “Druids,” she repeats as if testing the word. “It’s interesting and unique for sure.”

“Does that thought frighten yer?”

Savie’s lips rise into a thoughtful pout. “No,” she says in a voice just above a whisper. I’ve never felt more accepted by an outsider. “As long as you don’t sacrifice baby goats wearing pajamas. Or vestal virgins. But I want to know more. My Nana Aislan was born in Ireland. I remember her telling stories, but my mother always discouraged her. Told me not to listen to her nonsense. It was all very mysterious to me. But I heard her say that word. Druid. And I know that Bard means someone of artistic talent.”

“It does. Aislan is a very Irish name. So, you’re part Irish, then.” I press my palms together. “Fáilte abhaile. Welcome home.”

She gives me a strange look, then laughs, a beautiful lilting sound that seems to touch my very soul in a dark recess that’s never seen the light. “I never thought of myself as an Irishwoman. Is that Gaelic? It sounds like a beautiful language.”

I nod. “We don’t speak it regularly. Sometimes at rituals, but all things lose their shine with age.”

“Druid rituals?” Apprehension returns to her voice, and my heart sinks to my toes. Not now when everything is going so well. “You really have those? What are they like? Remember, if goats are involved, leave that part out.”

I turn away to tend the fire, adding another piece of wood. Goats wearing pajamas? I can’t even fathom it. Americans are a strange lot, so they are. I’m not sure she’s ready to hear everything. Outsiders are quick to judge what they don’t understand. It will take time if I want to do it right.

“There are different ones for different times of the year. As I say, there are eight intervals, each about six weeks long, which complete the cycle of the Wheel. Now we are at Yule, celebratin’ Alban Arthur, the return of the light. One such ritual of Alban Arthan is the wassail.”

“I’ve heard that word too. What does it mean?”

“A wassail is a…sort of punch, or potion if you’d like to think of it that way. ‘Tis brewed with herbs and seeds and fruit, sometimes milk. All things that the land and animals give us throughout the year, mixed in a bowl. One of the members of our grove will cast the mixture at the edge of a field, or the base of a tree. ‘Tis an offerin’ of nourishment to the land, to make it become fertile and begin to grow again. It doesn’t actually ‘av any effect as the ancients thought. The rituals are symbolic.” I glance over my shoulder to judge her reaction. The flickering flames reflect back within the depths of her eyes. An overwhelming urge to touch her satiny skin forces me to fist my hand to keep from reaching out.

“The land gives you so much, doesn’t it?” she says after a thoughtful moment. “So, you give back to the land. That’s very poetic. It’s a beautiful sentiment, really.”

“Aye,” I say, stirring the fire. My beliefs fill me with pride.

“And you really believe in it, don’t you? It’s important to you.”

“’Tis our way.” I set down the poker and return to sit beside her. “But ‘tis getting’ on. I should let yer be getting’ some kip. Yer can ‘av the bedroom. I’ll take the loft.”

“You do tell some interesting bedtime stories, Ronan. And I’m beginning to understand your way of speaking better in such a short time.”

“Ach.” I laugh, wishing she’d beg me to stay with her. Beg me to carry her to the bed and make love to her by the light of the silvery moon. She doesn’t. “Better than Nana Aislan’s, I trust?”

“Much.”