Page 12 of Heart of the Wren
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.”
Chapter 8
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 andmarched 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 theyloveyou. 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.”
