Page 9 of Heart of the Wren
The Monk, Pat, and I were the only people in the pub when Big Tom called last orders. We drained our glasses and plodded outside. The night was bright and clear, with a hint of frost in the air.
Pat waved goodnight to the Monk who, as usual, gave no indication of having noticed and carried on walking up the road, towards the row of cottages where he lived. When the Monk was out of sight, Pat wandered around the corner of the pub and lingered in the dark. I took a quick look around to make sure there was no one else around and followed him. Patleaned against the stone wall of the pub and reached out for my coat, pulling me in. I let him do it. Our lips touched. His breath was warm and hoppy, and his hands held me tightly. A blissful few moments we spent there, in each other’s arms, under the stars, where everything else melted away. He grabbed my crotch and squeezed. I returned the favour, manipulating his stiffening prick.
“You’re living dangerously,” I said. “What if the guards see?”
“Then I’ll get another fine,” Pat said. “Do you want to come back to mine for an hour?” He brushed his other hand over my belly. “It’s been ages since we…”
I exhaled and shook my head. “Not tonight, Pat. I can’t tonight.”
“Are you sure?” He squeezed me again. “Because it feels like you can. And if my daughter moves back home, I don’t know when I’ll get another chance.”
“Ah, my head’s not in the right place at the moment.” I kissed him again, quickly, and took a step back. “We might be able to use my house next time. Dara won’t be here for long.”
Pat straightened himself up and fixed his flat cap. “Right you are.” He gave me a wink and a tap on the arm. “Goodnight, so. Safe home.”
I waved and crossed the road, headed for the farm. There was almost no chance of encountering any cars at that time of night so I walked in the middle of the lane, mostly to avoid stumbling into the hedgerows. Pat had gotten my head turned and I shut my eyes, trying to shake him out of my mind.
He had been my first. Pat had been in his thirties at the time, and Iwas barely eighteen, I think, but I’d been the one to initiate it. I was a shy lad. I kept myself to myself, for the most part. I was a nervous wreck all night but for a while I’d had an inkling Pat would be up for it. I made my intentions known one evening at a summercéilein DeLacy’s farm. The whole village showed up for it, drinking and dancing until all hours of the morning. Pat had a mop of black hair back then and his moustache was longer at the sides. He was wearing tight jeans and I’d been admiring his short legs and pert arse all night. We found ourselves at the back of a rundown barn, a fair bit away from the festivities. I pretended I needed a piss and got my langer out. I was young and sure of course I was stiff as a rock. I only half-heartedly tried to hide it but Pat was staring at it and grinning. Next thing I knew we were both on the ground with our trousers off. My first time with a man had been an actual roll in the hay.
We were never a couple. He’d been married since he was 16. Over the decades, we’d meet up once in a blue moon for a ride. I think I became his backup plan for when he couldn’t get sex anywhere else. I didn’t mind. And he was still a handsome man, was Pat. Distinguished. A proper country gentleman with a genuine warmth to him. Widowed now, these past two years. He always said his wife knew what he got up to but they never talked about it. She didn’t appear to mind so long as he was discrete. Sure wasn’t that always the way of it. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t upset the status quo. Just keep your head down. Just keep going.
???
The dogs met me at the front door. I hung up my coat and cap, and set myhands on the hall radiator to take the chill off them. With no sound coming from the living room, and no light on upstairs, I assumed Dara to be in bed. I went to the kitchen to make a sandwich when I became aware of a light outside. Squinting, I carefully approached the kitchen window. Someone was up in the top field with a couple of lanterns. I balled my fists and ran to the back door, flinging it open. I ran out and got as far as the cottage where, ready to call for the dogs, I stopped. The figure outside, by the big holly tree, was stark naked. I stepped back inside the house and closed the door. I switched off the kitchen light, took a pair of binoculars from a shelf, and returned to the window. It took a moment for my eyes to adjust and to realise the naked figure was Dara.
He walked slowly around the oak tree, hands held high, pausing every now and then to speak a few words, judging by the clouds forming around his mouth. Built like an Olympic shot putter, his hefty, beautiful body was creamy and pale, with a patch of hair in the middle of his beefy chest and a deep gingery bush around his genitals. His arm and shoulders were painted with tattoos, his legs were thick and unblemished, his arse high and muscular. He suddenly stopped and dropped his arms, and I ducked down. I had no idea what I’d say if he knew I was watching, so with a raging erection and a healthy dose of embarrassment I crept out of the kitchen and went upstairs to bed.
Chapter 6
DARA
THE COTTAGE had seen better days. It sat an angle in the farmhouse’s backyard. From what Lorcan told me, it had been the family’s original home, where his parents and grandparents had lived. Lorcan’s father had been born there, and when he grew up, he married Lorcan’s mother and they built the farmhouse. The whole family moved into it and left the cottage to rot.
The cottage had a corrugated iron roof, not unusual for that sort of house, but the weather had lifted it in places, letting drips in. The wind howled through gaps between the window frames and the walls. A mousescurried past on the far side of the room. I’d have to have a word with the farm’s cats about it.
Each room held a discarded piece of farm equipment, from broken feed funnels to burst and muddied tires. Whatever colour the walls had been had long since faded or been worn away to a featureless grey. The fireplace was a gaping maw, blackened with decades of soot, the grate long gone.
Checking I was alone, I rolled up my sleeve and found the relevant tattoo. A custom sigil I’d spent years perfecting before inking onto my skin. From my pocket I drew a small vial containing an oil I’d made from mugwort, rosemary, and yarrow. I touched a drop of it to my forehead to open my third eye, then another to my tattoo, and rubbed it in. Then I clasped my hand over the tattoo and closed my eyes, feeling the energy of the earth creep up through the soil floor, into my feet, and filling my entire body. I saw the sigil flare in my mind’s eye; then I reached out and touched a wall.
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the wind stopped whistling. The room slowly became warmer and brighter, as if heated by a roaring fire. A distant echo of footsteps grew louder and closer. I opened my eyes to find everything as it had been except I was no longer alone. Wispy outlines of people moved around me, lifting unseen cups to their lips, pointing, shouting, laughing, reading books. The wisps moved like smoke, blending with each other, becoming difficult to tell apart and making my spine tingle when they passed through me. Men and women moved through the cottage and then smaller wisps appeared. Boys who ran and knocked things over, who sat on tables and ran in and out, in and out. And then a girl who flitted through, briefly, and was gone.
“Dara?”
I took my hand from the wall and the wisps vanished. The atmosphere in the cottage turned icy once again. “Yep, in here.”
Lorcan poked his head in through the cottage door. “What are you up to in here? I thought I heard voices.”
“Hah, I was probably talking to myself. I do it a lot. There’s no one else to talk to on the road except the radio, and it never listens. No, I was having a look around. I wondered if…” Something caught my eye. A shoelace hanging from a feeding cone. I pulled on it and one of Lorcan’s shoes popped out. I reached in and found two more. All odd shoes.
He took them from me without a word.
“How did they end up in here?” I asked.
He grumbled under his breath. “I must have done it in my sleep. I sleepwalk sometimes.”
“Ah, right,” I said. “That explains it.”
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