Page 13 of Rehabbing the Beast
Chapter Seven
Erehwon wassmall, even by small town standards. Forgotten in time by everyone except those who lived there. It had everything it needed and nothing more: a modest mom-and-pop grocery store, a post office, a church, a single pump gas station with an attached garage, and a bar – orpub– as the sign proclaimed.
As scenery went, it was beyond idyllic. Tucked in the side of a mountain, the land was heavily forested outside of the populated areas. The town was built along the shores of a lake where the water still looked just as pure as it probably had a million years ago.
This, Seth decided, was where good people went when they died,ifthey somehow managed to find it. A ring of constant fog surrounded the mountain about half-way up, and Seth had had to fight the strong inclination to turn his car around and go back the way he came. Had his will to see Quinn not been so strong, he probably would have.
Seth had familiarized himself with the town proper before paying a visit to the sole bed and breakfast and acquiring a room. He was received with such genuine excitement that he wondered how long it had been since the place had had a paying guest.
When asked conversationally how he had come to find himself in Erehwon, he said simply that the brother of a friend had pointed him here as a place to find that which he sought. A bit vague, perhaps, but true. Oddly enough, the kindly old woman who ran the B & B smiled at him and assured him that he had come to the right place.
It didn’t matter what the local culture was, or where in the world it was, the best place to get information was at the local bar. After a truly delicious homemade meal (included as part of his guest fee at the B & B), he walked the short distance to the pub. He wouldn’t require much use of his car here, he mused, wondering absently if that was one of the reasons why the air seemed so much cleaner.
The townspeople, he learned, were primarily of either Irish or Scottish descent. While there was still some suspicion because of the simple fact that he was an outsider, it seemed to be based more in curiosity than hostility. As in Graystonville, their distrust grew noticeably less when he told them his name was O’Rourke, and even less so when he revealed that his mother’s maiden name was MacDougal. It just so happened that there was a clan of MacDougals right there in Erehwon. A few of them were summoned to the pub, and after several hours of hearty drinking, darts, and shooting pool, they declared that he was most definitely a kinsman.
One of them – Malcolm, Seth thought his name was, noticed his limp. “If you’re staying for any length of time,” he was told, “you’ll be wanting to see old Siobhan. She’ll fix ye right as rain.”
“Or her granddaughter, if you have any luck,” said the one called Cian.
“Ah, she is a fine thing,” another chimed in longingly. “A slip of a girl, really, but with the prettiest big gray eyes that’ll melt a man’s heart right in his chest.”
“It’s not your heart that’s burning for her, Rory,” laughed the big, fiery-haired man behind the bar (Ewan).
“True enough,” he grinned unrepentantly, “and I’ll not apologize for it.”
“But alas, she won’t even give him the time of day.”
“Nay. Rumor has it she gave her heart to another. Lucky bastard.”
“And what do you know of him?” Seth asked, his interest piqued.
“Nay much. It’s not right, a fine young woman going to waste like that. Hands like an angel, that one, but the body of a temptress. It’s why they fake so many injuries,” Malcolm confided to Seth with a wink. “The young ones will do just about anything to get her to touch them.”
Yeah. Seth knew just how they felt.
