Page 14 of Heart of the Wren
I scratched my elbow. “Can I trust you?”
Dara’s green eyes twinkled. “I know we just met. But yes. You can trust me, Lorcan.”
I exhaled slowly. “Okay. Then come up to my bedroom.”
???
I flicked on the light and rummaged in the chest of drawers, moving aside astack of identical pale blue underpants. I’d found a pair I liked on a shopping trip into Cork last summer and bought ten pairs of them. “I found this last month. Dug it up in the top field.” I handed over a vest.
Dara unbundled it to reveal the gold brooch. Even under the weak light of the bedroom lamps, it glowed with unearthly warmth. “Wow, now this is old,” he said. “Bronze Age, at least.” The saucer-sized brooch was circular in shape, engraved with complicated knots, and heavy, with a long, fat pin.
“I was meaning to clean it up but I haven’t had a chance.”
He turned it over in his thick hand, running a plump finger over the surface, and scratching at the dried mud. “It must be worth a fair bit.”
I shrugged. “I suppose so.” I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t crossed my mind.
He continued to clean the mud and rubbed the brooch with the vest. “Look, can you see this engraving here?”
I leaned in close to him, my breath on his neck.
“See there? Birds. Three little birds.” He set the brooch down. “Things started breaking after you dug this up?”
“The first time it happened, it scared the bejaysus out of me. I’d dried myself off after a bath. I was standing right there, in the nip, putting my underpants on, and a photo frame on the wall smashed. Right in front of me. Glass everywhere.” I lifted the photo frame. The glass was gone, but the photo remained. “There’s me,” I pointed to the boy on the left of the photo. “And there’s Bullseye.” Like the rest of the children in the photo, we both wore straw masks covering our entire heads. A taller figure in the centre wasdressed head to toe in straw and looked for all the world like a walking haystack. “Our teacher took it in front of the national school in the village. The same one Bullseye is headmaster of now.”
“You were all Wrenboys,” Dara said. “You don’t see many of them around these days.”
“Bullseye is determined to keep the tradition going.” I lay the photo frame down on his sideboard again. “I thought a bird was after flying in and crashing into it but sure there was no bird, no feathers, no nothing. I looked around for a stone, thought maybe some kids had thrown one but the window was closed and it wasn’t broken. And kids never come up here, anyway.”
Dara slapped his hands together. “Well, I think I know how to fix this. All we have to do is put this brooch back where you found it. Whoever owned it clearly isn’t happy with you.”
“We just put it back?”
He grinned. “We just put it back.”
I rubbed my hands together. “That’s a lot of money to bury in the ground…”
“You’re right. Sure, leave it so, and who knows, maybe the next thing to break won’t be every mirror in the house. Or your farm equipment. Or you car’s brakes. Or your neck.”
My eyes widened. “Fair enough. It’s supposed to be bad tomorrow. Snow from early on, they said on the radio. The top field will be a muddy mess, if it doesn’t freeze over first.”
“I wouldn’t worry.” He winked and chuckled.
“Are you telling me you can control the weather?”
“Not control, no. Influence, maybe. We have a conversation.”
“A conversation? You and the weather?” I took a step back. I didn’t mean to.
“The weather tells me what it needs, I tell it what I need, and we come to an understanding. So maybe the snowfall needs to happen but it doesn’t need to happen tomorrow morning. Maybe it can wait until tomorrow night. Or even the day after. But it has to happen sometime.” He wrapped up the brooch. “Well. It’s late. I suppose I’d better say goodnight, so.”
My mouth ran dry. I didn’t know what I wanted, I didn’t know what to say. Except I did. It had been a long time since I’d had a man in my bedroom. I wanted Dara’s arms around me, I wanted Dara’s lips on mine, I wanted Dara’s flesh pressed against my own. I wanted the warmth, the comfort, the connection. I wanted it all and more.
“Goodnight.” Dara softly closed the door behind him on his way out.
Chapter 9
LORCAN
