Page 38 of Heart of the Wren
“You’re not the only one,” Carol said. “Healing Lorcan’s knee? Ididn’t know I could do that.”
“But you’ve always been drawn to helping people, haven’t you?” I asked. “You told Lorcan you wanted to be a nurse, I think?”
Carol tapped the arm of the couch. “I suppose.”
I kept my voice smooth and calm. “I think you should follow your instincts. You clearly have a gift for healing. Sometimes, a seventh daughter will be drawn to divination — telling the future. Sometimes its second sight, so they can know things they shouldn’t be able to know. And sometimes they’re drawn to witchcraft.”
“You’re a witch?” Eddie asked her.
“No,” Carol said. “And I don’t think I want to be. No offence, Dara.”
I chuckled. “None taken.”
Eddie pointed at him. “You mean he’s…? You’re…?”
I nodded. “Don’t panic, I’m not in league with the Devil, I don’t even believe in him. All it means is I’m in touch with the more supernatural side of life. You’re from Essex, aren’t you? There are lots of witches in Essex. Not as many as there used to be, mind you. Have you never heard of the Chelmsford witch trails? Over 100 people were hanged there. Horrible stuff. Awful, altogether. Most of them probably weren’t even witches at all, of course. They were people who knew how to use plants to heal or read weather patterns. And some of them were victims of hate and spite. Have you noticed anything strange happening at the farm recently?”
Eddie told me a bookcase fell in the storage shed. “And my tools keep going missing. I put them down, turn around, and they’ve gone.”
“You never mentioned this before,” Carol said.
“I didn’t think much about it.” He turned to me. “Are you doing it? Is it, like, witchcraft, or whatever?”
“No, no, it’s not my doing. Lorcan dug up a fairy ring and—”
Carol sat forward. “He didwhat?”
I held up my hands. “I know, I know. And since then, he’s had a run of bad luck. Well, more than bad luck, truth be told. I’m trying to get to the bottom of it.”
???
I stuck my tired old toothbrush into the glass by the sink. How quickly I’d grown used to doing it instead of shoving it into my rucksack. I always kept the essentials in my rucksack. I was prone to wandering and didn’t always make it back to my van before dark. Lorcan’s toothbrush leaned away from mine in the glass.
Outside the door to Lorcan’s bedroom, I hesitated. Carol had taken a plate of food up to him earlier. He’d told her he’d wanted to rest his leg a while longer before coming downstairs. I gently opened the door and peered inside. He lay under his bedclothes with his back to the door. I lifted my rucksack from the chair and closed the door behind me. Downstairs, I boiled the kettle and filled my hot water bottle. Saying goodnight to the dogs, I quietly closed the front door behind me, made my way across the arched bridge, and settled down in the back of my camper van for a chilly, restless night.
Chapter 22
DARA
I ADJUSTED my position on the bar stool. The black and white television fizzled with static, cutting in and out of a handsome moustachioed man being interviewed onThe Late Late Show. It took me a minute to recognise one of my favourite radio DJ’s, Ronan Collins. At the far side of the bar, Big Tom stood with Bullseye.
“They've just been sitting there for—” Big Tom checked his watch. “—three hours. And they haven’t spoken a word to each other.”
“Who?”Bullseye asked.
“Dara and the Monk.”
They either didn’t realise how loud they were being or they didn’t care if we heard them.
Bullseye glanced in our direction but was a good deal more discrete about it than Big Tom. “Well, they're not hurting anybody, are they?”
Big Tom rolled his shoulders. “No. But…”
“But what?”
“It’sweird.”
“There are no laws against being weird. More’s the pity.”
