Page 55 of Heart of the Wren
My mouth ran dry. “To care for you so much. I thought I’d be here for a day or two, banish whatever energy was building, and then I’d be on my way.”
Lorcan sucked his top lip into his mouth. Then he sniffed. “You haven’t been prolonging it, have you?”
“Prolonging what?”
He shrugged. “This. All of it. You haven’t used magic to drag it out?”
“Why would I?”
He frowned and blushed. “To spend more time with me.”
“Is that what you think, though?” I grabbed the steering wheel again. It grounded me.
“I can see how it might look. I’ve got a roof over my head and a job. Hot water. Hot meals. And I can see how some people might think I’m takingadvantage. But I swear to you, I’ve only tried my best to fix what’s been going wrong.”
Lorcan slipped his hands into his coat pockets.
“And once it’s done, I’ll… I’ll be on my way. You won’t have to see me again.”
He used the sleeve of his coat to rub a clear spot in the windscreen. “You’re telling me you could have left at any time? So why did you stay? After our fight? Why didn’t you leave?”
I loosened my grip on the wheel. “I… It never crossed my mind to go. I wouldn’t leave you in the lurch. I wouldn’t abandon you, no matter what happened between us.”
He lifted his chin. He opened his mouth to speak but no words came out. The windscreen wipers squeaked as they swished to and fro. He tried again. “What time is it?”
I checked the clock on the dashboard. “After midnight. The day’s flown in. It’s St Stephen’s Day. Wren Day.”
He leaned forward, peering out into the darkness. “Is someone out there?”
I flicked on the van’s headlights and almost jumped out of my seat when a figure scurried out of the lights. “Who the hell is that?”
Nothing stirred in the farmyard save for the gently tumbling snow.
Lorcan yelped when his door knocked twice in rapid succession. He threw it open and stuck his head out. Another knock came from the back of the van.
“Shut the door.” More knocks then, on my side. They travelled upthe door and onto the roof. A great crash came from inside the van, behind us. I spun around to find every one of my potion bottles gone. Every rack, empty. Something thumped onto the windscreen. Again and again, then at every window. My bottles, my vials, my potions hurtled out of the darkness, thrown by unseen hands, and struck the van, over and over, some smashing to pieces, some landing in the snow.
I threw the van into gear and reversed, glass bottles popping under the tires. The lights swung wildly across the farmyard. The van stopped. The lights landed on a figure, small and spiky.
The figure moved slowly forward from the darkness. Rough edged, rustling, hopping from foot to foot, it inched closer and closer until it came fully into the glare of the floodlights.
From head to shoulders, the figure wore a conical mask of straw, completely obscuring their face. They carried a bodhrán in one hand and a tipper in the other. They continued their dance, from side to side, hopping and twirling, banging the tipper on the drum, over and over again. A hop, a bang, a hop, a bang, until, without warning, they stopped.
Snow fell silently. The figure dropped the drum and tipper stick. Then they raised their tiny bare hands and pushed the bottom of the straw mask up, up, and off. It fell to the ground.
Lorcan gasped. His hands trembled.
The figure remained still. A small girl, with freckles across her nose and a shock of white hair.
Lorcan flung open the door and all but fell out the van, landing heavily on the ground..
“Lorcan, stop! Come back!” I got out but kept my distance.
He ignored my warning and paced towards the girl. He knelt on the cold, hard ground in front of her and flung his arms around her, hugging her tightly. “You’ve come home.”
The girl didn’t speak and she didn’t hug him back. She stared dead ahead into the full glare of the van’s headlight.
It took me a minute or two to convince Lorcan to get back into the van and he insisted on bringing the girl with him. They both sat silently in the back and held hands as I drove across the flat bridge to the farmhouse, my heart thumping like the beating of the girl’s drum.
