But her primary goal remained to seek out and make contact with the Dark Witch.
When she stepped outside into the whistling wind and drenching rain, she told herself it was a perfect day for witches.
The little map Nan had drawn was in her bag, but she’d etched it on her memory. She turned away from the great stone walls, took the path toward the deep woods. Passed winter-quiet gardens, spreads of soaked green. Belatedly she remembered the umbrella in her bag, dragged it out, pushing her way forward into the evocative gloom of the rain-struck woods.
She hadn’t imagined the trees so big, with their wide, wide trunks, crazily gnarled branches. A storybook wood, she thought, thrilled with it even as the rain splashed over her boots.
Through its drumming she heard the wind sigh and moan, then the rumble of what must be the river.
Paths speared, forked, but she kept the map in her head.
She thought she heard something cry overhead, and for a moment imagined she saw the sweep of wings. Then despite the drumming, the rumbling, the sighs and the moans, everything suddenly seemed still. As the path narrowed, roughened, her heartbeat pounded in her ears, too quick, too loud.
To the right an upended tree exposed a base taller than a man, wider than her arm span. Vines thick as her wrist tangled together like a wall. She found herself drawn toward them, struck by the urge to pull at them, to fight her way through them to see what lay beyond. The concept of getting lost flitted through her mind, then out again.
She just wanted to see.
She took a step forward, then another. She smelled smoke and horses, and both pulled her closer to that tangled wall. Even as she reached out, something burst through. The massive black blur had her stumbling back. She thought, instinctively: Bear!
Since the umbrella had flown out of her hand, she looked around frantically for a weapon—a stick, a rock—then saw as it eyed her, the biggest dog ever to stand on four massive paws.
Not a bear, she thought, but as potentially deadly if he wasn’t somebody’s cheerful pet.
“Hello . . . doggie.”
He continued to watch her out of eyes more gold than brown. He stepped forward to sniff her, which she hoped wasn’t the prelude to taking a good, hard bite. Then let out two cannon-shot barks before loping away.
“Okay.” She bent over from the waist until she caught her breath. “All right.”
Exploring would definitely wait for a bright, sunny day. Or at least a brighter, dryer one. She picked up her soaked and muddy umbrella and pressed on.
She should’ve waited on the whole thing, she told herself. Now she was wet and flustered and, she realized, more travel weary than she’d expected. She should be napping in her warm hotel bed, snuggled in listening to the rain instead of trudging through it.
And now—perfect—fog rolled in, surfing over the ground like waves on the shore. Mists thickened like those vines, and the rain sounded like voices muttering.
Or there were voices muttering, she thought. In a language she shouldn’t understand, but almost did. She quickened her pace, as anxious to get out of the woods as she’d been to get into them.
The cold turned brutal until she saw her breath hazing out. Now the voices sounded in her head: Turn back. Turn back.
It was stubbornness as much as anxiety that had her pushing ahead until she nearly ran along the slippery path.
And like the dog, burst into the clear.
The rain was just the rain, the wind just the wind. The path opened into a road, with a few houses, smoke puffing out of chimneys. And beyond, the beauty of the mist-shrouded hills.
“Too much imagination, not enough sleep,” she told herself.
She saw dooryard gardens resting their bright blooms for spring, cars parked on the roadside or in short drives.
Not far now, according to Nan’s map, so she walked along the road, counting houses.
It sat farther off the road than the others, farther apart as if it needed breathing room. The pretty thatched-roofed cottage with its deep blue walls and bright red door transmitted that same storybook vibe—yet a shiny silver Mini sat in the little driveway. The cottage itself jogged into an L, fronted by curved glass. Even in the winter, pots of bright pansies sat on the stoops, their exotic faces turned upward to drink in the rain.
A sign of aged wood hung above the curve of glass. Its deeply carved letters read:
THE DARK WITCH
“I found her.” For a moment Iona just stood in the rain, closed her eyes. Every decision she’d made in the last six weeks—perhaps every one she’d made in her life—had led to this.
She wasn’t sure whether to go to the L—the workshop, Nan had told her—or the cottage entrance. But as she walked closer she saw the gleam of light on the glass. And closer still, the shelves holding bottles full of color—bright or soft—hanks of hanging herbs. Mortars and pestles, bowls and . . . cauldrons?
Steam puffed from one on a stove top, and a woman stood at a work counter, grinding something.
Iona’s first thought was how unfair it seemed that some women could look like that even without fussing. The dark hair bundled up, sexily messy, the rosy flush from the work and the steam. The fine bones that said beauty from birth to death, and the deeply sculpted mouth just slightly curved in a contented smile.
Was it genes or magick? she wondered. But then, for some, one was the same as the other.
She gathered her courage and, setting her umbrella aside, reached for the door handle.
She barely touched it when the woman looked up, over. The smile deepened, polite welcome, so Iona opened the door, stepped in.
And the smile faded. Eyes of smoke gray held so intensely on her face that Iona stopped where she was, just over the threshold.
“Can I come in?”
“It’s in you are.”
“I . . . I guess I am. I should’ve knocked. I’m sorry, I . . . God, it smells amazing in here. Rosemary and basil and lavender, and . . . everything. I’m sorry,” she said again. “Are you Branna O’Dwyer?”
“I am, yes.” As she answered, she took a towel from under the counter, crossed to Iona. “You’re soaked through.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m dripping on the floor. I walked over from the castle. From the hotel. I’m staying at Ashford Castle.”
“Lucky you, it’s a grand place.”
“It’s like a dream, at least what I’ve seen of it. I just got here. I mean, a couple hours ago, and I wanted to come to see you right away. I came to meet you.”
“Why?”
“Oh, I’m sorry, I—”
“You’re sorry for a lot it seems, in such a short time.”
“Ha.” Iona twisted the towel in her hands. “Yeah, it sounds like it. I’m Iona. Iona Sheehan. We’re cousins. I mean, my grandmother Mary Kate O’Connor is cousins with your grandmother Ailish, um . . . Ailish Flannery. So that makes us . . . I get confused if it’s fourth or third or whatever.”
“A cousin’s a cousin for all that. Well then, take off those muddy boots, and we’ll have some tea.”
“Thanks. I know I should’ve written or called or something. But I was afraid you’d tell me not to come.”
“Were you?” Branna murmured as she set the kettle on.
“It’s just once I’d decided to come, I needed to push through with it.” She left her muddy boots by the door, hung her coat on the peg. “I always wanted to visit Ireland—that roots thing—but it was always eventually. Then . . . well, it was now. Right now.”
“Go have a seat at the table back there, by the fire. It’s a cold wind today.”
“God, tell me! I swear it got colder the deeper I went into the woods, then . . . Oh Jesus, it’s the bear!”
She stopped as the massive dog lifted his head from his place at the little hearth, and gave her the same steady stare he had in the woods. “I mean the dog. I thought he was a bear for a minute when he came bursting through the woods. But he’s a really big dog. He’s your dog.”
“He’s mine, yes, and I’m his. He’s Kathel, and he won’t harm you. Have you a fear of dogs, cousin?”
“No. But he’s huge. What is he?”
“Breeding, you mean. His father is an Irish wolfhound, and his mother a mix of Irish Dane and Scottish deerhound.”
“He looks fierce and dignified at the same time. Can I pet him?”
“That would be up to you and him,” Branna said as she brought tea and sugar biscuits to the table. She said nothing more as Iona crouched, held out the back of her hand for the dog to sniff, then stroked it gently over his head.
“Hello, Kathel. I didn’t have time to introduce myself before. You scared the crap out of me.”
She rose, smiled at Branna. “I’m so happy to meet you, to be here. Everything’s been so crazy, and it’s all running around in my head. I can hardly believe I’m standing here.”
“Sit then, and have your tea.”
“I barely knew about you,” Iona began as she sat, warmed her chilled hands on the cup. “I mean, Nan had told me about the cousins. You and your brother.”
“Connor.”
“Yes, Connor, and the others who live in Galway or Clare. She wanted to bring me over years ago, but it didn’t work out. My parents—well, mostly my mother—didn’t really want it, and she and my father split up, and then, well, you’re just bouncing around between them. Then they both remarried, and that was weird because my mother insisted on an annulment. They say how that doesn’t really make you a bastard, but it sure feels like it.”
Branna barely lifted her eyebrows. “I imagine it does, yes.”
“Then there was school and work, and I was involved with someone for a while. One day I looked at him and thought, Why? I mean, we didn’t have anything for each other but habit and convenience, and people need more, don’t they?”
“I’d say they do.”
“I want more, sometime anyway. Mostly, I never felt like I fit. Where I was, something always felt a little skewed, not quite right. Then I started having the dreams—or I started remembering them, and I went to visit Nan. Everything she told me should’ve sounded crazy. It shouldn’t have made sense, but it did. It made everything make sense.
“I’m babbling. I’m so nervous.” She picked up a cookie, stuffed it in her mouth. “These are good. I’m—”
“Don’t be saying you’re sorry again. It’s coming on pitiful. Tell me about the dreams.”
“He wants to kill me.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. Or I didn’t. Nan says his name is—was—is Cabhan, and he’s a sorcerer. Evil. Centuries ago our ancestor, the first dark witch, destroyed him. Except some part of him survived it. He still wants to kill me. Us. I know that sounds insane.”
Placidly, Branna sipped her tea. “Do I look shocked by all this?”
“No. You look really calm. I wish I could be really calm. And you’re beautiful. I always wanted to be beautiful, too. And taller. You’re taller. Babbling. Can’t stop it.”