CHAPTER NINE
Cedar hated taking the red eye. Usually she couldn’t sleep on planes, but she was so exhausted she managed to doze for nearly the whole flight from Halifax to New York. She was glad, because it meant she didn’t have to talk to Finn. For the past seven years, she had been desperate to know why he had left, but now that he was sitting next to her, she was terrified of finding out. It was easier to ignore him.
When they got off the plane, she called her mother. Maeve sounded tense, and Cedar assumed she was still upset that she had chosen to accept the help of the Tuatha Dé Danann. Maeve listened quietly as Cedar filled her in. Then she asked several questions, but brushed off Cedar’s own questions with more promises to tell her more later.
Cedar hung up, frustrated, and she and Finn hopped in a taxi and headed into the theater district. The last time she had been to New York they had been together, on a spur-of-the-moment road trip. They had been sitting around on a Friday night, debating which movie to go to and bemoaning the lack of cheap theaters in Halifax. Finn had reminisced about a great hole-in-the-wall movie theater he had been to once in New York that showed classic films around the clock. Cedar had never been to New York, and as he told her about it, her eyes had started to twinkle, a cheeky smile spreading across her face. He knew her well enough to know what she was thinking.
“Really?” he asked, starting to grin. “It’s…seven o’clock.”
“Which means,” Cedar started counting on her fingers, “if we leave in an hour we can be there by ten in the morning, spend the day seeing the sights, go see a show or something, spend the night, and drive back on Sunday. It will be perfect!”
And it had been. They had crammed as many touristy things as they could into one day and collapsed in exhaustion at the Banana Bungalow hostel in the wee hours of the morning on Sunday. After breakfast at the greasiest spoon they could find, they had started the fifteen-hour drive home. It had been one of the best weekends of Cedar’s life.
Now, seven years later, Finn made a few attempts at conversation as they rode through the city, but Cedar’s answers were so stilted he soon gave up. They spent the rest of the ride in silence. When the cab pulled up in front of the café where they were meeting Brighid, Finn paid the fare and they got out. Cedar stood for a moment under the awning before following Finn inside. She told herself she didn’t care about him anymore, but that didn’t lessen her desire to break this other woman’s legs, goddess or not. She told herself she was being juvenile, that of course Finn had dated other women since her. Maybe he was even seeing someone now. It didn’t matter, she told herself. All that mattered was finding Eden. She quickly silenced her inner dialogue and walked into the café, where Finn was waiting for her just inside the door.
“This won’t take long, don’t worry,” he said. “We’ll just ask her our questions and then we’ll decide what to do next.” He turned and searched the room, stopping when his eyes rested on a woman in the corner. The woman saw him, too, and stood up to greet them. She was tall, with black hair and a regal bearing not unlike Riona’s. But this woman was designed to stand out. She had dramatic, prominent cheekbones; dark, deep-set eyes that framed a long, straight nose; and a full mouth that was stretched into a wide, expansive smile. When she held out her arms in welcome, several folds of silky black material fell from them. Under her flowing top, she wore tight leather pants and platform shoes, adding another three inches to her already impressive height. She had an ageless beauty, and she could just easily be twenty or fifty. Cedar couldn’t tell.
“Fionnbharr,” Brighid said, wrapping her arms around him and kissing him on both cheeks. “You came.”
“And you,” she said, taking a step back and looking Cedar up and down. “You must be Cedar.” She clicked her tongue and made a hmm sound that Cedar couldn’t interpret. “Well, she’s certainly attractive, I’ll give you that,” Brighid said to Finn.
“Er, yes,” Finn said, holding out a chair. “Cedar, this is Brighid,” he said.
“So I gathered,” Cedar said dryly as Brighid settled herself dramatically into the proffered chair. Cedar pulled out her own chair and sat down across the table. A young woman appeared with a pot of coffee and took their breakfast orders.
“Brighid is one of the leads in the musical Jezebel here on Broadway,” Finn explained once the server had left.
“Seriously?” Cedar asked. Finn and Brighid looked at her. “I mean, I guess I just didn’t expect that’s what someone like you would be doing. No offense. I’ve heard the show’s great.”
To Cedar’s surprise, Brighid threw back her head and laughed. Her voice boomed across the café, and several people turned to stare.
“Well, you’re probably right,” she said when she had stopped laughing. “I’ve done a great many things, some important, some not. But the nice thing about being around for as long as I have is that you get to try a bit of everything.” She gave Finn a sly look. “Well, almost everything.”
Finn blushed but smiled. “You don’t need to make Cedar jealous. She hates my guts, and rightfully so.”
Brighid raised an eyebrow at Cedar. “Really?” she said. “Well, isn’t that a shame. He’s a very nice boy, you know. He was absolutely miserable when he had to leave you. Sulked in a corner of my flat for a week. Or was it a month? At any rate, you shouldn’t be too hard on him. He’s very useful to have around. And now that the cat’s out of the bag, well, you should really give him a second chance.”
Finn cleared his throat and leaned across the table. “Brid, on the phone you said you’d be able to help us—that you know where we can find an accurate depiction of Tír na nÓg.”
“Mmm, yes, well, I must say I’m surprised that none of you have one.”
“Have one what?” Finn asked.
“A painting,” she said. “I suppose you haven’t been away long enough to want one for sentimentality’s sake.” Turning to Cedar, she explained, “I only get back to Tír na nÓg once every couple of centuries or so. It’s good to see the old place, but I must say I prefer the company here. It’s a beautiful country, though—I’ll give you that. Far more spectacular than anything you’ll find here, and believe me, I have seen the world. At any rate, a few years ago I commissioned a painting of the place—well, of one of my favorite little nooks. One of my lovers was a rather well-known landscape artist at the time. I’m no shabby artist myself, of course, but it was much more romantic to have it painted for me than to do it myself. And he was good—very good, in fact—once I had described the scene in detail and given him a few sketches. When he was done, I gave it the finishing touches, and I swear I could have almost walked right through it into Tír na nÓg. I couldn’t really, of course—I still had to use those silly sidhe, but the likeness was remarkable.”
“Do you still have it?” Cedar asked. “The painting?” She was thinking of the picture she had hastily sketched for Eden, and how it hadn’t worked. But if this painting was as lifelike as Brighid said, maybe it really would help Eden open a sidh to Tír na nÓg.
Brighid inspected her nails. “Well, no. That was…oh, I suppose it was a couple hundred years ago, now that I think of it. So it’s been a little while. I was loath to let it go. I was almost as fond of it as I am of Fionnbharr here.” She reached out a smooth hand and patted Finn’s cheek. “But Deardra had done me a great favor, and that’s what she wanted in return.” She shrugged. “I won’t bore you with the details of what she did for me, but let’s just say that after that I could hardly refuse her anything she wanted. And I suppose another artist will always come along sooner or later.”
“Who is Deardra?” Cedar asked.
Brighid looked at her in surprise. “Haven’t they told you anything?”
“Deardra is, well, I suppose you’d call her a mermaid,” Finn answered quickly.
“A what?”
“I think you’d be surprised by how many of your legends and fairy tales are based in truth,” he said with a small smile. “Only we call them the Merrow, not mermaids. Deardra is their queen.” He turned to Brighid. “I’m surprised she was willing to help you,” he said.
She smiled back at him. “Well, I seem to have successfully removed myself from the stigma of being Tuatha Dé Danann, at least in her eyes. The Danann and the Merrow aren’t enemies, per se, but neither are they the best of friends,” she explained to Cedar.
Cedar pinched the bridge of her nose and willed herself to just go with it. “Okay,” she said. “So the painting is with this Deardra. Is this common knowledge? Would Nuala know?”
They were interrupted by the arrival of breakfast. Cedar took a large gulp of coffee and nibbled on the edge of her toast. Her appetite had been remarkably diminished these days. Brighid and Finn tucked into their plates, both piled high with bacon, sausage, eggs, hash browns, fried mushrooms, and buttered toast. One of the benefits of being forever young and beautiful, Cedar supposed.
Brighid shrugged. “I wouldn’t say it’s common knowledge, no. But I don’t know who Deardra may have told.” A peculiar expression crossed her face.
“What is it?” Finn asked.
“I had the impression that there was something else I wanted to tell you, but it’s slipped my mind. Oh, well, not to worry. I’m sure it will come back to me if it’s of any importance.”
“So where can we find Deardra?” Cedar asked, impatient.
“Finn knows the way, don’t you, dear?” Brighid answered calmly.
He nodded and stood up. “Let me make a few calls,” he said, and walked out of the café and onto the street. Cedar could see him through the window, and wondered why he had chosen to make his calls outside.
“So this is quite a pickle you’ve gotten yourself into, isn’t it, my dear?” Brighid asked her.
“Excuse me?” Cedar said.
Brighid waved her hands airily. “Oh, I’m not talking about your missing daughter, although that is tragic. I mean what are you going to do about Finn?”
“I’m not really thinking about my love life right now,” Cedar said through gritted teeth.
“One should always be thinking about one’s love life,” Brighid said.
Cedar thought it was time to change the subject. “What can you tell me about this guy named Lorcan?” she asked.
“Ah, well, there’s a cheery topic of conversation.” Brighid’s nose wrinkled with disgust. “Lorcan is the worst of us, I’m afraid. He’s old, very old, though not one of the Elders, or else he would have gone back with them. They told you about that, yes?” Cedar shook her head. “The Elders, of which I am one, were the first to arrive here in Ériu. We lived, we loved, we prospered, and we got our asses handed to us by those damned Milesians—you call them the Celts now, I suppose—and then relegated to Tír na nÓg. We were always at war those days, it seems. First with giants and half-giants and then the Sons of Mil came from over the sea and thought they’d rather well have our lovely green isle. Don’t get me wrong, Tír na nÓg is quite lovely, I assure you, but I, for one, didn’t want to spend all eternity there. And neither did the other Elders, apparently, because after a few years—or was it a few hundred? I can never keep the time straight—they decided to call it a day and went back to the Four Cities, our true homeland. Unfortunately for everyone else, only those who are originally from the Four Cities can ever return there. I’m afraid Tír na nÓg hasn’t been quite the same since the Elders left. Things went downhill very quickly. Which brings us to Lorcan. He is, in a nutshell, ruthless. Also, delusional. He has never accepted the fact that our people were defeated in war. He still believes this world should belong to the Tuatha Dé Danann. He and I are at the opposite ends of a spectrum, you could say. Some think I love humanity too much and have sought to re-create myself in its image, and maybe they’re right. But Lorcan’s hatred for humanity is unparalleled. All he has ever wanted is revenge and retribution for the insult he feels was done to our people. There are others who feel the same way—too many, to be sure—but they don’t have the power that Lorcan does, and are easier to keep in check.”
“What kind of power does he have?” Cedar asked.
“Almost every kind,” Brighid said. “That’s the problem. He’s like a sponge. His natural ability is to absorb the powers of others at the moment of their death, when their spirits are leaving their bodies. As long as he is close by, the powers of the dead attach themselves to him.”
Cedar stared at her, aghast.
“It didn’t used to be so bad,” Brighid said. “It was very rare, incredibly rare, in fact, for someone to die in Tír na nÓg during our centuries of peace. Oh, once in a while a hothead would go pick a quarrel with some giant or warrior and get himself killed for his trouble, but by the time we brought his body back to Tír na nÓg, his spirit and power had already left him, and there was nothing for Lorcan to absorb. So it’s a rather useless gift, really, when there is peace.”
“But then the war came,” Cedar observed.
“See, I knew you weren’t just a pretty face,” Brighid said, beaming. “When the Elders left, Lorcan started stirring up trouble, small acts of rebellion against the High King. A death here and a death there, and his power began to grow. The more powerful he became, the more trouble he was able to cause. He started building an army of supporters, telling them they would take back the world they had lost, exact revenge on their conquerors—everything they had ever dreamed of. So the High King had no choice but to go to war against him. It was all very dramatic, from what I’ve heard.”
“From what you’ve heard?” asked Cedar.
“Well, it’s not as if I were there myself, is it?” Brighid answered. “No, I only heard about the whole mess after I met your Finn.” She sighed dramatically. “Sometimes I think it’s a shame I’ve kept myself so separate. I would have liked to say good-bye to my sisters before they returned to the Four Cities. But, here we are.”
“How did the war end?” Cedar could see Finn looking in at them through the window while he talked on the phone, and she wanted to get as much information as possible out of Brighid before he returned.
“Apparently, it went on for quite some time, several years, I believe. Tír na nÓg was almost destroyed.” Brighid shook her head. “I suppose it ended when he killed Brogan, the High King. He was after the king’s gift, of course.”
“What was the king’s gift?” Cedar asked.
Brighid looked surprised. “Don’t you know? Goodness, child, I know they’re not telling you everything, but I thought they would have told you this. He, too, had the ability to open the sidhe.”
Cedar thought of Eden, her ability to effortlessly swing open the door to any place she could picture in her mind.
“The king? How is that—”
“It’s very rare, of course, especially nowadays. There used to be sidhe all over the place for those of us who wished to travel back and forth between the realms. But when the Elders left, they closed all the sidhe, and only one Tuatha Dé Danann with that gift remained—Brogan.”
Cedar wanted to ask Brighid to slow down, to let what she was hearing sink in so she could try to make sense of it. But she saw Finn pocket his cell phone and head toward the café door, and she still had so many questions. “So did it work? Did Lorcan get the king’s power?”
“No, and I’m sure we’re all grateful for that. We don’t know why it didn’t work exactly, but the assumption is that this particular gift, because it controls the passage between the worlds, can only go to someone worthy, someone who won’t abuse it. Lorcan, of course, is far from worthy. So it’s a gift he cannot take through the death of the one who owns it.” She sat back in her chair, a strangely satisfied look on her face.
Before Cedar could ask another question, Finn arrived and threw some bills on the table.
“Let’s go,” he said to Cedar. “We have another plane to catch.” He gave Brighid a suspicious look. “What were the two of you talking about?” he asked.
Brighid stood up and enveloped him in what Cedar thought was a far too intimate hug. “Just girl talk,” she said, and gave his rear a squeeze.
“Why don’t you come with us, Brid?” Finn asked as he tried to disentangle himself. “Deardra is much more likely to cooperate with you.”
“Oh, I doubt that,” Brighid said vaguely. “Besides, I have a show tonight. So go get ’em, tiger,” she said with a wink. “Keep an eye on him for me, will you, dear?” she said to Cedar.
Cedar ignored this and simply said, “Thanks for your help. Good luck with your show tonight.”
Brighid beamed back at them. “My pleasure, my dears! Have fun!”
Cedar and Finn left the café, Cedar shaking her head. Finn grinned at her, “She takes a bit of getting used to, but she’s all right.”
“I wasn’t…I mean, yes, she does take some getting used to, but I was thinking of something else,” Cedar said as they got into a cab and headed toward to the airport. “Why does she call you Fionnbharr? I heard your father call you that too.”
“That’s what you were thinking?”
“No. I’m just curious.”
“Well, it’s my name, I suppose. My real name.”
Great, Cedar thought. I didn’t even know his real name.
“The names from our homeland are difficult to say with the human tongue, and they draw too much attention. So most of us have taken on more ordinary names for our time here.”
Our time here. So he would be leaving again.
“Where are we going? Where are these Merrow?” she asked, changing the subject.
“Ireland,” Finn said. “Some of the others are flying over from Halifax. They’ll meet us in Dublin. You’ve never been to Ireland, have you?”
“No,” she said. “My mum traveled there for a while, though, before she had me. I’ve always wanted to visit.” Cedar had never dreamed she would still be living in Nova Scotia as an adult. Not that she didn’t love Halifax. She found the small city quaint and the history fascinating. But when she had left for university, she’d figured she would never be back. She had wanted to travel, see the world, experience other ways of living and being. She had interned at Ellison West while in design school in Vancouver and, ironically enough, had been offered a job at Ellison East when she had graduated. So she had returned to Nova Scotia, determined to put in her time and then get transferred to one of the agency’s other offices in Toronto or Montreal, maybe even New York or London. Then Eden had come along, and she had realized that a stable income and a helpful mother were more important than seeing the world, at least for the time being. She still harbored dreams of spending a summer in Europe with Eden when she was older, or even homeschooling her for a year while they traveled through South America in a caravan. But for now, she was stuck. She hadn’t been outside the Maritimes since Eden was born.
“Speaking of mothers…” Finn began, and Cedar tensed. He noticed, and his brow furrowed. “I was just going to say that my mother gave me something to give to you.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a long silver chain. Cedar stared at it.
“Your mum is giving me a necklace? Why?”
Finn glanced at the back of the cabbie’s head and lowered his voice. “It’s more than a necklace,” he said as he handed it to her. She took the chain in her hand it. It was delicate but of good quality. Hanging from the chain was a large stone, about the size of a silver dollar, set in an ornate silver frame. The frame was designed with the same swirling, twisting patterns Cedar had seen on the door of the Fox and Fey. She brushed her thumb over the stone, which was the color of onyx. Its surface was gritty, like a fine layer of sand had settled there. When she moved it, it glittered slightly in the light, as if the grains of sand were the dust of diamonds. She was, for a moment, mesmerized.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “What is it?”
Finn reached into his pocket again and pulled out what appeared to be an old-fashioned pocket watch. He flipped it open, and Cedar saw that instead of clockwork, the gold frame held a large round stone similar to the one embedded in the necklace.
“They’re called starstones,” he said. “This set belongs to my parents. My mother insisted we take them in case we become separated. They’re connected, so we can communicate and see each other if we need to.”
In response to Cedar’s silence, he said, “You don’t have to use it. She just asked me to give it to you.”
“Your parents don’t have cell phones?” Cedar asked, and then regretted her sarcastic tone. She had never held anything more beautiful.
Finn didn’t look offended. He smiled and said, “They do, and they use those most of the time, but these are a kind of tradition among our people. And they do come in handy. They were used a lot more when our people were traveling between this world and ours, but they sometimes use them here. It beats long-distance roaming fees.”
Cedar started to smile, then stopped herself. “Why did you tell me your parents were dead?”
He looked at her mournfully. “I’m so sorry. I just…there are rules for my people. Rules I’m not very good at keeping. One of the main ones is that we’re not supposed to get close to humans. I knew if I told you about them, you’d want to meet them. You wouldn’t understand that I couldn’t tell them about you. So it just seemed best to pretend they didn’t exist.”
“And you thought I’d never find out? That you and I could live in the same city as your parents and they’d never know about me? How—” Cedar cut herself off abruptly, clenching her teeth together. His rationale made sense, of course, now that she knew the truth. Of course he didn’t want his parents to know he was dating a human. Well, they were stuck with her now, at least until she had Eden back.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “How do these starstones work?”
To her surprise, Finn blushed. “Each pair is activated by a particular song,” he said. “The person who wants to use it needs to sing the song in order to activate the stone. It’s simple to learn, though. Shall I sing it?”
She looked away. “If you want.”
Finn cleared his throat and took a breath. Then he began to sing, and Cedar bit her lip as she felt her heart ache and tears spring to her eyes. She stared out the window as he sang, his voice rising and falling as effortlessly as an eagle coasting on the winds. It was a beautiful song, but made almost unbearably so by his tender voice, which she remembered so well. Finally, she could take it no more. Without looking at him, she whispered, “Stop. Please stop.” He fell silent, and she could feel his gaze on her.
“I’ll take the necklace,” she said after a moment. She forced herself to look at him. “Thank you.”
Finn wordlessly put the pocket watch away and looked out his window. Cedar closed her eyes and laid her head against the back of the seat, thinking of what Brighid had said: You should really give him a second chance. Cedar huffed. Easy enough for her to say. She’s probably never been abandoned or betrayed. She has no idea what I’ve been through. She thought about the rest of what Brighid had told her, and then straightened up and opened her eyes, breaking the silence.
“Brighid told me that opening the sidhe was the gift of the High King,” she said. “She also said he was killed by Lorcan.”
Finn looked at her cautiously. “He was.”
“So, is your family part of the royalty over there? How did Eden end up with this gift if it’s so rare?”
Finn was silent for a moment. Then, looking out the window again, he answered, “The ability to open the sidhe is given to someone who is worthy of it. That person was our king. Now, apparently, that person is Eden.”
Nuala. Nuala. Maeve’s consciousness reached out as far as it dared. Are you there? Can you sense me? I’m not here to harm you. Let me speak to you. Let me help you.
Maeve could feel Nuala’s consciousness, faintly at first, and this only after hours in her self-imposed dream trance. She tried to speak to Nuala, tried to touch her mind so they could communicate, like the Tuatha Dé Danann and their druids had done for centuries. But there was nothing but stony silence. Maeve felt her thoughts bouncing off Nuala’s closed mind like a child off the walls of a bouncy castle—repeatedly, and without harm, but without any luck at breaching the wall. Nuala was alive; that was all she could determine.
After Maeve awoke from the trance, she sat still for several long minutes. There was one other person who might be able to help her, but she was unsure if she could reach him, or if he would even respond to her.
She did not even know if she would be able to handle seeing him again, but then she thought of Eden, and her resolve hardened. With shaking hands, she began to mix the tea again, this time making it stronger, so her sleep would be deeper and longer, and her consciousness able to travel farther.
She was going to attempt contact with Brogan, the High King of the Tuatha Dé Danann, who had once been her lover, and who had been dead for twenty-two years.