39. Connolly Cottage
39
CONNOLLY COTTAGE
May your home always be too small to hold all your friends.
— IRISH PROVERB
A bout a hundred feet from rocky cliffs that gave way to the sea on the southwesternmost part of the island stood a house, homely and small. Like most of the houses we had passed on the way here, it was built of whitewashed stone, with a tapered red brick chimney and a weathered wooden porch wrapped around one side, bleached nearly white from the constant exposure to the elements. A jumble of old bicycles was parked inside a small, covered port at the end of the dirt drive, and a large garden was protected from the wind by limestone walls stacked a bit higher than the other borders of the property.
“Thank you,” I offered Jock a tip once he deposited my board and bags on the ground beside me. “For the tour and the help.”
“Thank you , love,” he said, tucking the five-euro bill away in his back pocket. Then he yanked me to him in a surprise hug which inundated me with nothing but benevolence. He was wary of me, but mostly because he cared so much for Jonathan.
Don’t break his heart , he thought.
If he doesn’t break mine , I thought back, though I knew he wouldn’t be able to hear me.
“Enjoy your stay on the island,” he said as he released me. “And come see us at the Cultural Center if you’re of a mind to learn a bit of Irish. Jonny?”
“Thanks, Jock.”
Three girls who couldn’t have been more than twelve came flying out of the house, shrieking Jonathan’s name in between yips and squeals and Irish exclamations before they tackled him against the door of the station wagon.
The girls, whoever they were, had the rare talent of breaking Jonathan’s polish. His shirt was untucked, coat muddied as they fairly dragged him to the ground. And he didn’t seem to mind at all.
“Ah, let me be! ” Jonathan’s protests emerged between bouts of laughter, the deep kind from the gut. This was a different Jonathan, a warm, goofy, almost boyish young sorcerer, so different from the melancholy man who had eyed me in the car and pushed me away last night.
“Bronagh! Enda! Iona! Fag án fear bocht ina n-aonar !”
A man with shaggy gray-brown hair and brown eyes, who looked to be somewhere in his early fifties, emerged from the house. The girls, still giggling furiously, gave up their torment of Jonathan, who by now was breathing heavily on the ground, covered in dust and sand, and looking up at the sky with a lopsided grin.
My heart gave an enormous thump, and I looked away before he could catch me staring.
“Jock, conas atá tú ?” The man slapped Jock familiarly on the shoulder before tugging Jonathan up from the ground. The girls stayed seated, now watching me warily as they tore bits of grass from the gravel.
“Just fine, Rob, just fine,” Jock replied. “Had a fine time escorting these two young people here. Caitlin’s well?”
“Grand, I’m sure, now that Jon’s here. Care to join us for tea?”
Jock licked his lips, but he shook his head and jangled his keys. “There’s a tour in thirty minutes I’m to be guiding. Another time, I think.” He handed the girls some sweeties fished from his pocket, then waved his farewells at us all as he got back into his car and drove away.
The man named Rob turned to Jonathan with a warm grin that reached his eyes. “Jonny. Conas atá tú, a ghrá ?”
Jonathan allowed himself a tight, brief hug.
“How are you, then?” asked Rob, switching to English for what I realized must be for my benefit.
“Well, I survived the girls’ welcome, so it’s a start” Jonathan brushed off his pants, which I suspected would never be quite the same.
The sisters (I thought) giggled proudly and then turned their attention back to me.
“This is Cassandra Whelan, Rob. Penny’s granddaughter. Cassandra, this is Robert Connolly, or Robbie as he’s known to most of us.”
It hadn’t escaped me that the slight Irish that sometimes tinged Jonathan’s speech had been steadily returning since our arrival in Dublin, and was now nearly as thick as the man next to him. He might not have been born here, I saw, but this place was in his heart and soul.
Robbie shook my hand warmly and pulled me in for a hug before I could step out of reach. The typical chaos of a keen mind—the mind of a sorcerer—was cut immediately by the warmth and sympathy through the soft flannel shirt. A brief memory of Gran’s face the way it must have looked in her youth flashed through his mind, along with his grief.
She was so young, I might not have recognized her but for the sharp brown eyes that were both watchful and warm, wide lips pursed in concentration, and a hint of a smile. The high cheekbones and straight nose betrayed the lineage of some Viking raider. Auburn hair danced in the wind, and scents of salt water and seaweed filtered through the memory in tandem with the similar smells around me now.
I pulled back to look at him. “You did know her.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Mm, so I did,” Robbie acknowledged. “Did she not say so? Penny was a great friend to us here. We were very sad to learn of her passing.”
He gripped my shoulder a second more before letting go. I nodded in response, and he smiled in a way that made the skin crinkle around his eyelids. I grinned back. As first impressions went, I liked Robbie Connolly very much.
“Now then,” he said. “Let me introduce you to my daughters, otherwise known as the hellcats. The tallest is Bronagh, my eldest. And these are Enda and Iona, the twins. Girls, come say hello to your auntie Cassandra.”
Bronagh, a girl who stood just above my shoulder, shook my hand while the twins cowered behind her. Gray eyes like her father’s, with the same combination of mirth and mischief, peeked out from between strands of wayward mouse-brown hair.
“ Deas bualadh leat ,” Bronagh murmured, the gray in her eyes flickering brightly as she looked me over. A sorceress, more perceptive than usual.
The twins, identical with sea-green eyes, dark blond hair, and a generous collection of freckles speckling their cheeks and noses, hid behind their father, giggling as they reached out, one by one, to tap my palm coyly before I retracted it. Their brief touches were enough for me to See that they were both seers.
“Why do you wear gloves in the summer?” asked the one called Enda, who was polite enough not to search in my mind for the answer herself.
“Eejit, can’t you See?” said her sister, who had no such compunction. “She uses them for protection. Otherwise, she’d See every little thing she touched.”
She continued admonishing her sister in a rattle of Irish too quick for me to follow. I gazed at their tightly clasped hands enviously—how lucky for a seer never to have to endure the loneliness of our existence through their adolescence. Even in the womb, they had always had each other.
I wondered if they had Seen each other even then.
“It’s lovely to meet you all,” I told all three girls before turning to Robbie. “I’m afraid your daughters have me at a disadvantage. I can read and write Irish all right because of my work, but I’m barely conversational.”
“Well, you’ll learn fast, then. We try only to speak the Gaeilge at home.”
“As they should,” said Jonathan with a wink at the girls. “Their fluency will only put them at an advantage, especially Bronagh.”
Bronagh made moon eyes at Jonathan, in response to which he flashed her a smile bright enough to make anyone blush. She abruptly picked up a rock and hurled it over the stone fence toward the ocean lapping lazily on the other side. She yelled something in Irish, and the rock transformed into a gull and continued flying off into the sea until she broke her gaze, at which point it became a rock again and dropped into the waves. Then the girl scampered as if she were as wild as the bird she had summoned, her sisters trailing behind.
“She’s wild, that one. I don’t know what she’ll do once she starts school this fall. Be a bit of a change, no doubt,” Robbie said.
We watched his daughters sprint through an opening in the limestone wall, dig their bare toes into the hard rock where the ocean tides flowed in and out, and commence picking up stones and hurling them into the water as hard as they could. He called at them in Irish, and they ceased throwing stones but continued running around on the flat limestone that took the place of a beach. Robbie turned back to us with a knowing look.
“I told them to be careful of the merrows,” he said with a dark glance my way. “They don’t relish being hit on the head. And you can’t be too careful with the girls, mm?”
“Jonathan Lynch!” A high, imperious voice rose over the waves, causing the three of us to turn toward its source, a small woman in the doorway of the cottage. “I hope you’re not planning to roll around in the grass all afternoon like a dog. Not while I’m standing right here, waiting for your kisses and hellos!”
Jonathan immediately smoothed his hair back into a more reputable form.
“Come,” he said to me. “Robbie will get the luggage and stow your board. You should meet Caitlin.”
Just as her husband exuded warmth and familiarity uncommon for a sorcerer, Caitlin Connolly was the kind of woman people listened to without argument, direct and forthright in a way that was rare for most people, but especially seers. Standing in her well-used kitchen in a worn, red wool skirt, scuffed leather clogs, and a cable-knit cardigan that looked like it would fit Robbie better than her, Caitlin looked like the type who wouldn’t stand to fuss about anything, not even herself.
Her shoulder-length brown hair was laced with gray and pulled back into a serviceable braid at the base of her neck, revealing a face full of freckles touched pink by the wind. A pair of hawkish gray eyes darted back and forth around the room, taking in Jonathan, her husband, and my appearance in torn jeans, a thin sweater, and my wool peacoat. Caitlin Connolly didn’t look like much at first, but when she turned her eyes on you, it felt instantly like she could See straight to the core of you and accept no lies about it. It was easy to see where Bronagh had gotten her strong personality, even if her power was inherited from her father.
“Come here, then, Jonny, give us a kiss,” Caitlin commanded, pulling Jonathan down into a tight embrace. “It’s been ages. Far too long since we’ve seen you.”
“I’m sorry.” Jonathan allowed himself to be tucked into the tiny woman’s arms for as long as she liked. She couldn’t have been more than ten or fifteen years older than him, but he bowed to her shoulder with the obedience of a son. “I know it’s true. I’ve been…occupied, as I’m sure Robbie has told you.”
With a quick glance at me, Caitlin clucked her tongue and patted him on the cheek before releasing him up to his full height. “Don’t you bother lying to me, Jonathan Lynch, when you know I can See right through your thoughts like they were just water in a pot. But you’re here now, safe and whole, and that’s all that matters. Now go help Robbie with the bags, and I’ll see what you’ve brought us.”
Jonathan left, and Caitlin turned her gaze on me, taking in my clothes, my unruly hair, and my gloves. She nodded, as if in approval—of my general disarray or wariness, I wasn’t sure.
“You’ll be Cassandra, then?” She extended a hand.
I reached out, but she shook her head.
“We don’t need barriers here,” she said, nodding at my glove. “You want privacy, you’ll have to do it for yourself, not with a crutch like that.”
I paused, uncertain. She hadn’t said as much, but something in me sensed that this was as much a test as my initial interview to enter my PhD program. How I responded would determine far more than our initial meeting.
To hell with it. I was here to learn. And if Gran chose Caitlin for my teacher, I would have to follow directions, not fight them.
Slowly, I took off my gloves and tucked them into my pocket. Caitlin’s callused palm found mine with strong, probing currents that traveled up my arm, pushing into my mind for a brief moment before she released her grip with a nod of approval.
“You’re a strong one. Just like your gran, though I see we’ve to teach you how to protect yourself. Spitting image of your granddad, though.”
“You knew my grandfather?”.
“Sure, I did.” Caitlin nodded toward the sea. “It was here that Ciarán Roin met Penny, just off those rocks during a low tide. Black Ciarán, as he was murúch . You didn’t know?” She squinted to where her daughters played at the ocean’s edge, as if Ciarán Roin might appear from the water and seduce them too.
I blinked, unsure if she was serious or not. Cary was the first actual merrow I had ever met, last night—how many more were there?
Caitlin was watching me intensely, and it was clear she was tracking my thoughts. “Hmm. I see we’ll have to start from the beginning, then. Yes, I mean he was a damned shifter, and his heart-animal was a seal, of course. Ciarán was a charmer, but a cad too. Captured poor Penny’s heart, and she hadn’t a chance. None of us do when it comes to love.”
The door opened, and Caitlin and I turned from looking out the window. Jonathan and Robbie stood in the kitchen, both of their eyes shimmering as they took in the energy passing between Caitlin and me.
“Stop,” Caitlin ordered. “It’s a conversation, not a spell. I’ll thank you to turn those glittery eyes off now.”
Both of their eyes tamped to normal shades, though not without a smirk from Robbie.
“Rob and I are going to take the girls for a walk.” Jonathan eyed a fresh round of cheese sitting on the counter. “Goat?”
“Keep your kitty paws away from that, Jonny. That’s for our dinner, not your snack.” Caitlin smacked a hand on the countertop in front of Jonathan’s nose, and he snapped up obediently, a mischievous smile playing over his lips.
“Would you like to join us, then, Cait? Cassandra?” Robbie’s voice, amiable and easygoing, was an antidote to his wife’s general-like demeanor.
“She’ll be staying here with me, Jonny. Off you go.” Caitlin grabbed her husband’s coat and hat off the rack by the door and tossed them to him. “Cassandra and I’ve got a great deal to discuss, and it’ll work better without the prying eyes of you lot clinging to our every move. Don’t know why we’re the ones called seers when you’re the ones who have to see every feckin’ thing, don’t you? Now, take some biscuits for the girls and yourself, and have a nice long walk into town to see about the day’s catch.”
“And here I thought you were happy to see me,” teased Jonathan, accepting the small basket of cookies wrapped in rough linen and following Robbie back into the front yard.
Caitlin continued to push them out the door, talking the whole time. “Be gone with you, and don’t you be coming back until you’ve brought some pollack. And watch that the girls don’t get too close to the water!”
She shut the heavy wood door after them, then turned to me, a conspiratorial smirk brightening her weathered face.
“Now then, how about a cup of tea, love? Then you and I shall really get to know each other.”