Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
SELENE
The rain found us somewhere before Limerick, a soft, persistent Irish drizzle that blurred the windshield and turned the outside light to diffused amber. Small towns slid past, boasting neat shopfronts and cheerful pubs with flower boxes defiantly bright against the gray.
Then the road opened again into long stretches of green, with sheep dotting the fields like misplaced clouds. Every so often a standing stone or a ruin, ones that still existed despite the centuries of weather and turbulent times, appeared in the distance.
An hour and a half later, the clouds thinned just enough for the sun to peek through, and Killarney unfolded ahead of us, green and incredibly beautiful. Hills rose dark and velvety at the edges of town, and beyond them the mountains waited beneath low clouds, patient and watchful.
Maeve inhaled a reverent breath that echoed what I felt. Her words came out as a whisper, as if she’d just stepped into a cathedral. “There.”
She rolled down her window, bringing in a gust of cooler air that carried the freshness of the picturesque countryside. A sense of belonging ached in my heart, so strong that it was almost tangible.
Maeve reached from the back seat to tap my shoulder. “You feel it, right?”
Her touch sent a shiver of knowing through me, and I found myself nodding. “I…do.”
Clara scoffed. “You two. Of course, the stunning scenery affects us. It does everyone. That’s a natural reaction that has nothing to do with magic. Don’t tell me you’ve fallen under her spell, Selene.”
Maeve’s chuckle drifted forward. “It’s not my spell. It comes from the land. Something older than time.” She clucked her tongue. “It’s a shame your family didn’t educate you better about the country of your ancestors, Clara.”
The blonde whisked her hand through the air, dismissing the slight. “Don’t blame them. Every time I came to visit, my grandma would tell me stories.”
Maeve fell back against her seat for the millionth time. “My gran too. We all knew she was daft, but I still loved her stories. She once whispered a secret in my ear, telling me I was a child of the Fae. Might not be true, but it’s fun to think about, isn’t it?”
She reached up and patted Clara’s shoulder. “You should embrace that side of you more often. Your life would certainly be more fun.”
Clara remained silent for several moments, and I was sure she was assembling a rebuttal in bullet points.
She caught me off guard when she mimicked Maeve’s accent instead.
“I’ll tell you what, Maeve. Just for this trip, just for you, I’ll lean into the lore.
If you want to look for fairies, I’m all for it. ”
Maeve’s disbelief exploded from the backseat in a loud, delighted gasp. “What? Are you serious? This will be grand craic.”
The roads narrowed as we left the town center, hedgerows growing thick on either side. In some places, they closed in tight enough that I tensed as larger vehicles coming in the opposite direction passed us.
We kept our gazes trained on the curving lane ahead, all watching for the stone pillar that marked Cillian’s property. If not for Maeve’s exclamation, I would have driven right past because the tower was half-veiled in ivy and nearly swallowed by hedgerows.
I slammed on the brakes and turned just in time.
The drive was lined with mature trees whose branches arched overhead in a long, hushed procession. We rounded a curve in the drive, and the rest of the world disappeared as the Georgian home came into view.
Its pale, warm stone, perfectly symmetrical, caught the last of the afternoon light, and its tall sash windows gleamed like polished glass. A dark slate roof protected it from the elements, and ivy climbed the chimneys that looked as though they’d been there a very long time.
I’d barely put the car into park when Maeve flung open her door and stepped out. Clara and I joined her as she stared up at the tall, two-story Georgian facade with a look of absolute awe.
“Oh,” she whispered, which pretty much said it all.
Clara nodded slowly, looking as impressed as I felt. “Well.”
Both managed more words than I could conjure.
The grounds opened up around the house in long lawns bordered by old trees, some looking considerably older than the building itself. The kitchen garden sat to one side in orderly rows, unpretentious and clearly used. Low stone walls divided the spaces without enclosing them.
Blue-green mountains rose above the tree line in the distance, and between them, where the land folded inward, I glimpsed light glimmering on a lake, silver and strangely still.
Maeve stood with her arms slightly out at her sides and her face tipped up, as if she were receiving a transmission. “The energy here is…different.”
I stepped closer to her. “Indescribable.”
She turned in place, her copper hair lifting in the wind. Her expression looked as if she’d seen something the rest of us hadn’t noticed yet. “I can feel it.”
Clara cleared her throat, obviously uncomfortable with Maeve’s reaction, despite her agreement to go with the flow. She produced the key and nodded toward the entrance. “I’ll unlock the door for us.”
I lingered, drawing in a slow breath, trying to soak up whatever Maeve was.
For a fraction of a second, barely the length of a thought, it felt as though something drew breath back.
I stilled.
Maeve had grown silent beside me. I followed her gaze to the tree line beyond the back of the property, where the garden gave way to something denser. The trees stood dark and close, their branches woven together at the edges.
“Do you see that?” Maeve whispered.
I narrowed my gaze, searching for anything that seemed out of place. “No,” I whispered back. “What do you see?”
She remained quiet for another moment and then blinked. “Nothing…I guess.”
Before I could question her further, Clara called out to us from the doorway. “Get in here. You have to see this.”
Maeve and I exchanged excited glances before we turned and hurried toward the house.
A sigh of wonder slipped from me as I crossed the threshold and stepped inside the entry hall. A strange sensation coursed through me, an odd pressure filled with warmth, but the stunning beauty of the home quickly stole my attention before I could examine it too closely.
Pale walls and dark wood floors worn smooth with age greeted us, along with the faint scent of beeswax and clean linen. The sweeping staircase just beyond the entrance, with its banister polished to a quiet sheen, welcomed us inside.
The home ignited my passion like a spark to dry peat. Warm delight spread through me as I glanced around, cataloging proportions and sight lines. A house like this deserved more than appreciation. It should be worshipped.
That thought sent the odd sensation rippling through me again.
I couldn’t say if it had been caused by the drive, the crumbling castles alongside the road, or the way the fields had looked through the rain.
Perhaps it was some accumulated effect of six months of living in a country where the past was present in a way I wasn’t used to.
Or maybe it was only Maeve and her talk of thin places.
But as I stood just over the threshold in Cillian’s house, I couldn’t shake the quiet certainty that something inside me had shifted, sure as a key turning in a lock. It was as if I’d just crossed a boundary.
And whatever waited on the other side had been waiting, with extraordinary patience, for a very long time.