Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
SELENE
While Maeve danced with a stranger, Clara and I chatted at the pub table, and I suspected she was doing her best to help me forget the dark-haired man. He and his friend had left a while ago, and that alone had cheered me somewhat.
I’d even let Maeve drag me back onto the floor, where I’d ended up dancing with a man who turned out to be better company than I’d expected. He was likely a good decade older than me, but he was charming and light on his feet, and he’d made me laugh twice, which felt like a small victory.
Unfortunately, it seemed there was no distraction strong enough to dislodge the mysterious stranger from my mind.
Maeve returned to the table, flushed from dancing, and dropped into her chair, glancing between Clara and me with a look of exaggerated disappointment. “You two are a pair of sourpusses. What’s wrong with you now?”
Clara yawned and blinked as if she could force away her fatigue by sheer will. “I’m not used to staying up so late.”
Maeve rolled her eyes. “Come on now. We can’t leave yet. It’s far too early.” When neither of us agreed, she switched tactics. “Okay. How about a compromise? We can leave, but let’s not go straight home.”
Clara and I exchanged a look. “Where would we go?” I asked. “Everything’s closed but the pubs.”
A spark danced in her eyes. “Just hear me out. It’s a full moon, and that’s when the others love to come out.”
Clara choked softly on a swallow of ice water. “The others?”
“You know.” Maeve leaned in, her voice dropping conspiratorially. “The faeries. The gods. Whoever they are.”
Clara squinted, clearly on the verge of declining.
Maeve reached across the table for her hand.
“We should go see the famous waterfall that’s nearby.
You’ll want to see it while you’re in Killarney.
Why not go when the moonlight is at its best?
You’ll get a version of it that most visitors never see. ”
Maeve turned to me with a look that was equal parts hope and mischief. “With the hours you work, you may never get back this way again. Come on. Let’s be bold. If nothing else, you’ll have a story to tell.”
I wanted to say no. The image of Cillian’s deep garden tub filled with warm water had been lodged in the back of my mind for the last hour, and my emotions were still raw in a way I didn’t want to examine.
But I couldn’t bring myself to dim the fire burning in Maeve’s eyes. At least one of us was having an uncomplicated evening, and I wouldn’t be the reason that changed.
I pressed my lips together, hoping I wouldn’t regret it. “I’m game if Clara is.”
We both looked at our friend, and she shook her head at me as though I’d betrayed her. “It’s cloudy out. The moonlight bit doesn’t work.”
“Not true.” Maeve shook her head. “It stopped raining a while ago. The clouds have gone on their merry way.”
I wasn’t sure how she could know that from inside a pub, but before I could point it out, Clara opened her hands in surrender. “Fine. I don’t want to be the downer.”
She fixed me with a firm look. “But I’m driving. You’ve had more than two pints. Even if we don’t run into traffic, those hedgerows are unforgiving.”
Maeve clapped her hands in delight as I handed over my keys.
Outside, the night air was cool and sharp after the warmth of the pub, carrying the clean mineral scent of recent rain. Maeve linked arms with both of us the moment we reached the pavement. “If we see any fairies, you’re both buying me drinks for the rest of the trip.”
A reluctant grin curved Clara’s lips. “You are impossible.”
“I’m not saying it’s real,” Maeve said cheerfully. “I’m just saying people didn’t make this stuff up for no reason. Why not have a look?”
The roads into the hills were dark and narrow, the hedgerows crowding close on either side. The shadows beyond the headlights shifted in ways that caused me to question whether the movement was just the wind in the branches.
Clara navigated with focused calm, while I watched the mist drift across the hillside in slow, deliberate ribbons.
Maeve leaned forward between us. “Oh…I just remembered. There’s a local legend about a man who haunts the forest near here, the Moonlight Man. You can only see him during a full moon, and look here, we have one. He’s handsome, they say. So handsome he’ll steal your heart at first glance.”
I chuckled. “Sounds like a fairy tale.”
Maeve’s expression shifted into something more serious.
“No. Not a fairy tale. Those have happy endings. This is a tragedy for everyone involved. He waits for his true love, but she never comes. Many women find him, but none of them can stay, and as the legend goes, just being near him ruins a woman’s heart for any future love she might find. ”
Clara snorted. “You don’t actually believe that.”
“Maybe.” Maeve bit her bottom lip, fiery interest flashing in her eyes. “When my sisters and I were younger, we were certain one of us could break the curse, but my da would never drive out to see.”
When we reached the deserted car park, Clara cut the engine and turned to Maeve with a mischievous look. “If we find the Moonlight Man, then you’re buying drinks for the rest of the trip.”
Maeve clapped her hands, delighted that our pragmatic friend was playing along with the lore. “It’s a deal.”
I stepped out of the car and stopped.
The feeling that enveloped me was immediate and difficult to name. It wasn’t the hair-raising unease of being somewhere dangerous. In fact, it was closer to the opposite.
If I was forced to describe it, I would say it was like a settling, like curling into a warm blanket after a long day.
The night air here was different from that in town, tinged by the scents of pine and cold water and something older beneath both.
It pressed against my skin with a familiarity that made no sense at all.
I’d thought entering Killarney felt like coming home to a place I’d never been. This was that feeling magnified tenfold.
I stood still for a moment and let it move through me, not questioning it, not yet.
Maeve appeared at my elbow. “Well?”
I glanced at the fairylike forest near the parking lot, where thin oaks grew close and emerald moss covered the ground. “It’s beautiful,” I said, because that was the part I could explain.
She smiled as if she knew about the rest of it.
A wooden signpost marked the trailhead leading to the waterfall, its lettering worn but legible, and beyond it the path disappeared into the trees.
As we neared the trail heading up a slight incline, the sound of rushing water filled the quiet. Moments later, I caught sight of the narrow river, quick and white in the moonlight where it churned over dark stones.
Tree roots crossed the trail at irregular intervals, humped and slick with moss, and we picked our way carefully over them, the flashlight glow from our phones mostly unnecessary. The moon was extraordinary, full and low and generous, and it illuminated our path with silver.
The sound of the water grew stronger as we climbed, filling the air until it surrounded us on all sides.
“Watch your footing,” Clara said, stepping over a large root. The second after she cautioned us, she planted one boot right in the center of a thick patch of mud. She shook her head with an expression of resigned acceptance. “We’ll need to leave our shoes outside the door when we get back.”
“It’s worth it,” Maeve declared from behind us.
We heard the waterfall before we fully saw it. The resonant rush vibrated deep in my chest, and I soaked in the energizing feeling. Then the trees thinned, and it revealed itself.
The water dropped from a ledge roughly twenty meters up, falling in a single, unbroken curtain, white water against black rock. The misty spray caught the moonlight and scattered it in every direction. The pool at its base was dark and still at the edges, churning white only where the water struck.
Mist rose in slow columns around it, leaving the air colder, cleaner, and carrying the mineral sharpness of wet stone and ancient moss. The surrounding trees were enormous, their roots gripping the rock face on either side of the cascade.
None of us spoke for several long moments.
“Right,” Clara said finally, her voice quieter than usual. “I take it back. This was worth coming for.”
Maeve made a sound of deep satisfaction. “Definitely.”
We took photos, though I suspected none of them would adequately capture the scale of it, the quality of the moonlight on moving water, or the low vibration of the falls that seemed to come up through the soles of my boots.
Maeve dipped her head toward it in appreciation. “There’s another legend about the water sprites who hide behind the falls and play in the pool when the moon’s full.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Do you sense them?”
I stilled as I studied the dark water, wondering at the mysteries that might be hidden there. “I can’t see anything.”
Clara spoke softly as she remained transfixed by the waterfall. “Me either.” That she didn’t scoff or argue surprised me.
After a while, Maeve turned and pointed to the hillside rising on the opposite side of the river. She spoke conversationally, but her eyes were bright. “The clearing in the magical grove is supposedly only a few minutes up that way. Should we search for the Moonlight Man?”
Something low and persistent pulled in my chest, the same thread I’d felt in the pub earlier that evening, though it now came from an entirely different direction. I didn’t overthink the odd sensation, chalking it up to the mysticism Ireland was known for.
When Clara didn’t argue, I urged my friends forward with a wave of my hand as I led the way. “Let’s go.”
The path narrowed as we climbed, and the trees pressed in closer, the moss underfoot growing thicker. Moonlight came through in patches now, shifting as the branches moved overhead, and the sound of the falls faded gradually behind us until the night grew all but silent.
The beauty of the moment stirred my soul in a way I’d never experienced before, and I ached to soak it all up and keep it within me forever.
When the path curved sharply to the left around a dense cluster of yews, their trunks old and close-grown, their roots lifting from the earth in long, arching ridges, Maeve called out, “We should be close.”
I stepped around the largest root and kept moving.
The air grew stiller with each step. The small rustling sounds of the forest faded until even the wind seemed to hesitate among the branches. The trees ahead thinned, and I caught a glimpse of pale light between their trunks.
Excitement burst through me, and I called back over my shoulder. “I think I found it!”
Clara’s voice came from somewhere behind me, not as close as I would have expected. “Wait for us. We’re coming.”
Her reply carried strangely through the trees, stretched thin, as though it had traveled much farther than it should have. I paused for half a heartbeat, realizing I must have outpaced them without noticing.
Then I stepped forward.
The moment my boot crossed the line where the trees opened, reality seemed to shift. The air grew cooler and denser, and the edges of things lost their sharpness, the way they did in dreams. I felt as if I had stepped into something ancient and sacred. “That’s not right,” I whispered.
I barely heard my words, and I wondered if I’d slipped into one of my odd blips that showed me a glimpse of another time. Though this one seemed more vivid than the others.
I stood still and let my gaze drift across the clearing, waiting for the familiar snap of ordinary reality to return.
It didn’t, and I suddenly recognized the stunning scene before me.
I couldn’t believe it.
This clearing was exactly like the one I’d dreamed of.
The same pale trunks caught moonlight and released it. The same circle of silver light glimmered at the center, accompanied by the same quality of air that felt suspended, neither warm nor cold, simply present.
A smaller waterfall spilled into a still pool at the far edge, its surface bright with mirrored moonlight. Mist moved low across the ground in slow, unhurried currents.
I took a few careful steps forward, my pulse reacting as the moonlight touched my shoulders and slid down my arms, as if welcoming me into its circle.
My dream had come to life so precisely that for a moment I could not move. Could not think past the quiet thunder of recognition echoing through my chest.
I had stood here before. The certainty of it settled into my bones with calm acceptance.
And then I saw him.