Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SELENE
The following day, Rian and I found ourselves alone in the early afternoon. Maeve had borrowed my car to run into town before a shop closed. I hadn’t a clue where Bren was. Fighting wraiths and sealing the Veil for all I knew.
I’d retrieved our lunches from the fridge upstairs and found Rian waiting for me at the bottom of the stone steps when I returned. With a glint in his eyes, he asked how I felt about eating while walking around the grounds, and I agreed.
The man practically inhaled his lunch as we headed for the lake, and then he pulled a camera from the small backpack he carried.
I ate my sandwich while he crouched near the waterline to photograph the reflection of the oaks in the shallower water near the reeds.
Then he switched to the castle nestled amidst the trees, with the gray sky overhead.
Afterward, we strolled the grounds. When we reached the abbey, Rian’s chatter all but stopped. He moved through the ruined nave slowly, tilting his camera to catch the angle of afternoon light through the broken arches.
After multiple shots, he lowered his camera, giving me an embarrassed smile. “Sorry. Can’t help myself.”
I shrugged. “No need to apologize. I enjoy being outside, and the company is nice.”
He gestured toward the hillside with a tilt of his head. “I’d like to go farther but feel guilty dragging you along.”
I sensed his sincerity but also considered he might prefer some time alone with nature’s abundant beauty. “Okay, if you don’t mind. I think I’d like to sit here quietly until Maeve gets back. You won’t get lost, will you?”
A bright smile broke across his face. “That’s not a concern at all.”
I dipped my head in agreement, and he took off, his camera swinging by the strap as he rounded a broken wall and disappeared between the trees.
I had a momentary concern that he might encounter a wraith, but then I reassured myself that people wandered the wilds of Ireland all the time without trouble.
Peace settled around me, and I closed my eyes to absorb it. Birdsong echoed through the tree canopy overhead. A breeze found its way through the forest, brushing my cheeks and teasing the long grass along the cemetery boundary.
I stayed where I was for a moment, and then I crossed to the low remains of the nave wall and sat.
I had never been in the area alone.
Every other visit had come with someone alongside me.
Bren the first time, leading me through the trees in the rain.
Maeve and I on the morning we’d walked out from the castle and stood in the cemetery talking about ward witches and Gran’s stories.
In fact, I’d spent little time in Killarney enjoying my surroundings with no one to talk to and nothing that needed to be done.
Bits of afternoon sun pushed through the clouds and fell directly across the interior of the nave, warming the pale stone, while the grass amongst the nearby headstones swayed.
It was easy to connect to the abbey’s presence with no distractions. There was nothing particularly strong about it, despite the ruin that claimed too much of it.
I thought of the castle, with its hum of accumulated energy and centuries of threshold work pressing against the walls. Then I thought of the grove, with its restless silver light even on overcast days.
The abbey felt different from both. More still. Nearly settled. Like a place that had gracefully accepted the will of nature.
Moments passed before I stood and wandered.
Near one corner of the cemetery wall, three boundary stones had shifted over the centuries. A bunch of elder branches had fallen against the face of one carved headstone, obscuring most of the inscription. Along the nave floor, debris had piled into the corner joints where the wind had driven it.
I cleared the branches from the headstone first and set them aside.
I couldn’t clean the surface well with only my fingers, but it was enough to see the inscription beneath.
I couldn’t fully read the name or dates.
But sixteen hundred and something was the death date. The final numbers had worn away.
That I could touch something that was unfathomably old astounded me. I nodded to the stone in reverence of its age and the life that it marked. My thoughts drifted to what the world might be like when I was long dead.
I reset the nearest boundary stone, and then the second one. The third was larger and took more effort, but when I settled it back into place, the tension seemed to leave it.
The area felt different afterward, quieter and more settled.
I’d been restoring places my entire career without realizing something else had always been happening beneath the surface.
There had been surveys and repair plans, along with careful craftsmanship.
But there had also been me noticing things others didn’t and correcting them.
The quiet satisfaction I experienced when a place finally felt right had been proof of my gift.
Nora’s name for it settled over me again. Maeve’s gran had called me the same.
Ward witch.
I’d never heard of such a thing. Hedge witch, yes. And kitchen witch. But ward witch?
Maeve had borrowed the phrase from childhood stories, half-joking, but she’d somehow known. Her gran and Nora had cautioned me to tell no one. But why? If the restoration council had a similar heritage, why should they care about mine?
I pondered that as I cleared debris from a second section of the nave floor, stacking the larger limbs near the wall.
There must be a reason. Perhaps my family had left Ireland because of it. Perhaps they had left because something had made staying dangerous. Aunt Kit had never wanted to return, not once in all the years I’d known her.
I honestly didn’t know. I’d never known enough to know what I didn’t know, and I despised that feeling. Navigating the unknown was all but impossible. And it wasn’t fair that I was being asked to without knowing why.
What I did know was that I could sense the Veil even if I couldn’t exactly see it. And I’d felt the first wraith in the forest before I’d spotted it.
I slid my gaze to where I’d found the second tear in the cemetery before Bren had pointed me toward it. And then another nearby. I’d helped Bren drive back a thorn wraith that had torn through the grove and into my path using only my instincts.
I was still afraid of them. I couldn’t imagine a day when I wouldn’t be, even if I fully understood them. But at least I knew Bren could manage the common ones with ease. He’d told me of their anchor, and knowing they couldn’t chase me gave me a small reassurance.
I hoped never to encounter another thorn wraith.
I straightened and glanced over the little cleanup I’d done. But it was something. Peace settled over the abbey and cemetery and drifted through my soul like a warm breeze. Unexpected contentment filled me, and I closed my eyes, soaking it all in.
A woman’s voice, soft and clear, whispered to me, “You belong here.”
My eyes flew open as my heart raced. I shifted my gaze back and forth, frantically searching for who’d spoken.
But the nave was empty.
So was the cemetery, and no one was on the path beyond the broken arch as far as I could see. I stood perfectly still, waiting to see if I’d hear anything else.
Nothing came.
I considered that it might have only been my thoughts. But my family had come from Ireland. A family of ward witches. I’d been drawn back for a reason, one that had pulled at me for years until I made it happen.
Whatever being a ward witch meant, I was one. Whatever my family had carried and hidden and half-forgotten, I was carrying it now. Whether the whisper had been present or only in my mind didn’t matter.
I exhaled and stood, ready to get back to work.
The peace fractured before I took a step.
The pressure change was subtle but unmistakable. My stomach dropped, and I knew.
The Veil was tearing.
Panic gripped me as I whipped my gaze back and forth. Then I sensed it and stilled. I slowly turned toward the cemetery and watched as a coil of dark smoke appeared from the unseen tear. It hovered for a moment as it grew into something solid and anchored itself to a headstone.
My first instinct was to run to Bren for help.
But he wasn’t at the castle.
And what if Rian came back this way and fell prey to it?
I exhaled a shallow breath, struggling to gather my wits. It was small, a common one that was manageable in the right circumstances, right? It wouldn’t chase me.
My hand shook as I pulled the phone from my pocket, found Bren’s number, and tapped it. I lifted the phone to my ear, my heart thundering in my head. It rang once, chirped at me, and I dropped my gaze to the screen. The call had dropped or had never gone through.
I tried again, only to get the same response.
“You must be kidding me,” I whispered and strode to the abbey’s entrance, where there was less stone, but where I could watch the wraith.
I tried a third time. Nothing. I even tried Maeve’s phone, only to get the same response.
I focused fully on the wraith and swore it watched me in return. I moved to the side, and it followed, its attention cold and direct.
“Shit.” I breathed the word more than spoke it.
It couldn’t reach me. I wasn’t close enough. I was safe.
I thought of Bren, and then of Maeve inside the castle, and of Rian somewhere in the ruins behind me with no idea what was in this cemetery. As long as no one came close, they’d be fine. I could run toward the castle, calling Bren repeatedly as I did until he answered.
The creature wouldn’t be unmonitored for long. That must happen often, right? It took Bren time to reach a breached section of the Veil. It was an acceptable solution.
And then it moved.
Not far. Only to the next stone, where it re-anchored itself.
I covered my mouth to hold back a cry of despair. This was not happening. It was not.
But it was. “Oh, God.”
I inhaled a calming breath. I was not in immediate danger. My gaze snagged on a pile of debris I’d cleared away, and a thought struck. I’d moved a damned tree when I’d helped Bren with the thorn wraith.
I had zero idea how, but I’d done it. And I’d moved a piece of wood at the edge of the lake, near a space where the Veil had thinned.
Perhaps I could contain the wraith. Make a little cage from the tree limbs. That might hold it in place just long enough.
My logical mind pushed back. This was too much for a girl from Washington.
But a small voice reminded me I was much more than I’d always believed.
I was not helpless. I had not been in the grove that night, even before I’d known what I was doing. I had been useful. I had done something that helped.
The pile of elder branches sat where I’d stacked them earlier. My attempt might be laughable, but I didn’t need elegance. I needed the creature contained long enough to get clear and find Bren.
I planted my feet and reached out my hand.
The first branch moved awkwardly, but it moved, scraping sideways across the ground before it found direction.
The second followed more cleanly. The wraith recoiled from the movement, pressing back toward the headstone, and that small retreat steadied me.
I pulled another branch into the line. Then another.
The shape that formed was nothing like the tree I’d felled in the grove. It was rough and low and uneven, and it could hardly be called a barrier. But the wraith had stopped moving, as though if it held still, I would stop.
I continued. Moments later, I felt the creature testing the edges of the constraint, the cold pressure of it pushing against the branches, and they held.
My quick breaths echoed in the quiet nave, from mental stress, not exertion.
I pulled in two more small limbs from the far side of the pile and filled a gap near the base.
The wraith reacted with a sharp, churning motion, pressing hard against the new resistance, and the cold coming off it bit at my fingers. Still, my containment held.
The creature wasn’t defeated. I knew that. Bren was the only one who could end it. But my haphazard contraption was doing its job. The wraith was trapped and unable to move freely, and the more it struggled against the constraint, the more certain I was that it was going to stay that way.
I had done that. All by myself.
I lifted my arms to add one more branch just in case, only to hear something crashing through the trees.