Chapter 29
CHAPTER 29
DAMIEN
“ D amien, wake up. We’re here.”
I hadn’t realized I’d fallen asleep until I heard Clo’s soft voice. I’d been dreaming about us riding the train like a normal couple, holding hands across the table and smiling about nothing as the southern hills rolled by outside. But we were still very much under the table—running for our lives and hiding from Russian militants—and I’d slept through the entire trip.
I knew I was exhausted. I’d been in survival mode for two straight days and been up all night, exerting myself—first in the bedroom with Clo and then in the bowels of her da’s ship as I sawed through layers of wood and waterproofing—but I still couldn’t believe that I’d let my guard down enough to sleep in a public place. It was dangerous, the effect Clover had on me. The few times she’d let me hold her, touch her, everything else had just faded away. It made no sense. We were in constant danger, but the weight of her body on my chest and the warmth of her breath on my neck tricked me into thinking that nothing bad could possibly happen.
Crawling backward out of our hiding spot, Clover seemed entirely too happy for a girl who’d just spent another day fearing for her life and watching men get slaughtered right before her eyes. She beamed as she helped me unfold my massive body into a standing position. Then, she reached for the heavy bag Kate had sent us with, as if I was going to let her carry it. Plucking it out of her hands, I slung it over my shoulder and pulled her against my good side. There were a few other people on the train now, all of whom gave us sideways glances as they gathered in the aisle, waiting to exit. It could have been because we’d crawled out from under a table, or because there was a gun holstered on my hip, or because Clo was wearing a bloodstained Russian Naval blazer over her sundress.
Or maybe it was because she was the first smiling person they’d seen since the invasion.
“Arriving at … Glenshire Station. This is the final stop for westbound service. Transfer here for northbound service to Killarney, Limerick, and Galway.”
Clo let out a little squeal as she clutched my hand and bounced in place. “I’ve always wanted to come here. That book I read to you in the cave … that entire series is about the folklore of Glenshire. My ma named me after a line from a poem in one of those books.”
Clearing her throat, she recited, “ Out where the bluebells grow high as your knee, and the clover and moss blanket every tree, lies a ring made of stone where no fairies dare tread. That’s where you’ll find him, the ghost of the glen .”
“The ghost of the glen?” I asked, scanning the platform for soldiers as I forced myself to loosen my grip on Clo’s arm.
“The ghost of Glenshire,” she replied matter-of-factly. “When he was a boy, the villagers thought he was the son of Satan and shunned him. He hid out in the forest, which, legend has it, is inhabited by fairies and witches and a lake spirit named Saoirse.”
“Mmhmm.” I was only half-listening.
There were no soldiers. No guards. Just a few dozen traumatized-looking passengers heading up the stairs to the northbound platform, loaded down with suitcases, packs, pets, and children. Where were they going? What did they know that we didn’t?
Following the signs for Glenshire instead, Clover tugged me through the turnstiles and into a stone tunnel. A few handwritten posters taped to the walls announced that food and shelter were available to refugees at Glenshire Catholic Church.
“… so when the priest died in a house fire and the boy disappeared, everyone assumed that he’d died in the fire too. That was when the ghost of Glenshire legend was born. They thought his spirit was haunting the woods, waiting for the American girl he loved to return. Isn’t that sad?”
I remembered the story. I fucking hated it.
“But the legend was disproved years later when Darby came back to Glenshire as an adult for her grandfather’s funeral. She found Kellen alive and well, married him, and they lived quite happily in her grandfather’s farmhouse … until they were murdered, of course.”
As Clover reached out her hand to open the door at the end of the tunnel, I was overcome with the urge to pull her away from it. It was as if I was watching her reach for a hot stove. Everything in my body screamed that we should go, turn around and take the northbound train, like all the other evacuees. But Clover was happy—after everything she’d been through, this place made her happy—so I bit my tongue and followed her through what felt like the gates of fucking hell.
“Oh my God,” she gasped as we stepped out of the station and into a village square. Wind ruffled her hair as gray clouds swirled overhead. “It’s sooo cute.”
The tightly packed stucco buildings were painted every color of the rainbow—red and green and yellow and hot pink—or they had been, once upon a time. Now, their exteriors were faded and peeling. Dried, dead flowers drooped over the sides of the window boxes. And a few of the businesses were boarded up completely. But Clover didn’t see any of that. Or maybe she just saw past it.
Like she did with me.
But I didn’t have that ability, and I didn’t give a shite about her little folklore field trip. All I cared about was keeping her safe until we sorted out how to get to Boston. If the church was accepting refugees, then they probably knew where to send us to get on one of those American planes or ships. I glanced around until I found a stone steeple topped with a metal cross off in the distance. Guiding Clo across the quiet intersection, I steered her down a winding street that looked like it might lead to the church.
“I wish I had my phone so I could take pictures,” she said, walking backward as the square disappeared behind us. A touch of sadness had crept into her voice, but she shook it off and squeezed my hand tighter. “It’s crazy,” she continued. “Just yesterday, I was in a Russian encampment, thinking I was about to die, and now …” She dropped my hand and skipped ahead, spreading her arms wide as she spun in a circle. The bottom of her yellow dress twirled and lifted, exposing a pair of bruised, scratched thighs that I wanted to lavish with kisses all over again. “I’m in Glenshire!”
Her grinning eyes softened as they locked with mine. “Because of you.”
The corner of my mouth lifted as I stalked toward her, and Clo planted her feet, allowing me to catch up. She tilted her head back as I pulled her into my arms, and when I kissed her still-smiling mouth, I decided that maybe Glenshire wasn’t so bad after all.
We walked the rest of the way to the church, hand in hand, as Clo pointed at every landmark and explained every shred of lore that she knew about the seemingly uninhabited village. The only proof of life I could see were the hundreds of sheep dotting the valley that stretched out below us on the left side of the road. The landscape looked like a tattered green quilt, and on each patch sat a small house, painted some crazy bright color, just like the buildings in the square.
On the other side of the street, the hills rose up toward a distant purple mountain and were covered in trees. It was strange. I hadn’t seen the mountain from the train station, but I felt like I had known it would be there before I turned my head to look. Just like I knew the church would be lurking behind the next curve in the road, and there it was—a simple stone chapel with two massive red doors and a steeple just tall enough to be seen over the trees. The cemetery behind it stretched up the hill at least a hundred meters, stopping where the woods began.
“Wow,” Clo whispered, awestruck. “It looks exactly the way I pictured it.”
The books. That must be why everything felt so familiar. Clover had read to me about this place.
At the church, several people were gathered around a folding table at the entrance of the cemetery, so Clover and I walked that way. My goal was to find out if anyone knew how to get on one of the American planes or ships and then go there as quickly as fucking possible, but as soon as we approached the table, something at the back of the graveyard caught my eye.
It was a small white house with a door as red as the ones on the church, and the sight of it made my stomach lurch.
I suddenly knew why this place felt so familiar, so evil.
I’d seen it before, in my dreams.