Chapter 33
CHAPTER 33
CLOVER
C radled in Damien’s arms with the beauty of Glenshire Lough lying before me, I felt reborn. Awakened.
Whole.
It was as if I’d gone through life with a blindfold on and Saoirse had just untied it for me. I saw everything so clearly now. Why those books had meant so much to me. Why the fairy prince had seemed so real. Why Damien’s soul had called to me from across the sea, and why I’d had a vision of this exact place before I’d jumped.
I wasn’t just visiting the setting of my favorite fairy tales.
I was returning to it.
To him .
I could have stayed there forever, basking in that revelation, relishing the fact that Damien and I were soulmates, rejoined after two decades of pain and longing, but there was a sense of urgency pressing down on me that I didn’t yet understand.
Saoirse hadn’t just shown me my past life; she’d given me access to it. Darby’s knowledge, her experiences, her hopes and fears—I felt them as if they were my own. This person I’d admired my entire life was inside of me now, living and breathing again. She was me.
And I got the sense that she needed my help.
Our help.
“What are you thinking about?” Damien asked, unease creeping into his otherwise soothing voice.
“Us,” I said, lacing my fingers through his. “Do you remember the day we met? We made magic wands out of sticks and hid behind that tree because we were so afraid of the witch.” I smiled and pointed at the massive oak next to us. “I thought you were the handsomest boy I’d ever seen. You didn’t speak back then, not a word, but I didn’t care. I thought it was because you were a fairy, but …” I shook my head as a new set of memories rose to the surface. My throat became tight with emotion. “Oh, Damien, the things he did to you …”
Damien didn’t reply. He simply pressed his lips to the top of my head and listened. Pushing his tragic past to the side, I tried to focus instead on the woods. On our happy place.
“When you got older, you hung a rope swing from that tree and did back flips into the lake. I never told you, but I was so impressed.”
My gaze traveled to the lake, where a shroud of mist had already settled over the surface. “And we had our first kiss right there. The sun was setting, and the water turned pink and orange. Remember? That’s when Saoirse gave us these.” I lifted my left hand and wiggled my ring finger.
“God, I missed you.” Turning in his arms, I curled toward his bare chest and pressed my lips to the side of his neck. “I think I was born missing you, Kellen.”
The moment I said his former name, Damien bristled, his arms tensing around my body.
“Come on, angel,” he said, kissing the top of my head again. “Let’s get you dressed and see if we can find our way back to the train station. We can sleep there tonight and catch the first train to Shannon in the morning.”
What?
Lifting my head, I met Damien’s concerned gaze with one of bewilderment. “What are you talking about? We just got here. There’s so much more I want to see. Like the cottage where we used to play. Remember the cottage? Kellen, it was your favorite place in the whole world.”
Damien frowned before smoothing out his features and running a hand over my damp hair. “Darlin’,” he said, using a voice that made me feel like a child, “you’ve never been here before. Neither of us has. All these things that feel so familiar to you … they’re from stories. Fairy-tale books.”
His words landed in my gut harder than the boots that had kicked me the day before in Mr. McCormick’s field.
“I know,” I hissed, trying to keep the hurt and anger out of my voice. “I wrote them.”
Damien’s face fell. He was the picture of heartbreak as his sad eyes bored into mine. “Angel,” he said softly, lifting me into his arms as he stood, “I need you to listen to me.”
I couldn’t see his face as he carried me over to the tree where our clothes lay scattered on the bank of the lake, but I could feel his heart. It was fucking pounding.
“You didn’t write those books. They were published before you were born. And your name isn’t Darby. It’s Clover. I think this place is fucking with our minds, and we need to go. Now.”
“Go?” I wriggled out of his embrace, forcing him to set me down so that I could turn to face him. “How can you say that after everything Saoirse just showed us?”
I jerked a hand in the direction of the lake as Damien zipped his trousers and fastened his belt. Then, he took my face in his hands and kissed my frowning mouth.
I jerked away, fighting the urge to slap him.
Without another word, Damien picked my sopping wet dress up off the ground and began wringing the excess water out of it.
“You didn’t see it.” I shook my head, eyes wide and horrified. “No. No, that’s impossible. How did you not see it?”
Damien held the dress out to me, but I refused to take it, standing naked and confused and crestfallen in front of him.
“How?” I demanded, but Damien just ignored me and began dressing me himself.
Kneeling before me, he lifted each of my legs, forcing me to step into my underwear before sliding a soggy runner onto each foot.
“I think it was oxygen deprivation, Clo,” he finally said, rising to his feet to help me with my bra.
I glared at him as he slid the straps up my arms, avoiding my gaze by stepping behind me to fasten the clasp.
“So, you did see something,” I snapped, cutting him with my tone since I couldn’t reach him with my stare.
“I don’t know what I saw.”
“Yes, you do. Kellen, that was Saoirse. She shows you things. You know this. It wasn’t a hallucination. It was real. Tell me what you saw. Please. ”
“Damien,” he corrected softly before tapping my shoulders with both hands. “Arms up, angel.”
Spinning around, I glared up at him, feeling crazy, feeling gaslit. But the sadness and genuine concern that stared back told me that he believed what he was saying. He hadn’t seen what I had.
I felt like Crazy Clover all over again.
“It was real,” I declared to him, to myself, to the forest itself. “Whatever you saw, it was real. I promise.”
“Clo.” Damien ground the word out through gritted teeth, holding Kate’s dress up for me to slide my arms into. “Please. Can we talk about this at the train station? It’s almost dark, and we still have to find our way back to town.”
Rage and despair pumped through my veins as I reached up and snatched the garment out of his hands.
“You don’t believe me.”
Turning away from me, Damien grabbed the dripping wet backpack off the ground and slung it over his shoulder, scanning the woods for a way out. He didn’t argue with me, and that was what hurt the most.
“Damien”—I tried again, tempering my tone, pleading with him—“please. Please tell me you believe me. Tell me what you saw.”
Glancing at me over his shoulder, Damien kept his features neutral as he extended his hand. “Come on, love. It’s getting dark.”
Angry tears formed in the corners of my eyes, and my chest ached under the weight of his implication. “I’m not crazy.”
“I know.”
He took a step toward me, and I immediately took one back, shaking my head.
“I’m not.”
“Clo, please.”
“I’ll prove it.” My anger turned to desperation as I swung my head from left to right, searching my surroundings for anything that might support my claim.
Glancing up at the branch that I’d been perched on in my vision, I noticed that the rope was missing. It must have rotted over time and …
My eyes darted to the overgrown blackberry bushes beneath that branch, and I practically dived for them, plunging my bare arms into their thorny depths until I found what I was looking for.
“Clover, stop. What are you doing? You’re gonna hurt yourself.”
Spinning around, I held up the proof of my sanity—a filthy, frayed length of rope.
And Damien didn’t react.
“It’s your rope swing,” I panted. “I told you one used to be here, and look.”
Again, Damien said nothing. And that was when it hit me.
“You think I read about all of this in Darby’s books, don’t you?”
“Clover,” Damien sighed. “It doesn’t matter what I think. All that matters is—”
“Yes, it does,” I interrupted. “Look. Look at this. Come here.”
I stomped over to the bench we’d just made love on, remembering something I’d noticed when I first sat down.
“Kellen carved this bench for me—for Darby, whatever. Do you see that date in the middle? June 14? That’s the date that Saoirse bonded us, but it’s also the date that Russia attacked Howth. We met on June 14, Damien. And those three dots below it? Those represent our freckles.” I held up my finger again. “I’m not crazy. You have them too.”
I stared at his face, waiting for recognition to dawn, but it was as if he wasn’t listening to me at all. His eyes were fixated on the bench. I watched his pupils swoop back and forth, tracing the intricate lines of Kellen’s Celtic knot. Turning and glancing at it again, I realized what had him so spooked.
It was the exact same design he’d etched into that sheet of metal back in the cave.
Hope bloomed in my chest as I turned to face him again, but Damien was more closed off than ever.
“That’s enough,” he snapped, grabbing my hand and pulling me away from the bench as if it might burst into flames. “We’re leaving. Now.”
As we marched up the hill, it was as if Damien had disappeared into his own mind. He didn’t feel me thrashing in his grip. Didn’t hear me telling him to let go. He was on some kind of autopilot, and I couldn’t snap him out of it.
“Damien, slow down.”
Nothing.
“What is going on? Talk to me.”
Ignored.
“Damien, look. The cottage.”
That did it. Damien’s feet rooted themselves to the ground as I barreled into his back. The sun had nearly set, but there was enough ambient light left in the woods to make out the crumbling, vine-encrusted silhouette of a stone structure in a small clearing.
Damien’s body tensed as he stared at the ruin. The place that had once been Kellen’s sanctuary. His only safe space in a village that had been told to hate him.
Heat radiated off of his body as some unexpressed emotion boiled to the surface. Dread. Hatred. Sorrow. I couldn’t tell, but whatever it was, it slithered up my arm like a venomous snake, making me want to break free and run.
Without releasing my hand, Damien walked around to the entrance, and I don’t think I breathed once. A flood of memories filled my mind as I waited for him to react.
A tea set.
The taste of vanilla.
A black flight jacket left on the ground.
Black boots, pacing.
And pacing.
And pacing.
The roof was long gone, but the arched doorway remained, and in the shadows of the darkening wood, it felt more like the entrance of a tomb than a playhouse.
Walking backward, Damien pulled me away from the building as if it might sprout teeth and eat us alive.
“It’s too dark,” he said before turning and marching the rest of the way up the hill.
I didn’t know what that meant. Was it too dark inside the cottage? Too dark to find our way out of the woods? Or was it too dark inside his head, where his thoughts seemed to be spiraling and his temples pulsed with every surge of blood from his pounding heart?
Struggling to keep up, I glanced at the sky and noted the heavy gray clouds swirling overhead.
Even that felt familiar.
As soon as we crested the top of the hill, an arch of lightning streaked the sky, illuminating a wide expanse of farmland through the trees below.
An elated sigh burst from my lungs before we started our descent down the hill, both of us moving quickly now for two very different reasons. Sprinting straight through the tree line, I dragged Damien behind me as I raced toward a wooden fence that was broken in more places than it was intact.
The field beyond the fence looked like it hadn’t been mowed in decades, and there wasn’t a single light on in the house or barn on the far side of the meadow, but I could see every detail in my mind.
Standing beside me, Damien finally loosened his grip on my hand.
I hoped that he saw what I saw. That being here would help him remember, help solidify whatever epiphany he’d been having in the woods.
But instead, Damien breathed a sigh of relief and said, “If we cut through this field, the road on the other side of the house should take us back to town.”
My heart sank as a bitter laugh tore through my chest.
“Back to town?” I said, shaking my head. “Damien … we’re home.”