Far Away (Gypsy Fairy Tale Book Two) (7 page)

Chapter 15

Alec took both of our winter coats and stuffed them into the overhead compartment on the plane and then sat down next to me.

I rubbed my sweaty palms over the tops of my thighs. I stared straight ahead, trying not to show how nervous I felt. It seemed so easy at first. I’d just go to Ireland and warn Kieran and his family, but then there were passports and plane rides over the open ocean.  Could I really do this?

“It’s not too late to change your mind,” Alec offered as he buckled his seatbelt.

I shook my head and then as if that was the cue, the plane began to taxi down the runway. As I gripped my arm rests and squeezed my eyes shut, the plane took off.

I can do this...I can do this...

Once we were in the air, Alec patted my hand. “You can open your eyes now.”

I opened my eyes and turned to the window. Seeing the white clouds and the ground so far below, I sat back in my seat and closed my eyes again.

“Come on, talk to me,” Alec suggested. “It will keep your mind off of the flight.”

“Okay,” I said as I took a deep breath and tried to slow my racing heart. “How did the Mileans figure out where the Tuatha De Danann would be?”

Alec shrugged, “Every one hundred years or so they turn up at the Imbolc festival in Ireland.”

“So how did they know they will be there this year?”

“I don’t know,” Alec mumbled. “They said something about the moon and the planets lining up. To be honest, I didn’t understand most of what they were talking about and I stopped listening once I started talking about killing people.”

“Is that why you didn’t join them?”

“That was a big part of it,” he said. “And grandpa said he didn’t want to lose anyone else to the old wars that are impossible to win, and I didn’t want to join any side that pitted me against you.”

He looked at me then, intense-like, as if he was gaging my every reaction. Why did he stare at me like that?

“What is this Imbolc festival?” I asked trying to draw his attention away from my face.

Alec smiled as if he knew I was purposely trying to change the subject.

“Well,” he said. “I guess the easiest way to explain it is that it’s the festival that marks the beginning of spring.”

“But it’s not spring yet,” I argued as turbulence shook the plane. I bit my lip and waited for it to pass. Once the ride smoothed out, I repeated myself. “It’s not spring yet.”

Alec laughed at my reaction, “It’s sort of like a halfway point. So the festival is held on the thirty-first and February first all over Ireland.”

I tightened my seat belt, “If this goes on all over Ireland how will we know where to go?”

“The O’Learys said they’d be found at the Hill of Tara by Lia fail.”

“The what?”

“The stone of destiny,” he said with a smirk.

“Seriously?”

Alec nodded, “You can’t make this crap up.”

I tried to breathe easier as the flight smoothed out, focusing all of my attention again to our purpose. All of it just sounded to fantastical to be real, but I already knew that reality could be very deceiving. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel the brush of the butterfly wings and Kieran’s musical voice.

Magic...

Alec fell asleep somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean. Without him to talk to, I was left to my own troubling thoughts.

What if we found them, but Kieran didn’t believe me? What if we were too late?

Hurry...Hurry...

I tapped my fingers on the armrest and looked out the window. I had no idea how fast the plane was going, but I wished it would go faster.

I didn’t sleep at all that night. It was just past dawn when the coast of Ireland came into sight. Seeing the dark cliffs and the crashing grey waves, my heart skipped a beat. It was just like in my dream!

“Alec, wake up!” I demanded as I shook his shoulder, “What are those cliffs?”

He leaned over and stared bleary eyed out the window, “Um...Um...The Cliffs of Moher I think. Why?”

“No reason,” I mumbled as I looked at the scene of my nightmare.

Alec rubbed his eyes and smiled, “Are those the cliffs you were talking about from your dream? Is that what I pushed you off of?”

I nodded, not bothering to look at him.

“Creepy,” he said with a shudder.

“Yeah,” I said. “You know, it won’t be that easy for us to find them.”

“What do you mean?”

“The travellers,” I reminded him. “They’ll hide the Tuatha De Danann.”

Alec nodded, “That could be, but you best hope that we get there before the Mileans.”

* * * *

The light of the campfire pushed at the cold, wet, darkness. Still, I shivered inside my damp clothes.

Alec threw another branch on the fire and then sat down next to me. He rubbed his hands over my arms and shoulders, trying his best to warm me.

“Stretch your feet out towards the fire,” he suggested as he took my hands in his and exhaled his hot breath over them.

“I had no idea it would be this cold,” I stuttered as my teeth clicked together.

He turned and crawled into the open tent, pulling out one of the thick down sleeping bags. He unzipped it and wrapped it around my shoulders.

“See if this helps,” he said.

“Thank you,” I mumbled and moved closer to the fire. I could already feel the smoky warmth spreading over me.

Alec stared into the fire, poking at it now and then with a long stick.

“I know the cold sucks,” he said. “But hopefully it’s so cold whoever owns this property won’t come out and run us off.”

“Do you think they would really do that?”

“How do I know?” He said with a shrug, “We’re about a mile from the Hill of Tara; it was too dark when we stopped to really see anything. For all I know, we could be camping in someone’s back yard.”

I looked out into the darkness, straining to see anything. “We’re only a mile away?”

“According to the GPS on my phone we are.”

“Shouldn’t we be able to see or hear something of we’re that close?”

Alec poked at the fire and frowned, “Maybe your gypsy friends are just lying low.”

“It seems strange to think that Kieran could just be a mile away.”

Alec tossed his stick into the fire, sending orange sparks up into the air.

“Look,” he huffed and glared into the flames. “I’m trying real hard to do the right thing here. I’ve betrayed my family and my heritage for you, so can you try not to rub my face in it?”

I shrank away from him, embarrassed and ashamed.

“I’m sorry,” I mumbled. “It’s just—“

“I don’t want you to explain anything,” he snapped. “I just want to ask you one question.”

My stomach fluttered and my throat grew tight, not sure I even wanted to know his question.

“What is it?” I forced myself to ask.

Alec turned the full force of his gaze on me, his eyes glittering in the light of the fire.

“Why not me?” He asked.

“What?”

“You heard me,” he said. “Why not me?”

I looked away, thankful that the shadows would hide my expression.

“I don’t understand,” I lied.

Alec turned back to the fire, “I just want to know, why him? Why not me?”

“Alec, I—“

“I was there,” he interrupted. “Day after day, I kept thinking you’d look at me, that you’d
really
look at me, but you never did.”

“Alec...”

“Just be honest,” he said. “Why not me?”

How could I explain it to him? How could I describe that overpowering wave that was falling in love to someone that hadn’t experienced it?

One look at him though and I knew...Alec
had
experienced that feeling.

“Alec,” I began, too ashamed to meet his eyes. “What do you want me to say? For whatever reason, it was Kieran and I can’t change that.”

He flinched as if I had slapped him and glared into the fire.

“I know,” he said with a bitter smile. “I guess I just had to hear it for myself.”

I hated myself for hurting him, “If you want to leave, I’ll understand. You’ve already done so much to help me.”

“And what am I going to do?” He snapped, “Walk all the way back to Dublin in the dark?”

“I didn’t mean—“

“I promised to get you to Tara safely and that’s what I’m going to do.”

I looked down at my hands, knowing that I didn’t deserve his friendship or his company. It would serve me right if her would leave me here and catch the first flight back to America.

“Why are you still willing to help me?” I asked.

Alec tossed another branch onto the fire, “Because that is what you do when you love someone. You do things that make them happy, even if it breaks your heart.”

“Alec...”

“That’s something that your gypsy needs to learn,” he said.

Before I had the change to say anything else, he turned and crawled into the tent.

Chapter 16

The next morning we made out final trek to the Hill of Tara. The damp fog was cold, making me shiver as I stomped down the road on numb and near frozen feet.

I struggled along, my clothes wrinkled from sleeping in them and my hair tangling in the blowing wind. I kept thinking about finding Kieran and then going someplace where I could take a hot bath and sleep in a soft bed.

I wanted to whine about how cold and tired I was, but how could I when Alec went along without a word. All that I could do was adjust the heavy backpack on my shoulders and match his steady pace.

“So, what’s the deal with this Tara place?” I asked, trying to do anything to keep my mind off how miserable I was.

Alec glanced back and moved further off the road as a car passed, “Well, Tara is where the high kings of Ireland once lived and I’ll give you one guess who that tribe was...”

“The Tuatha De Danann?”

“Yep,” he said as he moved back onto the road. “Your friends the Tuatha De Danann. They brought the stone of destiny and ruled until my ancestors came along.”

I shifted my backpack again, “So when did you become such a walking encyclopedia?”

“Twice I’ve been asked to help stop the Tuatha De Danann,” he said. “I guess I just picked a few things up.”

I wanted to ask him more, but he squared his shoulders and walked a little faster, making it clear that the conversation was over.

As we got closer, the crowd grew from just a few people now and then to large groups moving about the snowy pasture that was Tara. We passed beautiful young girls in white dresses with long flowing hair, somehow not freezing in the frigid temperatures and groups gathered here and there doing some sort of weaving with green stocks.

“What are they doing?” I asked.

“Why would you think I would know?” He snapped.

“Well don’t you?” I barked right back at him.

Alec glanced over to where I pointed and sighed, “Looks like they're making St. Brigid's crosses. People hang them in their kitchens to protect their homes.”

“Seriously?”

He finally smirked and elbowed me playfully, “You of all people, are going to question old superstitions?”

I blushed, “I guess not.”

He smiled, his bad mood fading slightly, “We used to have one hanging up in our kitchen that my grandma made. I made the mistake of asking my grandpa about it and he of course told the whole story.”

It was an amusing story, making me smile and forget about how cold I was until he passed another group of girls in white dresses. I turned to watch as they lifted a strange doll made of the same green stocks is the crosses and covered in white cloth. It was a morbid sight, reminding me of what was at stake.

I turned back to Alec, “What if we can’t find them?”

“We will,” Alec said while keeping his face straight ahead. “The Mileans were certain that they’d be here.”

We walked row after row of tents where there were more people weaving and more beautiful girls in white. Every time we went down another row, I prayed we’d see Kieran or his family.

Where were they? What if the millions were already here and found Kieran and his family first?

I didn’t want to think about that possibility, but I could feel my panic rising as we weaved through the crowd. What if we didn’t find them? How was I supposed to live with that? We couldn’t fail... We just couldn’t.

Oh Kieran...Where are you?

As I pushed through another group of people amid hissing complaints about my oversized backpack and my ragged appearance, I heard it.

Gorger...

I knew that word! That was the phrase that the travellers used to describe non-travellers. I looked around wildly, searching for the person that spoke that word.

The crowd seemed to grow in that moment, bumping into me and pushing me from side to side.

“The day is ripe with gorgers to be sure.”

Oh my God! I knew that voice. That voice belonged to
him
. I tiptoed and peered around people until, just across the way, I saw him.

It was Kieran. He was really there. All the dreams and fantasies over the past months were nothing compared to the reality of him in the flesh. His hair looked even darker, his skin now pale, but it was
him
.

Kieran didn’t see me. He stood near an open tent, talking and laughing with a man in a blue wool coat. I watched them talk for a long moment, savoring the sound of his voice and the soft rumble of his laughter. I didn’t care what they were saying; I just wanted to keep listening to him.

It was such sweet pleasure to see him with my own eyes, the object of my every fantasy, but that was nothing compared to the rush of emotions when he turned those green eyes on me.

Kieran
...

I pushed through the crowd, mumbling apologies and leaving Alec behind.

Kieran had me in his arms and everything else just faded away. He was raining kisses over my face, asking questions, but kissing me again before I could answer.

“Harmony, I can’t believe you’re really here,” he murmured against my lips. “I’ve missed you so much. What are you doing here? How did you ever find us?”

I knew that I should explain, that I should warn him about the Mileans, but it just felt so good to be of his arms that I didn’t want to ruin it.

Just hold me...Never let me go...

Kieran stroked my hair and kissed me again and again, “I never should’ve left. I’m so sorry... Say that you forgive me.”

“So you didn’t forget about me?” I whispered, needing to hear him actually say the words.

Kieran took my face in his hands, his long fingers tangling in my hair, “Saints preserve us, I thought about you every day.”

“But you didn’t call or write—“

He was kissing me again and pulling me close. I could feel him trembling under my fingers.

“I didn’t think it was safe,” he mumbled over my lips. “The Mileans...I wanted to keep you safe.”

The Mileans...

“Kieran...”

He kissed my forehead, “I’ll never let you go again, I promise.”

“Kieran...”

“I tried to do as you wanted," he said. "To give you time, but I can’t keep living without you. I love you...I need you.”

His words reached inside of me and squeezed my very soul. It was everything that I wanted to hear, the exact words I dreamed he would say, but at last I found my voice.

“Kieran,” I said and pulled away. “The Mileans... They’re coming. They know you got away before... They know where you are!”

I heard footsteps behind me, familiar and intrusive. I buried my face into Kieran’s chest.

Go away...Go away...

Kieran stiffened, “Is this true?”

“Yes,” Alec said before I could answer.

I bit my lip, ashamed that I’d forgotten all about Alec until that moment.

Kieran looked from Alec to me and then back to Alec. Was he sensing something?

“Why should I believe you?” Kieran asked with a distrustful glare.

Alec glanced at me and then met Kieran’s glare with his own icy stare. “Do you have a choice?”