The Awakening Read online

  He blinked. “You said what?”

  “I have an editor. I have a publisher. Bollocks is going to be published next summer.”

  He set down his wine, then stood up, walked around the room. As her heart sank, she began to babble. “I didn’t want to tell you until I could tell you. I wanted—”

  “Shut up. Shut up.”

  He plucked her out of her chair, swung her in two circles. Then pressed his face in her hair.

  “I’m so proud of you. I’m so happy for you. So proud.”

  When he drew back to kiss her, she brushed tears from his cheeks. And now her heart filled and overflowed.

  “You’re the reason,” she murmured.

  “Breen, you’re the reason.”

  She took his hand, rubbed it lightly over the tattoo on her wrist. “You helped me find it. And tomorrow I’m going to use that courage and go talk to my mother.”

  “Used to dip in a toe, now you dive in. You want me to go with you?”

  “No.” She laid her head on his shoulder, and found, in what felt like a foreign world to her now, he was still home. “I’m going to handle it.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  In the early hours of the morning, she used the scrying mirror. Thinking of the thin apartment walls and Marco, she kept her conversation with Marg brief and her voice low. Still Bollocks heard her and, with a trio of joyful barks, wagged himself into view.

  Then, wakeful, restless, she wrote, and since the world she weaved took her back to Talamh, she found her own joy. Long after the sun broke through her little bedroom window, she heard Marco stirring.

  She put the work aside to go out, make coffee.

  “Man, I missed having you start coffee in the morning.” He gave her a one-armed hug as he drank. “You put a blog up already. Three thirty in the a-freaking-m.”

  “Time clock.”

  “Take a nap, girl.”

  “Maybe.” But sleep wasn’t on her mind.

  “I head straight to Sally’s after the music store. How about you meet me there? You’ve got big news to spread, and if you don’t spread it soon, it’s gonna bust right out of me.”

  “I will. I want to see Sally and Derrick, and everyone.”

  She’d need them after she confronted her mother.

  “You’re going over to your mom’s.”

  “You read my mind.”

  He tapped her temple. “I know what goes on in there.”

  “She should be home by six if she’s not on a business trip. I’ll come into Sally’s after I talk to her.”

  “I’ll have a drink waiting. And if you need me, you text me. I gotta book. Got a lesson in about fifteen. Take that nap.”

  He rushed out as he always rushed out in the morning, because he always cut the time close.

  She walked to the window.

  She’d always loved this neighborhood and, looking out, she saw what she’d loved—the clever shops and restaurants, the delightful little bakery. She and Marco splurged on their orgasmically gooey sticky buns every Sunday.

  She loved the brick-paved streets and the tiny slice of the river she could see if she squinted. She loved that she could go into any shop or restaurant on the block and someone would greet her by name.

  They knew her here—even when she’d tried to disappear. Maybe because of that, she considered. Because it really was a neighborhood.

  She considered going out for a walk, but realized it simply didn’t appeal as it once had. No green fields flowing into green hills. No bay reflecting the mercurial sky.

  No Bollocks to race ahead, chasing sheep or squirrel.

  She told herself she simply hadn’t adjusted yet—and couldn’t.

  Things to resolve, she thought. Until she did she’d stay caught between worlds, between loves, between obligations.

  She’d go back to work, but first, she needed to make some calls.

  After the workday, she took the bus out of habit. Because panic fluttered right under her collarbone, she slid a hand in her pocket to slide her fingers over the charm bag she’d made for strength of purpose.

  She imagined driving the winding roads of Ireland, imagined riding the charming gelding over the fields, through the woods of Talamh.

  It helped get her through the crowded bus ride in rush-hour traffic. She could almost ignore the horn blasts, or the tinny muffle of hip-hop leaking out of the earbuds of the passenger in front of her.

  The air brakes thumped, the bus door squeaked open, closed. People squeezed off, squeezed on.

  By the time she reached her stop, she wished she’d listened to Marco and taken that nap.

  The walk helped clear her head. Even at this hour, her mother’s neighborhood trended quiet. The narrow front lawns held their summer green, trees offered leafy shade. Maybe landscaping tended to be more regimented and manicured than she’d become used to, but it still offered color.

  She wouldn’t want this, of course. If and when the time came, she’d want—and need—more room. More solitude. And yes, more simplicity.

  She turned up her mother’s walkway. At the door she took one more steadying breath, then rang the bell.

  When the door opened, Jennifer’s face showed nothing, not a single tic of surprise. Which told Breen her mother had checked the security screen before answering.

  “Breen. So you’re back.”

  “Yes. I’d like to come in.”

  “Of course.”

  She’d changed her hair, more highlights for the summer, grown it out a bit into a sleek swing. She wore cropped pants and a sleeveless shirt, so she’d changed from her work clothes.

  And she carried an evening cocktail—not wine but a G&T, which told Breen she’d had a difficult day at work.

  She was about to have one at home.

  “Have a seat.” Jennifer gestured as she turned into the living room. “Would you like a drink?”

  “No, I’m fine.”

  No changes in here, Breen noted. It remained perfect.

  “I take it you enjoyed your extended vacation and assume you’re ready to come back to reality. Under the circumstances, you’ll have to make do with substitute teaching offers until—”

  “I’m not going back to teaching.”

  Taking a slow sip, Jennifer studied Breen with disapproval so strong it should have snapped the glass in two. “A few million dollars may seem like a world of money to you, but it won’t last long the way you’ve chosen to spend it. Trips to Europe, new wardrobe, no other income.”

  “I have other income. My writing.”

  It was small, it was petty, but the dismissive sound her mother made brought enormous satisfaction. Because she’d have to swallow it hard.

  “I sold my first book. In fact, my publisher contracted me for three.”

  Jennifer only sighed, as an adult might over the fantasies of a child.

  “Breen, scam artists who claim to be publishers troll the internet for people just like you.”

  “My agent’s with the Sylvan Agency, one founded thirty-two years ago. My publisher is McNeal Day Publishing. You may have heard of them,” she said—baldly—when she finally saw that tic of surprise. “If not, you can look them up.

  “I’m having meetings next week in New York with my agent, my publisher, my editor, and so on. They actually believe I have talent. They believe I can build a career. So no, I won’t be going back to a career I never wanted and had no real talent for.”

  “Writers rarely manage to make a livable wage.”

  “Aren’t I lucky to have backup while I try to do just that? And it strikes me that in a normal relationship you’d be happy for me. Maybe even a little proud. But we’ve never had that, have we? A normal relationship.”

  “That’s insulting nonsense. I’ve looked out for you, guided you, helped you avoid pitfalls your entire life. If you consider being coddled normal, that’s a lack in you.”

  So much here, Breen realized, she’d never really seen. And so much not here
she’d accepted.

  No more.

  “You looked out to make sure I didn’t color outside the lines, dragged me away from what you considered pitfalls that I might have considered fun or opportunities. Well, I’ve colored outside the lines now, and I like it. I’m never going back to what I was, to what you made me believe I had to be. You need to accept that. Or not,” she added. “Either way, I’m never going back.”

  “When the money runs out—”

  “You know, I’ve learned life, a good one, isn’t all about money. I hope to make a living doing what I love, and not depend on the generosity of others. But if I don’t, I’ll find another way. I’ve learned life, a good one, is about love, about standing up for yourself and others, about that generosity, giving back. I had a good basis for that, not from you, but from Sally and Marco and Derrick.”

  “Did they put food on the table, a roof over your head?”

  Was there hurt? Breen wondered. Just a hint of hurt under her mother’s outrage?

  “No, and I owe you for that. That’s why I’m here. I understand a little better why you always made me feel less. Because you knew I was more, and you feared that.”

  “Now you’re being ridiculous, and you’ve climbed on a very high horse over the sale of one book.”

  “This isn’t about the book, though that’s a happy by-product of the rest. I might never have found the courage to write without the money. I might never have found the courage to go to Ireland. And if I hadn’t gone to Ireland, I wouldn’t have found Talamh.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Not a tic of surprise now, but a leeching of color, every ounce of it from her face. Her body stiff, the hand on the glass visibly unsteady, Jennifer pushed to her feet.

  “Now I have work to do.”

  “You know exactly what I’m talking about, where I’m talking about. I met my grandmother. I spent most of the summer getting to know her, my birthplace, my birthright.”

  “Eian’s mother was, and undoubtedly is, unstable, which is exactly why I kept her away from you. Still, she’s cagey enough to have pulled you into her fantasy world. You need to—”

  “Don’t tell me what I need.” Incensed, Breen rose. “She never spoke ill of you. Not once. And the first thing you say about her—someone you let me think didn’t even exist—is she’s unstable, a fraud. A fantasy world? You spent four years with the Fey.”

  “You’re delusional. You need to go.”

  “Delusional?” Breen spun her hand, held a ball of cool white light. “This isn’t delusion. It’s not fantasy. It’s power. The power you tried, all my life, to beat back.”

  “Stop! You will not bring that aberration into my house.”

  “Aberration?” The same word, she thought, Ultan had used during his trial. “Is that what it is to you? What I am to you?”

  “I won’t have it! Not in my home. This is the world we live in, do you understand? I told your father—”

  “He’s dead.”

  Anger, maybe fear with it, had brought high color to Jennifer’s cheeks, and a wild glint to her eyes. Now her eyes went dull; her face gray.

  The glass slid out of her hand to shatter on the floor.

  “You didn’t know. You really didn’t know. And maybe Nan was right. You did love him. You did love each other.”

  “He left. He left a long time ago. I have to clean up this mess before it damages the floor.”

  “Now you stop.” Sweeping her hand, Breen vanished the broken glass and spilled liquid.

  “You will not bring that into my home, or you will not be welcome here.”

  “Is that what you told him? Is that the ultimatum you gave my father? He left his home for you.”

  “And constantly went back.”

  “He had obligations. He was taoiseach.”

  “Tribal bullshit!” When her voice broke, Jennifer whirled away. “We were his family.”

  “He had family there, too. A world to protect.”

  “He didn’t protect you, did he? Stolen from your bed in the middle of the night.”

  “He did protect me. He fought for me. I came home safe.”

  “He chose them over me time and time again. A sword and a staff, what idiocy. He could have thrown them back in that cursed lake, but he wouldn’t. He could have lived here, with me, with you, like a normal man, a normal husband and father.”

  “But he wasn’t normal the way you mean it. Damn it, you tried to burn out the light in him just like you tried to burn it out in me.”

  “He’d be alive if I had.”

  Grief, yes, she could see some grief. But she couldn’t let it soften her, not now.

  “And very likely as miserable as I was for so much of my life. Odran put me in a cage, but so did you.”

  “How dare you say that to me. I kept you safe.”

  “Safe on your terms. Always on your terms. You kept me boxed. And when he left that last night, and didn’t come back—because he died weeks after protecting me, you, his world, and this one—you made me think he abandoned me because I didn’t matter to him.”

  “I never said that.”

  “In a thousand different ways, and you know it. You divorced him, and still he came back to this world time and time again. Because he loved us. Now he’s gone, and we don’t know how to comfort each other.”

  “If he’d loved us, he’d have given up the rest.”

  Black-and-white, Breen realized. How sad it had to be to live in a world of black-and-white.

  “It’s sad you believe that. It makes me sorry for you. Sorry you refuse to see, or are simply incapable of seeing the joy and beauty he fought for. But I see it, I know it. I’ve awakened. I’m of the Fey. You’ll have to learn to deal with it.”

  “You won’t bring the unnatural into this house.”

  “Understood. You know how to reach me if and when you want.”

  “You’re staying here. You’re not going back.”

  “Of course I’m going back. I’m my father’s daughter,” she added, and walked out.

  And walked over a mile until she’d shaken off the worst of the anger and grief.

  She started to call an Uber, then just wound her way to a bus stop. A moment after she sat on the bench, Sedric sat beside her.

  “What—what are you doing here?”

  “Marg said you were after speaking with your mother this evening. Knowing it would be a hard thing, we decided you might want a bit of looking after. So Marg conjured a temporary portal—just to keep an eye on you for the evening. But you looked to me as if you could use a bit of company. You walked a long way. I’m fond of long walks myself when I’m in the way of being upset.”

  “She . . . believes what I am, what my father was, what we have is unnatural. An aberration. And still, when I told her he was dead, I saw her face. She loved him. Nan was right. But she blamed him for not forsaking Talamh, for not pretending to be something he wasn’t. I wasn’t kind to her.”

  It surprised Breen when he put an arm around her. Surprised her more when she leaned her head on his shoulder. “I said hard things. I felt them. I needed to get them out of me. I had to come back for this. Not just this, but it was something I had to do.”

  “And now it’s done so you’ll be better for it.”

  She felt sick and sad, and shook her head. “Will I?”

  “Sure and you will. When something’s stuck in your craw, you can’t feel strong and steady.”

  “I’m not there yet. I told her I sold a book, and she tried to make it seem like nothing. Even wrong somehow.”

  He turned his head, brushed a kiss over her hair.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she muttered.

  “Not a bit. Now tell me what Marco said when you told him of it.”

  “He cried a little. He was so happy for me.”

  “And there’s what matters, isn’t it? Here’s the bus now. Should I ride home with you?”

  “I’m going to Sally�
�s.”

  “Ah, what a fine place that is. What good craic!”

  “Do you want to come?”

  Obviously touched, he smiled at her. “I might next time if I’m round and about, but I’ll go home myself and tell your nan you’re with friends.”

  “Thanks, Sedric.” She got up, walked to the bus door. “I miss your lemon biscuits.”

  “You’ll have some when you come home.”

  She got on the bus, took her seat. She started to lift her hand in a wave. And shouldn’t have been surprised he’d vanished.

  When she walked into Sally’s, she expected to feel assaulted by the noise, the crowd, and found herself the opposite.

  Here it was the familiar, the strange comfort of home.

  While still too early for the first formal show and the real crowd, she recognized Larue onstage as Judy sweetly singing “Over the Rainbow.”

  She’d been there, Breen thought. She’d been over the rainbow.

  She glanced around for Sally, for Derrick, and when she didn’t see them, headed straight to the bar and Marco.

  He set a flute of champagne in front of her.

  “Champagne?”

  “Sally said to pop open the good stuff for you to celebrate your book.”

  “My book?” she repeated with a deadeye stare.

  Though he tried to look shamefaced, he couldn’t pull it off. “I’m weak. I couldn’t help myself. I’m putting an order in for loaded nachos ’cause I know damn well you didn’t eat. Plenty of protein coming your way in a tasty package.”

  “Then you’re forgiven, because I could eat.”

  She started to reach for her glass, but was spun around on the stool, gathered in, lifted up.

  Sally, as Cher in the crowd-pleasing white jumpsuit and long black wig, scooped her up.

  “Here she is, ladies and gentlemen, the world traveler, the bestselling author, the belle of any ball, Breen Siobhan Kelly!”

  Laughing, she hugged back. “The book’s not even published yet.”

  “I’m a never-miss fortune-teller, and I’m going to do ‘Gypsies, Tramps & Thieves’ just for you.”

  “I missed you and everything about you.”

  “Catch it, because it’s coming right back at you.”