Chapter Nineteen

 

As she rode with Adam in his car on the drive back to Ithaca, Brigit couldn’t stop thinking about the future. It loomed before her like a gaping black hole, devoid of life. Devoid of happiness. Devoid of anything good at all.

Because it would be devoid of Adam.

She’d find a way to get back to him. She would, someday. Though her sister had said the battle to regain control of Rush might take years, Brigit was determined.

And afraid. Terrified that the time when she could find her way back to Adam would never come. Or that by the time she finally was free of her promise to her sister, it would be too late. He would have found someone else.

He held her close to his side, driving one-handed. His arm tight around her as if he didn’t want to let her go.

At Bridin’s gentle insistence, she and Raze followed in the other car, Brigit’s car. Bridin had known Brigit wanted to be with Adam. Known she’d needed to be close to him, especially now, when she was so very close to losing him forever.

And Bridin had known other things, too.

Early this morning, while Adam had been sleeping after making love to her all night long, Brigit had been unable to rest. She’d left the hotel, slipping through the lobby and going outside to put her bare feet in the cool grass. To feel the morning dew on her toes and the morning air in her lungs and the morning sun on her face. To be sure everything hadn’t turned black and withered and died the way her heart felt as if it were doing right now.

And her sister found her there. She’d come up softly, so Brigit hadn’t heard her approach. And she’d settled herself down in the wet grass beside her.

Brigit tipped her head to the side, resting it on her sister’s shoulder. “I love you, you know.”

“I know,” Bridin said, and rested one hand in Brigit’s hair. “And I love you, too, little sister. I wish...I wish I could go back without you. I wish I didn’t have to hurt you this way. If there were another way—”

“I know.” Brigit closed her eyes to prevent her tears. “Is there...is there any way he could go with me?”

“Give up all he knows, his entire world, to enter one at war, where he could be killed at any moment? Would you ask it of him?”

Brigit lowered her head, ashamed.

“No, sister, there’s no way for him to come along. The doorway allowed him to pass once...because he needed to see it, so it would be burned forever into his memory. It was his fate to guide us back there. But it won’t let him through again. Very few mortals are ever allowed to pass. And never more than once in, and once out again. It’s that way for our people’s protection.”

Brigit sniffed, and brushed a hand over her eyes. “I should have known you would have suggested it yourself if it were possible.”

“I would have.”

Lowering her eyes, Brigit sighed. “I don’t deserve him, that’s why this is the way things are turning out. I haven’t been a good person.”

Bridin’s hand clasped Brigit’s. “You are good, Brigit. You are. Don’t doubt that anymore. You’ve risked everything you cherish, even your own life, to be sure the people you love most are cared for and safe. There’s nothing bad about that.”

“But the paintings—”

“You have a gift,” Bridin told her, echoing the words of Sister Mary Agnes so long ago. “So do I. Our mother had it, too, Brigit. She painted all the illustrations in the books she made for us.”

Brigit hadn’t thought about that before, but realized now it went right along with the rest of the story. Their mother had painted those vellum pages. So naturally she had inherited the talent from her. From Maire.

“You don’t have to copy other people’s work, you know,” Bridin went on. “If you just imagine the image you want to paint, just fix it in your mind...Whatever it is you want to create, create it in your mind first, and keep it there. Focus on it the way you do on another painting. And paint, Brigit. It will work. You’ll see.”

It did sound as if it would work. That Brigit had never had the confidence or maybe the desire to try it before, surprised her. Why hadn’t she seen what was so obvious to her sister?

“You are going to paint a storybook for your own little one. Carry on the family tradition.”

“My own...?”

Bridin ran one hand over Brigit’s belly, and for the first time she smiled fully.

Brigit choked. “You mean I’m“

“You mustn’t tell Adam. He’ll never let you go back to Rush if you do.”

Brigit’s joy in her sister’s revelation died a slow, painful death. Her first thought had been of sharing this with Adam. But she knew her sister was right. Telling him would only give him more reason for grief in the coming months and years.

And yet keeping the truth from him was just as wrong.

“Adam is waking, Brigit. He’ll be worried about you if he finds you gone. Go on. Go to him.”

Brigit swallowed hard. Her eyes were watering as she gave her sister a ferocious hug, and then hurried back to her room.

Now, in the car beside Adam, she told herself again and again that she might be able to survive without him, after all. Because she was carrying Adam’s child, and so she’d have a part of him with her always.

It was a solemn group that marched through the woods to the spot Adam had visited as a child. He wasn’t certain he could find the way back there, and part of him, most of him, actually, hoped he wouldn’t be able to. Hoped it simply wasn’t there anymore.

But he had a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that it would be there. Just the way he remembered it. And he was about to lose the woman he loved forever.

Yet he stoically forced himself to do what he knew he must do. He loved Brigit too much to deprive her of returning to Rush. To her own world, her own people. He knew fully well she’d never felt as if she had fit in here, in the mortal world.

He’d already asked Bridin about going with them, and he’d known the answer before she’d explained. He’d known it in his heart. This was the end.

He led the way, as the four of them hiked up the hill behind his house, and into the woods. And his muscles seemed lumbering and slow, and his chest felt heavy. His feet barely dragged over the uneven ground, and with every step, his throat tightened more and made it harder to breathe. His eyes burned like fire every time he looked at Brigit.

God she was beautiful. The sun slanted through the trees, setting her ebony hair on fire. Her eyes glimmered when she glanced his way, and she was battling tears, too, though they brimmed more deeply each time their eyes met.

“I love you,” he said, for no other reason than that he had to.

“I love you,” she replied in a tortured whisper, and she squeezed his hand.

God, how the hell was he going to live without her?

“Are we close?” Bridin called from behind.

Adam shook his head, looking back over his shoulder at her. Her blue eyes glittered with anticipation, but he saw the sympathy there, too. She didn’t like doing this to her sister. Even old Razor-Face seemed to be battling tears.

“Bridin, I have to warn you,” Adam said, though he had to clear his throat several times in order to make his words audible. “I came out here not too long ago, trying to find the spot, but I couldn’t do it.”

“Of course you couldn’t. You came here a bitter, untrusting, cynical man. Your heart was older than Raze’s whiskers.”

“My whiskers and I resent that remark, Bridey.” Though Raze’s tone was light, Adam could hear the sadness in his voice.

“Today,” Bridin went on, “you come with the heart of a child, Adam. Today, you’ll be able to see the path as clearly as a four-lane highway. For though you’re crying inside, your heart is filled with love and goodness.”

He looked down, shaking his head from side to side. And then he stopped, because he did see it. A wavering trail, and it was so much more vivid than any other animal path in the woods, so different. “Dammit,” he muttered.

“Adam?” Brigit seemed worried.

Bridin stepped forward. “You see it, don’t you?”

He nodded, but his eyes were on Brigit, not her sister. And he saw his own heartbreak reflected there as her tears began spilling over.

“Lead on, Adam,” Bridin said.

He did. Gently, he pushed Brigit behind him, and crouched down when they came to the berry briars. None of those fragrant white blossoms, this time. Instead the branches were heavy with fat blackberries.

“We have to crawl from here,” he told them.

“So, crawl then,” Bridin said.

As the three of them stood watching, Adam self-consciously dropped down on all fours. He crawled along into the arched tunnel of berry briars, and he wished he’d never emerge. He wished he could grab Brigit and run off into these woods and never be seen or heard from again.

But that wouldn’t be fair to her, would it? He’d be denying her the chance to fulfill her destiny. He kept going, peering behind him to see Brigit crawling in the same way he was. And he knew the others followed as well. The ground swelled, and he crept over the rise.

Finally, he emerged from the briar patch. And he blinked, because he was on the far side of the same grassy hill he remembered. Despondency thickened his blood until he thought it crawled through his veins like molasses. He walked halfway down the miniature hillside. And then he stopped and just stood, staring into the dark mouth of the cave.

Shaking his head in wonder, he turned and watched the others emerge from the briars, one by one. Brigit hurried to his side, and slid her arms around his waist, burying her head against his chest as a loud sob escaped against her will. He held her close.

Bridin came next, and then Raze. There was a long moment of silence, while they all stood staring.

“Well,” Bridin said at last. “This is it, then.”

Raze moved toward her, put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m going with you, Bridey.”

She shook her head. “It will be dangerous.”

“Bridey, girl,” Raze said, and then he turned to Brigit. “You girls need to know something. Your father, John, he asked me to watch out for you. Way back when you were just babies. I was no more than a bum. Hell, what did I know about caring for little girls? I was the one who left you at St. Mary’s, and delivered your father’s note, ‘cause I knew they’d care for you there. And when you got separated, I went with you, Bridey, because I sensed you were the one who needed me most. I lost myself for a short time, when that Dark Prince got me under his spell, but I came around soon enough. I’d sworn to be guardian to both of you, for as long as I could. This doorway will open for me, Bridey. Your father promised me it would.”

Brigit clung to Adam as Bridin hugged the old man hard.

“Aside from you girls, I got no ties. And there’s nothing in this world I’ll miss.” He touched Bridin’s shoulder. “I want to go there, Bridey. I want to see it.”

Smiling gently, Bridin nodded.

“It’s just a cave,” Adam whispered, closing his eyes as he held Brigit still harder. “Maybe there’s nothing on the other side. We don’t even know—”

“You know,” Bridin told him. “It shows in your eyes, Adam Reid. Come along, and walk us to the gateway. It’s time.”

Brigit clung harder for a second. But then she slipped out of Adam’s embrace. Bridin bent over and crawled into the cave. Raze behind her. Grating his teeth, Adam followed with Brigit close to him, all the way. Inside, they found the larger, room-like area where he’d played as a child, and he ran his hands over the stone to feel the spot where he’d carved his name such a long time ago.

“Come,” Bridin said. She led them once around the room, and then back to the entrance. And then she was scuttling back through the passage, toward the gleaming yellow light at its end.

Adam crawled behind her, his stomach knotting, his pulse pounding. He kept telling himself it wouldn’t be there. It wouldn’t. It couldn’t.

And he emerged, and stood just in front of the cave’s entrance. Before him there was a wall of dense vapors—a wavery film of something that looked the way heat waves look when they rise from hot pavement. And he put his hand on it, but couldn’t push it through.

“Rush,” Brigit whispered, as she emerged from the cave and straightened. She turned in a slow circle, looking all around her, and Adam knew she didn’t see the barrier. For her, it wasn’t there. Just as it hadn’t been there for him when he was a child. She could pass through...but he’d be unable to.

His heart contracted painfully.

Brigit threw herself into his arms, sobbing aloud now, clinging to him with surprising strength.

“It’s going to kill me, Adam. God, I don’t want to leave you. I love you. I love you!”

“I know.” His tears flowed freely now, and he stroked her hair, kissed her face. “I know, baby. I love you, too. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”

“Look there,” Raze said, pointing, and everyone followed his gaze.

Castle spires stood beyond the trees in the distance. Softly gray and silver, mingling with the clouds.

“The Kingdom of Rush,” Bridin whispered.

She turned then, touched Brigit’s shoulder, drawing her away from Adam just a little, and pointing. And Brigit looked toward those towers, and her eyes widened a little, in wonder.

Bridin’s eyes filled with tears as she stared at those spires, and Brigit reached out with a shaking hand, to brush them away.

“Leave them,” Bridin told her. “I haven’t been able to cry since I left here.”

“Bridin...”

“I have to go, Brigit. It’s my destiny. You know that.”

“I know. I’m coming.” She turned back to Adam, and he held her once more, knowing the time had come to let her go. He loved her, God, how he loved her.

He dipped his head, and kissed her long and deep. And then he straightened away from her. “Just know I love you,” he told her. “Never forget that, Brigit. Now go, go on.”

Covering her face with her hands, Brigit turned and ran away from him, sobbing out loud, as she passed through that shimmering veil, and disappeared into the forest beyond it.

“You’ll be rewarded, Adam Reid.”

“I’ll be in hell, Bridin. And if you let anything happen to her...” He shook his head slowly, and ducked back into the cave. Into blackness and emptiness. And he knew he’d never emerge from it again. He’d never feel the sunlight. He’d never smile. He’d never be happy again. Not without Brigit.

He made his way to the large room inside, before his strength gave out. His legs wouldn’t hold him any longer, so he sank to the floor with his back braced against the cold stone wall, and he broke down. Grief pounded his body like a hurricane, and he wondered if he’d ever find the strength to get up again.

Brigit sank to the ground beneath an odd-looking tree, with pictures in the swirls of its bark, and she sobbed.

“My sister.”

She sniffed, shook her head, refusing to look up. “No. It’s no good, Bridin, can’t you see that? I’m no good to you here. I’ll never be any good without Adam. I need him.”

“This is Rush, Brigit. This is your home. It’s where you were born.”

“But my heart isn’t here. It’s back there, on the other side, with Adam.”

She cried softly, and in a second, her sister whispered, “I know.”

The serenity in Bridin’s voice reached her. She finally lifted her head, met her sister’s gaze.

“I’m sorry,” Bridin told her, and she lowered herself down to the moss-covered ground, and put her arms around Brigit. “I’m so sorry. But you’re right. You’ll be no good here. I can see that. And I believe his love is true. Because he loved you enough to let you go. And I believe yours is true as well, because you gave him up in order to save his life.”

“What difference does it make now?” Brigit bit her lip, but her tears continued flowing all the same. “I’ve left him back there. And you said yourself we can’t pass through the damned doorway unless we do it together.”

“It’s true. I needed you to get back. But I do not need you in order to remain. I can do that all by myself. My place is here.” She stroked Brigit’s hair, leaned close, and kissed her cheek. “I thought yours was, too. I thought once you set foot here, once you breathed the air of Rush, you’d...” Her voice trailed off and she shook her head. “But no. Your place is back there, in the mortal realm, with Adam.”

Brigit stopped crying. She met her sister’s eyes. “But how...”

“There’s one way, Brigit.” Bridin reached up to the back of her own neck, unclasped her pendant. “If one of us has possession of both the pendants...either of us may pass through the doorway alone.”

Brigit frowned, shaking her head slowly. “I don’t understand. Why didn’t you say so in the first place, Bridin? I’d have given you the pendant if that’s—”

“Giving up your pendant is only symbolic,

Brigit. It stands for a far greater sacrifice. It means giving up your magic.”

Brigit blinked in surprise. Giving up the magic? But she’d only just found it.

“I love you, my darling little sister.” Bridin bowed her head, and held her pendant in an opened palm. “I give you my—”

“No!” Brigit jerked herself rigid when she realized what her sister meant to do. “No, Bridin. You mustn’t. You’re the one who needs the magic. You’re the one who’s going to stay here, and fight this Dark Prince for the throne. No.” And she gave a small tug on her own pendant, freeing it, and pressing it into her sister’s hand along with the other one. “I’m the one who gives my magic to you. And my pendant. I won’t need it where I’m going.”

Bridin bit her lip, closed her palm. “Thank you,” she whispered.

“I love you, Bridin.”

“We’ll see each other again,” Bridin insisted, nodding hard as if to insure it would be true. “When the kingdom is safe Brigit, I’ll come through again.”

Brigit hugged her sister hard. “Thank you. Thank you, Bridin.”

“Go on. Go back to your Adam.”

Brigit straightened away from her, and turned. Raze had been standing nearby, watching with damp eyes and an occasional sniffle. But then he went rigid, and waved a hand to hush them, and Brigit listened, hearing the sound of hoofbeats in the distance. “Someone’s coming.”

“Go!” Bridin gripped Brigit’s arm, pushing her back toward the cave. “Go on, now before something happens to you.”

“You go,” Brigit whispered back. “Go, hide in the forest. Hurry.”

Bridin nodded, turned away. But she whirled around, once again, to hug Brigit with all her might.

And then Raze grabbed Brigit and kissed her cheek. “I’ll watch out for her, my girl. Don’t you worry.”

“Goodbye, Raze. I love you!”

Raze turned away as the hoofbeats drew nearer. He gripped Bridin’s arm and ran off into the trees, and they were soon invisible within the embrace of that mystical forest. The forest that had once been Brigit’s home. She stared at it, and at those castle spires beyond, for only an instant.

And then Brigit turned and ran to the doorway without a backward glance. She ducked her head and crouched low as she crept back inside the cave.

She found Adam there. He sat on the floor and his face was wet with tears that shimmered in the darkness. He seemed lost in agony, and he only blinked in confusion when he saw her.

Then he blinked again, and slowly got to his feet. “Brigit?”

“It’s all right, Adam,” she told him, hurrying to him, pressing herself close as he enfolded her in his strong, trembling arms.

“God, is this real? If it is, Brigit, I’m sorry, but I can’t let you go back. I can’t let you go. It’s impossible, and it can’t be right. Not when it feels so damned wrong. Not when—”

“Shhsh.” She tipped her head up, and planted a brief kiss on his mouth. “I told you, it’s all right. I’m staying.”

He just stared in disbelief, shaking his head slowly. “Staying?”

“Yes. Yes, Adam.”

Gradually, his lips pulled into a smile, and his eyes widened. “Staying?” he asked again. “Jesus, Brigit, say it again.”

“I’m staying, Adam. Right here with you, forever if you think you can stand me that long.”

His arms tightened around her waist, and he lifted her right off her feet, turning her in a circle. Then he let her slide down the front of him until her feet touched the ground, and he bent his head to kiss her, and kiss her, and kiss her.

And when he came up for a breath of air, he held her hard, burying his face in her hair and inhaling. “I love you, Brigit. More than anything in the world. I want to marry you.” He drew away so he could look down into her eyes. “Say you’ll be my wife.”

“I think that would be for the best,” she told him, and she gripped his hands and brought them down until his palms rested on her abdomen. “Since my sister tells me I’m carrying your son.”

He closed his eyes. Bit his lower lip. And she marveled at the tear that rolled down his cheek a second later. “You’re not a fairy,” he whispered. “You’re an angel, Brigit. You’re the angel sent from heaven to save my life. To give me back my life. And I’m going to cherish you...” His hands rubbed her belly gently. “...And our baby, for as long as I live. I promise.”

“I’m not magic anymore,” she told him.

“Oh, yes you are, angel.” He dropped to his knees, and pressed a kiss to the part of her that sheltered his child. “Cause if this isn’t magic, I don’t know what is.”

Then he rose, and kissed her. It was an endless kiss filled with promises, and dreams......and magic.