Morrigan's Cross - Circle Trilogy 1 Part 13

"Who's flying the plane?"

"King's got it for the moment. We'll be landing at dawn." "Good. Great." She barely stifled a yawn.

"I'll throw some coffee and breakfast together so... Dawn?"

"Aye, dawn. I need a good cloud cover.

Rain would be a bonus. Can you do this?

Otherwise King will land it. He's capable, and I'll be spending the rest of the flight and the day in the back of the plane."

"I said I could do it, and I will."

"We can do it," Glenna corrected.

"Well, be quick about it, will you? I've been singed a time or two and it's unpleasant."

"You're welcome," she muttered when he left them. "I'll get a few things from my travel case."

"I don't need them." Hoyt brushed her aside, got up to stand in the aisle. "This time, it'll be my way. He's my brother, after all."

"Your way then. How can I help?"

"Call the vision to your mind. Clouds and rain. Rain and clouds." He retrieved his staff.

"See it, feel it, smell it. Thick and steady, with the sun trapped behind the gloom. Dusky light, light without power or harm. See it, feel it, smell it."

He held his staff in both hands, braced his legs apart for balance, then raised it. "I call the rain, the black clouds that cover the sky. I call the clouds, fat with rain that streams from the heavens. Swirl and close and lay thick."

She felt it spin, spin out from him, spin out to the air. The plane shook, bucked, trembled, but he stood as if he stood on a floor of granite. The tip of the staff glowed blue.

He turned to her, nodded. "That should do it."

"Well. Okay then. I'll make coffee."

They landed in gloom with the rain like a gray curtain. A little overdone, in Glenna's opinion, and it was going to be a miserable drive from the airport to wherever the h.e.l.l they were going.

But she stepped off the plane and onto Ireland, and there it was. A connection, instant and surprising even to her. She had a quick sense of memory of a farm-green hills, stone fences and a white house with clothes flapping on a line in a brisk wind. There was a garden in the dooryard with dahlias big as dinner plates and calla lilies white as wishes.

It was gone almost as quickly as it had come. She wondered if it was her memory from another time, another life, or simply a call through her blood. Her grandmother's mother had come from Ireland, from a farm in Kerry.

She had brought her linens and her best dishes-and her magic-to America with her.

She waited for Hoyt to deplane. This would always be home for him, she saw it now in the pleasure that ran over his face. Whether it was a busy airport or an empty field, this was his place. And part, very much a part, she understood now, of what he would die to save.

"Welcome home."

"It looks nothing like it did."

"Parts of it will." She took his hand and squeezed. "Nice job with the weather, by the way."

"Well, that at least, is familiar."

King trotted over, wet as a seal. His thick dreads dripped rain. "Cain's arranging for most of the stuff to be delivered by truck. Take what you can carry, or have to have right now. The rest'll be along in a couple hours."

"Where are we going?" Glenna demanded.

"He's got a place here." King shrugged.

"So that's where we're going." They had a van, and even then it was a tight squeeze. And, Glenna discovered, another sort of adventure altogether to sweep along through the pouring rain on wet roads, many of which seemed as narrow as a willow stem.

She saw hedgerows ripe with fuchsia, and those hills of wet emerald rolling up and back into the dull gray sky. She saw houses with flowers blooming in dooryards. Not the one of her quick image, but close enough to make her smile.

Something here had belonged to her once.

Now maybe it would again.

"I know this place," Hoyt murmured. "I know this land."

"See." Glenna patted his hand. "I knew some of it would be the same for you."

"No, this place, this land." He pushed up to grab Cian by the shoulder. "Cian."

"Mind the driver," Cian ordered and shook off his brother's hand before turning between the hedgerows and onto a narrow spit of a land that wound back through a dense forest.

"G.o.d," Hoyt breathed. "Sweet G.o.d."

The house was stone, alone among the trees, and quiet as a tomb. Old and wide, with the jut of a tower and the stone ap.r.o.ns of terraces. In the gloom, it looked deserted and out of its time.

And still there was a garden outside the door, of roses and lilies and the wide plates of dahlia. Foxglove sprang tall and purple among the trees.

"It's still here." Hoyt spoke in a voice thick with emotion. "It survived. It still stands."

Understanding now, Glenna gave his hand another squeeze. "It's your home."

"The one I left only days ago. The one I left nearly a thousand years ago. I've come home."

Chapter 7

It wasn't the same. The furnis.h.i.+ngs, the colors, the light, even the sound his footsteps made crossing the floor had changed, turning the familiar into the foreign. He recognized a few pieces-some candlestands and a chest. But they were in the wrong places.

Logs had been set in the hearth, but were yet unlit. And there were no dogs curled up on the floor or thumping their tails in greeting.

Hoyt moved through the rooms like a ghost. Perhaps that's what he was. His life had begun in this house, and so much of it had been woven together under its roof or on its grounds.

He had played here and worked here, eaten and slept here.

But that was hundreds of years in the past.

So perhaps, in a very true sense, his life had ended here as well.

His initial joy in seeing the house dropped away with a weight of sadness for all that he'd lost.

Then he saw, encased in gla.s.s on the wall, one of his mother's tapestries. He moved to it, touched his fingers to the gla.s.s as she came winging back to him. Her face, her voice, her scent were as real as the air around him.

"It was the last she'd finished before... "

"I died," Cian finished. "I remember. I came across it in an auction. That, and a few other things over time. I was able to acquire the house oh, about four hundred years ago now, I suppose. Most of the land as well."

"But you don't live here any longer."

"It's a bit out of the way for me, and not convenient to my work or pleasures. I have a caretaker whom I've sent off until I order him back. And I generally come over once a year or so."

Hoyt dropped his hand, turned. "It's changed."

"Change is inevitable. The kitchen's been modernized. There's plumbing and electricity.

Still it's drafty for all that. The bedrooms upstairs are furnished, so take your choices. I'm going up to get some sleep."

He started out, glanced back. "Oh, and you can stop the rain if you've a mind to. King, give me a hand will you, hauling some of this business up?"

"Sure. Very cool digs, if you don't mind a little spooky." King hauled up a chest the way another man might have picked up a briefcase, and headed up the main stairs.

"Are you all right?" Glenna asked Hoyt.

"I don't know what I am." He went to the window, drew back heavy drapes to look out on the rain-drenched forest. "It's here, this place, the stones set by my ancestors. I'm grateful for that."

"But they're not here. The family you left behind. It's hard what you're doing. Harder for you than the rest of us."

"We all share it."

"I left my loft. You left your life." She stepped to him, brushed a kiss over his cheek.

She had thought to offer to fix a hot meal, but saw that what he needed most just then was solitude.

"I'm going up, grab a room, a shower and a bed."

He nodded, continued to stare out the window. The rain suited his mood, but it was best to close the spell. Even when he had, it continued to rain, but in a fine, misty drizzle.

The fog crawled across the ground, twined around the feet of the rose bushes.

Could they be his mother's still? Unlikely, but they were roses, after all. That would have pleased her. He wondered if in some way having her sons here again, together, would please her as well.

How could he know? How would he ever know?

He flashed fire into the hearth. It seemed more like home with the fire snapping. He didn't choose to go up, not yet. Later, he thought, he'd take his case up to the tower. He'd make it his own again. Instead he dug out his cloak, swirled it on and stepped out into the thin summer rain.

He walked toward the stream first where the drenched foxgloves swayed their heavy bells and the wild orange lilies Nola had particularly loved spread like spears of flame. There should be flowers in the house, he thought. He'd have to gather some before dusk. There had always been flowers in the house.

He circled around, drawing in the scent of damp air, wet leaves, roses. His brother kept the place tended; Hoyt couldn't fault him for that.

He saw the stables were still there-not the same, but in the same spot. They were larger than they'd been, with a jut to one side that boasted a wide door.

He found it locked, so opened it with a focused thought. It opened upward to reveal a stone floor and some sort of car. Not like the one in New York, he noted. Not like the cab, or the van they had traveled in from the airport. This was black and lower to the ground. On its hood was a s.h.i.+ning silver panther. He ran his hands over it.

It puzzled him that there were so many different types of cars in this world. Different sizes and shapes and colors. If one was efficient and comfortable, why did they need so many other kinds?

There was a long bench in the area as well, and all manner of fascinating-looking tools hanging on the wall or layered in the drawers of a large red chest. He spent some time studying them, and the stack of timber that had been planed smooth and cut into long lengths.

Tools, he thought, wood, machines, but no life. No grooms, no horses, no cats slinking about hunting mice. No litter of wriggling pups for Nola to play with. He closed and locked the door behind him again, moved down the outside length of the stable.

He wandered into the tack room, comforted somewhat by the scents of leather and oil. It was well organized, he saw, just as the stall for the car had been. He ran his hands over a saddle, crouched to examine it, and found it not so different from the one he'd used.

He toyed with reins and bridles, and for a moment missed his mare as he might have missed a lover.

He pa.s.sed through a door. The stone floor had a slight slope, with two stalls on one side, one on the other. Fewer than there had been, but larger, he noted. The wood was smooth and dark. He could smell hay and grain, and...

He moved, quickly now, down the stone floor.

A coal-black stallion stood in the last of three stalls. It gave Hoyt's heart a hard and happy leap to see it. There were still horses after all-and this one, he noted, was magnificent.

It pawed the ground, laid back its ears when Hoyt opened the stall door. But he held up both hands, began to croon softly in Irish.

In response, the horse kicked the rear of the stall and blew out a warning.

"That's all right then, that's fine. Who could blame you for being careful with a stranger? But I'm just here to admire you, to take in your great handsome self, is all I'm about. Here, have a sniff why don't you? See what you think. Ah, it's a sniff I said, not a nip."

With a chuckle, Hoyt drew back his hand a fraction as the horse bared his teeth.

He continued to speak softly and stand very still with his hand out while the horse made a show of snorting and pawing. Deciding bribery was the best tack, Hoyt conjured an apple.

When he saw the interest in the horse's eye, he lifted it, took a healthy bite himself.

"Delicious. Would you be wanting some?" Now the horse stepped forward, sniffed, snorted, then nipped the apple from Hoyt's palm. As he chomped it, he graciously allowed himself to be stroked.

"I left a horse behind. A fine horse I'd had for eight years. I called her Aster, for she had a star shape right here." He stroked two fingers down the stallion's head. "I miss her. I miss it all. For all the wonders of this world, it's hard to be away from what you know."