doing up?”
“I couldn’t wait. Breen, I think I found the house.”
“The house?”
“You wanted something with some land so you could have a garden—and now you’ve got yourself a dog. I’ve been poking around at it—not real hard, but this one just sort of boom! It’s got four bedrooms, so you could have a writing space, and maybe we could have like, a music room. A really nice kitchen, too, and that whole open- concept deal. It’s not right in the city like now, but hey, a freaking acre.
“You still want a garden and all, right?”
She had to talk over the flutter in the back of her throat. “Yes.”
“I can commute into work, no problemo. It’s in a nice neighborhood, too—no Gayborhood, but there’s only one of them. Not one of those Stepford developments or anything either. Derrick’s cousin’s bestie’s a real estate lady, and she gave me the heads-up. It’s not on the market yet. They had a deal, but it fell through, so they’re juggling whatever, then tossing it back up in a few days.
“I’m gonna send you a link for the listing and pictures so you can see it, think about it, maybe talk to the money guy about it. You’re going to be home in a week, so I thought, well, shit some bricks, this is like meant.”
“A week.” She knew that, in her head, but she hadn’t said it out loud. She hadn’t made it real.
“You take a look. Maybe I’m off the mark, but I think I bull’seyed.” Then he frowned. “You still want a house, right?”
“Yes. Yes, I want a house.”
But where?
“Kinda ambushed you with it, I guess. I just got really juiced up. I know you’ve had one hell of a good time over there, but, girl, I miss you like a limb.”
“I miss you, too.” There, she could speak in absolute truth. “I really miss you, Marco. And Sally and Derrick, and everyone at Sally’s.”
“Don’t you go falling in love over there.”
Too late, she thought. She’d fallen in love with an entire world.
“But you should have yourself some hot Celtic sex.”
“Actually . . .”
“What?” He lifted his arms, did some jazz hands. “Tell me, tell Marco all.”
“When I get back.” Some things, like hot sex and selling a book, needed the face-to-face.
“Just a tiny little detail. I know you, so it’s just one guy. Is he gorgeous?”
“Yes, ridiculously.”
“Oh, my heart and balls! Send me a picture.”
“I don’t have one.”
“Jesus, girl, take one.”
“We’ll see.” She had to stop talking or she’d say too much. “I need to take the dog out.”
“You go on then. I’ll send you that link.
Seven days, my best girl.” “Seven days. I love you, Marco.”
“Love you back, squared. Text soon.”
She ended the call, then sat back.
Seven days.
She worked harder, studied longer, practiced obsessively. With Keegan and her grandmother she devised a spell to help her control her visions and dreams. Because it involved a potion, a charm, and an incantation, she worried about the complexity.
“You fight for the reins with a god, mo stór,” Marg told her. “You need more than power and skill. You need faith, in the light and in yourself.”
They sat, alone now, in Marg’s workshop, and Breen thought how much she’d miss this, just this when she returned to Philadelphia. Just sitting with her grandmother on a quiet afternoon, doing what she thought of as elemental magicks.
She carefully mixed a potion for settling nerves while Marg finished a balm for aching joints. The air smelled of herbs and candle wax.
And peace, she thought. If peace had a fragrance, she found it here.
“I believe in the light. I’ve seen and done too much this summer not to.”
“And yourself?”
“More than I did or ever thought I could. I know the reasons, even understand them, but I still regret and resent that I didn’t know you until this summer. I didn’t know myself, or Morena, Talamh, everything, everyone. I didn’t know what my father was, what he did, what he did for me.”
Marg sealed the lid on the balm, labeled it. “Now that you do?”
“I’m pulled in two directions, by two worlds.”
With a nod, Marg rose. She set the balm on a shelf, then walked to the stove to brew tea. That, Breen knew, signaled the pause in work, the time for talk.
“You’re of them both, have loyalties to both. This alone makes you unique. And troubled.”
She wore a dress today, a long one in pale, pale blue with a white apron over it. With her glorious hair