the falconry school? It’s a little thank-you for Morena—I didn’t get her last name. She let me do an informal hawk walk this morning when I met her and Amish—the hawk—in the woods.”
“Isn’t that lovely?” The young brunette on the desk took the gift bag. “I’d be happy to, of course. Enjoy the rest of your evening.”
She intended to. She walked to her room, pried off her boots, let out a long sigh as she wondered how many miles she’d put on them—and her feet—in the last two days.
Worth every step.
Since it was the last night, she decided she could take a minute or two to freshen her makeup.
As she checked the results, a knock sounded on her door.
“It’s been five minutes, Marco,” she muttered. “Okay, ten.”
But she opened the door to the brunette from the desk.
“Sorry to bother you, miss, but I checked with the falconry school—with my cousin, as it happens, who works there. He tells me they have no Morena, nor a hawk called Amish.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It may be you misunderstood the names. My cousin would be happy to check in the morning if any of the falconers met with you, though no one mentioned it through the day. I didn’t want to keep the gift until we find the right person, you see.”
“Yes, of course, thank you.”
“Anything more I can do for you, Ms. Kelly?”
“No, no, thanks. Sorry for the trouble.”
“No trouble at all. Have a lovely evening.”
But she hadn’t misunderstood the names, Breen thought as she shut the door. And she sure as hell hadn’t imagined the experience.
Morena and Amish—she could see, and hear, them both perfectly. She could remember the thrill of watching the hawk fly to her glove, and the way he’d looked right into her eyes.
Then again, Morena hadn’t specifically said she was with the school. Wasn’t it possible she decided to fly her own hawk on castle grounds?
Breen thought that might be frowned upon, even illegal. She wouldn’t push it, she decided as she tucked the bag in her suitcase. She could get the woman in trouble.
And she remembered the way Morena had looked back at her, told her they’d see each other again.
Then she’d just . . . melted into the trees. Just disappeared.
Like the man with the silver hair.
“Maybe I’m losing my mind.” Feeling the pressure in her chest, she closed her eyes, forced herself to breathe through it. “Maybe I imagined it all.”
She opened her eyes again. “But I didn’t. I absolutely didn’t.”
So she wouldn’t worry about it. She’d go have that drink with Marco.
And she didn’t see any point in mentioning any of this to him.
That night she dreamed herself a child, one of no more than two or three. She sat, crying, inside a cage with glass walls. Outside the cage the water flowed, pale green.
She cried for her mother, and her father, but they didn’t come. She cried for someone she called Nan, but no one came.
Outside the glass walls in that flickering light stood a shadow she knew to be a man. But she couldn’t see him. She didn’t cry for him because she feared him, even as a child of no more than two or three.
When he spoke, his voice was smooth and sweet as music. And false, somehow false.
“There now, my child, my blood, my own, your tears are foolish and weak, and no one can hear them. You have lessons to learn, to carefully learn. I’ll teach you to be all you are, and you’ll have toys, shiny and bright, and sweets, all the sweets your heart desires.”
“I want my ma, I want my da, I want my ma, I want my da. I want—”
“Silence!” Not smooth and sweet now, but a boom of thunder. “I’ll teach you what to want. I’ll show you what you can have. I am your mother, your father, your all now. Heed me or you’ll shed more than tears. Lessons to learn, and the first is obedience.”
As the shadow moved closer, she screamed. She screamed first in fear, then in the rage only a child can feel.
And with that scream, with that fisting of her hands, the glass shattered.
She was in her bed in the room with the sloped ceiling in the little house in Philadelphia. And a child still, a bit older, but a child still, she clung to her father as he stroked, rocked, soothed.
“Just a dream, mo stór, only a dream. Da’s here, right here. You’re safe and well and I’m right