They dipped down, up again, to avoid branches. “There was a time you’d have given us a boost.” Turning her head, Morena looked into Breen’s shocked eyes.
“This isn’t happening.”
“I should drop you on your head and knock the sense back in you.”
Instead, she burst out of the woods, skimmed over the wet grass and garden. She set Breen down on the back patio.
“I’m going in to dry off a bit.”
The dog followed Morena inside as if they both belonged there. Amish landed on a nearby branch and folded his wings to wait.
Shivering now, Breen felt the rain soaking her to the skin. It felt real, but how could it be when she was obviously still in bed having a very long, very strange, very lucid dream?
She stepped inside. Morena, her jacket drying on a peg, offered the dog something out of a jar on the counter.
“He deserves one,” she said. “I see my grandmother brought them for him, and there, a bowl for his food, one for his water. The sack there would be his food.”
“Your grandmother.”
“Aye, Marg would have asked her to see to it. You know my grandparents. They’re Finola and Seamus Mac an Ghaill. McGill. My nan settled you and your friend into the cottage Marg made for you, and Grandda’s been showing you how to garden again.”
“Again.”
“Even when we were babes you had a way with living things. Plants, animals, people.” Morena wandered the kitchen as she spoke. “Not so fine a way now with people, I see, as you’ve yet to light the fire to warm me or offer me a drink before I take my leave.”
Her ears rang. Spike in blood pressure, and no wonder, Breen thought—with she believed admirable calm. “You had wings.”
“Had and have.”
“Like . . . Tinker Bell.”
“Oh, I know that story, and it’s a grand one. But she would have been a pixie. One of the Sidhe for certain, but a pixie. They’re very small.”
“I’m not asleep,” Breen said slowly. “I’m dripping on the kitchen floor, and I’m cold and I’m wet.”
“Then light the bleeding fire.”
“I’ll light the bleeding fire.” As if dreaming, she walked into the living room, where she’d set the logs for a fresh fire only that morning.
A lifetime and world ago.
She set the starter under the log, reached for the matches.
“Really now, that’s how you’d do it?” Morena, smelling of rain and forest, crouched beside her. “To light a fire is the first power of the Wise, and so a child must be taught, and carefully, of its powers, its dangers, its benefits.”
“I don’t know any other way to light a fire.”
“That makes me sad for you,” Morena replied as Breen struck the match.
Breen simply sat on the floor when the starter caught. “I can’t think. I know this can’t be real, but—”
“You know it is. I saw wine in the kitchen place, so I’m getting some for the both of us.”
“Tell me how my father died.”
“That’s for Marg.” Morena pushed to her feet. “It’s not right that I would take what’s hers to tell. I can say I know no man in any of the worlds was better than your da. I’m getting the wine.”
The dog stretched across Breen’s lap, and somehow she felt comfort stroking his damp curls.
“What kind of dog is this?”
“He’s an Irish water spaniel, and you can trust he has a strong heart and a true one or Marg wouldn’t have chosen him for you.”
“What’s his name?”
“Well now, that’s for you to choose, isn’t it? But we all have called him Bollocks because as soon as he was weaned he could find trouble without looking.”
Breen choked out a laugh. “Bollocks?”
“He earned that name, though Marg trained him well since we dubbed him. He’ll sit when you tell him, and do his business in the out-of-doors, and he won’t chew your boots, though he once had a taste for mine.”
Morena sat, handed Breen a glass, then scrubbed a hand over the dog’s head. “Didn’t you, you scoundrel? She’s pined for you, has Marg, all these years. That I can tell you. And I’ll confess I went against her to go through to meet you that day in the woods by the castle.”
“How did you get there? You flew,” Breen answered herself. “On the wings.”
“I’ve friends, and good ones, but I’ve never had one so tight in my heart as you. It may be we won’t like each other so much now with the years that passed.” She shrugged, drank. “But I wanted