Blackthorns of the Forgotten Read online

  “She is our problem,” Sully corrected between raspy breaths.

  “Good night, Sully. Sleep well.” Gillean brushed his hand over the man’s hair.

  “Good night.”

  ~~~

  Sully valiantly fought the urge to sleep, waiting until he could hear Gillean’s even breaths of deep slumber. The singer rested in a reclining chair. He was oblivious to Sully’s movements. He had risen from the bed, checking the grandfather clock. It appeared too old to still do its job, but its elderly heart ticked away. The face registered 3AM. Turning the door handle and making ready to leave, he took one more look at the sleeping Gillean.

  Sully felt something squeeze his heart as he thought of all Gillean had taken on in choosing to take care of him, but he would not put this man at further risk. Sully was the one who had committed the unforgivable mistake; it was he who should be punished. He could not stay with Gillean if there was the possibility that his companion would have to pay for Sully’s mistake as well. He quickly scribbled a note and left it lying on the arm of the chair.

  “Goodbye, little singer, good luck to ya,” Sully whispered, as he closed the door.

  The moon hung low and bright. He had been walking for nearly a half-hour when he was confronted with a familiar voice.

  “Sully! Did you think you could do this and not be found out? Please go back to Gillean before I have to take you back with me.”

  Keelin was walking by his side, tugging at his sleeve. Sully took her hand in his, and kept walking.

  “No, Keelin. I told ya, I do not want to stay with him. I will not. He will work out what he has to do on his own, and I—”

  “You’ll pay a high price.” She gripped his hand. “You don’t know what you are doing! Return to Gillean before they know what you have done.”

  He stopped walking and looked into her clear eyes which transmitted pure honesty and caring. She was everything good in the world.

  “Ya mean they already know, and have sent ya to collect me. I’m so sorry I hurt ya.”

  “You didn’t hurt me, silly.” She gave him her toothy grin. “And the Elders don’t know you have left Gillean yet. I came here to warn you. Please do as I say, go back to him.”

  She shook his arm in desperation.

  He leaned down to kiss her forehead. “I won’t. If ya truly want to help me, you’ll return to the Elders and forget all about me. Ya never saw me tonight. If anyone asks, ya don’t know where I am.”

  “How long do you think you have until they know? Or Gillean could come looking for you himself,” she persisted.

  “He won’t. I took care of it. Me girl, just go back. Say ya never saw me, and don’t come to me again. Please, go.”

  He gently nudged her aside quickening his pace.

  “Sully! Sully!” she called after him in vain.

  ~~~

  “Sully! Sully!” It was daybreak and Gillean was wildly pacing the room, holding another letter and wondering desperately what had become of his new companion.

  After a frantic search of the bed & breakfast and nearby grounds, Gillean concluded Sully meant what he had written in his hastily scrawled late-night missal. He was gone. Sorry for the trouble he’d caused, and wished Gillean strength of heart. Sully wrote of his firm belief that Gillean would be better off without him, and concluded with a final plea for Gillean to keep his distance from Ciar. She was not to be trusted.

  Gillean agreed with Sully’s summation of the artist, which was why he reached for his mobile and dialed her number. He’d have to be most careful. He was a man in a cage with a ravenous tigress, but he meant to get some answers. He would help Sully, even if the way in which to do so was not quite clear to him yet.

  As he waited for Ciar to pick up, he glimpsed the guitar Keelin left with him. It was a full week since he’d laid his hands on an instrument. Odd, he thought. This hadn’t occurred since he was seventeen. Gillean chuckled at the idea that it would be children, albeit children from another dimension, who would cause him to reassess all that he valued.

  “Care to share with me what’s so funny, Gilly?”

  She caught him off guard.

  “So, you are at home.” Gillean stood with phone in hand, ready to do battle if necessary.

  “Of course I am, darling! I have been making many, delightful preparations in the hopes of cajoling you back to me.”

  Even in the midst of what had transpired Gillean could not quell the anticipation she aroused. When he’d first met his wife, Adara, he had been infatuated with her, no doubt. But he was a wild heart and his attention was easily diverted. She had been his greatest challenge. Unlike his other lovers, Adara didn’t ask anything of him, but rather offered her support. She didn’t wait around pining for him when he would unexpectedly take off for weeks on end, but she never refused him when he returned either. She was always there to take back his gypsy soul, offering a shoulder to cry on, and the tender reassurance that he would make it.

  Despite his best efforts at not settling down, a seed began to take root. Over time it grew into a deep, abiding friendship and love. He never told another living soul, not even Adara, that at first, he was in total disbelief that such a genuine and caring woman would ever fall for him. The boys in the popular band he opened for, however, had no reservations about this fact. They teased him mercilessly.

  “Come on, Faraday. She’s much too smart and independent for the likes of you. Why don’t ya stick to the eye candy type—the no-brainers? That’s more your speed. After all, you’re just an opening act. You’ll never be the main event,” they would poke at him in hysterics.

  This brought a painful echo of his childhood, when he’d been shuttled off to boarding school, alone and ridiculed by the rest of the lads for being the smallest and the most different because of his eclectic background. Many nights he had lain in his dormitory bed, listening to the lonesome wind howl. Hunkering down underneath the flimsy covers, the first of the trenchant briars began to twist their way up the stone surface of the wall being erected inside his heart. Gillean had vowed to make all those who derided him sit up and take notice someday. He wouldn’t always be the butt of everyone’s jokes. The impenetrable wall would keep him safe.

  Three years after first meeting Gillean, Adara had informed him she was moving to America. She had been accepted to a prestigious dance company. Gillean had no idea she was even considering a life separate from his. A terrible panic seized him. His career was just showing signs of promise. How could he set sail without his anchor? He took her to the top of the highest tower at the Teach na Si’ on Christmas Eve, the sky a bowl of stars above them. Falling to his knees, he begged her to marry him.

  Joseph had loaned him the money to purchase a tiny ruby engagement ring. That was the only time Gillean ever asked a family member for financial aide. Good old ’Jos‘ had come through for Gillean once again. His elder brother was only too happy to concede victory to Ena. Gillean was finally going to settle down and marry “the right girl.”

  Fixing her halting eyes on him, Adara inquired, “What? I don’t even get a song for this momentous occasion? Ya know Dylan would have one at the ready.”

  Gillean bounded up from the icy ground. He was truly mad about this woman. “Every song I sing is for you.” He kissed her hands. “Stay with me and allow me such an honor.”

  “Just don’t forget about me, this moment, and our promise when you go soaring out there.” She pointed to the December sky as he hugged her to him.

  Like a bothersome bug, Gillean brushed away the feeling he was taking away something important from her, rather than giving her what she ought to have.

  “You don’t worry, missy. No amount of success would mean anything to me without you,” he assured her with a kiss.

  Gillean succeeded beyond his wildest imagination. But with the spoils of fame, came the temptation of other, beautiful lovers. He always felt it his right not to deny himself anything he earned. The vow he’d made on such a long-ago Christm
as Eve floated away like so many flakes of snow. He reasoned with his twisted conscience that he deserved everything offered to him. He’d worked for it—suffered, sweated and bled for it. If his wife and those on the outside of his life could not understand and accept his perspective, they sure seemed able to accept all the money he gave them. He felt vengeful and used. He no longer knew what love was, let alone how to be a lover. All the things he once sang about—fidelity, simplicity and family—were illusions to him. Not even those basic things he dreamed of for himself were immune to the corruption of power and fame.

  But he’d swallowed all the lies and sour emotions like pieces of spoiled apple. He wanted his family to be safe and happy. He was willing to pay any price for them, but now it seemed such a price was too high—the sacrifice of his nefarious pleasures. That was what he had seen in Ciar, an escape. She offered him the chance to live without rules or demands, just reward. The wounded Sully caused Gillean to ponder if Ciar and all her trappings were the grandest of illusions.

  “Tell me you will come and see me,” Ciar responded to his thoughtful silence.

  “That depends.” He felt as if he’d just moved forward a pawn.

  “Upon what?”

  “What have you done with Sully?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Look, Ciar, I don’t have time for games. If you are going to claim you don’t know him, so be it. But I have to ring off. I have things to see about.” He was amazed at his own calm in the face of her possible wrath.

  “I suppose you suspect old Sully has gotten his teeth into me too, or maybe even your wife?”

  Gillean swallowed hard. He didn’t like where the conversation was going.

  “Just tell me how you know him. You can leave out the unfounded accusations.” Rattled, he was in need of a stiff scotch.

  Ciar explained, “I knew Sully when he was a child. Poor lad, he was a disturbed little boy.”

  “It would go to show he’d be a little off, considering his father beat the tar out of him!” Gillean interjected.

  “Oh, is that the story he gave you?”

  “Story?”

  “My little Gilly, you’re too good a man. You take what people tell you at face value, still after all these years. It’s one of the reasons you are so special to me, but it’s also one of the reasons people take advantage of you.”

  “You mean to tell me Sully was not abused by his father?”

  “Abused? No. All I know is Sully got into a lot of trouble—and not just the usual rambunctious boy kind of trouble—when he was still quite young. His parents, not knowing what to do with him, sent him away—I don’t know where. And that’s all I heard about him until one night, years later, we met at a party in London. One thing led to another…It was a meaningless affair.”

  “Wait a minute!” Gillean shook his aching head. “How could you have known Sully when he was a child? He was born here in Ireland. He lived and di—” He had enough sense to not finish his statement.

  “Oh, I never told you, did I? I didn’t always live in Prague, not until I was fifteen. I spent some time in Ireland with a cousin of mine when I was a girl. In fact, I’m named for our grandmother. Her family lived up the road from Sully’s. It seems like a lifetime ago. Easy to forget I suppose.”

  “Hum…”

  “Come now, that was years ago—ancient history. I swear to you, I have not seen him since. But I don’t blame you for being upset. He is a wily character.”

  “Yes, you seem to think he has knowledge of my wife is it?”

  “I didn’t want this to come between us, but, yes, I know for a fact he has. But, please,” the seductive tone was familiar enough to him, “let’s not talk of such things. It’s time you concentrate more on what you and I could have if you would just let go.”

  “I’ll have to get back to you, darling.” Gillean was in no mood for her niggling.

  “When will you realize it is I you are meant to be with? We are soul mates. The universe doesn’t make mistakes.”

  “Perhaps not. But people do. I have to go now.”

  “Gilly?”

  “Goodbye, Ciar.”

  Gillean turned off his mobile so that no one could reach him. Grabbing his one travel bag he moved about the room preparing to leave. His hand on the door, he looked back one more time at the guitar propped against the wall. He saw the face of the little girl, Keelin, the look of love in her eyes for Sully, her anguish in not being able to help him. Gillean had promised her he would keep Sully safe, but he had no idea where the man was. Or did he? Gillean swept the guitar under his arm. Home, he was going home.

  ~~~

  Ciar rested the phone back onto the receiver, giddy over the fact that Sully himself had set the perfect trap, and all while trying to trap her. Sully and his ridiculous dedication to the Truth, she had no such childish notions. She could lie whenever it suited her. And as far as Sully was concerned Ciar celebrated in her unparalleled talent for spinning the most elaborate of tales. She was a little disappointed the much-anticipated confrontation with her adversary was going to be so easy to win.

  ~~~

  Sully walked for most of the morning, his pace checked by the sting of his burns, and his senses on high alert lest he make contact with any other person. Keeping to the pastoral back roads, cows and sheep were the only witnesses to his passing. By noon, hunger, the throbbing of blistered skin and exhaustion, caused him to collapse under a willow tree standing on the edge of a farm. He slept for hours. The shivering of his body woke him. Night once again. He was thankful for the darkness, but wished for the warmth of Gillean’s jacket as he rose unsteadily from the ground.

  “Man ought to get somethin’ for his troubles, I’d say.” He hadn’t the slightest clue where to go, or what he was supposed to do. “Maybe I can find me some tinkers to take up with.”

  He brushed off his dirty, sweat-stained clothes, gathered up his knapsack and set out on the road once again. His immediate need was food. He hoped to find a tree or bush offering ripe fruit ready for the taking. He remembered from his childhood that a person needed money for just about anything, but he had none.

  “Ah, lad, ya’ve fallen a long way from grace.”

  “Come on, Sully, over here! Over here!” It wasn’t so much a voice as a collection of voices, children yelling, trying to outdo the each other. “Over here!” Their laughter and mirth was infectious.

  Scanning the area, he saw no one, not even the usual farm animals. All good souls were in their homes—at dinner tables, or sitting by their hearths. How could anyone know the plight of one God-forsaken being? His eyes fixed upon a grand house looming ahead. It sat back from the road and, like the Ballyhugh, was surrounded by voluptuous trees and a thriving meadow. Funny, he hadn’t noticed it before he’d fallen asleep.

  Wild flowers moved gently with the evening breeze. They appeared to be gossamer dancers, silently swaying in the moonlight. The urging of the voices, the crisp night air, and the wave of those flowers overtook Sully. He possessed the irresistible urge to take off his shoes and walk through the grass. He glanced again at the building. A few of the rooms were bright with lamplight.

  He removed his boots and the socks he hated having to wear as a boy, and slipped like a fey into the opulent meadow. He broke into a run, throwing his arms out as he went. The pain in his chest could not compete with the rush he felt from releasing all the pent up joy of a seven-year-old who had been forbidden to run free. The grass underneath his feet was soft and wet; the breeze lifted his hair as he ran. Wind chimes sounded from a back porch, filling the air with a sweet, alluring music mixing with the children’s laughter.

  He stopped to catch his breath, gazing out over the enormous stretch of land on which sat the house. Sully couldn’t comprehend that any human could be so lucky as to have all of this in their possession. He spied the crescent moon residing in his post of velvet sky and shouted, “Ha! But no man could own you!” He waved at the golden sliver as if signa
ling to an old friend, then took off at full throttle in the direction of the house.

  “WA HOO!” he yelled.

  The secretive moon concealed itself behind a collection of drifting clouds, forcing shadows on the world below. Still he saw her standing at the open gate, but too late. He had built up too much momentum to stop. She held her ground, a look of disbelief on her face. Their bodies crashed to the ground, his landing on top of hers.

  “Have you gone completely mad?” she screamed.

  Sully quickly disjoined himself from her and inquired “Are ya alright? I’m desperately sorry.”

  She was quiet for a moment, then spoke in a more collected tone, “I think so. Are you alright?”

  Auburn hair fell across her face. Gray eyes, their character reflecting much suffering through the years, nailed him to the spot. She was wearing silk pajamas with a matching robe. Her slippers had been sent flying wily nilly as a result of the collision. Without reservation, he reached out to brush the hair from her cheek.

  “No, just me pride is a bit dented. But I am glad you are in one piece.” He smiled shyly.

  Her mouth opened slightly at the sound of his voice. She continued to stare at him, causing him to become self-conscious for the fist time in his new existence.

  “Pardon me, again. It might do nicely if I help set ya right!” He offered her his hand.

  She sat up smoothing her hair. She was not a young woman, nor was she old. She had a regal but delicate bearing and a self-protectiveness about her that told Sully she kept herself closed to others she did not know.

  He helped her to her feet, and was about to tussle his way through an introduction when she spoke again.

  “What are you doing home? And what in God’s name are you doing jaunting in the meadow at this hour?”

  “Huh?”

  She stood looking at him, as if trying to decide whether she wanted to continue the conversation or leave him where he was. “I see you have thought about what I said to you before you left.”

  He kept quiet, shifting his weight from his left foot to his right.

  “Well, you won’t get my forgiveness so easily as running through the grass like a nymph. Don’t just stand there, help me look for my slippers.” She bent over searching for the lost footwear.