Abhainn's Kiss Read online

He turned in a slow, careful circle, trying to find the rucksack he’d dropped earlier, which held his water supply and first aid kit. But his eyes wouldn’t quite focus. Sun on water flashed near his feet. Blue, then gold. Dropping to his knees, he crawled toward it.

  He plunged his injured hand in first, seeking to cool the fire burning under the skin. Instantly, warmth spread through his body, chasing away the shiver and quieting the buzz in his ears. He took a deep breath and sat back on his heels, examining his hand with interest as the swelling deflated and the seeping cut sealed on its own.

  Whoa.

  He rubbed the water experimentally between his fingers and paused. Had the water just sighed?

  He shook his head and leaned forward again to scoop some in his hands. It smelled of fresh rain and soothed his parched lips. He closed his eyes in relief and opened his mouth to drink.

  He felt pressure against his mouth, entirely too soft for the roughness of his work-hardened hands and too firm for mere water.

  And it moved against his palms, just like the jaw line of a woman.

  Warm breath, like a woman’s sigh, caressed his lips. He opened his eyes and lifted his head.

  There, cupped in his hands, was an elfin face framed in wild, white-gold hair. Eyes the color of sun on green water, wide with wonder, glowed above her slightly open mouth, still wet from his kiss.

  A similar face leaped up from his memory, though still unnamed. It was pale and child-round; the one before him now was contoured with womanhood, though not much larger. The only feature virtually unchanged was her mouth, a study in curves and naturally upturned at the corners, which made her look like she was always on the verge of blurting some delicious secret.

  She sat just as he had seen her before he’d taken off after the ugly lawn gnome—in the center of the stone circle, as if she’d never left it. Before he could think about how she’d gotten there, she reached up to touch his hair, reverently, as if it were he who had suddenly appeared before her, instead of the other way around. Her lips moved.

  “Mícheál.”

  Chapter Three

  Mih-hahl.

  As a boy, he had thought her name for him amusing, though it was his own name in her language. Joy rushed through Abhainn’s veins, temporarily sweeping away the weakness, terror and confusion. The face she held in her hands was larger, harder and scratchy with a man’s stubble. But above the man-grown angles of his face, the wet-granite grey of his eyes was the same. The unruly mop of curly black hair she remembered on the boy was now clipped so short her fingers glided over it, not through it. And it was lightly salted with silver.

  The joy inside her died a little. His eyes, hovering so close, held no spark of recognition. Worse, they held no spark at all. Then, slowly, he blinked. The hard line of his mouth relaxed slightly, and his eyebrows knitted, as if memory warred with disbelief.

  “A… A… Ab—”

  “Abhainn! What in the Lady’s name…”

  Abhainn tore her gaze away and found her mother frozen in shock just inside the circle. She blinked the blurriness from her eyes and found her voice.

  “Màthair, look who has come! Remember? It’s Mícheál, the boy who—”

  But her mother’s gaze flicked downward. “Don’t…move,” said Nuala, hushed.

  Confused, Abhainn looked down and bumped foreheads with Mícheál as he did the same.

  “You’re sitting in a puddle,” an older version of Mícheál’s remembered voice rumbled in her ears. He rolled onto his feet, crouching, preparing to help her up.

  “No!” cried Nuala, rushing forward until she fell to her knees beside them. “Did you not hear me, you silly man? Don’t move her!” Her gaze moved rapidly back and forth between them, an expression of panic on her face Abhainn had never before seen.

  She reached toward Abhainn, but stopped short, as if afraid to touch her. “Your legs. Look your legs, child.”

  Abhainn looked down again and hiccupped. Near her knees, her lower legs disappeared into a puddle of water in the stone depression. She tried to lift one out of the water. The water rippled, but nothing emerged.

  “She’s in a puddle.” Mícheál’s calm tone held a note of impatience. “Let’s get her out of it.”

  Nuala’s hands gripped both his and Abhainn’s arms, holding them still.

  “Màthair, what has happened to me?” Abhainn whispered, touching the water’s surface and drawing back in surprise, for she felt the touch in the water, as if she had touched her own skin.

  “Tell me exactly what has happened here,” Nuala said slowly.

  Abhainn cast a quick glance at Mícheál. He was looking down where her legs should be, confusion slowing giving way to alarm in his face.

  “I came up here to play with the Equillians and the ponies. I began to feel a little funny so I sat down, right here.”

  “Funny? How so?” asked Nuala sharply.

  “Weak…like water lying in a bowl. My eyes blurred, but I think…I think I saw a troll.”

  Nuala drew in a sharp breath.

  Mícheál’s eyebrows drew together in a frown. “A what?”

  “Was it about this high,” Nuala held a hand about three feet from the ground, “squat and ugly, brown, with arms like sticks?”

  “A troll.” Mícheál repeated flatly. “Like in a kid’s storybook.”

  “Quiet,” Nuala snapped. Then, to Abhainn, “Did it hurt you?”

  “No… I couldn’t see clearly, but I think it hurled something at me.”

  The reassuring touch of Mícheál’s hands left her shoulders, and he commenced pacing about the stone circle, gaze on the ground. She tried to turn her head to follow his movement, but Nuala caught her chin and brought her back round. “How many?”

  “Only one,” said Mícheál, striding toward them, holding something in his hand. “This is what the guy fired at her.”

  “Careful with that tip!” scolded Nuala, snatching the arrow away from him and examining it, then nodding. “Troll, no doubt. That they’ve returned to Inisghriann after all this time…”

  “Troll, my eye,” Mícheál said in a hard voice. “It was a midget with a dark tan. Trolls don’t—”

  “—exist?” Nuala interrupted. “Did it outrun you?”

  Mícheál snapped his mouth shut. Nuala smiled in triumph.

  “I thought as much. It’s a troll, my boy.”

  Mícheál’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no such thing as trolls.”

  Nuala rolled her eyes. “And I suppose in your world, a girl’s legs never dissolve into a puddle of water.”

  Mícheál opened his mouth, glanced down at Abhainn’s missing legs and frowned. Abhainn would have laughed at his expression had her own heart not been beating like the wings of a butterfly trapped in a jar. Nuala turned her back on him.

  “Then what happened, child?”

  Abhainn swallowed, feeling as if she were on the verge of crossing some invisible threshold. “It was like the dream I had a few days ago, the one I told you about.” And after which, Abhainn thought suddenly, you began watching me like a hawk. “Like I was under water, looking up at the sun. The next thing I knew,” she felt her face flush, “Mícheál was here and I was…” She gestured down at the puddle around her hips.

  “You.” Nuala turned on Mícheál. “Tell me what you saw. What you did.”

  Mícheál crouched down beside them again, running a hand over his hair, leaning his head on his palm for a moment. For the first time, Abhainn noticed the weary circles under his eyes, the lines framing his straight mouth. He looked as if he hadn’t truly smiled in a long, long time. Oh, my Mícheál, where have you been? What has been done to you?

  “Well, it was like she said. I found her sitting here, but looking like a deer in the headlights. She looked…strange. I can’t explain it. Then this midget guy—”

  “The troll.”

  “Whatever. It drew a bow and arrow on her. I pushed her down and ran after the thing. Only it—” his jaw worked �
��—it got away. I came back up here and she was gone. I scooped up some water from this puddle to drink it, then suddenly she was just…here.” He held out his hands, staring at them, then raising his eyes to meet hers. “Abby, how did you do that?”

  Abby. His eyes held no hint that he realized he had just remembered his old nickname for her. “Oh, Mícheál,” she whispered sadly, “Do you not remember the magic of that time you were here before? As a boy?”

  Silence descended. Mícheál stared at her as if she had spoken a foreign language. Then something changed on his face. “I thought I had…memories,” he said slowly. Then he seemed to catch himself. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve never been here before in my life. I only came looking for a new source of wool for my family’s textile mill.”

  For one crystalline moment, when she looked into his eyes, she thought she saw a hint of the missing spark. Then it was gone. Abhainn’s heart ached for him.

  “No time for this nonsense right now.” Nuala’s impatience cut through the moment. Her thoughtful gaze traveled back and forth between Abhainn and Mícheál. Then she set her jaw and nodded, as if coming to a decision.

  “You were kissing her when she reappeared.” It was a statement, not a question.

  Abhainn smiled at the slow flush that crept up Mícheál’s neck.

  He had the grace to stammer. “It wasn’t what it looked—”

  “Kiss her again.”

  Mícheál blinked. “Say what?”

  “Kiss her, fool! Do I need to tell you twice? Do it quickly before the trolls catch us out here again!”

  Abhainn hiccupped and felt her skin blush. Mícheál’s flush also deepened as he went to his knees before her and cradled her face once more.

  Then he drew back. “I can’t believe I’m buying into this.”

  Nuala sighed. “Can you males do nothing as you’re told? Kiss the girl, fool!”

  “All right, all right!” Mícheál snapped. “This isn’t something I do every day.”

  Abhainn’s heart sped up as his face floated closer, and she closed her eyes. In the next instant, his lips, warm and firm, touched hers and held. And held.

  And held.

  She thought she heard Nuala say something, but the blood sang in her ears so loud, she couldn’t hear.

  Abruptly she felt hard stone under her knees.

  “You did it.” Nuala’s voice, weak with relief.

  Abhainn looked down. Mícheál swore softly in his own language. Her legs were back, folded neatly beneath her, just as she had left them. She looked up at him and found him staring at her, his wet-stone eyes flickering with the bare beginnings of belief.

  “Hurry, to the cottage,” urged Nuala, helping Abhainn gently to her feet while not so subtly inserting herself between them. “Two Selchies are here; they must be told of this. They will carry word to the Lady.”

  Abhainn found herself being hurried down the long slope.

  “To where?” Mícheál caught up and supported her on her other side. “What lady?”

  Nuala made an impatient sound. “The Lady of Avalon, you dolt. Know you nothing?” She seemed to catch herself and muttered, “Ah, well, you wouldn’t, would you? Not after…” She paused, and once again she couldn’t quite meet Abhainn’s eyes.

  The three of them maneuvered through the low-linteled cottage door, and Abhainn winced at the sound of Mícheál’s head making solid contact. Two Selchies rose from their task of bundling up Nuala and Abhainn’s load of spun wool to take away as they always did, somewhere beyond the mists. She found herself settled near the peat fireplace. Nuala began conversing with the Selchies in rapid Gaeilge, and Abhainn took the chance to observe Mícheál without her mother hovering.

  Mícheál’s gaze darted everywhere, missing nothing, brows knit as if trying—and just barely failing—to make connections between dream and reality in his mind.

  I left a tear on his finger. That much I remember. Perhaps it prevented my mothers’ spell from working completely. Please Mícheál, remember! she willed silently. Remember!

  As Nuala continued talking, the Selchies looked his way and seemed none too pleased to have him here, either. Abhainn touched his hand, and his gaze swung to her, softening as if relieved to find one friendly face. He crouched close to her, his mouth opening, then closing on a short exhalation.

  “This is going to sound strange. I think I’ve seen this place before.”

  Abhainn wanted to shake him to jog his memory, and shake Nuala as well, for casting the spell that had separated him from her, in body and in mind, but apparently not in spirit. She touched his face lightly, hoping the physical connection would help.

  “You were just a boy, Mícheál. Lost in your boat. By chance you washed up here on Inisghriann, and we kept you safe until your people found you. For those few days,” her breath hitched in her throat, “you and I were friends.” She glanced at Nuala, who was ushering the Selchies out the door, one of whom cast a jaundiced eye at Mícheál.

  Mícheál was studying her. “How old are you?”

  Abhainn blinked. “Old? What do you mean?”

  “I mean…when were you born? How many years ago? If I were just a boy, you couldn’t even have been born yet. Just look at how young you are…”

  “Would it surprise you to know that Abhainn is actually older than you are?” Nuala’s voice cut in. She brushed past him on her way to a trunk in the corner of the room, as if he were of no more consequence than an annoying fly.

  “Time passes differently here,” she reported curtly. “Your kind tries to tame time by dividing it into little pieces you think you can hold in your hand. This place is out of your time.”

  Mícheál rose to his feet, pacing after her as she extracted a small leather pouch from the trunk, let the lid slam shut and headed back in Abhainn’s direction, making a sound of annoyance as she had to walk around him again.

  “That makes no sense at all,” said Mícheál, dogging her heels. “It’s been over twenty years since I came with my parents to visit relatives in Ireland. Twenty years since I went out on that boat and got lost.” He waved in Abhainn’s direction. “Look at Abby, she looks barely more than a child. It’s basic science. It’s the same time here as it is back on the mainland. It’s not out of anything.”

  Abhainn’s heart swelled with grief, and her eyes filled with tears. If he couldn’t remember, he was lost to her. Worse, something precious was lost to him—his ability to see and believe in magic. And, by association, in her. He would leave this place again, where its memory of it, and her, would again fade like an inconsequential dream.

  Mícheál continued, relentless. “Everything else aside, the fact is someone tried to kill her. And it wasn’t just something random, not in a place like this. This guy was hunting her. Why? And how did she manage that puddle illusion…”

  Nuala whirled on Mícheál, waved her hand in front of his face three times, and chanted in an irritated rasp, “Ardaím an chaille ó d’ intinn.”

  Mícheál fell silent, blinked twice and sat down hard on the floor. His eyes stayed open, but stared inward.

  “That should keep you quiet for a while,” muttered Nuala as she turned to Abhainn and seated herself on another spinning stool next to her.

  “What did you do to him?” Abhainn asked, curious.

  “I simply gave him access to his memories of this place. Now he should stop asking pointless questions.”

  Abhainn watched his face with interest, a slow smile stealing to her lips. “But, Màthair, he is right to ask these things. You told me long ago that trolls couldn’t cross the ocean to these shores. Why are they here now, trying to hurt me? I’ve done nothing to make them hate me.”

  “Hear me now, child.” Nuala took her hand. “By your very existence, your life has always been in danger. Until now, I thought you safe as long as you stayed hidden behind the mists of Inisghriann, hidden until the right time. But something, or someone,” she scowled at Mícheál as if
he were to blame for everything, “has tipped the balance just as you have become your most vulnerable.”

  A nameless fear crawled into Abhainn’s belly, similar to what she had felt up on the hill, with the troll. Small, helpless and, for the first time in her life, unprotected. She turned toward Mícheál, who still seemed unable to speak just yet. But now he watched her and Nuala, this time with recognition dawning in his eyes.

  Nuala pulled her back. “This human cannot help you, child. In fact, he could be your greatest danger.”

  “He is my friend!”

  Nuala shook her head. “He was your friend. But all children of his kind grow up and forget our world, Abhainn. Look at him. Even now, he remembers, but I can assure you that his mind is busy trying to plug what he remembers into some formula he can grasp. He will not succeed. Only a rare few manage it. I know.” She hesitated and drew a long breath. “I was one of his kind.”

  Chapter Four

  Abhainn tore her gaze away from Mícheál and looked at her mother. She reached for her mother’s head wrap and lifted it, revealing the older woman’s ears. There were pointed, just like here own. “That can’t be true… Look, your ears are like mine! You must be Fae.”

  Nuala gently took hold of Abhainn’s hands and held them. Through her fingers, Abhainn felt the other woman’s pulse racing in distress. “These were a gift from the Lady, when I was given charge to care for you in the Fae realm. I swore I would defend you with my life, and with that vow, the Lady made me one of you.”

  Abhainn glanced helplessly at Mícheál. In his eyes, she saw the confusion, the memories warring with disbelief. He caught her gaze and quickly rolled to his feet, saying nothing but brows knitting in concentration as he listened. She pulled her hands away from Nuala and shrank back in her chair.

  “I don’t understand. This is all so… What do you mean, I am in danger? What is it about me… Who am I? If you are not my mother, then who?”

  Nuala swallowed, as if fighting the urge to give in to emotion. “This will explain everything. Take it and hold it in both hands.” She upended the pouch into Abhainn’s open palms and closed them over a pale blue crystal that appeared to have clouds swimming in its depths.