Chapter Three
“I can’t…”
He wasn’t sure if he’d spoken the words, but somehow he knew there was another presence beside him.
“Yes, you can.”
She spoke. It was a woman. Perhaps an angel come to lead him to Heaven. But if so, why was she taking him here?
The thick fog became a thinner mist and he was able to make out some familiar details. Green hills, waterfalls, lakes of silver and small holdings dotting the landscape. It was Ireland. He was home.
“My land,” he whispered.
“Yes,” came the answer. “It’s beautiful. Where is it?”
He wanted to chuckle. An angel who couldn’t recognise the Emerald Isle? “’Tis Ireland, of course.” His gaze roamed over the distant hills, topped with grey clouds. “The most wonderful place on earth.”
“And yet you are not happy to be here…”
He gulped. The view was shifting, blurring, then clearing to reveal his home. “No, I cannot say that I am glad to be here.”
“Why is that?”
Always the gentle prodding, the soft questions he felt obliged to answer. “There’s none left. Nobody. My family…all gone…” A sob rose in his throat but he choked it down. “I didn’t know they starved. I didn’t know they fell ill. When I got to them it was too late.”
“Such terrible things,” murmured the voice. “No one has escaped this tragedy.”
“Why do I still live? Why am I seeing this? I need to die, to end this misery.”
“Tell me your name,” said the sweet voice.
He paused, seeing the images of his home fading away, to be replaced by an empty sea lapping at a deserted coastline. His name…she’d asked him his name… “I cannot remember,” he sighed. “I am no one.”
“You are someone. You are important, dear sir. How should I address you?”
He frowned. Why didn’t she stop questioning him? Tormenting him for words he could barely form? A tiny lick of anger shot through him and he clenched his teeth, fighting to find something in his head…some sound…some utterance that would silence her.
“F—F—” he stuttered, “my name…it’sFinn…”
“There you are. Well done, Mr. Finn. You have a name. Youaresomeone…someone I’d like to know better.”
He had a name. He was Finn.
It sounded right, comfortable even. So yes, he was Finn. And he was so tired.
The images, visions, were fading. Afraid that this was the last time he’d see anything at all, he gripped the small hand that still held his. “Is this the end?”
“Only for now. You must sleep, Mr. Finn. And you will get well. I promise.”
A hand brushed his forehead, and the soft scent of something flowery filled his nostrils. Lilacs, maybe, or lily of the valley…he wasn’t sure…and he was too tired to think about it anymore…
*~~*~~*
Hecate slumped in her chair, breathing slowly and deeply as she emerged from the psychical link she’d managed to share with the man she now knew as Finn. She’d dabbled in such things before, but never to such a detailed extent.
And it had drained her.
She was physically and mentally fatigued, as if she’d run a long race while holding an egg on the edge of a sword. There were so many elements in play when connecting to another’s thoughts; more than some of the simpler experiences she’d come to accept as a routine part of who she was. Her intuitions, which many viewed as predictions, were really just intuitions, but when she believed something might occur, it usually did. Others said the same things, but with less assurance.
