Chapter 1
Tara Lynch had dreamed of going to Ireland since she was a little girl. The green hills of her ancestors called to her heart. The magical heritage known around the world spoke to her. The misty light made famous in paintings drew her in, and the proud literary heritage cried out for exploration.
The Starbucks in the airport was something of a reality check.
It didn't change the light, or the sharpness of the stone-walled fields she'd seen as the plane flew over the little island country, but it did jolt her into realizing that Ireland was a real place, not one actually built of fairy tales and four-leaf clovers. She stood in the airport's skybridge, her suitcase clutched in one hand and her camera bag slung over her shoulder, and stared at the incredibly prosaic parking garage that stood between her and the gently rolling hills. Then, with a laugh, she took her phone out for a snapshot that she posted to her social media page:off to a magical start in Ireland, where the concrete is…made of leprechaun bones? I don't even know! What was I expecting?!
Almost immediately, somebody who was up much too early back in the States responded withYou've been scammed! Real Ireland has horse-drawn carriages, thatched cottages, and rainbows everywhere!
I promise to post pictures of any and all horse-drawn thatched rainbows,Tara posted, and, grinning, went to catch a bus to 'the rebel county,' Cork.
Cork did not seemto be in any particular state of rebellion, when Tara arrived five hours later. The bus stopped on the "quays," a word that was definitely spelled q-u-a-y-s and which the driver pronounced as "keys." Tara stiffly climbed out onto a river front, almost forgetting her suitcase along the way. There were bridges on either side of her—at least four within easy sight, in fact—the world's most bus-stationy-looking bus station over there, and a row of brightly painted but somewhat run-down-looking businesses across the quiet, quick-moving water. Tara checked her phone for directions, found the train station in relation to where she was, and trundled across the water, voice-typing a new post as she went.
So Cork is apparently 'the rebel county' because King Henry the Somethingth couldn't squash their rebellions, not because it's trying to secede from Ireland as a whole or anything. This is the River Lee that I'm crossing now—she stopped to take a picture, smiling as the vivid colors came to life on her screen—and in five minutes I'm going to be at the train station. From there it's out to my hotel and then to SLEEP.She signed off with a series of tired emojis that made her start yawning, which was not great. She hadn't slept on the plane, and while she'd dozed on the bus because she simply couldn't keep her eyes open anymore, she'd still basically been awake for like twenty-three hours now and had at least five more before she should actually go to sleep, if she wanted to combat jet lag at all.
The train station was much smaller than she expected, and filled with a combination of casual chaos and unintelligible accents from which a handful of other American voices really stood out. She'd listened to a lot of Irish podcasts in the weeks leading up to her visit, trying to get used to the accent, but standing in the swirl of people and chatter in Kent Station, she thought maybe she'd somehow been listening to English or Scottish ones instead. There was a garbled musicality to the voices around her, but she honestly couldn't understand a word of them. Nervous with anticipation, she approached the station gate and said, "Cobb?"
"Cove," the portly man at the gate said, with an aura of long-tested patience. "Platform two."
Tara whispered, "Cove," to herself, and glanced at her ticket again as she passed through the barrier. It definitely saidCobh,c-o-b-h, which looked like 'Cobb' to her. On the platform, still nervous, she said to someone else, "Is this the train to…Cove?"
"It is," the woman said easily. "Last stop."
Relief swept through Tara. "And it's—sorry, I'm American—it's pronounced 'Cove?' Not 'Cobb?'"
The woman gave her a much fonder and more patient look than the gate attendant had. "Yes, chicken. 'Bh' in Irish sounds like a V."
Tara felt heat climbing her cheeks, though she smiled. "I didn't know that. Thank you."
"Thanks to your own self for listening," the woman said dryly. "Loads of tourists don't." She went to stand farther up the platform, clearly ending the conversation, and Tara stood there still blushing and feeling quite a lot younger than her thirty-one years. She'd never travelled outside of America before, andnot that much inside it, if she was being honest, but the last thing she wanted to do was fulfill the rude American stereotype. She would do her best to be respectful to the language, even if everybody spoke English.
Although maybe that was why she couldn't understand so many of the people in the train station. Maybe they were speaking Irish. She got on the train when it arrived, listening hard to the people around her, and had a sinking feeling that theywerespeaking English and she just couldn't understand them. She sank into her seat, feeling unprepared and nervous as the train pulled out of the station.
'Scared to death' was not the face she wanted to present to her social media, though. Tara straightened, taking a picture through the window as the train passed by a curve of water, though she didn't post it yet. She would do a bigger post later, instead of the minute-by-minute tedium of a train ride, even if it was only a short one. A mechanical voice said "Oileán Ainmhí" overhead, and then, "Anavee Island," as a scrolling banner flashed the first phrase, then the second, and Tara, aloud, said, "Wait, I thought 'bh' made a 'v' sound in Irish…"
"So does 'mh,'" a teenage boy nearby said with a grin. "And you can't complain, because 'g-h-o-t-i' can be made to spell 'fish' in English."
Tara stared at him a moment, then laughed. "Yeah, I guess not. What's ‘Anavee' mean?"
"Animal," he said. "There's a wildlife park there."
"Oh, that sounds neat. Thanks." Without planning to, Tara grabbed her suitcase, rose, and got off the train at Anavee Island.
The moment she was out the door she wondered what on earth she was doing. She had a suitcase with her, for heaven's sake. And the rough road on the far side of the railroad gates didn't look like the kind of thing you wanted to pull a suitcasealong. And she haddaysin Cork. She could come here another time, without a suitcase.
She turned around to get back on the train just as the doors closed and it pulled away. "Well, crap."
There was another train in half an hour, but standing there waiting for it seemed even worse than risking the little road. With a sigh, Tara hauled her suitcase through the gates and followed the road a few dozen feet before it branched off toward the wildlife park. Cursing her life choices, Tara dragged the suitcase up to the little entryway hut and smiled through the glass at the employee who looked up from her phone. "Hi. I got off at the wrong stop so I guess maybe I'll go to the park? Is there somewhere I can leave my suitcase, by any chance?"
The girl examined her, leaned forward to examine the suitcase, and sat back again with pursed lips. "Well, I shouldn't, but I will. Come on, buy your ticket and bring it around and I'll store it for ye, but this entrance closes at half four and if you're not back before then your luggage will be stuck in here overnightandmy boss will give out to me, so don't do that to either of us."
"I absolutely won't," Tara promised as she paid for her entry fee. "What does 'give out to you' mean?"
The girl laughed. "Scold me like. She's a fierce one, is Maureen Kelly, with a lot of opinions, and I wouldn't want to be the one who crosses her. She's the director of this place and runs a tight ship. Here now, put that here." She opened a door on the park side of the entrance hut and gestured Tara inside. There was hardly room to turn around, but Tara found a desk to tuck the suitcase under, mostly, and gave the girl a grateful smile.
"I promise to be back before…what time is 'half four?'"
"It's half four," the girl said blankly, then almost visibly rearranged her way of thinking and came up with, "Four thirty."
