“It must have been bad. He and his brothers were close. From what I recall.” She sighed again, heavy and effortful. Floorboards creaked inthe hallway, and her first thought was of Conor O’Kane’s ghost out there, come to haunt her family. “Did you hear that?”
“I didn’t hear anything,” William said, his voice sleepier.
She listened, but there were no more sounds. “I guess it was nothing.”
William touched her hand in his way. “Try to sleep.”
Faye dreamed about Fiadh crashing through waves, seawater splintering like wood around her. Neither she nor William heard the floorboards creak again under the weight of tiny feet outside their door. They did not know that their child tiptoed down the stairs, splayed herself out like a chalk outline by the front door, and flew away in her imagination on a magic carpet, looking for the place where dead people go so she could give back the inky impression that Conor O’Kane left behind on her shoving hands. They did not know that her little fingers crawled along the bare floor and found a portal to the past, missed by lazy authorities, behind a blocky table leg, there, in the empty vestibule, in the windowed moonlight.
Chapter Seventeen
1979
It was the Wednesday before Halloween, and the days were noticeably shorter. William had turned new spindles and repaired the man-size gap in the stair railing, glossy paint the only sign that Conor O’Kane had been there at all. Thomas was over early for family night and the promise of apple pandowdy.
Maeve and Molly dutifully sat with their grandfather at the kitchen table, sipping hot cider while he regaled them with stories of death and Samhain and shape-shifters, how the veil thins between the living and the dead, how this is the time to watch out for evil faeries who steal children and unsettled ghosts looking to even the score. “Light little fires to keep them away.”
“Papa,” Faye admonished. Molly had been having nightmares, though she was not one to cry out in her sleep. Instead, she would come into Faye and William’s room, tears streaming down her face, and stand next to the bed—for how long, Faye didn’t know—touch one of them on the shoulder or slip a hand between the mattress and their sleeping body to wake them.
It had been a long, difficult summer. That girl Wendy’s prom date had died from his injuries. Faye and William had gone with aninsistent Maeve to a memorial in the packed gymnasium. The sickly floral odor barely masked the standing stink of sweating teenagers. “Lilies and carnations,” Faye whispered to William. He stuck out his tongue to feign a quick gag, the two of them still in agreement after all the years since the flower shop. Faye had watched Maeve scan the crowd, assumed she was looking for Wendy, even though Faye had heard that the family left even before the school year ended, citing the girl’s grief as the reason they couldn’t stay. Conor O’Kane’s death the same night was hardly a footnote compared to a star athlete dying young. Faye had tried not to feel relief.
Thomas flipped his wrist at Faye. “You know your grandmother Jean thought that pile of boulders behind the cove house was a thin place. That’s why she stood there so often—commune with the dead, talk to Fiadh and the boys.”
“What do you mean, talk to them?” Maeve asked. “Mom’s right here.” William, too, home from work, gave Faye a puzzled glance.
Faye could only roll her eyes, dismissing her poor father, who himself seemed to dwell in some in-between more often these days. The wind howled, and doors rattled like spirits knocking for entry. “Stop now,” Faye said, harsher than she intended. “You’re scaring the girls.”
Thomas startled, let out a laugh. He put his hands on either side of his face and made a show of rattling it back and forth. “You’re right, my little Faye. Of course.”
“No, tell us more,” Molly pleaded. “About ghosts.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Faye said. She dug through the utensil drawer for peelers. “Here,” she said, laying them next to a bowl of bright-red apples. “Are you three going to peel or just sit there?”
Thomas picked an apple from the bowl and handed it and a peeler to Maeve. “Now, Maeve,” he said. “How old are you? You must be about ready for a husband.”
“I’m in high school, Grandpa. Besides, I don’t want a husband.”
Thomas poked at her. “Every girl wants a husband! Humor an old man. Peel that apple but don’t break the skin. When the ribbon drops, it will reveal the first initial of your beloved.”
“I want to marry you, Grandpa,” Molly said, grabbing her own peeler and apple.
“See?” Thomas said, his hand on the top of Molly’s head. “Even your sister wants a husband. Even if he is a crusty old man.”
Faye tried to appear distracted but listened intently. Maeve had been in a mood for months. Even William had noticed and mentioned it to Faye, who dismissed his concern. “Senioritis,” she told him. He’d wondered aloud if Faye thought it had to do with “the accident,” which was how they referred to Conor O’Kane’s death when they mentioned it at all. There had never been a discussion about that girl Wendy, but Faye was glad she was gone. A problem that solved itself.
“Fine,” Maeve said with a huff.
The girls went to work on their apples, Maeve carefully keeping the peel intact. Molly hacked almond-shaped shards onto the table.
“My mother swore by it,” Thomas said. “Cunning, she was. She made witch bottles to hide in hearthstones. Ward off evil. She was long dead, my mam—bless her soul—by the time our boys died so close to each other. I thought we needed a witch bottle, but your grandmother wouldn’t allow one in our house. Too superstitious.” He sucked at his teeth. “Maybe if she’d listened to me, Fiadh would be here, and things wouldn’t have gone the way they did.”
“I swear,” Faye said, a warning in her voice. Shame rose in her, unwelcome as always. She did not want to scold her father, not in front of William and the girls. But she couldn’t let Thomas slip into the past like that, and after all this time. She hadn’t told him about Conor’s last word, how he, too, had invoked Fiadh. It made her feel small, the way she resented Fiadh’s staying power so long after her death. She felt her cheeks flush as her shame doubled. “I’m right here. What’s gotten into you?”
The girls’ eyes widened, and their heads dipped.
“Don’t mind an old blabbermouth like me,” Thomas replied, rapping his head with his knuckles. He gave Faye a weak smile. “The attic’s empty.”
Molly inspected her slashes of peel. “What does that mean?”
