“There’ll come a time it’ll take more than protecting ourselves,” Boyle said.
“I know it. What I don’t know is what it will take, and how to get it.”
“It’s time to find it.”
Branna nodded. “We can hope with six of us looking, we will. Now, as has been said, we’ve lives to live. We can start that by setting the table while I see to the stew.”
“And I say we live it well.” Connor pulled his sister up, kissed her. “For that’s surely a boot up his fucking arse.”
“All right then, well it is. Put on some music, Connor, and we’ll start living well right now.”
They set the dark aside, for the moment, with Connor and Meara arguing over the music until Connor tapped in some sort of fast jig with lots of fiddles and drums, and pulled her into a dance.
“Wow,” was Iona’s reaction. “They’re really good.”
“They’ve both of them wings on their feet.” Boyle took the bowls Iona held, set them around the table. “Always have.”
“Can you do that?”
“I haven’t got the wings, but I don’t have lead either.”
“Ask the lady to dance then, you git.” Fin dropped napkins on the table.
Iona only shook her head. “I don’t know how to do that.”
“Then it’s past time you learned,” Connor proclaimed and, snatching her hand, pulled her in.
“You’re slow, brother,” Fin murmured to Boyle.
“I move at the pace that suits me.”
“Slow,” Fin repeated. “As a snail on a turtle’s back.”
But Boyle shrugged it off. He liked watching Iona try to keep up with Connor’s fast and clever feet. More, he liked the way she laughed as she spun around.
And who could argue with the laughter, he thought when Fin twirled Meara in three fast circles, and at the stove Branna clapped her hands in time.
The light and the laughter felt good, felt needed. So he’d take it.
Neither he nor any of the others in the bright kitchen with the warm smells, the quick music, the rolling laughter saw the shadow outside the rain-splashed window that watched. That hated.
* * *
WITH THE MEAL BEHIND THEM, THE KITCHEN PUT TO RIGHTS, and the hour growing late, Boyle readied to go.
“We’ll see you home, Meara. I’ve my lorry. Branna, I meant to ask if you’ve any of the tonic you make for head colds. Mick’s been blowing and sneezing for the last two days, and I’ve a mind to pour some of it down his throat.”
“I do, of course.” She started to rise.
“I’ll get it for him,” Iona said. “In the blue bottle, right, on the shelves nearest the front window.”
“That’s the one. You can settle up with me here or at the shop, Boyle, at the end of the month.”
“I’ll do that, and thanks for dinner. I’ll meet you and Meara out front,” he told Fin.
He walked back with Iona, made the turn into the workshop. She hit the lights.
“I’ve been trying to get a good sense of her stock and what she keeps here, what she sells in the village. She won’t let me make anything yet—not unsupervised—but at least I’m learning some of what goes into what.”