“Really? Oh, then everyone could come. Our family, your family, my family. We would have flowers, on the land and on the sea, and music. And wine. It’s more than I can imagine. More than I ever did, and I used to dream of the rite, the promise when I was a girl. I had a place for dreaming special dreams, and that was the most special.”
“What kind of place?”
“In the warm waters of the south where the water is so clear the sun strikes through it, I had a secret place just for me. A garden of coral and sea plants. I would curl there and dream my best dreams.”
Now she had the dream, she thought, and snuggled against him. “Did you have a secret place?”
“A tree house.”
Her eyes widened. “You had a tree for a house?”
“No, it’s a little house built in a tree. Up in a tree. My dad and my grandfather built it, for the kids. We all hung out there, but I’d climb up, especially on summer nights, by myself. I guess I dreamed some pretty good dreams there.”
“Especially after pawing through porn mags,” Riley said from across the room.
“Different kind of dreaming.”
“What are porn mags?” Annika wondered.
“I’ll explain later. How about you, bigmouth?”
“Me?” Riley glanced over again. “We traveled a lot, so I found places wherever. Books were my place, not so secret, but my place. Plenty of dreams inside books. But now that I think about it, there’s this old storm cellar back home. I guess that was my version of a tree house or sea garden.”
“Sasha.” Enjoying the conversation, Annika turned to her. “Where was your secret place?”
“I was going to say I didn’t have one, but that’s knee-jerk. Something you say without thinking first,” she explained. “The attic. It was very secret for me, somewhere I’d go to be alone, when I had to get away from everything, everyone. I’d draw, and imagine being like everyone else. I wasn’t happy the way I am now.”
“I wish I could have been your friend when you were a girl.”
“We’re making up for that now. Let’s ke
ep it going. You’re up, Bran.”
“There’s a stream a fair walk from our home in Sligo. I’d set off for it when I was a boy and had deep thoughts to think. I’d sit with my back against an old, gnarled rowan tree, watch the fish in the stream, practice magicks, and dream of being a great sorcerer.”
“And you are!” Annika pressed her hands together. “Doyle, where was your place?”
“Days were full of work when I was a boy. Firewood to gather, peat to dig, stock to tend.”
“Walking barefoot through snow ten miles to school. Uphill,” Riley added, and earned his bland stare.
“You had no shoes?”
“She’s talking in smart-ass clichés,” Doyle told Annika. “I was the oldest, and so had more responsibilities . . . Knee-jerk,” he said with a glance at Sasha. “Old habits. We were forbidden to climb on the cliff, so of course, nothing appealed more. If I could slip away from my siblings, from the chores, that’s just what I’d do. I liked the danger of it, the sea crashing below, the wind whipping at me. And when I found the—”
He stopped, shocked, stunned. All along? he wondered as his mind struggled to grasp it. Had it been there all along?
“Not in the house. Not in the graveyard. The star’s not here, not there.”
Riley had already gotten to her feet. Now she set the tablet aside, walked over to the table. “But you know where.”
“I don’t—” The fact that he had to settle himself infuriated. “I may,” he said, calmly now. “A theory, following your dots. I climbed the cliffs, a bit, then a bit more, and when I didn’t get caught and hided, more still. Even at night, by moonlight, and Christ knows if I’d lost my footing . . . But that was part of it all. That thrill, that risk. I was the oldest, after all, and Feilim, he’d just been born, and my mother distracted, my father besotted. He was beautiful, even a boy of nine could see how beautiful he was. He was days old when I found the cave.
“I could use a whiskey.”
“I’ll get it.” As he rose, Bran glanced at the sketch Sasha worked on, quickly, skillfully, in her lap.
“A cave in the cliff wall,” Riley prompted.