“Were you off for a quiet reading time?”
“Oh, this? No. I need to take it to Keegan. I’ve just come from talking to Dorcas, and it’s hers.”
“Dorcas? Ah, child, did she ply you with biscuits and tea while the cats swam around you?”
“I don’t know that they could reasonably be called biscuits, or tea. But yeah.”
“Then, as I know Keegan’s with Seamus and Flynn even now, you’ll have time to have a real cup and a real biscuit to kill the horror of it.”
“I won’t say no. She’s fascinating, though, Sinead. So are the cats.” She glanced down as they walked; Bollocks continued to sniff at her. “I see my dog feels the same.”
“A fount of information is Dorcas the Scholar, but I swear I’d rather go uninformed entirely than suffer through a round of her tea and biscuits. If you go again,” Sinead continued as they went inside and started up the stairs, “take a bottle of wine and some sweet—biscuits, tarts, little cakes. She’ll be grateful and honor bound to share them with you.”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
“A lesson I learned hard over the years. I’m told you’ll likely go back to the valley tomorrow.” Sinead hooked her arm with Breen’s as they walked. “So I’m glad to steal a bit of your time.”
“It’s not stealing when I want to spend it with you.”
They went into Sinead’s cozy sitting room. And a bigger contrast to Dorcas’s cottage Breen couldn’t think of.
Soft fabrics, pretty colors, soft cushions. And not a cat in sight. Flowers sat in a trio of vases; crystals dangled in windows to shoot rainbows.
“Sit now. We’ll have some sugar biscuits and tea with honey.”
Because she remembered Sinead liked to fuss, Breen sat while Bollocks settled, sniffing still, at her feet. “It’s so pretty in here. It’s so like you.”
Sinead’s cheeks flushed with pleasure as she opened a tin. “Flynn says I’d stack cushions on cushions if I had my way. He’s not wrong on it.”
She’d done her summer-sun hair in a long, thick braid with a pink ribbon wound through it. Her dress, a deeper pink, skimmed just over her ankles to show off boots that matched the ribbon. Crystals dangled from her ears as they did at the windows.
“You always had the prettiest clothes. I remember asking you to do my hair. My mother never got a handle on it, and if Nan wasn’t around to do it, I’d come running to you. I always felt pretty after you did my hair.”
“How I loved playing with it. Oh, so red, all those curls. My only girl with hair as straight as rain.” Sinead brought over the tea, settled on a cushion. “You remember more and more?”
“Like I never forgot. And so clear. Clearer than you’d think possible considering I was only three when I left.”
“I think the taking away has the memories coming back strong. It hurt your da to take those memories, darling. He took them so you wouldn’t hurt.”
“I know. Oh, this is wonderful. You always made amazing biscuits.”
“I don’t have the type Bollocks usually has, but I don’t think just one of these would hurt him, do you?”
“He’d love one.”
“Well now, you enjoy, the both of you. And I’ll get what I have for you.”
Happy, Breen thought. The room held happiness. It soothed her heart to know Sinead could find happiness after her loss.
“I spoke with Morena through the mirror only this morning, and she told me you remembered these.”
Breen looked and saw the little wings in Sinead’s hands. Bold green edged in blue. Like a butterfly.
“Oh! My wings! You kept them.”
“Sure and I kept them. You were so very fond of them, and couldn’t take them with you to the other side. I thought you might like to have them now. Just a little thing from when you were a little.”
“Not a little thing, not little at all.” Breen cupped them in her hands as the memories flooded her mind, her heart.