I shoved my hands deep into the pockets of my sweater as I headed out toward the bridge. I felt better now that I’d finally told Phelan and Thom what I was thinking, but the ache was still there, the one that had started the minute I’d learned Matt was missing, that he’d been taken.
I could learn to live with that hurt, though—I would have to. There was no denying that anymore.
Matt was gone and I might never see him again.
J.T. stood at the center of the bridge over the ravine. He didn’t look up as I approached, though I knew he must have heard me coming, felt me coming. The bridge vibrated slightly with each step, just like it always did, always had. I was nearly on top of him by the time he looked up, looked at me.
“Aoife found you,” he said.
I nodded. “She said you needed to talk to me. What’s going on? Everything okay?”
He grimaced and I felt a slight chill, the same one that I always got right before Ériu manifested.
“You didn’t want to talk to me.”
“I did,” he said. “But so does she.”
“I’m sorry,” her voice whispered a moment before she shimmered into view in J.T.’s shadow. “But I didn’t want to startle you.”
I closed my eyes for a moment and nodded, trying to swallow past the lump in my throat. I still wasn’t completely used to her presence, despite the fact that she’d been lurking among us, mostly unseen, for months now.
It wasn’t necessarily the fact that she was a ghost watching over Neve and I that necessarily bothered me, I’d come to realize. It was the fact that she’d once been my daughter in another life that hadn’t moved on to whatever came next that bothered me—considering that in that other life, my life as Brighíd, was now thousands of years ago in a time lost to history.
I took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly. “Well,” I said softly. “What did you want to tell me?”
Much as I want to see what’s going on with Matt, I’m really enjoying this too.