[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
Both were silent for a long moment before Ériu took a step out of J.T.’s shadow, a step closer to me.
“I’m not telling you this to cause you pain,” she said, and of course my heart seized up for a moment before it began beating normally again.
“But it’s going to upset me,” I guessed. The ghost glanced down at her feet.
“I don’t know, honestly. I’m not sure how you’ll take it. I don’t think he…no. I know he never told Mother.”
My brows knit and I glanced at J.T., who leaned against the bridge’s railing, stone-faced and watching both Ériu and I. For a second, I wondered if he already knew what Ériu was about to tell me.
I shook my head. “You won’t know until you spit it out, Ériu. What did you want to tell me?”
“I needed to tell you that she won’t hurt him.” She stared up at me and a shiver crept down my spine. I knew exactly who she was talking about, but the words frightened me as much as they comforted me. A thousand questions exploded in my head, one louder than the rest.
“How do you know that?”
She stared at me, then wet spectral lips with the tip of her tongue, steeling herself to respond. “I know because she loved my uncle, and your brother is my uncle. I know because he told me everything, everything that he could never tell you or Finn or anyone else. I know because Cíar used to cry at night sometimes, used to whisper her name in his sleep when no one else was around. I know because she loved him and protected him when no one else could, when you were too far and didn’t know where he was. She was a port in the storm that battered him, the soft place he was able to fall. He could never tell you because of everything that happened after and—” She broke off, looking at J.T. He sighed quietly.
“Because she’s crazy,” J.T. said. “The Hecate isn’t sane. Ériu didn’t tell me all of it, but she told me enough for me to sort that out, at least. She’s got some kind of mental disorder. I’m pretty damned sure of it.”
I leaned against the railing, feeling like I’d been gut-punched. “You’re telling me that she’s probably certifiably nuts and she took my brother because she was in love with the Ridden Druid? How—how does that explain everything that she’s done? Why the hell would she want Phelan, or Seamus, or Teague? Why the hell has she been after them—and now Cameron—for as long as she’s been if she loved Cíar mac Dúbhshláin?” I sucked in a breath, looking at Ériu. “And how does that convince you that she won’t hurt him? For all we know, she could believe he abandoned her all those centuries ago and be looking to get even.”
“She won’t hurt him, Marin,” Ériu whispered. “I know it’s hard to accept—to believe—but she won’t hurt him. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking back on what I’d seen and what I remember and the more I do, the more I know it must be true that she wouldn’t hurt him. She’d never knowingly hurt him. It’s why she stayed her blade against Brighíd and Phelan and Teague back then. She could have killed them more than once, but she never took advantage. Please believe me.”
My voice came soft but harsh, as if the words had been torn from my throat. “It’s hard.”
“I know,” she said. “I know it is, but please believe me.”
“We can’t tell anyone,” I said, looking between her and J.T. “Not about this. No one else can know.”
“Do you believe her?” J.T. asked quietly.
Closing my eyes, I nodded, feeling hollow but somehow lighter at the same time. There was something about her certainty that tipped me over the edge—she was so certain that I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that she had to be mistaken.
“I believe her, but I still have questions.”
“I wish I had the answers,” she said. “If I had them, I’d give them to you, but I fear the only one who could tell you is—”
“Is Hecate herself,” I finished, then nodded slowly. “We’ll just have to hope that someday we can figure it out, then.”
I guess this does make me feel a little better—and a little worse—about what I said to Phelan and Thom. I glanced at J.T. “I told Thom and Phelan that I thought maybe we should stop looking.”
He winced. “How’d they take it?”
“They want to discuss it as a group,” I said, then shoved my hands deeper into my pockets. “I don’t know that I need to be a party to those discussions.”
“People are going to wonder if you’re not there,” he said quietly.
“Yeah. Yeah, I know.” I turned away, folding my arms across the bridge’s railing and staring out at the trees, at the creek that was high with the spring melt. “I miss him, Jay.”
He put his arm around my shoulders. “He’s your brother.”
I nodded. “I’ve always been there to help him when he’s needed it, always been there to come to his rescue when it’s been warranted. Except for this time.” My eyes fluttered shut. “And now I’m finding out that maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t really need rescuing.”
“I guess we’ll find out,” J.T. said.
“Yeah,” I whispered. “Yeah, we absolutely will. We absolutely will.”
I don’t suppose that Ériu could just pop over and look in on Matt. That would be just too easy.
Though I suppose that J.T. would need to be there.
She’d have to find them first.
Yeah, she doesn’t have a tether to him like she does to Marin.