Echoes Through the Mist: A Paranormal Mystery (The Echoes Quartet Book 1) (24 page)

“Well then, you have been stunningly unsuccessful,” Moira spat. “You have played a dangerous and stupid game, my girl. You sat down at the card table without knowing the stakes or the odds. You risked it all not knowing there was never any chance of winning.

“You say you wished to protect Timothy and your lovely self from heartache. Well, you played and you lost and you are only now coming to grips with how much you lost.”

Ailís looked at the ground and closed her eyes.

“Since you mentioned your son, let me ask you a question,” Moira said. “Timothy looks to you for guidance. That is as it should be. When it comes time to talk to him about love, what will you tell him?

“Will you say, ‘Walk away from love, son. Set your foot on a path that will lead to heartache without end. That is what I did in order to protect us both.’ Will you say that to him, Doctor?”

Ailís stood in stunned silence, powerless to answer a question that only had one reply.

“You are in pain, Doctor, are you not?” Moira smiled crookedly. Her piercing, dark gray eyes cut into the younger woman. “Just answer me yes or no. ’Tis an easy question, surely.”

Ailís had no choice. She nodded yes.

“Ah, but you don’t have a monopoly on pain now do you. Timothy is a sensitive boy and he feels the loss of his Mr. Julian’s company keenly, as keenly as he senses his mother’s sadness. I can feel it in him and you know the truth of it too. But we will put your son aside for the moment.

“You suffer, but yours is a pain that is self-caused. You picked the time and the place with care and you set it in motion by your own hand. Agonizing to be sure, but as I say, you are not alone.

“There is man suffering an anguish that you cannot imagine. He had no control in its cause you see. His is a pain so intense many would lose their minds if they had to endure for a moment the torture he does. And why is this you might ask?” Ailís bunched her fists and swallowed hard as Moira continued her relentless assault.

“His suffering is limitless because he loves you with a passion that is limitless. At the end of this very street is a man who loves you so completely that he does it without the slightest reservation or regard for himself. You see, he is so devoted to you that he will pay any price to assure your happiness even if that price is his own happiness,” Moira said.

“You did tell him there could never be anything between you two, did you not? Don’t worry yourself, he didn’t tell me and wouldn’t. It is plain for anyone to see. You saw it just moments ago in his face.

“But it doesn’t stop there for him now, does it?” Moira stepped closer to the doctor and Ailís staggered as if struck. “He believes he will have to endure this pain endlessly and not only that, he must do so alone.”

Ailís gasped for breath, her shoulders shook with her agony as she screamed, “Stop it. Enough. I can’t take any more of this!”

Moira stepped closer still and her eyes flared. “Ah, but darlin’, that is the nature of a thing that is endless. It doesn’t stop. This pain is limitless. There is no ‘enough’ don’t ya see, either for you or for him.”

Ailís stood in the street and said nothing, her lips a thin harsh line, her eyes pleading.

“I will not say you suffer less nor that you love less, but you have Timothy who relies on your wisdom, who loves you and you him. You are not alone and at the end of the day, that is a tremendous comfort.

“At the end of the day the man we are talking about will suffer alone with his only comfort being that he once loved another completely.

“Ailís, the choice is plain. Take yourself home and suffer for your choices or go to this man and offer your love to him.

“I’ll say no more. Besides, Timothy and I have a great deal to talk about and we’re both hungry.” Moira Hagan smiled shrewdly. “Doctor, do see if you can come by for supper this evening. Timothy and I will have something special laid on for the occasion. But,” she added and smiled a wicked smile, “If you are somehow detained, ah, but that will be alright too.”

***

Entering the police station Julian sat down heavily on the bench near the fireplace. In his absence, Jimmy had stoked the fire. After his night in the forest and cave, the station felt warm and inviting.

He had been arranging his personal papers by the fire before being called away by Timothy for Dunla’s murder. He thought again of Timothy and the important place the boy had taken in his life. His spirit sagged at the thought.

He hefted the papers, then groaned at the thought of sorting through them. Stiff and aching, he dropped the stack of documents, removed his boots and the rest of his clothes. He made for the bathroom where he intended on showering until all the hot water was gone.

The water had been searing hot, but not nearly hot enough to burn away the ache he carried. He dried off, pulled on a pair of sweatpants and picked up his razor to shave. Wiping steam from the mirror, he carefully shaved around his scar. He felt, rather than heard, the station door open.

Julian closed his eyes and could sense Ailís. She felt to him like a jumble of thoughts and unhappy emotions. When he sensed her in the past she had always felt clear, focused and without equivocation. Now she was confused, angry and rudderless, but he sensed something else too. Wariness crossed his face, then he relaxed slightly, calmed his thoughts and continued shaving.

Julian emerged into the office and found the station’s curtains had been pulled closed and the bar used for locking the door had been shot home.

She sat in the Desk Sergeant’s chair. “How can I help you, Doctor?” Julian said with formality.

Ailís looked up at the sound of his voice then closed her eyes tightly. A towel was draped over his shoulders. His chest and abdomen were still covered with the remnants of bruises that varied between light green to dull yellow. The scar on his cheek was still an angry gash.

His face was no longer swollen and the smile she longed to see, the sensuous lips once soft and tender under hers had been replaced by a thin, tight line. Ailís had closed her eyes to shut out what she now saw. The eyes she remembered so vividly as being alive with mischief and deep caring were the same light gray, but were filled with pain.

“Doctor?” Julian said and walked wearily to the hearth where he straddled the bench and sat facing the fire.

He looked up at her for a moment and Ailís’s heart ached for them both. She took a deep breath. Her eyes burned and she bit her lower lip hard. She dug her fingernails into her palm to control the flood of emotions that threatened to ambush her resolve.

Ailís stood and walked toward Julian, swallowed and knelt beside him. His eyes never left the fire, eyes that looked ghostly as they reflected the fire’s light and the agony inside of him.

“Julian, I need to talk to you. You have no reason to listen to me, but there are things I must say.”

He sat, stared into the fire and said nothing.

“Please, tell me you will give me a fair hearing. I’m not asking for anything more,” she said.

Julian looked down to the sheaf of papers at his feet. The letter from his ex-wife sat on top, a potent reminder of his failings. Ailís was a reminder of his deficiencies too, but also of his profound loss. “Doctor, go back to Timothy and your practice. Your future is there. I’m asking you to leave all this alone, leave it all in the past. No good will come if you pursue it. Now, please, leave before things are said that should not be said.”

A sob escaped her lips. “Please, for the sake of any feelings you may have once had for me, I am begging you to just listen to…”

Julian’s eyes blazed, his face contorted not with anger, but with pain. Ailís was stunned and frightened by his intensity.

“For the sake of any feelings I may have once had for you. Is that what you said? Is it? How dare you,” he spat. “How dare you come here and say that to me?”

“Please, Julian, my heart is broken. I’m asking you…”

He shook his head slowly and turned back to the fire. “Your heart is broken?” he asked. “When things turned personal between you and me, the last resort became your first response. I have been learning to make choices, but I found that another would make the one choice vital to my life. You chose a path you needed to follow. That choice tore the heart out of my chest.” His breath was ragged and his teeth were clenched.

“That day in your home, after you put me back together, you said to me, ‘There can never be anything for us.’ That was the last thing in the world I wanted but the only thing you could live with.

“I know you did it without malice. You did what you thought best for you and for Timothy. I understand that.” He looked down at his ex-wife’s letter. “I’ll have to learn to live with the only choice you left me.

“I don’t say this – any of this to hurt you – I realize I’m not what you want or need, but please know I would rather have died in the church than hear you say there could be nothing for us.” His eyes were closed, his face twisted in torment and tears coursed his cheeks. “Go Ailís, please. Being this close to you is killing me.”

She crept closer and put her head on his thigh. Sobs shook her shoulders as she searched for the voice to say what she felt so deeply. He looked down at her and ached to be able to run his fingers through her hair. He wanted to hold her, reassure her everything would be fine.

Deep ridges appeared on his forehead. He realized comfort was a road closed to him; he had no hope of getting it or giving it. He would not lie to her or himself. The world, their world, had changed and nothing would be as it had been.

She looked up and met his eyes. She looked for solace there and found only grief. His pain doubled her despair. She pushed away from him. She sat back on her heels and a hard-edged fury overtook her. “No!” she said. “I will not have it. I will not let go so easily.

“You’re right, I made decisions but I was not heedless of the consequences. I was willing to accept the cost or thought I was. But I forced the consequences of my decisions onto you and I had no right to do that. I made choices for the reasons you say, but for another reason as well, one of which I am deeply ashamed. Ultimately, I made that decision and every decision leading up to it because I was afraid,” Ailís said.

“At first I convinced myself my love for you could never match the intensity of yours for me. That made me feel almost noble, but I knew the truth of it – deep down, I knew. I was terrified you would go away and leave me loving you. I felt that would break me all to pieces.

“Julian, you loved me once, didn’t you?” She staggered under the fierce intensity in his eyes.

“You must stop saying that. Don’t you know what it does to me?” The fire left his eyes, his body sagged as emotions dragged away the last of his stamina.

Without looking at her, Julian transmitted his thoughts.
“I do not know another way. Feel the words I don’t trust myself to say.”

Ailís’ eyes went large and fear paralyzed her. His lips did not move, but she heard the words all the same.

“Do you understand?”

The doctor nodded her head slowly once and stared at him, her breathing short and sharp.

He continued,
“You said before, ‘for the sake of any feelings I may have once had for you.’ Just now you said that I loved you once. I never stopped loving you, Ailís. Never. I can’t ever stop. Don’t you understand that? Can’t you see it?”

Ailís stood up next to Julian. She took his face gently in her hands, looked into his tortured gray eyes and asked, “Julian, will you help me build a future? Can you do that for me?”

Julian looked at the stack of papers on the floor. There sat the letter he had carried with him and inside of him for so long. He recalled what Bridget had said early on – ‘You have a letter. Destroy it now for your own good and that of others. It is poisonous and it will keep you from what you want most.’

He understood, he knew, he felt it – all of his decisions had led him inexorably to what he wanted most. He leaned down, wadded up the letter and tossed it into the fire.

The words that entered Ailís’s mind were clear and calm and tender. They carried with them a quiet strength and absolute assurance.
“No, my love, but I can do it with you and for us.”

Her knees buckled and she fell heavily against him. He guided her gently until she straddled the bench in front of him. Together they sat looking into the fireplace. They sat in silence and watched the paper burn, curl to gray-black ash and disappear.

Ailís let her shoulders drop and she leaned into him so that her back rested against his chest. She needed to be near him. She needed to feel he was close behind her with his strength and his vast capacity for tenderness.

She pushed back again and reached for his hand. She looked at the badly bruised knuckles and the healing skin.

She whispered, “I am sorry. It is very little, I know. I was frightened and took the coward’s way out. I said no to your love when all I wanted to say,” she lifted his hand to her cheek and then to her lips, “was to say yes.”

His arms encircled her, wrapping her in a blanket of gentle warmth. Ailís groaned softly and said again the only word Julian wanted to hear, “Yes.”

Her head rolled back and rested against his shoulder. How long they sat staring into the depth of the fire, neither knew. Her breath caught as she felt his lips close to her ear.

He said gently, “Ailís?”

“Yes?”

“I don’t know if it’s a good time, but as for you being my doctor, you’re fired.”

“Good,” she smiled. “That saves me the trouble of firing you as my patient.”

“Ailís,” he whispered after a moment’s pause. “I have a confession.” This, she felt was an odd time for confessions.

“Do you remember the first time I ever saw you? Do you remember that day when you were so angry? It was right here in this room.”

She smiled and nodded. “Well,” he went on, “the first time I set eyes on you I…”

Her breathing had picked up. “You? You what?”

“Well, I looked at you and had – impure thoughts.” She could hear the smile in his voice and she knew lines of mischievousness would be gathering around the corners of his eyes. “The nuns told me that kind of thing would happen, but I didn’t believe them.”

Her smile turned to a chuckle, then to a laugh. It was such a release that she sagged back further against his bare chest and laughed until tears ran down her cheeks. His arms closed more tightly around her making it difficult for her to breathe. With all of her strength carried off, all she wanted at that moment was to be held in this man’s arms.

At last, when she could speak again she said, “Yes, I know. You had, what should I call it, an impressive display of sinfulness. I didn’t want to of course, but I noticed and had immodest thoughts of my own. Just think what Father Fahey would say and Sister Eugenia would be scandalized!”

With his lips touching her left ear, Julian whispered, “Ailís?”

There was something slow and seductive in his voice that caused her breathing to quicken again.

“Yes?” was her tight reply.

Julian could feel the heat generated by her body penetrate her silk blouse and warm his chest. He touched his fingertips gently to her shoulders and moved slowly down her arms. His fingers traced the outline of her muscles under the sleeves of her blouse. Past her wrists to the backs of her hands, he moved with agonizing slowness and began to trace over her delicate web of bones and muscles and tendons. His fingers moved easily between hers.

“What do you think we should do to counteract our earlier sinfulness?” She could feel his tongue touch her earlobe.

“Well,” she said in a high strained voice, “I suppose I could pray.”

Julian removed his intertwined fingers from hers and his hands moved to the outside of her thighs. Her entire body became rigid when his fingers moved slowly over her thighs to her hips and then to her waist. Ailís exhaled a ragged breath slowly and completely.

Julian felt the deep rumble that escaped her lips. It communicated her feeling of stark anticipation and matched his intense need for her. “Oh, Jaysus,” came her answer through clenched teeth as she lowered her left shoulder and tilted her head to the right giving him full access to her slender neck.

Julian began kissing her shoulder and trailed kisses back to her ear where he whispered, “Are you sure I’m not distracting you from your prayers?”

“Well, yes but it is helping me to come up with some new prayers so don’t stop now.”

His arms tightened around her again. He leaned down and gently kissed the side of her neck. She murmured again the brief prayer lovers always murmur, “Oh God, yes.”

For Ailís, for Julian, the past faded into the mist and their future became linked in that moment. Both understood that their past was a memory to be learned from and that the future might never come. Each understood the priceless quality of the one perfect moment in which they both existed. Each kiss, each movement, each unique moment they shared was imbued with a sacred quality and a crystal clarity neither of the lovers had experienced before.

Ailís disentangled herself from Julian and stood silhouetted by the fire. He rose with her, took her face in his hands and looked deeply into her eyes.

Julian smiled and said, “You understand the world will never be the same for us.”

“I understand now that the world changed for both of us the moment I left Dublin, the moment you left New York and along the way at a thousand different points in time.” She placed her hands behind his neck, drew him down to her and slowly, gently and without trepidation, without hesitation, without reservation, she kissed him.

***

Sister Eugenia sat in her office and waited with Sister Gertrude sitting in a side chair acting as witness. The older nun prayed to be given the strength to suppress her anger. She had put off this interview with Bobby McMaster and his father because she felt her rage would boil over onto the pair and scald them to death.

She looked up as she heard the approach of heavy work boots coming down the hall. A light knock and the smiling face of Liam McMaster came around the door.

Sister Eugenia was dumbfounded. “What can this man find to be grinning at?” she thought. The nun did not speak, but simply pointed to the chairs that faced her desk. McMaster entered and sat down and still the smile did not leave his face.

“Where is your son, Mr. McMaster?” Sister Eugenia asked.

“Well, Sister, it sits like this. After the beatin’ Oi gave the boy he was in no real condition to be out visiting. He’ll be missing more then a few days of his schooling and that’s a fact. Took me belt to him Oi did and make no mistake,” McMaster replied with equanimity. “The boy did a wicked thing and he needed to be punished.”

Sister Eugenia looked at her hands and found they were shaking with rage. She folded them on her desk, looked at a bewildered Sister Gertrude and looked back at McMaster.

“Is it that you do not appreciate the gravity of the situation because you are ill informed or are you as monumentally stupid as you seem?” she said in tones so quiet McMaster had to strain to hear.

“Do you realize what your son has done? Do you realize why? Have you any idea what his actions say about him – and you? You do know he is not coming back to school here not now, not ever.”

“Ach, but Sister, the boy was having a bit of fun and it went too far is all. Oi’ve talked to him about it and, as Oi’ve said, Oi already beat some sense into him. You’ll not have any trouble with him again. In fact, when we’re done with our business, Oi’m going to see Sean Maher, if he’s sober,” McMaster winked. “I’ll give him a bit of money to go buy that boy of his – the simple one – a new little doggie.”

Sister Eugenia rocketed out of her chair causing McMaster to sit back so fast he nearly overbalanced and fell to the floor. “Listen to me you disgusting creature. You are under the impression this is a small matter. It is not. Your son has an illness.

“I am sure there are lower forms of life on this earth, but right now I can not think of a single one lower than you. But it is lucky for you that I am a nun for if I were not I would never warn you about going to see Sean Maher. If your paths crossed just now, you would not be getting up. I tell you this not to save your skin, but to keep Sean out of the dock charged with capital murder.

“Now get out of my sight. I have people to contact. People in the Government who are charged with providing the type of help your son will be receiving. Are you somewhat hard of hearing, McMaster? Get out now!”

“Sister,” Sister Gertrude said looking frightened and coming toward Sister Eugenia.

“Sit,” Sister Eugenia said with a voice that brooked no further discussion.

“Look now, you’ve no right to be talking to me all bold like you have!” McMaster shouted.

“Don’t tempt me,” Sister Eugenia growled. “Get out and do it now without another word.”

The farmer rose saying, “If you wasn’t a nun Oi’d…”

“You would do what, you worm!” the nun exploded. “Take your belt to me too? Well, I would be imploring you to do just that and be quick about it because it is the last thing you will ever attempt to do. You little gobshite, you
had better pray God gets to you first. If He does not, trust I will sort you out myself and there is not a bit of it you will like.

“I need not worry though. A time is coming for you, boyo. You are known, you quisling, and you can believe scores will be settled and soon.”

Liam McMaster was shaken not so much by the nun’s words as by her venom. After weighing the risks and the absence of any possible rewards to be found in striking her, he opted for a hasty departure.

As the door to her office slammed shut, Sister Eugenia sat down heavily in her chair. Sister Gertrude came and stood beside the older nun and put a hand on her mentor’s shoulder.

Sister Eugenia reached up and touched the hand of the younger woman. Straightening herself and exhaling deeply Sister Eugenia said, “Well now, that did not go nearly as badly as it could have.

“I’m sorry I barked at you, Gertrude. I hope you will forgive me – and pray for me for I will not be doing any praying for that animal. There is only one thing for which I am truly sorry. I am sorry God didn’t strike Liam McMaster stone cold dead. I would have in His place.”

***

A thin, pale man with cold dead eyes sat in a lifeless house and dreamed of a future in which he could buy the life he wanted, the life he deserved. He didn’t know exactly what that life would be, but he knew it wouldn’t be anything like the life he had endured to date. The Pale Man looked up before the knock on his study door.

“Farmer McMaster to see you, Sor,” the butler announced from the doorway. The Pale Man pulled a face, rolled his eyes and opened his desk’s bottom drawer.

“Tell him to come in.”

A red-faced McMaster entered and approached. “They’re on to me!” he said.

“Stay right were you are,” the Pale Man said. “I like you better at a distance. So, whoever they are, are on to you. And that would be any of my concern because…?”

“Yor honor’s business will be in jeopardy,” McMaster said flatly.

The Pale Man smiled his cold smile as he watched the farmer cry out as he collapsed to the carpet clutching his legs. They had gone numb from the knees down and he could feel the paralysis moving inexorably higher. “Yor honor! Please!” McMaster begged.

The Pale Man’s face was a malicious mask. He said, “I’ve told you before you don’t know my business, so how could anything you do or say put me or my plans at risk? It simply isn’t possible. Surely, you see that. In the grand scheme of things, you, McMaster, are exactly no one.

“You are an insignificant creature who would inform on his mates for two pence apiece. I do believe you would sell your mother to the highest bidder – that is assuming you knew who she was or was it your father whom you didn’t know. Refresh my memory,” the Pale Man goaded and continued.

“You’ve lost all feeling below your waist by now and it’s climbing higher. Soon your lungs will stop working and I’ll be able to watch you suffocate. Remember Donny Pearce, the one who shot his mouth off in the pub? I rather liked popping his head like a balloon. You were there, do you remember the look on his face? A priceless memory, don’t you think? Your death promises to be far more entertaining, well, for me anyway,” the Pale Man said.

“Still, McMaster, killing like this, although entertaining, well, it isn’t very satisfying. I would like to perform an experiment.” The paralysis stopped at mid chest and feeling started to return to the farmer’s body.

“You see, although you knew you were dying, you still had the insane hope you wouldn’t. I would like to remove that hope.” The Pale Man reached into his bottom drawer and came out from behind his desk. A short-barreled side-by-side shotgun hung easily from his hand.

McMaster fear turned to abject horror. He tried to crawl away, but was rooted to the spot. The Pale Man crouched in front of his victim. The farmer reached out, pleading, appealing for compassion where none existed. He begged for a reprieve.

“People are strange creatures, don’t you think?” the Pale Man said. “I possess an unfathomable ability. I need only think it and you will die in hideous agony. That, you sorry shit, is real power. Still, for all my mastery, I must demonstrate what this inanimate object can accomplish with its simple presence. Don’t you find that odd?” The Pale Man handled the shotgun casually, the twin barrels never straying far from McMaster’s face.

“I can see it, feel it. Hope is dying inside of you. Let’s extinguish all doubt and all hope right now, shall we?”

The Pale Man’s lips never moved. The words that followed were thoughts unspoken, whispers in the dark and they ratcheted up McMaster’s terror. “
Prepare to find out if there is a God, McMaster,”
the Pale Man thought as he enjoyed the death of all his victim’s hopes.

He brought the shotgun to bear on the farmer’s face. One of the weapon’s hammers fell forward; the exposed firing pin striking with a sharp, sickening
snick
that McMaster felt rather than heard. He urinated on himself, at the moment the hammer fell, but there was no bone shattering, tissue tearing, all encompassing, unique moment when life winked out.

The Pale Man stepped back laughing. “Good thing I remembered which barrel was empty, eh? There would have been even more of a mess if I’d got that the wrong way around.

“Don’t worry, I won’t make you clean up after yourself. You just run along now. Keep your mouth shut and think about what it’s like to die. Remember, you fool, there is always the other barrel waiting for you,”
the Pale Man said aloud.