Authors: Susan Kiernan-Lewis
Tags: #ireland, #war, #plague, #ya, #dystopian, #emp
Heading Home
The adventure continues in
Heading
Home
, Book 3 of the dystopian series, The Irish End Game.
After two years of living and adjusting to
life after the bomb, Sarah and John have discovered that happiness
can trump grief and loss. Together they’ve created a life of
fellowship and hard work, pride of self and community, good
friendships, and, for Sarah, love. But the moment a messenger comes
to the camp with the news that the United States government is
gathering up all of its stranded nationals to help them get home,
is the moment that Sarah and John’s world begins to crumble.
Who could guess that the one thing they’d
prayed so fervently for would be the very thing that would destroy
everything they’ve worked so hard to build?
Book Three of the
Irish End Game Series
Copyright 2013
by San Marco Press.
All rights reserved.
Heading Home
Susan Kiernan-Lewis
1
The colors from the setting sun streaked
across the summer sky in a vibrant display as Sarah stood in the
front room of her cottage. She filled a basket with fresh-baked
rolls for the upcoming dinner at Fiona’s. The days in Ireland were
long and warm in late June. As she looked across the camp, awash
with muted reds and yellows from the dying light, her eyes were
drawn to the warm glow from inside Fiona’s cottage.
Even from a distance, it looked inviting and
cozy. Sarah saw Fiona and Papin moving about the interior, doing
the little homey chores necessary for putting a family meal
together. She watched them until she saw Mike appear on the porch
steps and heard Papin squeal her greeting to him.
She saw Mike open his arms and Papin and
Fiona both came to him. Sarah would never forget the day, seven
months ago, when Mike rode into camp with Papin cradled in his
arms, her broken arm folded against her chest, her eyes wide with
hope and expectation. When Sarah ran up to them, he dismounted and
carried Papin to Sarah’s cottage. Sarah held the dear broken
girl—and the man who had brought her home—and believed her heart
would burst from happiness.
Since that day, Mike had stepped easily into
the role of father to Papin, and the girl had responded like a
Morning Glory to sunlight. Gregarious by nature, Papin slipped
seamlessly into the pace and beat of family life as if she’d been
born to it. For the first time ever, Papin had a loving family.
One thing everyone knew for sure: the bad
times were behind her.
As Sarah packed her basket, it occurred to
her that tonight was a typical evening meal with the people she
loved most in the world. The anticipation she felt—hearing them
share about their day and laughing with them, as she knew she
would—filled her with a sense of wellbeing and security she’d never
really had up to now.
The truth of it was they were finally all
together—all except for David. A shadow passed over her heart as
she thought of him, buried beneath a scattering of wild flowers in
the far pasture by Deirdre and Seamus’s old cottage. She shook the
thought from her mind. Tonight wasn’t the time for reflection or
regrets or grief. It was a night for celebration and toasts and
joy.
Tomorrow was Fiona’s wedding day.
***
Mike Donovan stood at the
end of the aisle and watched the bride approach. He had to admit he
had never seen her look more beautiful, her face flushed with
excitement, her eyes sparkling when she saw him. It was all he
could do to mask his quickly misting eyes as he gazed at
her.
“You ready, then?” he asked gruffly, holding
out his arm to her.
“As I’ll ever be,” Fiona said, grabbing on
to his arm.
“Declan’s a good bloke,” Mike said, turning
toward the chapel.
“I know.”
They stood at the end of
the path as it wrapped around the last hut before entering the
camp. It had been Sarah’s idea to have Mike and Fi approach the
little chapel from the outdoor walkway. Mike had to admit, it felt
even more special to take this walk with Fi, at the end of which
he’d hand her over to the man who, in the last seven months, had
become his closest mate since his school days.
Hard to believe it had
been seven months since Declan and his gypsy gang of fortune
tellers, goniffs, and grifters had stormed the little Irish
settlement Mike had built and helped rescue them from an English
assault. Seven months in which Declan had proved himself to be not
only a friend and a capable lieutenant in managing the camp
alongside Mike—but the one man in all the world that Mike’s sister,
Fiona, would give her heart
“There’s the music,” Fi
said, squeezing Mike’s arm. “I don’t know how your Sarah did it,
but it really sounds pretty close to
Haste
to the Wedding
.”
Mike grinned.
His Sarah
. As much as he
loved the sound of that, and he knew Fiona only said it as a
private gift to him on this special day, he also knew Sarah
Woodson—an American stranded in Ireland with her family after an
ill-timed vacation—belonged to no one.
It was true enough,
however, that she was just about the most resourceful person he’d
ever met. After everything that went down last year he had started
calling her the female MacGyver.
“Let’s go, Mike,” Fi said, tugging on his
arm. “I got the bugger to the altar but there’s no telling how long
he’ll stay there.”
“He’ll stay,” Mike said,
as he turned his attention back to his sister and her big day.
“You’re not the only one who’s waited a long time for this
day.”
***
The wedding could not be
more perfect,
Sarah thought as she dabbed
her eyes,
if it had been privately catered
with a limo waiting for the happy couple
afterward
. As it was, they cut a homemade
wedding cake that, due to the lack of sugar, tasted more like corn
bread than cake and said their vows in front of a seriously
inebriated justice of the peace in lieu of a proper priest. Just a
few more things hard to come by after the bomb changed everyone’s
world, Sarah thought grimly.
She turned to her
thirteen-year-old son, who was whispering loudly to the bride’s
nephew, Gavin. John was growing tall, like his father had been. His
eighteen months of living in a world with no electricity, no
electronics and no transportation beyond what a horse could provide
had transformed him from an indulged child into a young man mature
beyond his years.
Which didn’t mean he still
didn’t need to be shushed from time to time. “John,” she
whispered.
He turned to her, grinning
apologetically and mouthed the words,
Sorry, Mom
.
Sarah turned back to the
wedding to see Mike kiss Fiona at the altar in the little chapel
that two weeks earlier had served as a granary shed, then go to
stand by Declan.
She glanced at the
calluses on her fingers. Before coming to Ireland a year and a half
ago, she had worked in an advertising office in Jacksonville,
Florida. Her major skillset involved the usual office equipment and
word processing software.
A lot had changed since
then. Nowadays she baked bread and dug in the dirt and milked goats
and mended clothes that she wouldn’t have bothered giving to the
poor once. Back then she’d had a paralyzing fear of horses. Now,
she rode nearly every day and couldn’t imagine her life without the
presence of the gentle, forgiving beasts.
Back
home
. It was a painful image that never
got easier for Sarah. When the hydrogen bomb exploded over the
Irish Sea eighteen months ago, it detonated an electromagnetic
pulse that effectively flung Ireland and the United Kingdom back
into the eighteen hundreds.
Sarah’s dreams, her
thoughts, her world would always focus on the hope that one day she
and John would go back home to the United States.
Papin sat to Sarah’s left.
A young gypsy girl, a year older than John, Papin had known only
abuse and prostitution before meeting Sarah in Wales last
year.
“Do they kiss when they
marry in America?” Papin asked in a loud whisper.
Sarah nodded and looked
back at the ceremony. She felt responsible, in part, for Fiona’s
happiness, since it was Sarah who’d met Declan and his band of
gypsies and urged him to come to Donovan’s Lot. It would never have
occurred to her then that the rambling, handsome gypsy who lived
off the land—and by his wits—and the fisherman’s daughter would
fall in love. It had been a pleasure to watch it unfold over the
last months.
Fiona, at thirty-five, had
never married. Opinionated, fiery with a wild mane of curly brown
hair, she looked like a gypsy queen, Sarah thought.
Who would have guessed she’d been waiting for her
gypsy king to find her?
As for Declan, his
extended family had assumed after awhile that he would not wed and
had given him the mantle of the family leader and patriarch—even
though none of the many gypsy children that scampered around the
camp were his. When it became clear that he and Fiona intended to
be together, it was as if Donovan’s Lot had engendered its own
William and Catherine love story, so eagerly did the people in the
community endorse the match.
Declan, in his suede boots
and demi-jacket, turned to Fiona and drew her close to him. Sarah
watched Fiona turn to her new husband, her eyes shining, mouth
slightly open as if to gasp at the wonder of the moment.
When the couple kissed, Papin gave a loud
sigh. “So romantic.”
Several people in the seats in front of
where Sarah and the two children sat turned to smile at Papin.
It
was
romantic. And for sweet, darling
Fi to find someone after all this time…Sarah caught her breath at
the pleasure and sheer happiness for her dear friend. Her eyes
strayed again to Mike, standing solemnly as the couple kissed and
the crowd began to clap and cheer.
Were all brothers like this
when their sisters got married?
Sarah
frowned. She would definitely need a word with him as soon as she
could get him alone.
The wedding feast was well
underway. Two long tables stood opposite the cook fire loaded with
fruit pies, roast chicken, fried apples, corn fritters and pitchers
of buttermilk.
Sarah watched Mike talking
with a few of the other men—clearly discussing camp business of
some kind from the serious nod of Mike’s head as he listened. A
natural leader, he had created this community of over a hundred
people by bringing together neighbors and family right after The
Crisis happened to form a place of security and
fellowship.
Where before there had
been only pasture and field, an assortment of huts, cottages and
sturdy tents now ringed the main campfire. There were rules in the
community, but the underlying belief held by all was that there was
safety in numbers, and a good life could still be had, even without
electricity or cars.
Sarah edged her way to the circle of men and
slipped into the center. “Excuse me, gents,” she said as she
slipped an arm around Mike’s waist. “The presence of the brother of
the bride is requested on the dance floor. I’m sure camp business
can wait one night.”