The Shadows (9 page)

The last words were a cry like thunder, loud and roaring so that Patrick wanted to cover his ears against it. The magic was paralyzing and horrible. The lamp puffed out, the wand leaped to terrible brightness and then died. Simon collapsed onto the floor. Darkness fell hard and complete.

Silence pounded in Patrick’s ears, and then he heard the room breathing, the faint in-and-out hush of the walls, the shivering of the floor as if he stood on something alive. They all stood as if held in place; Patrick was afraid to move.
What have we done?
But then someone lit the lamp again, and as Patrick blinked in the sudden light, Simon was helped to his feet.

“Now what?” Rory asked. “Did it work?”

“It felt like it worked,” Patrick said.

“So did the Fianna horn,” Jonathan reminded them.

And it had. There’d been the same sense of the room coming alive, the magic growing and ebbing like a tide.

“We’ll wait until midnight,” Rory said. “Then we’ll all go home and see what happens.”

There was a knock on the front door.

Patrick started. They shouldn’t have been able to hear it from the third floor. But this was loud and urgent, again a sound like thunder. The whole building seemed to reverberate.
His heart climbed to his throat. He glanced across to Jonathan and saw the same fear tightening his friend’s face.

No, not fear. He didn’t want to feel fear. This was the answer to a prayer. A sign. Everything he’d ever wanted.

“Well,” Simon said with a smug smile. “It seems we have our answer.”

He headed for the stairs, and they all followed. Patrick was caught up in the excitement. The spell had worked. The magic was real!

At the bottom of the staircase, Simon paused. They gathered behind him like children waiting for someone to throw candy. Simon grinned—it reminded Patrick of the illustration of the Morrigan, the Irish war goddess, he had in his study.

Simon opened the door.

Standing on the threshold was a man. He was soaked to the skin, dark hair dripping lank to his shoulders, his clothing—an embroidered linen shirt, a scarlet cape—clinging to him. He stood in a pool of gathering water, though the night was dry and hot. There hadn’t been rain in days. Other than that, he looked like any man. He was of medium height and muscled. A thin scar slashed his cheek.

He looked at Simon and then past him, to where the others stood on the last few stairs.

“Hello, lads,” he said. “’Tis Daire Donn, King of the World and ally of the Fomori. I am their messenger. I believe you called?”

FIVE

Grace

I
felt I moved in a dream those next days. I thought about gorgeous Patrick Devlin and the way his gaze had lingered on my mouth—I must have relived that moment a hundred times. He could not really have said
“You were only just becoming a beauty.”
Or he
had
said it but he hadn’t meant it. None of it. Not the
“I’ve loved you for some time,”
nor the
“Do you want to know me, Grace?”
—or at least he hadn’t said it in that way that clutched my heart and made me answer “Yes,” and in my head,
Yes yes yes.

I told myself he would think better of those things. There would be no invitation to tea, and nothing more would come of it.

But the invitation for me and my mother arrived, delivered by a messenger boy who stood on the stoop and said to Mama, “I’m to wait for an answer, ma’am”; and I began to think that perhaps my dreams of romance might come true after all.

My mother turned to me with a knowing look. “Now why, I wonder, would Sarah Devlin be so anxious to have us to tea, Grace?”

“I believe she thinks her son and I would make a good match.”

“Patrick,” Mama mused.

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” I accused. “You’ve already spoken to Mrs. Devlin. The two of you conspired—”

Mama swept my words away with “Are you averse to such a match?”

“No,” I admitted.

“Then it hardly matters how it came about.”

I’d been reading the book Patrick had given me that he’d said would tell me something about him. The poet was James Clarence Mangan. An Irish poet, as Patrick had said, and at first all I’d seen were pretty poems about Ireland and ancient heroes.

But the more I read, the more I saw what Patrick must have wished me to see. The poems were pretty, yes, but they were much more than that. “Lament for Banba” held the lines: “For the hour soon may loom / When the Lord’s mighty hand / Shall be raised for our rescue once more!” And in “Dark Rosaleen”: “’Tis you shall reign, shall reign alone, / My Dark Rosaleen!” I remembered what Aidan had said about Patrick being a member of the Fenian Brotherhood, and I understood. These were poems of war, about Ireland rebelling against British rule. Patrick was telling me of his passion for Ireland and her politics.

I closed the book, looking out my window onto the street below, and tried to decide how I felt about Patrick’s involvement. I thought of the way he looked at me, the things he’d said. Ireland didn’t matter to me, but I liked the passion it inspired in him. I liked that there were things that mattered to him beyond himself. He wasn’t like the other boys I knew, who talked only about horses and drinking. He was like those men in the stories I loved: heroes riding into battle because the world needed saving. Patrick
was
a white knight.

I rubbed my thumb across the worn cover; clearly Patrick had read this book many times, and suddenly I could not wait to discuss it with him, to discover more of him.

It wasn’t the butler who opened the door for us when Mama and I arrived at the Devlins’ for tea but Patrick himself. “You’re here at last,” he said, looking at me, making my heart flutter. “Come in, please. Mama and Lucy are waiting.”

“You won’t be joining us?” I asked, trying not to sound disappointed when he led us to the parlor.

“I’ve business to attend to first, I’m afraid. But it shouldn’t take long. I’ll be with you shortly.”

I couldn’t help smiling like a fool, and he smiled back; and it was a moment before I realized we were just standing there smiling at each other while everyone looked on. I ducked my head, and Patrick said, “I’ll be quick, I promise,” and left.

“How wonderful that you could come,” Mrs. Devlin said
as she poured tea. “Dare I hope that this means your mother is feeling better?”

“I’m afraid not,” Mama said. “But we’ve left Aidan with her, and I trust she’s in good hands.”

I said nothing, though Mama and I both knew it would be a miracle if Aidan were still there when we returned. I watched as Lucy smiled distractedly and wandered to the window.

Mrs. Devlin said, “Lucy, my dear,” and then, to us, “I’m afraid my daughter is not herself this afternoon.”

“I’m quite myself,” Lucy disagreed. “More myself than ever, I believe.”

I knew that tone. Lucy was in love. The Astor boy still, or someone new?

Mrs. Devlin said in a low voice, “You must forgive her. She’s been in a state. Now, Maeve, you must tell me—” She was off then, speaking again of Grandma’s health, and Mama and she were soon engaged in conversation.

I went over to Lucy, following her gaze. Nothing but the park beyond the windows, fully leafed trees trembling in a warm breeze. I said, “We’re blocks from the Astor house. You couldn’t hope to see him from here.”

“The Astor house?” she asked blankly, and then, “Oh. Oh no. I’m done with him.”

“I suppose that’s best, as you had no hope of him.” It was a bit harsh to say it, but there was something about Lucy that brought out the worst in me.

She threw me an annoyed glance. “Yes, I know. And he’s a callow boy anyway. Nothing like—” She broke off.

So Lucy had another secret love. If she wouldn’t even tell me his name, he must be equally inappropriate. I sipped my tea and tried to ask casually, “Nothing like whom?”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because all you care about are your poets and your stories. Why, until Patrick, I’ve never even seen you look at a boy.”

“I’ve looked,” I protested.

“You’re so innocent sometimes, Grace. You think love is chaste and sweet and
romantic
, and it’s not. It’s burning and overwhelming and . . . and
messy.
It never does what you want.”

Messy, yes, Lucy would think that, given that she’d never once fallen for anyone she could actually have. I said, “Well, you should know, given how often you’re in love.”

“This time it’s
real
.”

As it had supposedly been every time before. “If that’s so, then you’d best tell me who it is, as I’ll no doubt be seeing you with him.”

“I can’t be with him.” A sigh. “We’re like Romeo and Juliet.”

“Your families are bitter enemies?”

“No, but . . .” Lucy glanced toward her mother. “But Mama would never accept him. Nor would Patrick.”

“Why not?”

“Because he’s a stableboy.”

I choked. “A stableboy?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Lucy. You can’t be serious.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Because he’s a
stableboy.
He’s even less acceptable than that gardener you liked.”

“Sometimes I think it’s a curse to have money,” she said mournfully.

I wanted to hit her. “You don’t mean that, Lucy.”

“But I do. All these
things
. . .” She pulled at the lace on her bodice. “If I were poor, who I am wouldn’t matter. We could be together.”

“I think you’d miss your fine feather bed.”

“I wouldn’t,” she said, almost viciously. “I would give up everything for him.”

“You’re mad,” I said, thinking of bill collectors and furniture going out the door never to be seen again and my family in the poorhouse on Blackwell’s Island. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”

She ignored me. “And the most terrible thing is that it must be secret. Patrick would dismiss him in a moment if he knew. I had to beg him to hire Derry as it was.”

“You begged Patrick to hire him? Since when have you had anything to do with the stables?”

“Derry needed a job. It was the only position Patrick had for him.”

“I see. Wherever did you meet this paragon of manhood?”

“He was in the park. I saw him and he was . . . he’s the most handsome boy I’ve ever seen, Grace. He’s . . . Well, there’s no describing him. I just looked at him, and I knew.”

“When was this?”

“Two days ago.”

I wanted to laugh. Trust Lucy to fall in love so quickly and deeply. And then I remembered Patrick, and suddenly it didn’t seem so stupid. There
was
something magical about Madison Square in the gaslight.

“Well, I’m certain everything will work out,” I said to soothe her, but I didn’t really believe it. Lucy was right: her family would never allow her to be with a stableboy.

She gripped my arm. “You mustn’t say a word,” she whispered urgently. “If you tell a soul, I’ll be ruined. Promise me. Promise me you’ll say nothing.”

I shook off her arm. “You’re hurting me.”

“Promise!”

“All right,” I said.

She looked past me. Patrick had come into the room, and I felt warm when I saw the way his eyes came directly to me.

His mother said, “Patrick, my dear, is your business done?”

“For now,” he said.

Lucy hissed in my ear, “Especially not to Patrick.”

“We’re hardly—”

“Promise.”

I nodded.

She drew away. “You’re so lucky, Grace. You don’t know what it’s like to want what you can’t have.”

How little she knows of me,
I thought bitterly. I heard Patrick say to his mother, “Would you ladies mind if I took Miss Knox away for a few moments? Just outside, where you can see us.”

My bitterness faded. When he stepped over to me and said “Would you take a stroll, Miss Knox?” I forgot all about Lucy and her stableboy.

“I would be delighted, Mr. Devlin.” I ignored my mother’s relieved smile, and Mrs. Devlin’s doting look, as I went with Patrick out into the garden. Blooming roses in peach and pink bordered the walk that led the short distance to the park, and I remembered their scent—sweet and heavy—from the last time we’d come here. Their fragrance brought that night sweeping back, and the way he’d said,
“I’ve loved you for some time.”
I grew hot, looking down at my boots where they peeked from under the hem of my gown—my second best—of sage-green twill.