Haunting Beauty (34 page)

So why was it now that he could suddenly
feel
? Pain . . . joy . . . the ache of needing . . . the agony of wanting . . . the sweet reward of giving.

His grandmother had told of the remarkable things she’d seen since his earliest memories—things she had no way of seeing, no way of knowing. And he’d suspected all along that Danni had the same gift, though she’d never said as much. But what Danni had done this morning was beyond his ability to comprehend.

He could still hear his mother shrieking, insane with her drunkenness and rage. He’d never forgotten that day, how he stood in the shadowed entrance of the kitchen, too frightened to even try to shield his brother from the erupting violence. He’d never forgotten the blood, the death hanging with the stench of old cabbage and cigarettes in the sudden quiet.

But what had happened this morning and what had happened that day so long ago . . . they weren’t the same thing. He understood now that his terror and imagination had added an element of malice to the memory. A possessed rage in his father that had been notably missing.

But what about the other? What about Trevor?

It started in the same way, he and his brother coming home from school, laughing with their friend Connor. They’d heard the raised voices when they entered and had gone to the kitchen where they’d watched in horror as their parents’ argument escalated from his mother’s usual litany of drunken discontent to unalterable brutality. But then . . .

All those years ago, Trevor had jumped into the violence and tried to stop it. Trevor, not Sean. Sean had stood petrified in the shadowed doorway, watching his world slashed to pieces by the same butcher knife his mother used to cut the potatoes for their dinner. He hadn’t prevented Trevor from racing into the middle of the fight. He hadn’t protected him. And in the end, his mother’s frenzied thrusts of the knife had found Trevor with unerring accuracy. She hadn’t meant to do it—hadn’t even realized she’d stabbed her own son.

Only after Trevor had fallen to the floor did the paralysis that gripped Sean relent. He’d rushed forward, lifted his brother and carried him away from his warring mother and father, back to the doorway. Sean remembered holding his hands over the raw and lethal hole in Trevor’s chest. Watching helplessly as the blood, as the life poured out of him.

Only after his mother lay dead did his father notice his two sons and realize he’d lost more than his wife.

But today, Sean had stopped Trevor. And his father . . . his father had protected his oldest son, risked his own life to keep Sean safe. In the end, his mother was still dead, but by her own actions. He knew in his heart that part of it
hadn’t
changed. His hurt and rage had warped the memory until it placed his father vengefully over her corpse, knife in his hand. But Niall had only acted out of self-defense—both times. He’d never wanted to hurt Sean’s mother.

Christ.
Sean didn’t know what to think now. What did it mean that Trevor had survived the surreal reenactment that morning? Had Danni only shown him what he’d always wished he would have done? Protect and save his little brother? The guilt over not doing that very thing had eaten away at him all his life. How many years had he spent hating himself for it? Perhaps he’d twisted Danni’s dream—her
vision—
into what he so desperately wanted.

Lost in his own confusion, he came upon the dock suddenly. He smelled it first, the reek of gutted fish, waterlogged nets, and tar. Next came the sounds of the waves slapping against the moored boats, the creaks and groans of sodden wood, the hollow thud of the hull brushing the dock pad. The thump of footsteps on the deck. Then he was through the fog and stepping on the blackened creosote-treated pier that jutted out to the bay. Half a dozen ships were anchored here. A half dozen more slips already empty. The
Guillemot
was still tied off and rocking.

“You’re late,” Niall said, giving Sean a hard look.

Michael glanced away from the spool to watch, and before Sean could respond, another boy came up from the cabin and smiled at him. He had a round and open face, still soft with youth and innocence. A thousand freckles dusted his nose and cheeks and bright blue eyes sparkled at him. He gave Sean a quick, shy smile that showed a missing front tooth. The sweetness of it clenched around Sean’s heart.
Jesus, it was Trevor. . . .

“I said you’re late,” Niall repeated, this time with irritation.

“Sorry,” Sean said, still distracted by the image of Trevor. It couldn’t be real, could it? Trevor was here,
alive
.

Sean moved quickly aboard and went to work pulling in the lines and raising the anchor, moving with the quick efficiency that came from a childhood spent on this very deck.

But he couldn’t help stealing glances over his shoulder at the boy—a stranger and yet so achingly familiar—who stood next to Michael, whispering in shared camaraderie.

Underway, heading into the rising sun, Sean stared at the glittering sea, thinking it looked like the end of the world, where the sun flamed over the rippling waters. He couldn’t get his mind around what was happening, what had happened. As he struggled with his thoughts, Niall came to stand beside him, glancing occasionally over his shoulder to Trevor at the wheel. Michael sat beside him, teasing his brother and laughing at something Trevor said back.

Christ in heaven, Danni had changed the past.

She’d saved his brother.

He drank in the sight of the two boys, bonded by blood and life. Reunited by the will of a woman Sean would never understand. But he was grateful—so grateful he wanted to drop to his knees and weep—no matter that it was unnatural, however Danni had done it. He glanced away, fighting to keep the tears stinging his eyes in check.

Not only had Danni changed the outcome, but she’d changed Sean’s perspective on what had happened that day. This morning, he’d seen the look on his father’s face as his mother plunged her knife into him. There’d been so much grief and sorrow in his expression that it defied words. It went deeper than the slashing blade, deeper than the sea itself. And he’d seen his father take the blade of her knife to save Sean from the same fate.

There wasn’t time to dwell on it now, but the realization lifted a weight Sean had borne for nearly as long as he could remember. And relieved of the burden, he felt lighter. Stronger.

Soon they were baiting the leaders and dropping them into the sea. It was steady, strenuous work, but somehow it soothed Sean, allowing him to deal with the pressure of his thoughts without having to openly acknowledge them.

Michael and Trevor worked side by side through the morning. Gone was the bristling hostility Michael had worn the day before, and in its place were camaraderie and laughter. While he worked, Niall glanced at his sons with pride. Today they both smiled back.

The day progressed, moving with the sun and tide. They filled the hold completely and were calling it a day early. Sean was glad. He needed to see Danni, to explain why he’d been so distant with her this morning. Hope she understood that it was shock that had driven him to silence and then solitude. Not her.

As they pulled the lines and headed back, Sean came to stand beside his father. It was peaceful and somehow soothing to be there with the man he’d loved and hated with such warring intensity. They were the same height now, both layered with muscle and sinew over long heavy bones. Brawny men with large hands and broad shoulders. Built for physical labor.

“It’s a grand vessel,” Sean said, leaning back against the dash.

Niall made a sound of humor. “The
Titanic
she’s not, but she’s Irish made and seaworthy.”

“Well, the last of it’s more than the
Titanic
could boast.”

“I suppose.”

They rode in silence for a moment and then Niall asked suddenly, “What are you doing here, son?”

The question surprised him nearly as much as the casual “son,” at the end. The leap through time had brought Sean’s age very close to Niall’s, and yet his father seemed many years older. It was there in his eyes, in the sag of his shoulders.

“I’ve come to work,” Sean answered.

“Aye, that’s what Mum says.” The look Niall turned on him was piercing. “It’s not the way of it, though, is it?”

“You tell me. You seem to know.”

Niall gave a bitter snort of laughter. “That’s God’s truth. I seem to know.”

The cryptic response settled around them and Sean tried to decipher the meaning. “You’re talking of Nana’s gift?” he said at last.

Niall gave him another sideways glance. “Am I? And what gift would that be?”

“She sees things.”

“Aye.”

“She knows things she shouldn’t.”

“True again. But no, it’s not her. I was thinking of my Brigid, God rest her soul. She had the gift herself, though it was more a curse than anything. I used to pray Christ to save me from her.” He looked past Sean to his oldest son. “He told you about his mum?”

Sean gave a hesitant nod. “It was an accident, they say.”

“Do they?” Niall asked, brows raised with disbelief. “It’s good of you to lie, but no, they don’t say it was an accident at all. They say I killed her.”

“Did you?”

“We killed each other. Her with her fecking knowing. Me with my refusal to believe. Sure didn’t she tell me you’d come.”

“She told you
what
?” Sean exclaimed, feeling yet another tremor of shock rock him.

“Brigid said I’d feel as if I knew you when you did. But she couldn’t tell me why, could she now? She could only ever tell me what she saw. Not when it would happen, not how or why. It would drive a saint to sin.”

“And you’re not a saint.”

“No.”

Niall reached for a thermos and poured tea into a plastic cup. He took a drink and then handed it to Sean.

“So perhaps you’d be so kind as to tell me what she could not? Why are you here? Why do I feel like I know you?”

Sean stared at him, wishing there was an answer he could give. How could he possibly explain what he didn’t understand himself?

“I had to come,” he said finally. “I’d no choice in the matter and that’s God’s truth. But I’ve no why to give you.”

Niall nodded. “Fair enough. You mean me no harm, that much I can tell.”

Sean raised his brows at this, not in denial but in curiosity. How did he know that Sean was not a threat?

“Oh, I’ve got my own little bit of it. Not like Brigid. She was Ballagh through and through. A little too much, if you get my meaning. I suspect somewhere in her family tree more than one branch was sired by the same root.”

Incest. Inbreeding.
Grand
, Sean thought. Even his genes were a fucking mess.

“Her gift drove her mad. She’d no control over what she saw and no way to reference it. What came to her could have happened ten years ago or forty into the future. All she knew was that she saw it. She thought me unfaithful, though I swear on her grave I never was. She saw me with another and that’s all she knew.”

He stared at Sean with a penetrating intensity. As if he was trying to convince both of them.

Niall sighed. “We’d been married just a short time before I realized how our lives would be for years to come—a windstorm of possibilities, caught at random by a faulty net. She soon lost the ability to distinguish what was real, happening in this world, from what she saw. She was beautiful and sweet and full of life when I met her, when I made her my bride. But in the end, that girl had been trampled by the sickness in her head. Do you know what she said to me, as she lay dying in my arms?”

Dry mouthed, Sean shook his head. He hadn’t been able to hear her final words.

“She said, ‘thank you, my love.’ I sat there, bleeding myself, for she went like a lioness and took a pound of flesh with her, and she thanked me. There was blood everywhere, mixing with tears, turning my sight into a red haze. My heart broken in two. When behind me, I hear my sons and there they are, watching me like I was a wild beast that need be feared. But then they both came to me and cried in my arms. If I’d died right then, I think I would have been all right, knowing they didn’t hate me.”

Niall’s expression was a soft echo of the one Sean had seen that morning. Resignation, pain, and twisted hope all rolled into one.

“It’s that one I worry about,” Niall said, looking at his oldest son. “He’s like her in some ways. A good heart, a sturdy soul. He’d give you his last meal without you ever having to ask. But he’s a Ballagh—as much as Brigid was. For all he fights it, he has the gift, the curse.”

Sean stiffened, feeling as if he’d been submerged in ice. It wasn’t true, what Niall said. He didn’t have a gift. He’d never seen anything before it happened. Certainly nothing like what he saw that morning.

“You’re saying he knows things, too?” Sean asked.

Niall gave a shake of his head. “In a way. Was a time when Michael would point me out to sea, and I would go wherever he told me for he always knew where the lines should be dropped. He’d tell me what storms were about before they’d even gather. And his mother—oh, he was good with her. ‘Da,’ he’d say. ‘Mum is up in her ways. Have a care with her.’”

The words crashed over Sean, battering him like stones against a glass wall. A part of himself fractured and he remembered. Once upon a time, he’d been able to predict the weather, the seas, the moods of those he loved. He could see inside a person, see what was beneath the skin like a canvas of color. A black heart couldn’t hide from him anymore than a pure one could.

“When did it stop?” Sean asked, knowing Niall was staring at him with shrewd eyes, but unable to mask his churning confusion.

“I couldn’t say,” Niall murmured. “When he lost his mum, he sealed himself up. He may still have the knowing. He doesn’t share it anymore though. Not with me. Not with anyone.”

Sean nodded, though it was more a reflex than an acknowledgment of anything.

“What about Trevor?” he asked.

“No, God bless him. He seems to have escaped the curse.” Sean heard his mother’s voice in his head, filled with venom.
Trevor isn’t even your son . . .