Haunting Desire (28 page)

“What are you doing here, Father Mahon?” she asked again, and it seemed that her question called back a million memories. The pain she’d thought unending after the accident. The way Donnell and Father Mahon would go off into his den together and close the door, locking her out. Not that she’d wanted to pray with them, but some part of her knew that more than God had been discussed in that sanctuary, and with equal power she’d wanted to know and feared the knowledge that they shared, the realizations they unearthed. . . .

Her head began to swim and she felt that same weightless sensation of sinking into a thick layer of gel that she’d felt in the parking lot and then again beside the river with Ellie after the attack of the three-headed creatures. Now it seemed to rise up from the ground, that thickness. She felt it immobilize her, casting her in a yielding shell from which she could not break free. She had a moment to reach out, and Tiarnan gripped her hand in his, staring at her with confusion and alarm. At the same time, Father Mahon rushed forward and took her other hand, concern in his eyes. Caught between the two, she could do nothing but hold on.

The strange and terrifying inertia spread so quickly that they were consumed by it in an instant, trapping both men in its foggy sphere with her. The world went white and spinning, rushing by in a soft misty blur, and then suddenly there was nothing but the heat of their bodies beside her and the whirling white of oblivion.

The scent of ocean, cold and foaming, came to her first, and she immediately thought she must be back on the cliffs, but the roaring sound of the tide didn’t come with the tar and brine smell of the sea. Now she sensed a dankness to the odor, a caged and decaying layer that told her she might be near the water, but not close enough to feel the spray, not outdoors.

She opened her eyes and saw Tiarnan beside her doing the same, his expression stunned. On her left, Father Mahon let out a small gasp.

“Where are we?” Father Mahon asked.

“I don’t know,” Tiarnan and Shealy said at the same time.

“It was like before, though,” Tiarnan said. “Did yer dad do it again? Did he bring us . . .”

Shealy shook her head.
No.
It wasn’t her dad, not this time. But she didn’t say it aloud.

It seemed they were in a tunnel made of gray, moldy stones that snaked back into dark shadows. The air felt old and drafty. Behind them, a rough stairway led to a door with a heavy lock on it. A barred window stared out from its center.

Silently Tiarnan climbed the stairs and tested it. The door would not budge and the lock was secure. He peered through the window but shook his head after a moment and came back to where Shealy and Father Mahon waited.

“Looks the same on the other side. Just a long hallway leading into the dark.”

“It’s a dungeon,” Father Mahon said.

“Are we still on Inis Brandubh?” she asked.

“I cannot say, lass. I’ve never seen a place with stone walls or bars here. But there is only one person I can think of who’d have a dungeon.”

“And who is that?” Father Mahon asked.

“Cathán,” he said.

“By God,” Father Mahon muttered. “To think I doubted him.”

That caught Shealy’s attention. “Doubted who?”

“Donnell. He told me. He showed me the prophecy, but I didn’t believe him. I scoffed at his tales.”

She wanted to ask more, but their precarious position in this unknown point of the mysterious dungeon discouraged them from talking. The echo of their lowered voices seemed unnaturally loud. They had no idea who might lurk outside that locked door or beyond the corridor on the other side.

By silent consent, they began to walk down the only avenue they could. After a moment, the stone wall on their right opened up and they could see cells, small and crude, with bolts hammered into the walls and chains hanging from them. The floor had bits of straw and debris, and there were windows high up with bars over them. Shealy suspected they looked out at ground level, which meant when it rained, the water would pour in. Stains beneath the barred windows seemed to confirm that guess.

The first cell was empty and so was the second, but as the three of them approached the last cell they saw something move. Tiarnan put a hand out, holding Shealy back as he inched up and peered in. Someone gave a small yelp of surprise, and instantly Shealy knew who that voice belonged to.

“Daddy!” she cried and rushed forward.

Donnell O’Leary looked small and weak, trapped behind the bars. His clothes were torn and dirty and he had a black eye. Until that moment, she hadn’t realized that a part of her feared she’d never see him again, or, like her mother, she’d find him too late. Now relief flooded her, making her legs weak. She ran to her dad like she had when she was a little girl with a scrape that needed kissing.

She threw her arms around him through the bars just as, from behind her, Father Mahon exclaimed, “Lord in heaven, Donnell. What happened to you?”

“Kyle?” Donnell said, staring at the priest in shock. “Is that really you, Kyle? I thought I’d seen you earlier, captured, but then I convinced myself I was wrong, that you couldn’t really be here. Even now I can’t believe it. You haven’t changed. Not a bit.”

Father Mahon glanced at Shealy, his expression mirroring the confusion on her father’s face. “It was only yesterday that I saw you last. In your study,” he said, but in each word Shealy heard doubt.

Father Mahon stared at Donnell like he was a ghost, and the way her dad gazed back wasn’t much different. She remembered when she’d seen them together yesterday—when she and Ellie had somehow gone through a door into the past. Her dad had been young and hale, hardly gray at all. Now he looked withered and aged beyond his years. But Father Mahon still appeared as attractive and strong as ever. In fact, he looked
exactly
the same. He even had the same book bag slung over his shoulder.

“It was longer than yesterday, Kyle,” her dad said softly. “It’s been so long I thought never to see you again.”

“What do you mean?” Father Mahon asked.

“Seven years have passed.”

Father Mahon laughed, but the sound had a hollow ring and the eyes that shifted between Shealy and her dad held the glitter of panic. He couldn’t believe what he saw—the changes that time had wrought on both Shealy and Donnell—and yet he couldn’t deny it when the two of them stood solidly before him, each of them seven years older.

“Did you hit your head?” he insisted. “It’s only been a day or two at the most. Though I will confess, it’s been hard to keep track of those since I came.”

No one joined him in the laughter and when Donnell only gazed at him with tired and troubled eyes, Father Mahon took a deep breath and began shaking his head. “It couldn’t be . . .”

“It is, Kyle. Think about it. Look at me.”

It was the last that did the trick.

Staring at Donnell, Father Mahon shook his head. “Jesus God, you’re serious, aren’t you? Seven years?
Seven years?
I don’t understand it?”

“What are y’ talking about?” Tiarnan demanded with a scowl. “What happened seven years ago?”

Father Mahon looked at Tiarnan and said, “I was visiting Donnell. I’d come to tell him that I’d decided to leave the church. I thought it only yesterday. . . .” He trailed off, shaking his head. “I should have realized it when I saw you, Shealy. You were all grown up. Healed . . . Like you are now.”

Disconcerted, Donnell moved away, pacing between the cell walls.

Shealy said, as if to herself. “You went away and then we moved to the States. When I asked after you, Dad told me you’d left—us, the priesthood. I thought it was because of the things I said to you, about God.”

“Not that you wouldn’t tempt a saint, Shealy O’Leary, but my questioning my faith had nothing to do with you. It got so that all I did was question it. And it’s Kyle now. He was right about that—I’m not a priest. I never will be. That’s why I was at your house yesterday. . . .” He paused, looking anxious. “Whenever it was. Why I’m still dressed this way. I’d come straight from talking to the Bishop to tell Donnell that I’d done what he asked. I’d left the church.”

Shealy’s jaw dropped. “You asked him to leave, Daddy? Why? You love God. You love the church.”

Donnell shook his head, looking guilt ridden at what Father—Kyle—had revealed.

“He only gave me the push I needed, Shealy. I wasn’t made for the priesthood.”

Her dad reached for her through the bars, distracting her from the thoughts gathering in her head. There was something here, something big that skimmed the surface of her consciousness without delving deep enough for her to examine. Something about Fath—
Kyle
being here now. About yesterday.

Still in shock, Shealy let her dad pull her closer. “Come here, sweetheart. Let me look at you. I’ve been so worried. Are you all right? Are you harmed? Did
he
hurt you?”

He directed the last at Tiarnan, who stiffened in surprise at the rancor in Donnell’s voice. Confused, Tiarnan stepped forward as if to present himself. He looked as nervous as any suitor meeting a father for the first time, and Shealy might have laughed about it under different circumstances. But this was no parlor and Tiarnan wouldn’t be taking her out to dinner afterwards.

Awkwardly, Shealy performed the introductions. Tiarnan reached out his hand to her father. Reluctantly, Donnell shook it.

“And to answer your question, Daddy, Tiarnan didn’t hurt me. He’d never hurt me. He saved my life. More than once.”

Her father narrowed his eyes at her like he used to do when she was a child and he’d caught her lying.

“I mean it. He’s been helping find you so we can go home.”

“Is that what he told you?”

Frowning, she looked between her father and Tiarnan, bewildered by her dad’s hostility. Obviously, he didn’t understand their situation. Perhaps he didn’t even realize where he was.

“Daddy, what happened to you after Cathán attacked us in the parking lot? I thought he had . . . Did he bring you here?”

Donnell eyed her guardedly and shook his head. “No. We fought but when you and . . .” He glared at Tiarnan. “When you went with
him
, the doorway began to close on us. It sucked us apart. The next thing I knew I was alone, stranded in this strange land. What is this place anyway?”

“They call it Inis Brandubh. You were right about the Book of Fennore,” she said, drawing his attention away from Tiarnan and back to her. “It is real and powerful. And this place—it’s part of it.”

“ ’Tis what I feared,” he replied wearily. “When I saw you that day in my study, I knew you’d come to harm.”

Tiarnan moved closer, settling a warm hand at the small of her back. She glanced at him, saw the frustration in his eyes as he tried to follow their conversation. He sensed the undercurrents to her father’s statement, but couldn’t begin to comprehend what it all meant. Now that the time had come, she regretted that she hadn’t told him what happened to her and Ellie by the river. She should have trusted him.

“What day is he talking about?” Tiarnan asked her.

“Shealy,” her dad said, interrupting before she could form an answer. “You need to get away from here. This place is too dangerous for you. Don’t you be worrying about me.”

“But it is y’ who can open the door,” Tiarnan said to him.

“Me?” Donnell exclaimed and then snapped his mouth shut. Suddenly a feeling of malaise went through Shealy. Dark and insidious, it pulsed in her blood and solidified in her heart.

“You know about me?” she whispered, shocked by the revelation. “You know that I . . .”

“Know what, lass?” Tiarnan asked.

She shook her head, trying to deny the realizations that exploded like fireworks in her mind. And suddenly the pieces fell into place, one by one, and she began to see the terrible, unforgivable picture.

Yesterday, she and Ellie had stepped through a door, passed through time and place, and ended up in her father’s study seven years ago.

“You saw me. You spoke to me,” she said softly, the hurt running through her like a rampant disease, eating away at the heart of her.

“Shealy, you have to understand,” her father pleaded. “You have to—”

“And you,” she said to Kyle, cutting her father off. Turning her eyes from his pain. She couldn’t bear to see it, not when her own was so great. “You touched my shoulder just as I felt the door closing.”

Kyle nodded. “That’s right. That’s when it felt like I’d been trapped in a bubble I couldn’t get out of.”

“I came back to the river. And you . . .” The terrible truth flooded her senses. “Oh my God. I brought you with me, didn’t I? I yanked you out of time.”

Her dad had lied all those years ago when he’d said the priest had gone away because he’d decided not to become a priest. That’s not what happened at all. He’d gone away all right, but only because Shealy had wrenched him into another world.

“Shealy,” her father said urgently. “Listen to me.”

“And you
knew
,” she said, spinning to stare at him with horrified eyes. “You knew what I could do.”

Tiarnan had been looking from one man to another then back to her, trying to make sense of what they said. Now he demanded, “What are y’ talking about, the three of y’? What happened seven years ago? What happened yesterday? What can y’ do, Shealy?”

She wanted to answer him, but her brain had seized as the ramifications rolled over her.

Kyle said, “You had the little girl with you. You said she was your sister.”

Her father made a strangled noise and turned his back.

“Yes. Her name is Ellie. She was living here with Mom . . .”

She spoke the words and a feeling of vertigo shook her and tried to bring her down. Her mother, living here . . . The accident . . . Yesterday, in the study . . .

Kyle and her father were both talking at once, but Shealy couldn’t hear anything but the chaos in her head as everything she’d thought she’d known about her father and the accident that had almost killed her exploded.