Haunting Desire by Erin Quinn Page B

Margret O’Leary. Everyone called her Maggie.”
    The silence that followed that statement was thick and uncomfortable. None of them knew quite what to say to that. It seemed irrelevant, her mother’s name, given the devastation they’d only just survived that morning. But something in Shealy’s stillness, in the intent way she looked at the child in her arms, made Tiarnan pause. Eyes narrowed, he glanced between Ellie and Shealy, suddenly noticing similarities in their features that he’d missed before.
    Then Ellie looked up from Shealy’s arms and pinned him with storm-cloud eyes.
    “Maggie,” he began, still too uncertain to voice the bigger question. “Y’ knew her?”
    Shealy’s face was tight, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. When she released it to speak, Tiarnan noted that it trembled.
    “My mom was killed—we thought she was killed—in a car accident seven years ago. She was pregnant when it happened.” She looked back at Ellie, took a breath. “I saw Maggie right before the m-monster . . .” A painful pause, another deep breath. “Before the monster killed her. Maggie was my mother. I’m almost certain.”
    By Tiarnan’s estimation, Ellie was not yet three years old, but time on Inis Brandubh didn’t pass in the same way it did in the real world. Seven years out there might be a minute on Inis Brandubh. Seven years here might be eternity on the other side. There was no rhyme or reason to how it flowed and no way to measure it.
    “This car accident you thought killed her?” Jamie asked, his usually gruff tone gentle. “It happened on the Isle of Fennore?”
    “Yes. Our car went off the cliffs and into the sea. My father was able to escape and save me, but my mom was never found.”
    The men exchanged another weighted glance. As Tiarnan had told Shealy last night, all of the people who lived on this tiny islet could trace their coming to Inis Brandubh directly back to the Isle of Fennore. They’d each been there when the white light had blinded them, then sucked them in and spewed them out here.
    Jamie looked at Tiarnan. “You found Shealy yesterday?”
    Tiarnan nodded.
    “Where?”
    Before Tiarnan could answer, Shealy said, “In a parking lot outside of a restaurant in Arizona.”
    The shocked silence echoed like a great clap of thunder. Tiarnan counted one, two, three . . . and then everyone started talking at once. Tiarnan didn’t know what a parking lot or restaurant or Arizona was, but he understood that the words were synonymous with Shealy’s world, a world the other men had once shared.
    “Wait a minute. Wait a goddamned minute,” Jamie said, quieting the rumble. “Let me make sure I’m getting this straight. You”—he pointed at Tiarnan—“saw her”—the finger moved to Shealy—“ outside of Inis Brandubh?”
    Tiarnan glanced at Shealy, at her pale face and clouded eyes, and once more that unwelcome urge to protect her gripped him. He’d trusted these men with his life many times over and yet he didn’t want to share with them anything about Shealy O’Leary. And that bothered him, greatly. In a short amount of time, Shealy had managed to alter his perception of his own world in more ways than he could believe.
    “Yes,” he said at last. “I was pulled through. Into her world.”
    Once again, the voices erupted, demanding, exclaiming, disbelieving.
    Tiarnan held up his hand. “As was Cathán.”
    “Cathán?” Jamie shouted. “ Cathán ? How? And why the fuck would you come back if you were out?”
    “I cannot tell y’ how it happened. It was done in an instant. As for coming back, it was not my choice, but even if it was, I would not have left my brother and I would not have walked away from any of y’ either.”
    Jamie laughed. “You really mean that, don’t you, T?”
    Frowning, Tiarnan nodded. Of course he meant it.
    “Don’t get me wrong,” Jamie said, “I want out of here as bad as anyone, but if you get the chance again, you take it.