The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh Page B

most unhappy when we’re not allowed to pursue it. That’s when we get into trouble. Know what I mean?”
    For a moment, the scene around them shivered, and Colin thought he could smell the sea and burning peat. Then it was gone. “Yeah. I know the feeling.”
    â€œSo . . . you’ll stay? Or go to Seattle and take care of whatever you need to take care of there, then come back here. I really could use you. I’d be able to pay you a consultant’s salary—a good one—and if I’m elected, well, I could use someone I know I can trust on my staff, if that interests you.”
    Above them, in the branches, a crow stirred, cawed, and flew away.
    â€œI don’t know. I’ll think about it,” he told Tommy. “That’s all I can say right now.” He clapped his brother on the back. “Thanks for trusting me, Tommy. That means a lot . . . even if I have to apologize to Har . . . I mean, Carl.”
    Tommy laughed. “Well, c’mon and get it over with, then.”

    The reception at the house was worse than Colin had imagined it would be.
    The house had been filled with bouquets from the funeral home, their sickly sweetness competing with the smell of coffee and the various hors d’oeuvres Beth had prepared. The struggle between the clashing odors threaded through the haze of a dozen conversations and dutiful, apocryphal remembrances of Colin’s father. Colin wandered the house, smiling and shaking hands, and enduring the pats on the back and the hugs from people he barely knew, the mindless niceties and clichéd condolences. He fled to his old room on the second floor after an hour or so, sitting on the bed his mother had prepared for him and staring at the walls—freshly-painted, with all his old posters and paintings carefully removed. It was a stranger’s room. The only thing of his in it was a large plastic model of the Millennium Falcon he’d put together when he was twelve or thirteen, carefully dusted and sitting on an otherwise unadorned dresser top.
    He sat there in the dimness, listening to the chatter from downstairs echoing up the staircase. His guitar was there, leaning against a wall—his mother had insisted that he bring it along. He unzipped the gig bag and held it, closing his eyes and strumming a few aimless chords.
    â€œA wee bit overwhelming, is it?” It nearly sounded like the dream-woman’s voice, in her lilting Irish accent, but then he realized with a start that the voice had come from the doorway of his room. He opened his eyes to see Aunt Patty standing there. In one hand, she was holding a small, leather-bound book, like the moleskin notebooks he’d seen in stationery stores and bookstores, except that this one appeared to be old and battered; her other hand was closed around something, though all he saw was the long loop of a silver chain hanging from between her fingers.
    â€œYeah,” he told her, putting the guitar aside. “A wee bit. I thought I’d escape up here for a few minutes.”
    â€œYour room looks nice.”
    â€œIt looks like Mom’s vision of what she wanted my room to look like back when I was a teenager. Which it never, of course, actually looked like.”
    She gave him an understanding nod, then came into the room and sat on the bed alongside him. “I brought a couple things for you,” she said. “First, hold out your hand . . .”
    Colin did so, and Aunt Patty turned her closed one over his, opening her fingers. Something fairly heavy dropped into his palm; in his hand was a green, crystalline stone about the size of his top thumb joint. The stone hadn’t been cut into facets, but was polished and transparent enough that one could see into its crannied depths. It was set in filigreed silver, with the fine chain put through a loop at the top. The gem seemed to hold aquamarine ribbons of color within it,