Donal stepped down from the threshold into the MacSweeneys’ darkened front yard.

“Did you get lost?” he asked his brother.

Finn sat in the back of the wagon, his legs draped over the edge. Only a slight shift of his head gave any clue that he heard Donal. The younger brother stepped toward him in small increments.

“Are you hurt bad?”

“I am not,” Finn said.

“Are you scared?”

“I am not.”

“Are you mad?”

“I’m not.”

“What is it, then? Give me something. I don’t like being on this side of the conversation.”

A smirk formed on Finn’s face. Donal suspected it had to fight its way to the surface.

“Hold onto that memory, would you?” Finn said.

Donal laughed.

“I don’t get it, though. Save for Murrough, you’re the most knowledgeable person around when it comes to legends, myths and history. You used to live and breathe this stuff. Now your uncle is telling you it’s real and you want nothing to do with it?”

“Maybe if Murrough came at me with this business when Mam and Da were alive I’d be eating it up, same as you. But I have heard and read many stories, and not one involves a boy and a book-reading farmer saving anybody from anything.”

Finn furrowed his brow at Donal.

“Oi, I remember when you were younger you literally ran away from Murrough and I when we started talking about history and culture. Why are you so raring to go along with this?”

“The more those three talk about what happened today,” Donal said, “the easier all the odd-shaped pieces in my mind fit together. I can’t explain it any better than that. Besides, I have to believe some small part of this is causing my nightmares. Do you think I should go back in and ask Murrough about them?”

“Not in front of Siobhan and her mam,” Finn said. “Admitting that you’re seeing things in the daytime isn’t something to freely share with even friends. To be honest, part of me wishes you hadn’t told me. Now that someone else knows, you can’t deny it from yourself anymore. We’ll tell him when it’s just us. Deal?”

“On one condition,” Donal said.

“You’re joking. What is it?”

“Come with us to Dunfanaghy. If you’re able to prove me wrong, then we come right back here to keep watching all the stuff that won’t grow. But if they’re right—if I’m right—then we have to see this thing through.”

“Fine.”

“Come on, grab our stuff like Murrough told you.”

“By the way,” said Finn. “Why did you pack my one good leine shirt for a trip like this? Are you going to be the one to wash it when it gets dirty?”

Donal stared at his brother. After everything that’s happened, this would be the dumbest argument he’s had all day.

Finn’s smirk slipped through. “Just coddin’ ya. We’ll deal with that, too, when the time comes.” He tossed one of the bags toward Donal in an arc high enough to bounce off his face before it dropped into his arms.

****

Siobhan yanked a pillow from under Finn’s head.

“Time to go!”

His head dropped to the floor, the dull thud sounding worse than the impact felt. He raised his head to confirm the front door that stood at his feet remained closed.

“Too good to share a bed with your little brother?” Siobhan asked.

She had retired to her room by the time Finn settled in for the night. Curls of red copper reached for the floor as she stooped over him and framed a grin wide enough to wrinkle her eyes and nose. Her eyes appeared amused by her finding.

“Or was his thrashing keeping you awake?”

“Neither,” said Finn. “I merely wanted to make sure that I heard the dullahan coming if for some reason he found us.”

Siobhan’s grin opened up into a smile that separated her square jaw from the rest of her head. “Nice to know I possess more stealth than a demon of the night!”

She flipped Finn’s pillow onto his face.

“Murrough, too, it would seem.”

“Dya’mean by that?” Finn said, batting the pillow out of the way.

“He stepped right over your watchful self on the way out earlier this morning.”

Finn sat upright and threw off his blanket to better view the room stirring behind him. The flourish revealed his fresh change of clothes to Siobhan.

“Look at you,” she said, her smile widening even further. “The symbol of vigilance.”

From anyone else, Finn would have taken the exchange as mocking. He resumed his scan of the room. Donal was finishing his meal. To most he would appear fine but Finn marked the darkened rings under his brother’s thousand-foot stare. Mrs. MacSweeney and Siobhan’s older brother were loading bags with food and supplies. Murrough was nowhere to be seen.

“There’s still some breakfast left in the pot,” Mrs. MacSweeney said. “You’re going to need it today. Shivvy, stop playing and help us out.”

Finally, a chance to knock his tormentor off-balance.

“Did she just call you ‘Shivvy?’” he asked. “You heard the lady, Shivvy. Get to it!”

Siobhan frowned at the back of her mother’s head. The grin returned as she stood up, though covered by inverted brows. “How about you mind your business and eat, Finny?”

“That doesn’t even make sense!” Finn said. “My name’s already just one syllable.”

He dished up his breakfast and grumbled all the way to the table. He glared at his brother’s broad grin.

“Not a word,” Finn said.

Faint hoofbeats emerged toward the front of the house. Finn’s shoulders tightened and his head whipped toward the front door.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

“That’s himself returning,” Siobhan said, confirming with a glance out the window. “Eat up; no sense staring at the door until it opens.”

The hoofbeats drew closer and stopped. Murrough entered through the door as casually as any other day.

“I asked around the Crossroads, Gortahork, and Ards Beg. No reports of the dullahan in the last few hours. The trip east looks clear for now. We should finish loading and leave soon.”

Donal joined the others in shuttling bags and small crates from the house to Murrough’s wagon. Finn shoveled the rest of his porridge into his mouth, grabbed his things and headed out onto the lawn.

“Why so much stuff?” Donal asked. “I don’t remember needing so much stuff just to get us to your home in Dunfanaghy.”

“Going somewhere and staying somewhere are two different things,” Murrough said.

Donal shrugged and resumed his work.

Finn threw his bag in the back and glanced out to sea. The cover over Tory Island had thickened, its color darkened to an iron grey. The tops of two towers poked through top, barren stone tree trunks craning to reach sunlight. Finn’s eyes traced its extent southward.

“Uncle, has the fog always run that close to Inishbeg?” He pointed to the coast. The gloom encroached the five miles that lay between Tory Island and Inishbeg, the northernmost of three islands that extended from shore. The middle island of the chain looked unseasonably white.

“Are those all gulls covering Inishdooey?”

“And every other bird that flies around Tory and Inishbeg, it would seem,” Murrough said. “We don’t know what’s causing it yet, but it is growing and it’s not natural.”

Siobhan gave her mother and brother a hug as Donal put the final bag in the wagon. Mrs. MacSweeney took Finn’s hand in both of hers. “You boys stay safe. Listen to Murrough and Shiv—Siobhan.”

She caught herself at the first hint of Finn’s smirk.

“Even if you don’t believe us, they’ll still keep you safe.”

The widow surprised Donal with a hug, but he leaned into it.

“Thank you for the food,” he said.

The quartet walked to the wagon. Siobhan caught Donal stepping up to the front seat next to Murrough.

“Not bloody likely,” she said.

He glared at her before climbing over the bags to sit in the back next to his brother. Finn waved to the pair standing in front of the house.

“Why isn’t your brother coming?” Finn asked Siobhan. “Couldn’t hurt to have an extra body if we really are in trouble—especially if he’s supposed to be a druid.”

“He’s not a druid,” Siobhan said. “Not everyone in a family has the same ability. Some don’t have any. He’s staying behind to take over the tasks Mam makes me do.”

“Besides, how miserable of a trip would it be if you had to take your brother in tow?”

“Very miserable,” Donal said from the side.

****

“This trip is taking too long,” Donal said.

“How would you know?” Finn asked. “You’re always asleep by this point.”

“We’ve been riding for two hours and only now are we leaving the Crossroads.”

“It’s been almost one hour, and this is Carrowcannon. Crossroads have come and gone.”

Donal searched north and south for familiar landmarks. The roadsides leaving town were overgrown, though less dense than the roads closer to home. Breaks in the treeline offered glimpses of meadows and grazing fields. The novelty left him after the third bend in the road revealed the same landscape as the previous two.

“I don’t understand how the rest of you stay awake,” he said. “Murrough included.”

“I figure every trip longer than a half-mile has at least one section that’s monotonous.” Finn said. “One you have to endure. Sometimes it’s near the start, sometimes it’s the end—if it’s a round trip it will be both.”

Donal nodded, and turned his attention within the wagon. Driving was the only time Murrough hunched like a man his age. He had not turned his head once to check on the cargo area since they departed and rarely glanced to his side at Siobhan.

Siobhan’s gaze wandered in every direction. Donal first suspected her behavior was out of paranoia but he found no sequence or rhythm to her movements. Each turn of her head was as casual as the expression on her face, save for her eyes. They seemed to alternate between the near and far distances, never stopping in the middle. Whatever she was doing, she was focused and present.

It likely was the reason she locked eyes with Donal after she caught him looking at her twice in quick succession.

“Something on your mind?”

“I still don’t understand,” Donal said. “How did you create lightning out of nothing?”

Siobhan put a bracing hand on Murrough’s shoulder and slid over the cargo, forming a triangle between the three passengers in the rear.

“It was thunder, actually. Either way, I did not ‘create’ it like everything else in this world is created. It is more of an exchange. To produce that thunder, I had to pull energy from another plane, and in turn send some of our energy back in return.”

Donal nodded as if he understood even if it didn’t appear to fool Siobhan. Finn stared into the middle distance over Donal’s shoulder, his face blank.

“I lost you,” she said. “Sorry, these talks are usually done in a place less… mobile. You have to remember that there are other ‘lands’ and other ‘planes.’ Tír na nÓg and Tír na Beo—those are separate worlds in their own locations.”

“Planes are much like the world around us now. They sit in the precise spot our world does, shifted ever so slightly and humming in their own ways. They will not be exact copies of our world, but some are very similar. Each plane has a special kind of energy to it. Druids like myself pull energy from a plane called Mag Argetnel, or the Plane of the Silver Clouds.”

“What do you mean by putting some back?” Donal asked.

“Everything requires a balance. Life and death, summer and winter, high and low tides—it does not matter. What you pull from another plane, you must give that much back. In time the energy you exchanged blends with their new planes. It is like water in a way. Water rains from the sky, flows into a lake, turns into vapor and blends in the sky. Or how air fuels a fire and its little bits of smoke blend back into the air.”

“So when I threw the knife, did I do any of that?” Donal asked.

Finn’s raised eyebrow betrayed an otherwise disinterested face.

“You might remember I was busy, so I didn’t see how you threw it. It’s likely you did some sort of magic—even if it was by accident or dumb luck.”

“But I didn’t push anything back.”

“You did, but that’s mostly where luck comes into play. I ran past the spot where you stood. If you had not completed the exchange, I would have felt it. You likely would have felt it.”

“There are consequences to not completing the push,” Siobhan said. “Most of the time it happens by accident while someone is learning how to do it so a teacher is there to help fix any problems. There are rare times where someone doesn’t complete the transfer for the purposes of dark magic.”

“So it’s something I can learn?” Donal said. His eyes widened as he leaned toward Siobhan. “You’re going to teach me, right?”

“Some of those descended from the Tuatha Dé and the Fomori—Sílrad Déithe and Sílrad Díberg, as they are sometimes called—have these abilities,” Siobhan said. “But not all do, and no amount of teaching will change that. You two were supposed to have this talk and be tested several years ago. It never happened because—”

Donal nodded. He leaned back and stared at his feet, waiting for Siobhan to gather her thoughts.

“Well, isn’t that convenient?”

Siobhan and Donal turned their heads in unison toward Finn.

“Ex-Excuse me?” she said.

Murrough’s back stiffened, though he did not turn an ear toward the back.

“Our parents didn’t mention a single word about this for 17 years,” Finn said, “and that’s when my brother and I were supposed to find out? Pretty convenient if you ask me.”

“We—” Siobhan started.

“—And then yourself, daughter of a man that never had a care for our parents or a kind word for us, pops in for visits full of small talk and pleasantries, laughing, joking like we were lifelong neighbors.”

“So either you matched things up to your own timeline to take advantage of us,” Finn said, “or, supposin’ this is all true, you were keeping tabs on us just in case we might prove useful someday. Tell me, MacSweeney, which one is it?”

Siobhan pivoted her body to Finn, nostrils flaring under reddening cheeks. It now was a task to tell where her hair stopped and her face started.

“We knew at least one of you was likely Sílrad, perhaps both,” she said. “Murrough knew that your parents never spoke of it with you. Since you two chose to stay on your own, we knew there might come a day when you found out accidentally.”

Her jaw did not move as she spoke. She bounced her index finger at him.

“Your poxy brain worked all that out yet somehow forgot the obvious. Did you forget that I lost my dad two years before you? He was a flawed man, sure, but he loved me and I him. I could fill three of these wagons with things you didn’t know about him.”

“But I knew a bit about what you were going through and thought I could help. And did you ever stop to think that maybe I liked visiting you because…”

Siobhan shook her head and her focus shifted to the landscape behind Finn’s head. Finn looked in no rush to help her finish her thought. She glanced at Finn, then Donal, and sighed.

“In spite of everything that happened, you two were fun.”

She looked at Finn for a reaction. He clenched his jaw and slammed his eyebrows so far down that they pushed his eyes to the floor of the cargo area.

“At least you used to be,” she said.

She stood up and placed one hand on Murrough’s back. She paused after placing the other hand on the seat, keeping the back of her head pointed toward the brothers.

“I’m thinking you had the right idea, Donal, sleeping through all those trips with that one.”

Murrough shared a sympathetic glance with her as she climbed over the supplies and into the front. She fixed her eyes on the horizon, and from it they would not stray for the remainder of the trip.

Donal leaned over and punched Finn in the arm. “She was going to teach me, you eejit!”

Finn rubbed his potential bruise.

“You don’t know that,” he said. “She couldn’t teach you much in a rolling wagon. What does she know, anyway? I’m loads of fun.”

“You’re a load, all right.” Donal said.