Around three in the morning I realized that we no longer had a home. Mom had been treated and bandaged, but still remained in an induced coma, which was a good thing, because burns can be terribly painful. There had been a girl at school who had been burned when she was young. The entire right side of her body was badly scarred.  When you looked at her, it was like looking at two people. Nobody ate their lunch with her. So, one day I just asked her if it was all right to sit and eat. I sat down and we became friends. She told me the pain was indescribable, the surgeries, the therapy, but what hurt the most was the way people treated her. To them she was invisible, no longer even human. Somehow I could relate.

I got up, stretched, and took a walk to the waiting room where the television was always on. It was late, so there wasn’t anybody there.  The news was on. The Talking Head, a blond haired woman with harsh, serious features, frowned down at me.

“A fire broke out tonight down at the Riverside Apartment Development. Fortunately, the fire department was able to confine the blaze to several units before getting it under control. There were no casualties thanks to the quick thinking of one young man, Tom?”

I was surprised when the screen dissolved into the big face of Tom McCreedy standing outside the remains of my home holding a mic. It seems that dinner theatre wasn’t the only thing that he did. He must have combed his hair because he looked almost respectable.

“This is the site, where only a few hours earlier a daring rescue saw a woman carried from the burning inferno. Had it not been for this hero’s quick thinking death would have surely visited this abode.”

‘Death would have surely visited this abode?’ I was going to have to have a chat with Tom about his writing.

The picture on the screen was now of the burning apartments. Someone must have had a cell phone or something.  My mind spun. It was like I was seeing the entire thing again. I had experienced this often with my memory, but now, it was like another echo of me had penetrated my mind. I waited to see the form of Sherlock emerging from the fire. I saw the shape, the man, the woman he carried, but instead of Sherlock, I saw myself. I was dressed in Tom’s red surge coat, pith helmet on my head and I was carrying my mom out of the flames. Once outside, I collapsed on the grass and the first responders surrounded us.

The picture flashed back to the Talking Head. “Tom, do we have any information on the name of the hero?”

Tom stared back at me. “Yes, Leslie, the hero goes by the name of William Suntag, and he is presently at the hospital by the side of his mother, the woman he rescued.”

The Talking Head gave a ghostly hint of a smile. “Heroes aren’t made every day, and even more seldom do we see them in action. Now, on to international news where a ring of human traffickers…”

I shut the television off.  I know what I saw, and I knew that Sherlock had brought my mom out of the flames and then had slipped away. I had nothing to do with it. The only thing that I did was get tackled by the police.

As I was going back to the hospital room, I was stopped by a nurse. She held out a piece of paper. It was weird because she didn’t say anything; she just stared at me worshipfully. At first I thought she was showing me some form with my mom’s medication on it or something, but it was blank. She thrust a pen at me.

“My daughter asked me to get your autograph, she admires men in uniform.”

I took the pen and scribbled my name. Uniform? It was then that I noticed that I was still wearing the jacket. I thought about the charge of the light brigade, didn’t they all die?

“Ah, I better get back to my mom…” I said awkwardly, “you know… hero business.”

Tom was waiting for me, standing in the dim light beside my mother.

“What the…” I said, not too pleased with his intrusion.

He picked up the pith helmet, and turned the star on the front of it towards me.  He was grinning unapologetically. “I installed a really small camera in the centre of the badge, see. Did you see the news story?”

“I saw.” The camera explained the footage, but not the footage of me, because how could I take a picture of me?

“It was great resolution wasn’t it…”

“Listen, Tom, I’m not in the mood for this. My mom is hurt, besides it’s a lie, and you know it.”

Tom grimaced. “What, people going to believe an old multi-centenarian Librarian rescuing your mom from a fire that couldn’t touch him? Besides, they couldn’t see it, even if they were looking.”

“What do you mean?”

“Faery magic, Will, people can’t see it unless they either have a connection or they are invited to view.”

“What’s your connection? What’s my connection? None of this makes sense. You should go, Tom, you should go and leave us alone.”

“My connection?” he looked a bit startled and a bit hurt. “Sherlock didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

“I’m Cliodhna’s love child…”

“Sherlock?”

“That’s generally how it works, and as far as you’re concerned,” he nodded towards my mom, “you have to ask her. Listen, sorry for using the footage without passing it by you, but the station paid me two grand for it.”

I felt a burning flush. “You have to go, now.”

Tom went to leave, but then turned back. “Keep the surge jacket and the helmet. You earned it.” He left.

I felt like throwing it after him, but I didn’t, besides, after the fire it was all the clothing I had.

I took a careful look at my mom resting behind the bandages. When she woke up she would be in excruciating pain. For now, she slept.  There would be time for pain later, pain for all of us. My connection to Faery… ‘Who are you, mom? Who am I?’

The chair was going to be as comfortable as it was going to get.  So Tom was Cliodhna’s and Sherlock’s son. Strange; there had been no recognition on her face when Sherlock had brought Tom to the meeting.  No, hi, son, how are you doing? Eating properly? Want some more coke with the ice cream? On the other hand Tom didn’t seem to overly happy to see his mom. I closed my eyes.

My sleep tends to be deep, so deep that nothing bothers me, except when I dream. Then those dreams are so real, so sharp, and so vivid that I have to pinch myself to make sure I’m dreaming. If I don’t feel anything, then I’m dreaming, but if I feel something, well, then I must be awake…

Just outside of town there are a range of rocky hills. You have to get through them before you get down to the big lake. They’re great for climbing. There’s a road that branches off from the main one. I believe I’ve only taken it in my dreams, but it leads to a lighthouse. It’s strange that there should be a lighthouse in the middle of the hills, miles from the water. It’s a big, black and white banded affair that goes up and up, culminating in a lantern at the top.

I rap on the front door and then try the latch. Like always, it’s open. To get to the cliffs I like to climb I have to go through the lighthouse. Usually it’s empty, but not this time. Sitting in the centre of the room is Cliodhna. I pinch myself. My arm hurts. I’m in serious trouble and I know it.

“So,” I said, summoning up enough courage to sound brave, “you tried to kill my mom.”

“Muirne?” She looked mildly surprised that I would even ask the question. “Of course I tried to kill her, silly, she’s your mother, duh.”

Did a Queen of Faery just say ‘duh?’ Homer was  Greek, wasn’t he, so maybe Aristotle went ‘duh’.  I doubted it. “So, you fancy me?”

Cliodhna twisted  up her face and made a gagging motion with her finger pointing toward her  open mouth.

If Tom was right, I’d be lucky to make it out of this dream alive, if dream it was. “So, are you going to get out of my way so I can go climbing?”

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

“Oh, you are your father’s son, aren’t you?” she said mockingly.

I resented her insinuation that she had some special knowledge about my family. “You don’t know anything about my father,” I spat out beginning to flush.

“Oh, ho, touchy aren’t we…since I wasn’t successful in getting rid of mummy,” she started to laugh, a high out of control laugh.

“Amusing, psychotically amusing,” I said as drolly as possible. If she knew how angry she was making me, I would lose this confrontation. “You don’t know anything about my family.”

That shut her up. She got up from the chair and strode aggressively toward me. I made sure there was a nice, solid, work bench between us.

“Oh, but I do. I really do. You are very much like him.”

Maybe if I played along, this dream would expire or something and I could go climbing. “All right, how? How am I like my father?”

“Well, you do have those pretty sea blue eyes, and your hair, the colour of a desert dune, and your legs like the trunks of young saplings…”

“Glad to know I look like a geography lesson. Where did my dad die?”

“Oh, that.” Her eyes seem to shine with excitement.  “A magnificent fight.”

“How did he die?” I must have raised my voice, because she smiled. Oh, no, did I just tell her that I fancied her?

“He died in battle, like a Captain of the Fianna should die.”

I shook my head. Cliodhna was as mad as a hatter and she didn’t even have a hat.  “Dad was blown up in Afghanistan.”

“Is that what they’ve told you?”

“Listen,” I ignored her and strode forward towards the exit on the other side of the Lighthouse, “if you’re going to stop me, stop me; I’m going climbing.”

“Stop you? Why would I do that?”

I paused at the door. “I thought you and Ciabhan were an item?”

She sighed. “What we have, is eternal. What I want with you is something much, much more…how can I say, physical.”

I felt my face flush, but this time out of embarrassment.  Cliodhna began to laugh, delighting in my discomfort. Desperately I needed to turn the tables on her. I searched my mind and found it. “I didn’t know you had a son.”

The laughter died on full lips which she pressed together into a tight, white line. “I have no son,” she snarled at me.

“That’s funny, because that’s not what Tom says. Remember Tom, the chain smoking reporter?”

She was screaming at me now, such a horrendous scream punctuated with such sharp profanity that it threatened to burst my ear drums. I backed out of the door and slammed it shut behind me. I looked around. I wasn’t in my climbing grounds at all, but back in the hospital.  I sat up in my chair and my covering fell off and onto the floor. Somebody had replaced the red surge jacket with a blanket.

The room was even darker, but somebody was on the other side of the room, watching me.

“You must feel a bit like Scrooge,” said a familiar voice from across the room.

“Pardon?” I was just grateful that the voice in the dark wasn’t Cliodhna’s.

The man who was wreathed in darkness leaned forward. His bearded face looking even more ancient then usually. He was no longer wearing his black and pink pin striped suit. He had on a pair of black pants, black jacket and had a black bandana on his head that read ‘Black Jack.’ He looked like a pirate.

“Faery past, Faery present and now for Faery future,” said Sherlock.

I rubbed my eyes not bothering to ask him even how he got into a restricted room. It seemed if you had a connection with Faery you could come and go with impunity. “I don’t get it.”

Sherlock sighed. “You remember everything, right?”

I started. “How do you…”

“So do I, so does Tom, so does Madam ‘H’. When you are touched in the head by Faery, your mind opens up.”

“You can say that again about being touched,” I grumbled.

Sherlock chuckled. “That’s what I like about you, Fionn, you have a sense of humour, rather dry but it’s still humour. Your dad was like that.”

Ah, I wanted to scream. “Stop it will you, with the names, all ready. I’m William Suntag.”

“I understand, Will, it’s all a bit hard to grasp, forgive me.”

“Thanks,” I said at least he wasn’t screaming at me. He didn’t say anything. “You knew my dad?” Seems everyone knew him, except me.

Sherlock nodded. “He was a great man, a great leader and so they killed him.”

“Killed him? Listen my dad was a Captain and he was blown up by an IED in Afghanistan. He was sent home in a match box, that’s how much was left of him, with a medal pinned to it. You know what I did with the medal?”

“Yes.”

I wasn’t listening. “I threw it into the river.”

Sherlock reached into his pocket and pulled out my dad’s medal. He tossed it to me. “I had a mermaid fetch it.”

I was gob smacked. No words came to my lips as I ran my fingers over the medal’s shiny surface.

“I believe I owe you an explanation, and an apology.”

“Apology?”

“I believe I just said that, yes. You see, I should never have brought you to that meeting with Cliodhna.”

“But you did.”

“I did, and when I saw her reaction to you, I knew she would go for Muirne.”

“I told you to stop with the names…” I said between my teeth. “You put my mom at risk, on purpose?”

“I am sorry, but to understand what happened, you have to understand the names, and I think you should use your own name, don’t you think?”

“Think, think…” my voice was rising in volume again. First the dominatrix of Faery, now her favourite whipping boy…

Just then my mom groaned.

“Mom, you’re awake.”

She opened her lips and spoke. “Listen...It’s true…”

“Should I get the doctor?”

She reached out and gripped my hand. “No, Fionn…listen.”

“Listen to your mom, Fionn…”

“Mom, what are you saying?”

She pulled me close so that she could whisper in my ear. “Fate is inexorable. My name is Muirne, you are Fionn and your father’s name was Ull, leader of the Fianna, of the clan Bascnie.”

What was I going to say, sorry, mom having your body covered in third degree burns has addled your mind?  So, all I did was just nod my head in silent agreement. Satisfied with this she just closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

When I was sure she was sleeping deeply, I turned to Sherlock. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“It means that you’re going to remember, eventually, everything. In the meantime we have to come up with a plan to keep Cliodhna from killing your mom.”

“You have any ideas, because when I saw her in my dream…”

 Sherlock was up and pacing, obviously agitated. He paused. “You saw her in your dream?”

“I thought it was a dream, I mean I was sleeping, but I could feel things.”

 “This is worse than I thought.”

“I guess her being in my dreams isn’t good?”

“What do you think?”

“I suppose not?”

 He was tapping his chin. “I could give myself up.”

“No,” I said suddenly, with a fierce conviction that startled even myself. “Then she gets her way, and if she gets her way then she’ll continue to get her way. The only way to stop her is to shut her down.”

“Spoken like a true hero,” mused Sherlock.

“No, I’m not a hero and neither was my dad. We were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, how do we keep mom safe?”

Sherlock rose up out of the chair. “We take her to the Vault.”

“Yeah, but she’s moving the library in a week.”

We were standing face to face. He reached out and placed a hand on my shoulder.  His eyes were very dark. “Over my dead body, and I mean that in a very literal sense.”