What the Wind Knows(73)

“Eoin,” Thomas said.

“Yes.”

“That might be the hardest thing to imagine . . . my little lad, grown and gone.” He sighed. “I don’t like to think of it.”

“Before he died, he told me that he loved you almost as much as he loved me. He said you were like a father to him, and I never knew. He kept you a secret, Thomas. I knew nothing about you until that final night. He showed me pictures of you and me. I didn’t understand. I thought they were pictures of my great-grandmother. He also gave me a book. Your journal. I’ve read the first few entries. I read about the Rising. About Declan and Anne. About how you tried to find her. I wish now that I’d read everything.”

“Maybe it is better that you haven’t,” he murmured.

“Why?”

“Because you would know things that I haven’t even written yet. Some things are better left to discover. Some paths are better left unknown.”

“Your journal ended in 1922. I can’t remember the exact date. The book was full, all the way to the last page,” I confessed in a rush. It was something that had bothered me . . . that date. The end of the journal felt like it was the end of our story.

“Then there will be another book. I’ve kept a diary since I was a small boy. I have a shelf of them. Fascinating reads, all,” he said, his expression wry.

“But you gave that one to Eoin. That was the only one he had,” I argued.

“Or maybe that was the only one you needed to read, Anne,” he offered.

“But I didn’t read it. Not all of it. Not even close. I didn’t read any entries past 1918.”

“Then maybe it was the one Eoin needed to read,” he reasoned slowly.

“When I was a girl, I begged him to take me to Ireland. He wouldn’t. He told me it wasn’t safe,” I said. Thinking of my grandfather made my chest ache. It was like that, his loss. Out of the blue, his memory would tiptoe past, reminding me he was gone and I would never be with him again. At least . . . not the way he was, not the way we were.

“Can you blame him, Anne? The boy saw you disappear into the lough.” We were both quiet, the memory of the white space between places making us move closer and cling unconsciously. I laid my head on his chest, and his arms tightened around me.

“Will I be like Oisín?” I murmured. “Will I lose you, just like he lost Niamh? Will I try to return to my old life and discover that I can’t, that three hundred years have passed? Maybe my old life is already gone—my stories, my work. Everything I’ve accomplished. Maybe I am one of the vanished,” I said.

“The vanished?” Thomas asked.

“We all vanish. Time takes us away, eventually.”

“Do you want to go back, Anne?” Thomas asked. His voice was gentle, but I could feel his tension in the weight of his arms.

“Do you think I get to choose, Thomas? I didn’t choose to come. So what if I can’t choose whether or not I go?” My voice was timorous and small; I didn’t want to wake time or fate with my musings.

“Don’t go in the lough,” he begged. “If you stay out of the lough . . .” His voice trailed off. “Your life could be here, Anne. If you want it to be, your life could be here.” I could hear the strain in his voice, his reluctance to ask me to stay, even though I was sure it was what he wanted.

“One of the best things about being a writer, about being a storyteller, is that it can be done in any time and in any place,” I whispered. “I just need a pencil and some paper.”

“Ah, lass,” he murmured, protesting my capitulation, even as his heart quickened against my cheek. “I love you, Manhattan Annie. I do. I’m afraid that love will only bring us pain, but it doesn’t change the truth now, does it?” he said.

“And I love you, Tommy Dromahair,” I replied, glib and unwilling to talk of pain or hard truths.

His chest rumbled with laughter. “Tommy Dromahair. That I am. And I’ll never be anything else.”

“Niamh was a fool, Thomas. She should have told poor Oisín what would happen if he set foot on Irish soil.” His hands rose to my hair, and he began to loosen my braid. I tried not to purr as he separated my curls, spreading them over my shoulders.

“Maybe she wanted him to choose,” Thomas argued, and I knew it was what he expected me to do, without pressure from him.

“Then maybe she should have let him know what was at stake, so he could,” I chided, rubbing my lips across his throat. Thomas’s breath hitched, and I repeated the action, enjoying his response.

“We’re arguing about a fairy tale, Countess,” he whispered, his hands tightening in my hair.

“No, Thomas. We’re living in one.”

He rolled me beneath him abruptly, and the fairy tale took on new life and new wonder. Thomas kissed me until I began to float up, up, up before drifting down, down, down, sinking into him as he welcomed me home.

“Thomas?” I moaned into his mouth.

“Yes?” he murmured, his body thrumming beneath my hands.

“I want to stay,” I panted.

“Anne,” he demanded, swallowing my sighs and caressing my cares away.

“Yes?”

“Please don’t go.”