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“Saoirse?” I asked, not knowing what I expected to hear in return.
When nothing happened, I glanced at the cottage on the far side of the lake, wondering if perhaps I should risk another interaction with the old woman, but where I’d seen a quaint little dwelling the day before now sat a crumbling pile of stones that hadn’t been home to anything other than squirrels and spiders in centuries.
My mouth fell open as my gaze darted around the perimeter of the lake, but I knew there wasn’t another cottage. Just like I knew better than to ask Saoirse for a favor without bringing a gift.
I didn’t have a thing to give her, other than the clothes on my back, and as much as she might like them, I needed them more.
Then, I remembered the part in The Lady in the Lough, where Darby wrote about the accidental marriage ritual that she and Kellen had performed. Couples would wade into the lake and prick their fingers on blackberry thorns, hoping that by shedding blood together, they could prove to Saoirse that their love was true.
The first time my soul had encountered Saoirse, she’d blessed me, and it wasn’t because I’d brought her a gift. It was because Kellen and I had shed blood together and proven our love to her.
Snapping off a particularly thorny twig from one of the overgrown bushes, I rushed over to Kellen’s bench and began stripping off my—Darby’s—clothes. When I draped Kellen’s jacket over the intricately carved back, the pang of grief that sliced through my heart nearly brought me to my knees.
After twenty years of waiting, searching, mourning for someone I hadn’t even thought existed, I’d finally found him. And I’d already lost him all over again.
The pain was excruciating. It hurt to breathe, knowing that, soon, I would be breathing on my own. It hurt to stand, knowing that, soon, I would have to face a world without him in it. It hurt to be naked without his soft gaze caressing my skin and his lips healing every wound that someone else had caused.
“Saoirse,” I whispered, unable to push my voice through the knotted lump in my throat as I waded into her cold embrace. “Saoirse, please. I need your help.”
When I didn’t get a response, I lifted the twig in my hand and stabbed a particularly sharp thorn into the tip of my ring finger—the one with the freckles.
The blood came slowly, probably due to my dehydration, but when it did, I waded in deeper and swirled my hand on the top of the water.
My heart thundered in my chest, and tears stung my eyes as I waited to be grabbed by my ankles and dragged under water.
What if she was angry this time, like she had been with Damien? What if she decided not to let me go?
What if …
“Saoirse, please!” I cried, scooping my hands through the water now, searching for a trace of blue, a patch of bubbles. “Please, I need you! Damien’s gone! I have to find him. Help me find him!”
But the only response I got was my own voice echoing through the woods.
“Saoirse!” I slapped my hands on the surface of the lake before diving headfirst into the ripples.
The water was colder this time, making my muscles seize and shiver, but I pushed through the pain, peering into the murkiness and finding nothing staring back but a void as deep and wide as the one in my chest.
Coming up for air, I sucked in as much as my lungs could hold before diving in again. Maybe she would be at the bottom. I just had to make it to the bottom. Again and again, I tried to swim down there, but it was as if the lake suddenly had no end.
Once I was physically incapable of swimming another stroke, I hauled my exhausted body onto the bank, collapsed next to the bench, and stared up at the twilight sky through stinging, tear-filled eyes.
They were gone too. Saoirse, the old woman … what if they’d never existed? What if I really was having some kind of mental breakdown? I’d disappeared into Darby’s world—her village, her house, her bleeding clothes. All to distract myself from this exact feeling.
The realization that everyone I’d ever loved was gone.
I didn’t remember getting dressed or walking back to the house. I didn’t know if I’d tiptoed around the bluebells or stomped right through them. I didn’t remember passing the cottage or if there was even a whisper of daylight left as I emerged from the woods and waded across Darby’s overgrown pasture. My entire awareness had shrunk to the size of a human heart and was now occupying the space where mine would have been if I hadn’t left it behind on the bank of the lake.
Now, I felt nothing.
I didn’t bother lighting a candle when I got back inside. I didn’t want to see another space without Damien in it.
Or Odie.
Or my ma.
God, how I wanted my ma.
As I walked toward the bedroom, I caught myself wondering if Kellen had left any guns in the house.
