Breaking Point
An Inkling of Magic - Chapter 29
By the time the O’Rourke’s house rolled into view, Elspeth was an antsy mess. It was probably a cowardly and cruel act to put the onus of explanation on her brother’s shoulders like that, but, for once, Elspeth just wanted someone else to shoulder that burden. The exhaustion of years marinated in her bones and she’d be lying if she said there wasn’t also the hint of fear at how her friend’s would react to Farren’s claims. Perhaps that was the real reason she’d been so desperate for him to be the one to tell them – to spare her their looks of pity if, at long last, this was one flight of fancy too many for them.
Elspeth’s throat constricted at the thought and her arms tightened around herself as the moment of truth grew closer. You do them an injustice, her mind whispered as they pulled up the drive behind Farren, the crunch of the gravel beneath the tires loud in Elspeth’s ears. They’ve stood by you this long, why should now be any different?
She jumped when a hand gently touched her arm, its touch sending that electric feeling up her arm like it always did. Blinking, Elspeth’s eyes refocused to find she had completely missed when the car had stopped moving.
“They’re not going to throw you to the dogs,” Derek said from beside her in that same soft tone that never failed to throw her into conflict. It was so foreign to the Derek she was used to that she struggled to reconcile they were one and the same person.
Glancing up at him, she laughed at the impish spark that lit up his eyes. That uncomfortable ‘I see you’ look was still in them, but so was that smile that said he had a secret joke. The later was good. The later she could distract herself with.
“Will you ever stop comparing my friends to dogs?” she asked wryly.
He grinned at the question. “Never.”
Laughing and shaking her head, Elspeth unbuckled her seat belt.
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“Gran will likely be in the porch Da made for her,” Niamh supplied when they were all out of the cars, Kieran too busy glaring once more at Derek.
Elspeth nodded, remembering the place from her last visit.
“Well, shall we then?” she said when no one made any move to go inside. Her eyes flickered with apprehension between her friends and Derek and she held her breath. It was clear from the disgust on their faces that letting him into their home was the very last thing either of them wished to do and Derek, as per usual, wasn’t doing anything to help matters as his inner imp rose to the service once more to taunt them.
At Elspeth’s prompting though they tossed Derek one last glare before turning to take the lead.
“You didn’t tell them either did you?” Elspeth said coming up close behind her brother to whisper accusatorily into his ear as they all followed Kieran and Niamh into the house and their Gaelic grumblings hit her ears.
Her lips twitched with smug laughter when Farren visibly flinched.
“There just didn’t seem to be a right way to bring it up, you know?” he practically whinged in his defense.
She shook her head with a grin. She did know and the fact that Farren now had a small taste of it himself was far more delicious than it probably should have been.
“So, we’re just throwing them into the deep end of this mess then without warning?” Elspeth asked.
“Ah, that would seem to be the plan, yes. It worked with me right?”
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“What are you lot doing home so early?” Shannon O’Rourke asked when she looked up from the scones she was baking to see her two hooligans leading the way to the hall that lead to Granny’s flat. “You didn’t get kicked out for boxing that one’s ears in did you now?” she asked, nodding towards Derek as she continued to roll and cut out scones and slap them on the baking trays set out on the island in front of her.
Declan O’Rourke, Kieran and Niamh’s father, had been a contractor back in Ireland before the move and when he renovated the house had completely changed the inside footprint of much of the downstairs. As a result, he made a sort of great room affect that opened up the kitchen to the main living area and dining room before the house got all chopped up into individual spaces. It meant that there was more space in the otherwise oddly arranged and sprawling Colonial and it was easier to spend time with each other while each while, technically, in two different parts of the house. It also meant that it was incredibly difficult to sneak past Mrs. O’Rourke who seemed to have some sixth sense whenever either of her children were nearby.
The five of them froze as they fished for a reasonable sounding explanation. A task that Elspeth found difficult without making it look they were all guilty of playing hooky which – with the exception of Farren – they sort of were as classes hadn’t officially been dismissed for the rest of the day. It was almost inevitable that they would be, given the nature of the interruption, but they hadn’t exactly waited around to find out.
Beside her, Derek gave a muffled yelp when Elspeth’s elbow sharply collided with his side when he started to open his mouth to say something.
“Don’t even think it,” she hissed just loud enough that only he could her it as Kieran started to carefully describe to his mother the unexpected turn of events at school without giving away the gravity of it and that they hadn’t actually been given permission to go home.
Derek rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t going to.”
“Really?” Elspeth said skeptically, giving him the side-eye.
“Yes, really,” he replied. He paused and Elspeth’s eyes narrowed when she saw the tell-tale signs of a smirk playing on his lips. “It would have been a wasted effort. As I said before, your lapdog and his sister are remarkably resilient when it comes to charm. I rather suspect the same would prove true of their mother and I’d rather not test my luck by trying it.”
Elspeth frowned at that remark before remembering something Granny had said on her last visit. “Would she be able to feel it?”
“Very possibly. The Irish are often… sensitive when it comes to magic, some exceptionally so.”
Before Elspeth could enquire what he meant by that they were all being addressed.
“Well, if you’re all going to be sticking around long then, would any of you like a cup of tea?” Mrs. O’Rourke asked in her usual warm fashion, apparently satisfied with whatever Cliffs Notes explanation Kieran had given her.
To Elspeth’s surprise, Derek’s eyes lit up at the mention of tea. She didn’t know why, but, for some reason, he’d never struck her as the tea drinking type. Judging by the eager light in his eyes, however, that assumption couldn’t have been more wrong.
“Tea sounds lovely, Mrs. O’Rourke, thank you,” Elspeth said, almost laughing when she saw that she was already moving to put the kettle on before Elspeth had spoken.
“Is Gran around, Mum?” Kieran asked as Mrs. O’Rourke pulled down her largest teapot from its place on the shelf that wrapped around the kitchen and dinning room where she displayed her collection of teapots of all shapes and sizes and assorted colours. It was really quite an impressive collection and Elspeth recognized a few of them as being remarkably old and even one or two by well known makers.
“Oh yes,” she said, “she was tending to her orchids last I checked and grumbling about trolls. It seems another of her chickens got nicked last night. Why don’t you go on back and I’ll bring the tea around when it’s ready.”
“Thanks, Mum!” Kieran and Niamh said in chorus, giving their mother a kiss on the cheek before scurrying off to their gran and leaving the three of them to follow.
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“Gran?” Kieran called out when they entered Fiona O’Rourke’s private haven. “Why exactly are we looking for Gran?” he asked, twisting around to give Elspeth a perplexed look.
“It’s –”
He rolled his eyes as Niamh let out a snort. “If you say complicated one more time, Els, I swear I’ll blow a gasket.”
“It’s the truth!”
His painfully blue eyes narrowed at her before flicking to where Derek stood behind her looking around the room and pretending to be oblivious to their conversation.
“Els, –”
“It’s the truth, Kieran, trust me,” Elspeth said again, imploring him to believe her. “If you don’t believe me, ask Farren,” she added over top of her brother’s frantic protest.
“Alright, fine,” Kieran huffed, “but was he really necessary to bring along?” His head jerking towards Derek in derision.
Elspeth sighed and squirmed under her friend’s interrogation. “He’s sort of a big part of what’s complicated, so, yes, he really was.”
“You had better have a good explanation for all this, Els.”
“Oh, she does,” Farren chimed in to defend her, “it’s just…”
“Complicated?” Niamh filled in sarcastically when Farren’s voice petered out. “Let’s just get this over then, shall we?” she added, pushing ahead of her brother when Elspeth and Farren just gave an apologetic smile and a half-shrug at her snark. “Gran!”
Behind her, Elspeth flinched at her friend’s volume certain Derek must be doing the same.
“I’m back here you little bean sidhe, no need to scream,” the laughing voice of Fiona O’Rourke floated out to them in answer to her granddaughter’s earsplitting wail.
They followed the direction of the voice and, sure enough, Granny O’Rourke was back in her covered porch tending her prized orchids, her back turned to them. She started talking when she heard them come in.
“Now what has you bel…” her voice trailed off and her eyes widened when she turned around and finally saw who was there. “Of all the things I thought this day might hold,” Granny said, her voice low and careful as her eyes fixed on Derek, “coming face to face with one of your kind was most certainly not one of them.”
“Yet fending off trolls was?” he replied with a teasing smile free of malice.
“What’s going on?” Elspeth heard Kieran ask with marked confusion, sparing a glance up at him she found the same level of perplexity reflected on his face as his eyes darted between his gran and Derek. “What does Gran mean by ‘his kind’?”
Niamh, too – who had herself twisted around from where she stood out in front to look behind her – looked just as lost and bewildered as her brother.
She knew she should explain – and would have to explain at some point – but Elspeth was much too anxious about the whole reason for their visiting Granny to begin to take the time for it now. Besides, perhaps her brother was right, seeing would make it far easier to accept than mere words. With that floating around in the back corners of her mind, Elspeth plunged right into the matter at hand.
“When I was here last, Granny, you told me something that your gran used to tell you,” Elspeth said, “do you remember that?”
Fiona swiveled her attention from Derek to Elspeth faster than Elspeth would have thought the fragile looking woman capable of. Her eyes, so like her grandchildren's and not just in their colour but their intensity of expression also, drilled into Elspeth’s. “I remember. I may be old, but there’s no draft in my belfry.”
A soft chorus of snickers went up from the room in response to the feisty reply. No, Granny was still smart as paint and sharp as a tack with a tongue quicker than a frog’s when she chose it.
“Then may I ask if you’ve felt anything? Anything at all out of the way?” Elspeth asked with some urgency, her heart rate picking up.
She needed to know. A few disappearances here and there could have been contained, but with the detectives showing up at her school, Elspeth knew it was more than just a few and those were just the ones that would have been reported. There were more things then those which were seen whose vanishing would never have made it to their attention. With Granny’s inklings about these things though, then she just might get an idea of how great the scope really was.
The older, greying haired woman gave her an odd look. “No, not at all,” she said, “everything’s felt perfectly nor…” Her eyes widened as she suddenly broke off speaking mid sentence.
“Normal?” Elspeth said, a knowing quality in her voice as she finished Granny’s sentence.
“Yes,” Fiona said with a note of concern, “I always thought a shift in the air would feel…,” she paused, searching for the word, “more. Would feel more, but it’s not more that I feel now, it’s less.”
Around her, Elspeth could feel the confusion radiating off of her still clueless friends even though they held back their tongues. She would have a lot of groveling to do before the day was out. In the meantime though, her focus was still on Granny and her alarmed expression as she took stock of the magic-less air she’d been living with.
Her eyes shot up to Elspeth in alarm before darting to look out at her garden and the plates of treats that Elspeth could make out – each seemingly untouched if judging by Granny’s reaction and the plate Elspeth could see sitting out among the flowers just outside the door. “I’d noticed that the gifts I’d leave out had been left alone,” she said half muttering to herself, “but I thought twas just they’d lost their taste for the jam or else perhaps it had spoiled from being out too long.”
Her blue eyes locked once again on Elspeth when she turned her attention back on the room.
“But it isn’t is it?” she said gravely, “Until you lot showed up, I hadn’t noticed how dull the air had become, but now it’s buzzing with more energy than a hornet’s nest that the farmer just kicked.” A slow, secretive smile spread across her face as she looked between Elspeth and Derek who were still standing close together. “And it’s not just your friend,” Granny added conspiratorially, an excited gleam in her eyes.
“Thank you, Granny,” Elspeth said, “for everything. Turns out you were right.”
The older woman’s smile brightened. “The pleasure is all mine, love. You must come by sometime when you’re free to talk more,” Fiona said, her eyes wandering to her grandchildren and their clear confusion.
“Wait? That’s it?” Niamh asked, her dark brows pinched as she tried to make sense of things. “That’s all you were in such a hurry to ask Gran about?”
“Niamh –”
“What about our explanation, Els?” her blue and purple haired friend asked, her accent getting stronger the ore upset she grew, “you promised us. Remember?”
She felt Derek shift closer to her almost on instinct as one of her oldest friends let into her. From the intense look in his eyes, the move hadn’t escaped Kieran’s notice either and his fists tightened at his sides like he was having to hold himself back from ripping him away from her.
He probably is, her mind piped up helpfully. He’s threatened to sock him one more than once before.
“How about we take this conversation somewhere else where we won’t be disturbing anyone?” Elspeth begged.
“How about he leaves and we finish it right here?” Kieran countered, backing up his sister even as he continued to glare daggers anew at Derek.
Outside, the sky darkened and Elspeth thought she could hear the faintest rumble of thunder as the clouds gathered.
“How about not?” the fae beside her spat with a surprising amount of venom.
Kieran sneered at that. “Why is he even here, Els?” he demanded, gesturing angrily at Derek. “We could have squeezed you into the truck with us or else one of us ride in the bed. He wasn’t needed.”
Derek spoke before she had a chance to answer. “Where Elspeth goes, I go,” his voice low and dangerously calm which Elspeth had learned was never a good thing. “Even if you had left me behind, I would have just followed you anyway.”
“Oh yes, I forgot, you’re bosom buddies now aren’t ya?” Kieran taunted, hurt colouring his words and the way they nearly cracked at the end. He whipped his head around to stare with pain filled eyes at Elspeth. “Is he stalking you now?” he demanded, “is that what’s happening?”
Put on the spot, Elspeth felt her throat closing in on itself. She’d never done well with this kind of emotional conflict before, not when it was directed at her. It always made her feel like the room was closing in and she couldn’t breathe. It also gave her the worst headaches in the world and she was beginning to feel a dandy of one coming on now. Even with the throbbing in her skull though from the raging headache Kieran and Derek’s fighting was causing, there was still no mistaking the thunder this time nor the lightning that ripped through the sky along with it.
“Protecting,” Derek growled before Elspeth could gather herself enough to form a response, his eyes darkening with the sky.
“Kieran, love, I really think you ought to just drop the bone this time,” his gran cautioned him, anxious eyes flickering between Derek and the storm that was suddenly brewing outside, but he didn’t listen.
“Protecting?” he spat like the word was bile to his tongue, “the only thing that Elspeth needs protection from is you and I’ve been doing that. You’ve been nothing but a blight in Elspeth’s life since you showed up and decided to make her the object of your own sick amusement!”
Kieran’s volume grew and with it her headache. She clenched her eyes shut as even the light was making the pounding in her head worse to where she almost felt sick. Everything was too loud and too bright – was this what a migraine felt like? While she was no stranger to headaches, the curse of migraines was something Elspeth had always been grateful to have been spared.
“Kieran, that’s enough!” Elspeth cried, but he didn’t seem to hear her.
“So why don’t you do us all a favour and stay out of her life and ours?” Kieran growled, “you’re not wanted in it and you’re not wanted here!”
Derek’s eyes flashed, the gold flecks in his eyes dancing like the lightning. The smile on his face was one of smugness as a deathly calm came over him betrayed only by his eyes. “You say that, and yet who was it that Elspeth rode with again?” he taunted, “in fact, she’s willingly spent more time with me over the last few days than she has with you so what does that say about who’s not wanted?”
That pushed him over the edge and Elspeth’s eyes flew open in time to see Kieran lunge at Derek with as feral snarl tore from his throat. Beside him, his sister shrieked, startled by his sudden loss of control.
Several voices cried out at once and hands were everywhere trying to break the two apart. Neither seemed to hear them, Kieran too lost to his anger and fierce protective streak of Elspeth and busy grappling with Derek all the while Derek acted like the attack was nothing but a game to him – his nonchalance only serving to further fuel Kieran’s rage. Even Elspeth’s own voice was drowned out in the din of rampaging emotions and soon it was all too much.
Her vision blurred til it was little more than grey noise swimming in front of her eyes and the sound faded to a distant garble outmatched by the hammering of her own heart in her ears that beat in time with the stabbing pain in her head. I can’t… I can’t… the words repeated in Elspeth’s head, but she couldn’t complete the thought. She had to make it stop.
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Kieran let out a sharp yelp of pain as a hard wallop landed across the back of his head making him stumble and send both of them crashing to the cement floor. The jolt of surprise and impact made him loosen his grip just enough on a tense but still smirking Derek for Farren and Niamh to pull the two of them away from each other.
“Now that’s enough of that!” Granny barked, glaring down at her grandson with oceans of disappointment in her sapphire blue eyes. “Kieran Liam O’Rourke, you ought to be ashamed of yourself, brawling like a barnyard animal.”
His face reddened at the rebuke as his eyes found the floor. He still hadn’t made it to his feet yet.
“And you!” Fiona scolded, turning her eyes on the fae similarly sprawled at her feet, “stop baiting my grandson or I’ll box your pointed ears from here to Tir na Nog! I don’t know whose Court you are and I don’t rightly care. This home is my court, and you’ll behave yourself or else let the road greet you and the door hit you on the ar–”
The sound of clinking china and footfalls followed by Mrs. O’Rourke’s voice broke into granny’s lecturing.
“I wasn’t certain how anyone, but my own two liked their tea, so I’ve left you to fix your own,” she said and it wasn’t long until she appeared in the doorway with her arms laden down bringing in the tea as promised, her tone rapidly shifting from cheery to scolding, “and, Niamh, love, how many times have I asked you not to shriek like that? I don’t care what your brother’s done now, your scream could wake the dead and kill the living.”
Completely oblivious to the scene she’d walked in on, she set the tray down on a potting bench before taking a look about the room. Her flour covered hands found her hips when her eyes fell on Kieran.
“Kieran, what on earth are you doing lying about on the floor like a clod!” she said, “Get up from there before I have a mind to grab the dustbin and shoo you off the floor myself.” Spluttering away in Gaelic, her red curls flew as she shook her head and turned on her heels to go back to her baking.
“Well, you heard your mum,” Granny said sternly, though her lips twitched with laughter over her daughter-in-law’s whirlwind entrance and exit, “now get off the floor you great lumping eejits. After a display like that, you’ll be lucky if Elspeth wants to spend time around either of ya.”
With Farren helping Derek and Niamh her brother, they both rose to their feet with crimson stained cheeks flushed from mortification after the right scolding they’d received from one of the sweetest – and evidently feistiest – old ladies in town. Back on two feet, they dusted themselves off from dirt and debris after being on the floor.
“I’m sorry, Els,” Kieran sighed, a frown overtaking his face when he looked up. “Elspeth?”
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While the storm around her had stopped, the storm inside Elspeth was still raging as – breathing erratically for reasons that had nothing to do with how fast she’d been running since slipping out unseen from the O’Rourke’s house – she stumbled about wildly in the pouring rain. Unaware and uncaring of where it was she was going so long as it was away from that stupid fight, she kept going.
Elsepth cried out in pain and surprise when her toe hit a rock and sent her crashing into the mud. Cold, wet, and now with mud rolling down her face and splattered on her cloths, she closed her eyes and felt the fight go out of her as she finally gave into the hot, angry tears she’d been holding back.
Untold minutes passed as she sat on the ground, the mud soaking through her jeans and spilling into her shoes to make her socks a soggy, squelching mess, when her shoulders finally stopped shaking and her breathing evened out. “If they want to behave like idiots, then let them, but I don’t have to witness it,” Elspeth muttered bitterly under her breath, her eyes still shut.
Finally feeling in control of herself again though her head still hurt some, Elsepth opened her eyes and frowned as she took stock of where she was.
She was in the middle of a dirt road half-laying in the mud with her left hand scraped up and bleeding from how it had shot out on reflex to break her fall. Around her, on either side of the road, were trees and scrub, but no houses and no mail boxes at the end of long, dirt driveways winding their way into obscurity.
She didn’t recognize any of it. She’d been in such a blind frenzy to get away from the source of her panic induced migraine that she hadn’t paid any attention as to what direction she’d even run. And now, sitting with mud splattered all over her and blood on her hand and scraped up, throbbing knee as every sound made her jump, she realized what a very big mistake that might have been.