Carla Neggers - The Angel

“Does this have anything to do with Ireland? With what happened there when you—”

“No. It has nothing at all to do with Ireland.” She took a breath. “So, how’s your work?”

Keira stifled her irritation at the abrupt change of subject. It felt like a dismissal and probably was, but she reminded herself that she hadn’t come out to the woods to judge her mother, or even for information. She’d come simply to say goodbye before flying out of Boston tomorrow night.

“My work’s going great right now, thanks.” Why go into detail when that world no longer interested or concerned her mother?

“That’s good to hear. Thank you for stopping by.” She got to her feet and hugged Keira goodbye. “Live your life, sweetheart. Don’t get too caught up in all these crazy old stories. And please don’t worry about me out here. I’m fine.”

On her way back through the woods, Keira resisted the urge to look over her shoulder for the devil and serpents. Instead, she remembered herself as a child, and how her mother would sing her Irish songs and read her stories. Every kind of story—stories about fairies and wizards and giants, about hobbits and elves and dark lords, princes and princesses, witches, goblins, cobblers, explorers and adventurers.

How could such a fun-loving, sociable woman end up alone out here?

But Keira had to admit there had been hints of what was to come—that she’d seen glimpses in her mother of a mysterious sadness and private guilt, of a longing for a peace that she knew could never really be hers in this life.

Her mother insisted she hadn’t withdrawn from the world or rejected her family but rather had embraced her religious beliefs in a personal and profound way. She viewed herself as participating in a centuries-old monastic tradition.

That was no doubt true, but Keira didn’t believe her mother’s retreat to her isolated cabin was rooted entirely in her faith. As she’d listened to Patsy McCarthy tell her old story, Keira had begun to wonder if her mother’s trip to Ireland thirty years ago had somehow set into motion her eventual turn to the life of a religious hermit.

Another mosquito—or maybe the same one—found Keira, buzzing in her ear and jerking her back to the here and now, to her own life. She swiped at the mosquito as she plunged down the narrow trail through the woods to the dead-end dirt road where she’d parked.

The story of the three Irish brothers, the fairies and the stone angel wasn’t about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Ultimately, Keira thought, it was about the push-pull of family ties and the deep, human yearning for a connection with others, for happiness and good fortune.

Mostly, it was just a damn good yarn—a mesmerizing story that Keira could illustrate and tell on the pages of her new book.

“They say the stone angel lies buried to this day in the old ruin of the hermit monk’s hut.”

Maybe, maybe not. Patsy McCarthy, and her grandfather before her, easily could have exaggerated and embellished the story over the years. It didn’t matter. Keira was hooked, and she couldn’t wait to be on her way to Ireland.

In the meantime, she had to get back to Boston in time for a reception and a silent auction to benefit the Boston-Cork folklore project that had brought her to Patsy’s South Boston kitchen in the first place.

She glanced back into the woods, wishing her mother could be at the reception tonight. “Not just for my sake, Mum,” Keira whispered. “For your own.”

Boston Public Garden

Boston, Massachusetts

7:00 p.m., EDT

June 17

Victor Sarakis didn’t let the heavy downpour stop him.

He couldn’t.

He had to warn Keira Sullivan.

Rain spattered on the asphalt walks of the Public Garden, a Victorian oasis in the heart of Boston. He picked up his pace, wishing he’d remembered to bring an umbrella or even a hooded jacket, but he didn’t have far to go. Once through the Public Garden, he had only to cross Charles Street and make his way up Beacon Street to an address just below the gold-domed Massachusetts State House.

He could do it. He had to do it.

The gray, muted light and startling amount of rain darkened his mood and further fueled his sense of urgency.

“Keira can’t go to Ireland.”

He was surprised he spoke out loud. He was aware that many people didn’t consider him entirely normal, but he’d never been one to talk to himself.

“She can’t look for the stone angel.”

Drenched to the bone as he was, he’d look like a madman when he arrived at the elegant house where the benefit auction that Keira was attending tonight was being held. He couldn’t let that deter him. He had to get her to hear him out.

He had to tell her what she was up against.

What was after her.

Evil.

Pure evil.

Not mental illness, not sin—evil.

Victor had to warn her in person. He couldn’t call the authorities and leave it to them. What proof did he have? What evidence? He’d sound like a lunatic.

Just stop Keira from going to Ireland. Then he could decide how to approach the police. What to tell them.

“Victor.”

His name seemed to be carried on the wind.

The warm, heavy rain streamed down his face and back, poured into his shoes. He slowed his pace.

“Victor.”

He realized now that he hadn’t imagined the voice.

His gaze fell on the Public Garden’s shallow pond, rain pelting into its gray water. The famous swan boats were tied up for the evening. With the fierce storms, the Public Garden was virtually empty of people.

No witnesses.

Victor broke into an outright run, even as he debated his options. He could continue on the walkways to Charles Street, or he could charge through the pond’s shallow water, try to escape that way.

But already he knew there’d be no escape.

“Victor.”

His gait faltered. He couldn’t run fast enough. He wasn’t athletic, but that didn’t matter.

He couldn’t outrun such evil.

He couldn’t outrun one of the devil’s own.

No one could.

Beacon Hill

Boston, Massachusetts

8:30 p.m., EDT

June 17

Not for the first time in his life, Simon Cahill found himself in an argument with an unrelenting snob, this time in Boston, but he could as easily have been in New York, San Francisco, London or Paris. He’d been to all of them. He enjoyed a good argument—especially with someone as obnoxious and pretentious as Lloyd Adler.

Adler looked to be in his early forties and wore jeans and a rumpled black linen sport coat with a white T-shirt, his graying hair pulled back in a short ponytail. He gestured across the crowded, elegant Beacon Hill drawing room toward a watercolor painting of an Irish stone cottage. “Keira Sullivan is more Tasha Tudor and Beatrix Potter than Picasso, wouldn’t you agree, Simon?”

Probably, but Simon didn’t care. The artist in question was supposed to have made her appearance by now. Adler had griped about that, too, but her tardiness hadn’t seemed to stop people from bidding on the two paintings she’d donated to tonight’s auction. The second was of a fairy or elf or some damn thing in a magical glen. Proceeds would go to support a scholarly conference on Irish and Irish-American folklore to be held next spring in Boston and Cork, Ireland.

In addition to being a popular illustrator, Keira Sullivan was also a folklorist.

Simon hadn’t taken a close look at either of her donated paintings. A week ago, he’d been in Armenia searching for survivors of a moderate but damaging earthquake. Over a hundred people had died. Men, women, children.

Mostly children.