Once Upon a Castle - Jill Gregory [8]
He felt immediately better once they were zipped, then realized that he felt not just better. He felt wonderful.
Alert, rested, energized. Whatever she’d given him, he concluded, had rocked him into the solid, restful sleep he hadn’t experienced in weeks. But he wasn’t going to thank her for it, Cal thought grimly as he tugged on his shirt. The woman went way past eccentric—he didn’t mind a little eccentricity. But this lady was deluded, and possibly dangerous.
He was going to see to it that she gave him some satisfactory answers, then he was going to leave her to her fairy-tale cottage and ruined castle and put some miles between them.
He looked in the mirror over the bureau, half expecting to see a beard trailing down to his chest like Rip Van Winkle. But the man who stared back at him hadn’t aged. He looked perplexed, annoyed, and, again, rested. The damnedest thing, Cal mused, scooping his hair back.
He found his shoes neatly tucked beside the chest. Putting them on, he found himself studying the patterns the sunlight traced on the floor.
Light. It struck him all at once, had him jumping to his feet again. The rain had stopped. For Christ’s sake, how long had he been sleeping?
In two strides he was at the window, yanking back those delicate curtains. Then he stood, spellbound.
The view was stunning. He could see the rugged ground where the ruined castle climbed, make out the glints of mica in the stone where the sun struck. The ground tumbled away toward the road, then the road gave way to wave after rolling wave of green fields, bisected with stone walls, dotted with lolling cattle. Houses were tucked into valleys and on rises, clothes flapped cheerfully on lines. Trees twisted up, bent by the years of resisting the relentless wind off the sea and glossy green with spring.
He saw quite clearly a young boy pedaling his blue bike along one of the narrow trenches of road, a spotted black-and-white dog racing beside him through thick hedgerows.
Home, Cal thought. Home for supper. Ma doesn’t like you to be late.
He found himself smiling, and reached down without thinking to raise the window and let in the cool, moist air.
The light. It swelled his artist’s heart. No one could have described the light of Ireland to him. It had to be seen, experienced. Like the sheen of a fine pearl, he thought, that makes the air glimmer, go luminous and silky. The sun filtering through layers of clouds had a softness, a majesty he’d never seen anywhere else.
He had to capture it. Now. Immediately. Surely such magic couldn’t last. He bolted out of the room, clattered down the short flight of steps, and burst out into the gentle sun with the cat scampering at his heels.
He grabbed the Nikon off the front seat of his car. His hands were quick and competent as he changed lenses. Then swinging his case over his shoulder, he picked his position.
The fairy-tale cottage, he thought, the abundance of flowers. The light. Oh, that light. He framed, calculated and framed again.
3
Bryna stepped through the arched doorway of the ruin and watched him. Such energy, such concentration. Her lips bowed up. He was happy in his work, in his art. He needed this time, she thought, just as he’d needed those hours of deep, dreamless sleep.
Soon he would have questions again, and she would have to answer. She stepped back inside, wanting to give him his privacy. Alone with her thoughts, she walked to the center of the castle, where flowers grew out of the dirt in a circle thick with blooms. Lifting her face to the light, raising her arms to the sky, she began her chant.
Power tingled in her fingertips, but it was weak. So weak that she wanted to weep in frustration. Once she had known its full strength; now she knew the pain of its decline.
It was ordained, this I know. But here on ground where flowers grow, I call the wind, I call the sun. What was done can be undone. No harm to him shall come through me. As I will, so mote it be.
The wind came, fluttering her hair like gentle fingers. The sun beat warm on her upturned