“Because feelings are hard?” Zed suggested. Brendan grumbled in agreement.
“Look,” said Bael. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the company of a woman who’s a ‘little different,’ but in a good way. If you want Cordelia to—”
“If you say the words ‘Lucky Charms,’ I swear to God I will end you,” Brendan growled.
Bael raised his hands. “I wasn’t gonna. I’m just saying that Cordelia isn’t like other women, so you’re not going to be able to approach her like other women. Pay attention to those little things that are unique to her.”
“The problem isn’t paying attention,” Brendan muttered. “All I do is pay attention. You know, this is the worst ‘beer with the lads’ I’ve ever had. Pregnancy talk and feelings. You should all be ashamed.”
“I regret nothing,” Zed told him.
“You’re only here because your mam told you that you had to come,” Brendan said.
Zed snorted into his bottle. “You’ve met my maman. Like you would have said no.”
“You’re right. Your mam’s a damned angel,” Brendan said.
Zed blanched, as if his beer had suddenly gone sour. “That is not what I meant.”
Brendan pulled the bottle away from his mouth before he could swallow another drop. “Wait, did you say Will was a mermaid?”
Brendan woke up the next morning, hoping the other fellas’ heads were bloody exploding. Bloodily. And his phone was ringing. If it was Bael or Zed or Will, he had several choice words for them, and all of them had four letters.
He slapped at his nightstand until he managed to grasp his mobile. “I hope your brain is leaking out of your ears.”
“Well, that’s a fine way to greet your flesh and blood,” his sister’s voice scoffed in his ear. And it was so very loud.
“Colleen?” he whimpered into the phone.
“I thought you’d traveled to the states to work. Why in the hell are you hungover, you eejit?” Colleen asked.
“Because American beer is the devil’s piss,” he groaned. “I’ve been drinking since I was fourteen and I’ve never felt this bad.”
“That’s just sad, brother,” Colleen said, even as she giggled.
Brendan rolled onto his back, praying the world would stop spinning. “I know. I’m deeply ashamed.”
“Tell me that you were at least drinking at the pub instead of by yourself like the village fool.”
“I was at home, but I did have company,” Brendan said.
“Female company?” she gasped. “Did you finally meet someone who could stand you?”
“Rude,” he grumbled. “You’re a rude, awful girl and I don’t know why I take your calls.”
“I’m serious. Have you met someone there, Brendan?” Colleen asked.
“I may have met someone. A very nice young psychic lady. And I don’t know where, if anywhere, it’s going. She’s…complicated. Delightful, but complicated.”
“While you’re as simple as tea with no milk,” she snorted. “So if you weren’t drinking with her, who were you drinking with?”
He yawned. “Some of the locals. The mayor, the sheriff, the town doctor.”
“Look at you, hob-knobbing with the elite!” she trilled, making his ears ring. “It almost makes me not paralyzed entirely by guilt that you’re only in that godforsaken country because of me.”
He breathed deep through his nose. “Colleen, we’ve been round and round about this. I’m here because I want to be. I want to help you get your start, just like everybody else in the family. It’s not your fault that you came into your voice when our family’s life became a country-western song.”
“What? I’ve known you since birth and I’ve never heard you once mention country-western music,” Colleen scoffed.
He cleared his throat. “Oh, just a joke from Cordelia.”
“Cordelia…so that’s the girl’s name?”
He sighed, without really meaning to. “Aye.”
“Oh, you are smitten with her!” Colleen exclaimed.
“She’s a good friend. For right now,” Brendan insisted.
“You sighed when I said her name. You didn’t even do that for Saoirse Doyle, and you spent hours imagining how you’d talk to her. I should know, I heard the rehearsals,” Colleen shot back.
“Is there a reason you called other than to mock and harass me?” Brendan asked.
There was a long pause on the other end of the line. “I sang yesterday. It was a bad one.”
He sat up, cursing the pounding in his head. “What happened?”
“I was at the market,” she sighed. “I didn’t mean to pop in when it was crowded, but I was out of milk and as I was walking out, I brushed against this young woman. I saw her walking out into the street while she was on her mobile and get hit by a lorry. I let out a song loud enough to shatter all the dairy cases in the store and passed out. By the time I woke up, the paramedics were covering her.”
Brendan clucked his tongue. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart.”
“I think what bothers me is knowing that even if I was able to warn her, I shouldn’t have,” Colleen said.
“It’s the natural order of things, Colleen,” he insisted. “We can only provide the warning, not intervene directly. If people don’t hear the song, that’s out of our hands.”
“The natural order doesn’t feel very natural.”
“I know. I’m sorry, love,” he said. “It’s something we all struggle with.”
“I think I need to settle somewhere a bit more remote,” she mused. “Like the North Pole.”
“I hear the cost of living is very dear there,” Brendan said.
“Yes, but the population is low,” Colleen countered.
“I’ll see what I can do to get you a condo on the North Pole.”
She laughed. “You’re the best brother in the world, I don’t care what anyone says.”
“Thank you,” he said, yawning again. “I’m going to sink back into unconsciousness.”
“That’s fine. I’m going to tell all the uncles that you were felled by American beer,”
“Because it’s toxic and unnatural!”
She cackled. “That’s not how I’m going to tell it to the uncles.”
7
Cordelia
The one thing that sucked about cocooning yourself into your nice cozy house was emerging into the bright Louisiana morning for the first time. It was like being stabbed in the eyeball with the sun.
Still, Cordelia had stayed cooped up long enough. But she was not ready to go back to the rift and work with the artifact. The charming (and very much taken) Dr. Carmody had made that very clear. Jillian had made it clear in her daily emails. But she’d buried herself in the blankets on her surprisingly comfortable bed long enough.
She would be lying to herself if she said her malaise over the last couple of days was just exhaustion from her mental tangle with the artifact. She’d actually been feeling pretty good. That delicious, electric-floaty (was that a word? She decided it was a word) feeling after she’d kissed Brendan seemed like a mocking memory now. She felt like she was frozen in the moment when she’d looked out the window into her mother’s hateful eyes. She’d told herself at first that it was just a trick of light, that her mother couldn’t possibly be here. Of all the places in the world, Bernadette Canton would not deign to set foot in Mystic Bayou, Louisiana. She barely tolerated Florida, and only remained in Candella because she was clinging to the family’s tattered prestige.