The Forgotten Ones

growing on his chin.
    I laughed nervously. “Did you read my mind?”
    Enough time passed that I didn’t think he would continue, but he surprised me again.
    “I had a family once,” he began, looking over at me. “Three brothers, two sisters. My father was the chieftain of our clan. I spent most of my life dreaming of ways to make the English pay for what they were doing to my country.
    “We fought for our freedom, but in the end we were forced to leave our home, made to flee like thieves in the night. Once my family had made it to safety, I took one last sweep of our camp. I vaguely remember being shot in the back,” he closed his eyes, remembering. “I can still see the English scum spitting on me as I lay face-down in the mud. All I could do was lay there and wait to die.
    “After the English left, I heard a voice whispering in my mind. I opened my eyes, and Niamh was there. In that moment I forgot about pain, forgot about my family. There was only her .
    “By the time I met Liam, hundreds of years had passed. Everyone I’d ever known was dead and gone.” He shook his head slowly. “It hadn’t even occurred to me to care.”
    I didn’t say anything in response—no words would be enough.
    “There’s a stream just ahead, we should stop for a drink.” Aodhan started off the path, and I followed, my heart aching for all that he’d lost.

    Everything in Tír na n’Óg felt like it was the way nature intended: bright blue sky during the day, soft misty rain at night. The grass was a lush green carpet rolling over the hills and smoothing out over the plains. Flowers and fruit grew everywhere you looked, all bursting with color and crisp fragrance.
    But when we came to a wall of twisting brambles, it didn’t feel anything like the beauty I’d seen so far. There was a sense of foreboding seeping out of the thorny vines.
    “I don’t remember this being here,” Aodhan said as he paced the wall, looking for a way through. He attempted to loosen the snarled vines, but they wouldn’t budge. He pulled a dagger out of his belt and began sawing at it.
    “It’s tedious,” he said. “But these vines are immovable, and I can’t see another way through.”
    I slid the dagger out of the scabbard that hung on my hip. The vines felt like dry bones rattling together as I cut them away. The thorns bit at my skin, and the smell coming out of the vines caused black dots to blur my vision, but I kept hacking away.
    Aodhan cut a small path ahead, and I struggled to keep up with him. Thorns snagged my sleeves, and I wrestled the dagger through to free them. My hands were sliced and stinging, and when I looked up Aodhan was moving farther and farther away from me.
    I willed my feet to move faster and stumbled forward. I landed hard on the thorny ground. My vision swam, and I squeezed my eyes closed.
    “Aodhan,” I gasped, but there was no response.
    Panic blossomed in my chest. I had to keep moving forward. I needed to find Aodhan. But my joints were locking up, making it difficult to do anything more than draw ragged breaths. I tried calling out to him again, but my voice came out as little more than a croak. I couldn’t let it end like this, curled up in a web of brittle vines and thorns.
    As I finished that thought, I heard a low moan come from ahead. I pushed my leaden legs up from beneath me, moving as best I could toward the sound.
    When I found Aodhan, he was tangled in a mass of coiled vines. His arms and face were sliced open even worse than mine, and his bloody lips were parted. I knelt beside him, carefully cutting away the vines that ensnared him. It was like trying to cut down an oak tree with a butter knife.
    I could feel him watching me as I worked, and after a few minutes, he became more coherent and wriggled his arms free.
    “Get back,” he whispered. I scrambled away as he tore himself free of the net of branches and vines.
    I leaned back on my elbows and inhaled the sickly sweet air. The edge of the thorny forest was only twenty feet away.
    I started to tell Aodhan how close we were, but he didn’t give me a chance. “Come on,” he said, holding out his bloody hand to help me to my feet. “It’s time.”

Beyond the briars and thorns, the ground was covered in dry, brown grass that crackled when we walked over it. Trees with no leaves dotted the landscape, their limbs reaching up to the sky in a silent plea for mercy. The ground turned rockier, and the trees were replaced by stout