The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

ripe with unhappiness that Shawn touched his arm. “What did she want?”
    “Love. Just the word. A single word. But I gave her diamonds—jewels plucked from the sun, and these pearls, then the final time the stones you call sapphires that I harvested from the heart of the sea.”
    “I know your story well.”
    “Aye, you would. And your new sister, Jude, has put it in her book of tales and legends. The ending is still an unhappy one as I cast the spell over my Gwen, in anger and in pain—rashly, Gallagher. Three times love would find love, heart accept heart with all the failings and the foibles. And then, my Gwen and I will be free to be together. A hundred years times three I’ve waited, and my patience is sore tested. You’re a man who has words.”
    Considering, Carrick circled Shawn and the grave. “You use them well with your music—music others should hear, but that’s another matter. A man who has such a gift of words is one who understands what’s inside a person, sometimes before that person knows. It’s a gift you have. I’m only asking you to use it.”
    In a long flourish, he waved his hand over the grave, and the pearls blossomed into flowers. “The jewels I gave Gwen grew into flowers. Your Jude will tell you it was the flowers she kept. Some women want the simple things, Gallagher, so I’ve come to understand.”
    He lifted his finger. Resting on the tip was a single perfect pearl. With a thin smile, he flicked it toward Shawn, then nodded, pleased, when Shawn snatched it from the air. “Take it, keep it, until you realize who it is you’re to give it to. When you do, give the words. They’re more of magic than what you have in hand.”
    The air trembled, wavered, and Carrick disappeared into it.
    “The man wears you out,” Shawn murmured, then sat beside Maude’s grave again. “It’s very unusual companions you have.”
    Then, because he needed it, Shawn let himself fall into the quiet. He watched the moonflowers, blooms open despite the steam of sunlight, dance across the grave. He studied the pearl, rubbing it through his fingers. He put it in his pocket before reaching down to pick a single blossom.
    “I don’t think you’ll mind, as it’s for Jude,” he said to Maude. He sat and kept her company another twenty minutes before going back home.
     
     
    He didn’t knock. It had been his home too long for him to think of it. But Shawn did think, the minute he’d closed the door behind him, that he was very likely interrupting Jude’s work.
    When she came to the top of the steps before he could decide if he should go back out again, he glanced up in apology. “You’ll be working. I’ll come back ’round later.”
    “No, that’s all right. I don’t mind a break. Would you like some tea?” she asked as she started down.
    “I would, yes, but I’ll fix it for both of us.”
    “I won’t argue with that.” She smiled uncertainly when he held out the moonflower. “Thanks. Isn’t it the wrong time for this to be blooming?”
    “In most places. It’s one of the things I’d like to speak with you about.” He started back toward the kitchen with her. “How are you feeling today?”
    “Good. Really good, actually. I think the morning sickness is passing, and I’m not sorry to see it go.”
    “And your work’s going well?”
    It would be Shawn’s way, she thought, to wind his way around to the genuine purpose of the visit in his own time. So she found a little bottle for the blossom while he put on the kettle. “Yes, it is. I still have moments when I can’t believe I’m doing it. This time last year I was still teaching, and hating my work. Now I have a book on its way to being published, and another one coming to life every day. I’m a little nervous because this one’s a story out of my head instead of a compilation of others I’ve been told, but I really love the process of it.”
    “Being a little nervous you’ll probably write a better story, don’t you think?” At home, he got out the biscuit tin and filled a plate. “Meaning, you’ll have more care with it.”
    “I hope you’re right. Are you nervous when you’re writing your music?”
    “Not the tunes,” he said after a moment’s thought. “The words sometimes. Trying to find the right way of saying what the music’s telling me. It can be frustrating.”
    “How do you handle it?”
    “Oh, I bang my head against it for a while.” After the pot was warmed he measured out the