The Gallaghers of Ardmore Trilogy

It stood on the rough and uneven ground and was guarded, he supposed, by the souls who rested there. Three stone crosses stood guard as well, with the fresh water quiet in the well beneath them.
    He’d been told it was a lovely walk from here around the headland, but he found himself more inclined to linger where he was.
    Darcy was right, he decided, the structure might have tumbled, but the heart of it lived.
    He stepped back, respectful enough, or just superstitious enough, not to step on graves. He assumed the small, pitted stones were graves.
    And glancing down, he saw the marker for Maude Fitzgerald.
     
     
    Wise Woman
     
    “So here you are,” he murmured. “There’s a picture of you with my great-uncle in one of the old albums my mother salvaged when my grandfather died. He didn’t keep many pictures from here. Isn’t it odd that he had one of you?”
    He hunkered down, touched and gently amused to see that flowers had been planted over her in a soft blanket of color. “You must have had a fondness for flowers. Your garden at the cottage is lovely.”
    “Had a way with growing things, did Maude.”
    At the comment, Trevor looked back toward the well, then rose. The man who stood there was oddly dressed, all in silver that sparkled in the sun. A costume, Trevor assumed, for some event at the hotel. He was certainly the theatrical sort, with his long flow of black hair, wicked smile, and lightning-blue eyes.
    “Don’t startle easily, do you? Well, that’s to your favor.”
    “A man who startles easily shouldn’t pass the time here. Great spot,” Trevor added, glancing around again.
    “I favor it. You’d be the Magee come from America to build dreams and find answers.”
    “More or less. And you’d be?”
    “Carrick, prince of the faeries. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    The bland amusement in Trevor’s tone had Carrick’s brows beetling. “You’d have heard of me, even over in your America.”
    “Sure.” Either the man was a lunatic or he wasn’t willing to step out of character. Probably both, Trevor decided. “It so happens I’m staying in the cottage over the hill.”
    “I know where the devil you’re staying, and I don’t care for that indulgent tone you’re using. I didn’t bring you here to have you make sport of me.”
    “ You brought me here?”
    “Mortals,” Carrick grumbled. “They like to think everything’s their own doing. Your destiny’s here, tied with mine. If I planted a few seeds to get you moving on it, who has a better right?”
    “Pal, if you’re going to drink this early in the day, you ought to stay out of the sun. Why don’t I give you a hand back down to the hotel?”
    “Drunk? You’re thinking I’m drunk?” Carrick threw back his head and laughed until he was forced to hold his sides. “Bloody bonehead. Drunk. We’ll show you drunk. Just give me a moment here to recover myself.”
    After several long breaths, Carrick continued. “Let’s see here, something not so subtle. I’m thinking, for I see already you’re the cynical sort. Ah, I’ve got it!”
    His eyes went dark as cobalt, and Trevor would have sworn the tips of the man’s fingers began to glow gold, then in his hands was a sphere, clear as water. Swimming in it was the image of Trevor himself and Darcy, standing together on the beach while the Celtic Sea charged the shore beside them.
    “Have a look at your destiny. She’s fair of face and strong of will and hungry of heart. Are you clever enough to win what the fates offer you?”
    He flicked his wrist, sent the globe flying toward Trevor. Instinctively he reached out, felt his fingers pass through something cool and soft. Then the globe burst like a bubble.
    “Hell of a trick,” Trevor managed, then looked over at the well. He was alone again, with just the stir of the grass in the wind for company. “Hell of a trick,” he repeated, and more shaken than he cared to admit, he stared down at his empty hands.

 
     
     
     
FOUR
     
     
    D REAMS HAUNTED HIM through the night. Trevor had always dreamed in broad and vivid strokes, but since coming to Faerie Hill Cottage his dreams had taken on a finite, crystalline quality. As if someone had sharpened a lens on a camera.
    The odd man from the cemetery rode a white, winged horse over a wide blue sea. And Trevor felt the broad back and bunching muscles of the mythic steed beneath him. In the distance, the sky and water were separated clearly, like a