Three Fates

some were so old that wind and rain had blurred their carvings. Some stood straight as soldiers, and others tipped like drunks.
    The fact that they did both, that there was no static order to it all, Jack thought, made the hill all the more poignant, all the more powerful.
    The grass, still thick with summer, rose in wild hillocks and lifted the scent of living, growing things as it waved in the breeze. And on countless graves, flowers grew or were laid. Some wreaths were sheltered in clear plastic boxes, and others held little vials of holy water taken from some shrine.
    He found the sentiment oddly touching even as it puzzled him. What possible help could holy water offer to the occupants of a graveyard?
    He saw fresh flowers spread beneath stones that had stood for ninety years and more. Who, he wondered, brought daisies to the old, old dead?
    Because there was no way he could reasonably refuse Rebecca’s obvious desire for some time alone, he walked through the cemetery to the brilliant green carpet of smooth and tended grass sheltered by the yews. He saw the stones with their brass plaques. Read the words.
    A heart would have had to be stone not to be moved. While his was, he believed, contained, it wasn’t hard. There was a connection here, even for him, and he wondered why he’d waited so long to come to this place, to stand on this ground.
    Fate, he thought. He supposed it was fate, once again, that had chosen his time.
    He looked back, over the stones, over the grass, and saw Rebecca laying another bouquet on another grave. Her cap was off now, out of respect, he assumed, and stuffed in her back pocket. Her hair, that delicate reddish gold, danced in the breeze that stirred the grass at her feet. Her lips were curved in a quiet and private smile as she looked down at a headstone.
    And looking at her across the waving grass, the somber stones, he felt his contained heart give a single hard lurch. Though he was shaken by it, he wasn’t a man to ignore trouble, whatever its form. He walked toward her.
    Her head came up, and though her mouth stayed gently curved, he sensed a watchfulness in her now. Did she feel it, too? he wondered. This strange tug and pull, almost—if he believed in such things—a kind of recognition.
    When he reached her, she shifted the last two bouquets to her other hand. “Holy ground is powerful ground.”
    He nodded. Yes, he realized. She’d felt it, too. “Hard to disagree with that right now.”
    She studied his face as she spoke, the hard, strong lines of it that fit together made something less than handsome, and something more. And his eyes, his smoky, secret eyes.
    He knew things, she was sure of it. And some of them were marvels.
    “Do you believe in power, Jack? Not the kind that comes from muscle or position. The kind that comes from somewhere outside a person, and inside him as well.”
    “I guess I do.”
    This time she nodded. “And so do I. My father’s there.” She gestured to a black granite marker bearing the name Patrick Sullivan. “His parents are living yet, and in Cobh, as are my mother’s. And there are my great-grandparents, John and Margaret Sullivan, Declan and Katherine Curry. And their parents are here as well, a ways over there for my father’s side.”
    “You bring them all flowers?”
    “When I walk this way, yes. I stop here last. My great-great-grandparents, on my mother’s side.” She crouched to lay the flowers at the base of each stone.
    Jack looked over her head, read the names.
    Fate, he thought again. Sneaky bitch.
    “Felix Greenfield?”
    “Don’t see many names like Greenfield in Irish grave-yards, do you?” She laughed a little as she straightened. “He was the one my mother spoke about on the tour, who survived the Lusitania and settled here. So I stop here last, as if he hadn’t lived through that day, I wouldn’t be here to bring him flowers. Have you seen what you wanted to see?”
    “So far.”
    “Well then, you’d best come home with me and have some tea.”
    “Rebecca.” He touched her arm as she turned. “I came here looking for you.”
    “For me?” She scooped back her hair and schooled her voice to stay smooth despite the sudden trip of her heart. “That’s a fine romantic sort of thing to say, Jack.”
    “I should’ve said I came looking for Malachi Sullivan.”
    The laughter in her eyes vanished. “For Mal? Why is that?”
    “Fate.”
    He saw the flash of fear run across her face, then with