“I have to go to Ireland?” I exclaimed. “But that’s on the other side of the world!”
He nodded. “To be sure. That’s how geography works.”
“Oh, man…” I let my head fall into my hands before glancing up again. “Wait… I’m the last living relative?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to everyone else?”
Robert frowned. “They passed goin’ on twenty-five years now.”
Putting two and two together, I began to form a picture of my mother’s circumstance. She’d returned to Ireland and had never come back, but I didn’t realize it might have to do with something like that. Everyone else had died, and she’d gone back. Great, this was going to be one of those deep, dark family secret scenarios, wasn’t it? Did they have cults in Ireland?
Ignoring the lawyer—I presumed that was what he was—I studied the colors in the ocean. Deep blue, turquoise, greens, and dark blobs of black seaweed floating about in the current, at the mercy of the tides. Then there was the whole thing about the tides being at the mercy of the moon, and…well, it just went on and on. Everybody was controlled by something bigger than themselves. Employment, finances, global stock markets. I was unemployed, broke, dumped, and was moving into my dad’s beach house in the middle of nowhere. There were great job prospects in a town of two hundred people. Not.
What did I have to lose by going to Ireland? Not a lot. Maybe I could finally understand why she, Aileen, left us behind and get my inheritance along the way. That money would come in real handy.
“Okay,” I declared. “Give it to me.”
Reaching out, I grasped the pen and yelped as a bolt of static electricity cracked through my fingers and up my arm.
“Curious,” Robert declared. “That hasn’t happened before.”
“Holy…” I shook my arm, still grasping the pen. “That hurt like hell!”
“You know what they say about a static shock? It awakens things inside you that were sleepin’.”
“No one says that. Do they?” I asked, rubbing my arm.
“No, I just made it up.” He laughed and pushed the papers toward me. “Sign everywhere there’s a sticky note. There’s nothin’ predatory in there, by the way. It’s only for the name of ownership, which will be finalized when I see you in Derrydun.”
I gave him a look before flipping open the contract and signing. The pen scratched over the paper, the ink as blue as the sea before us. Flipping over the last page, I signed and gave him back his solid gold pen.
“Here.” He handed me a plastic folder printed with the details of a local travel agent. “Your ticket is already booked. You just have to call the agent, and give them your details.”
“Were you that sure I would agree?” I asked, taken aback.
“When people are presented with free money, they usually say yes,” he said with a deadpan voice. “It’s life. Sometimes, you need a break, and that’s what parents are for.”
I made a face. “Fair enough.”
“It was nice to meet you, Miss Skye,” he said. “I will see you in Derrydun.”
“Wait, you’re not traveling with me?”
“No, I can't. But you’ll do just fine.” He closed his briefcase with a bang and clipped it shut. “Things always have a curious way of workin’ out for the women in your family. Of that, I’m sure.” Smiling mysteriously, he held out his hand.
I didn’t know what else to do, so I shook his proffered hand.
“One last thing,” he said, hesitating on the edge of the deck. “Your mother loved you a great deal, Skye. I was told your name was on her lips when she…you know.”
I didn’t reply. When it became apparent I wasn’t going to offer him anything in response, he turned and waddled down the path, squeezed into his car, and drove away just as erratically as he’d driven in.
Glancing down at the folder from the travel agent, I sighed. I was going to Ireland. Checking the date on the ticket, I yelped. I was going to Ireland the day after tomorrow.
It wasn’t until I went inside and called the travel agent in town that I realized the strange lawyer known as Robert O’Keeffe had no way of knowing I would be at the beach house.
Curious was the word of the day.
Chapter 2
Green rolling hills passed by in a flash as I drove across the Irish countryside.
I’d landed at Dublin International Airport at the ass crack of dawn, bleary-eyed after a twenty-six-hour flight from hell. A quick stopover in the middle hadn’t helped much, but I was finally in Ireland and on my way to Derrydun, which the map told me was in County Sligo.
A rental car had been pre-booked, and to my joy, I’d been driving across an unfamiliar country with its funny road signs and imperial measuring system for the last three hours. Miles or whatever. Half were in kilometers due to some random change in the law and no one seemed to know how far away anything was for sure. Things seemed really close but were actually really far away. Thus, the three-hour drive I was currently enduring.
Following the directions the GPS gave, I took the turn off the main highway and traveled down a smaller road through some fields and then a forest before buildings began to shimmer through the trees.
Ahead, I spied a sign that read Derrydun (Doire Dún). I assumed the last bit was the village’s name in the Irish language. All the signs had been like it on the way here. Attempting to pronounce the words, my tongue knotted up, and I sighed.
The road twisted and turned, but the village hadn’t come into sight yet. Was it that small I’d already driven past? I glanced at the GPS, beginning to think I’d gone too far or had missed a turnoff. Rounding a bend, a tree loomed directly in front of me, and my heart skipped several dozen beats.
“Holy shit!”
I swerved, and the rental car careened around the tree,
