I curled up my lip, not understanding what he was on about, and then I twigged. “Oh…” I declared, cottoning on to the fact he wanted to help me with my magic and was trying to spring me out of work. “Yeah, the thing.”
“I guess I’m mindin’ the shop on my own, again,” Mairead complained.
“You love it,” I retorted. “I’ll give you a bonus.”
“Fifty euro,” the girl demanded.
“Twenty-five,” I countered.
“Forty.”
“Twenty-five.”
“Thirty-five.
“Twenty-five.”
“Thirty.”
“I’m not going a cent over twenty-five.” I put my hands on my hips. “We can stand here all day if you like.”
Boone was watching us with an amused expression, his head flicking back and forth like he was watching a tennis match.
Mairead stamped her foot. “Fine. Twenty-five.”
“Yes.” I handed her the keys triumphantly.
“You owe me big-time,” she said, turning to unlock the door.
“I owe you twenty-five euro!” I chortled as Boone and I began walking away. “See you later!”
“You two fight like sisters,” he said as we moved out of earshot. “It’s perplexin’.”
“Mairead’s cool. She reminds me of me when I was her age.”
Boone tilted his head to the side. “A rebellious girl who dresses in head-to-toe black?” He looked me over and smiled. “Nah, I can't picture it.”
“Smooth,” I drawled as we wandered down the footpath while Mairead shot daggers into my back with her eyes. “So anyway, this is a surprise.”
“It is?”
“After yesterday…” I trailed off.
“After yesterday, I’m surprised you want to come walkin’ with me at all.”
“Well, I don’t think you’re a pervert anymore if that’s what you’re getting at.” I snorted, still unable to get the image of his bare ass out of my mind. It was a nice ass now that I thought about it.
“Lucky me.”
“So how does it work?” I asked. “The whole…you know.”
“It’s instinctual,” Boone replied, chuckling at my covert references to his shapeshifting.
“So that story you told me about Bully and Roy,” I mused. “That had to do with the thing.”
“Aye, I calmed him with me affinity. Only for a moment, though. Bulls are too wild to be tamed even by someone like me.”
“And you can heal yourself?” I went on, as curious as a kid who couldn’t stop poking a bug with a stick.
“To a certain degree.”
“Like, what’s the worst thing you’ve done to yourself that you’ve been able to fix?”
“You ask a lot of questions, you know that?”
“You’re no fun,” I said with a pout.
“I’m beginnin’ to understand why Aileen was so annoyed with me,” he muttered.
I waited a moment and then asked again. “Tell me. Please?”
He sighed, but I could see the hint of a smile pulling at his mouth. “Broken bones.”
“No way! That’s pretty impressive.”
“You’re takin’ this really well,” he said with a frown. “It’s rather unexpected.”
“I contemplated running away screaming yesterday, but it seemed excessive. Seeing you do your…thing? Well, I couldn’t really claim ignorance after that.”
He laughed as the hawthorn came into view. “I suppose not.”
“You’re cute as a fox.”
“You think so?” He grinned, pleased with my declaration.
Standing under the hawthorn’s branches, I glanced up, studying the dappled canopy overhead. So much had happened in this very spot, including the standoff with the wolf, but I wasn’t afraid here. I felt an odd sense of calm as if a blanket had been flung over me and someone loving had tucked it in tightly. Boone was right when he said we were protected here. Now that I was beginning to understand the world I’d fallen into, I could feel it.
I wondered at the things Boone had told me about himself and how he’d ended up in Derrydun. Something had chased him here, and Aileen had found him. Before that, he didn’t remember anything. I couldn’t imagine it. Not knowing where I was born, who my parents were, or even my own name. Things must be tough for him, and no one had any idea. No wonder he’d been close with Aileen. She’d been the only one who’d known the truth.
“Does it bother you?” I asked, glancing at him as we approached the base of the hawthorn. “Not remembering who you were?”
“Sometimes,” he replied. “In the beginnin’, I struggled. I was like a newborn babe. I didn’t know my name, what I looked like, or where I’d come from. I didn’t even understand I was a shapeshifter. I was a fox first, then a gyrfalcon, and a man third. I asked so many questions that Aileen contemplated throwin’ me out on me backside. She also saved me from myself a few times, so I mustn’t have been too bad.”
“She saved you?”
“Aye.”
When it became clear he wasn’t going to elaborate, I pressed him. “From what?”
“There are creatures out there that are tryin’ to get home,” he said reluctantly. “There used to be a hawthorn down in the gully behind Sean’s farmhouse. I couldn’t leave well enough alone even when Aileen warned me to leave it be. A creature was there, feedin’ off the tree’s magic, and it almost got me. Aileen said they were fae that had become twisted after they’d been cut off from magic. She called them craglorn.”
“Craglorn.” I tested the name on my tongue, and it sounded strange. “What does it mean?”
“The ravaged, crag, and the lonely, lorn.”
“That’s so sad. A thousand years is a long time,” I mused. “I suppose they’re starving.”
Boone shrugged. “They would do anything to survive and more still to get home. Don’t pity them, Skye. They wouldn’t hesitate if they found you. If it weren’t for Aileen, I wouldn’t be here right now.”
Shivering, I wrapped my arms around myself, the rays of the sun filtering through the canopy doing nothing to warm me. Glancing around the clearing, the trees seemed to crawl closer, tightening around the hawthorn and us. Sucking in a deep breath, I began to feel exposed as the sounds of the forest amplified. Rustling, creaking, snaps, rattles, and birdcalls echoed through the thick woodland, and I turned, my skin tingling.
Craglorn…twisted, starving, magical
