“Skye!” Boone was beside me in a flash, his hands helping me into an upright position.
“Wow,” I rasped, then erupted in a fit of coughing.
He rubbed my back and started picking dried leaves out of my hair. “Are you all right?”
Glancing across the clearing, I snorted. “I must’ve flown at least fifteen meters.” Wincing, I rubbed the back of my head. When I pulled my hand away, I expected to find blood smeared across it, but thankfully, there was nothing there.
“You hit your head pretty hard,” Boone said. He placed his hand on my face and tilted me toward him. Checking my eyes, he frowned.
“Am I in trouble, doc?” I asked with a dose of sarcasm.
“Skye.”
I knew he was dying to ask me what I’d seen, but I couldn’t tell him anything. Just the light and the explosion, like whoever or whatever was lurking behind there wanted to push me away.
Did Boone want to forget?
On the surface, he might say he wanted to remember, but deep down, was he afraid of something? Whatever it was, I didn’t want to acknowledge it, either.
“There was…” I hesitated, and the hopeful look in his eyes broke my heart.
“I don’t remember anythin’,” he said, saving me the pain of telling him what he already knew.
“I can see the crack…but there’s no way in. I… I’m sorry, Boone.”
He rose, the frustration clear on his face.
“It’s okay,” he said. “Maybe some stones are best left unturned.”
I pushed ungracefully to my feet and grasped his arm to steady myself. There were no more words of encouragement in me. He’d heard them all before and saying them now… Well, it felt like rubbing salt into an open wound.
“I better see you home,” he finally said.
I wasn’t going to argue.
The entire walk home, my head spun.
“You don’t look so good,” Boone said, weaving his arm through mine.
I rubbed my forehead. “I bumped my head.”
“I’m sorry. I dragged you out here again, and it still didn’t work.”
“It’s fine,” I said, shaking my head. “It’s just about the only thing we can be proactive about. I had to try. Besides, it’s good practice.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“You said your headaches are getting better. That’s a good thing, I suppose.”
Boone grunted, signaling he wasn’t keen on talking about it anymore. It must hurt. All the trying and failing.
By the time we reached the cottage, I was feeling a lot better even though the world felt…fuzzy. I was sure something was definitely hanging around, and it wasn’t a concussion. Something felt different, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure it out.
That night, my sleep was full of dreams.
There was a swirl of images, feelings, and emotions that were so intense, I felt like I was being dragged under a raging torrent. It reminded me of the sluagh at the spring underneath Croagh Patrick, their inky fingers tearing at my clothes, pulling me into a watery grave, their hunger for my magic absolute.
It felt like summer. My feet were bare, dirt and leaves creeping between my toes. Overhead, I felt the protective blanket of the hawthorn’s power, and I turned toward the great tree. What was I doing out here with no shoes on? My feet were totally delicate. There was a reason I wore big, kick-ass boots, and it wasn’t all about being able to kick craglorns in their delicate parts with the steel caps.
My gaze was drawn to the tree, the soles of my feet forgotten in an instant.
A door was set into the base of the hawthorn, but it didn’t look like anything I’d imagined. When I thought of the way to the fae realm, I had a vision of a swirling portal of magic like the wormhole on that science fiction show Stargate. A rippling puddle of energy you had to step through to make it to the other side.
This doorway was bland and ordinary. Honestly, it looked like the round door to a hobbit hole. I shouldn’t be so surprised that I got the fantasy references Ireland was famous for. That was why they filmed all those big-budget television phenomenons here.
I was so not falling for this. This was a test, right? Don’t open the door that all the bad things are supposed to come out of like Pandora’s box. Curiosity killed the Crescent Witch and all of that.
Don’t open the door. Open the door, Skye.
Reaching out, I grasped the wrought iron handle and twisted. The latch unhooked, and I pulled…
I sat bolt upright, my chest heaving and my thoughts all fuzzy.
“Purple alligator monkey typewriter thing-a-ma-whatsit!” I exclaimed, causing Boone to jerk awake.
“Skye?” He pushed up and rubbed his hand over my back. “What’s wrong?”
I rubbed my eyes, clearing the last of my dream from my mind’s eye. There was something about a… Wait. Dammit! The images were already starting to fade. I had a feeling it had been something important. Something I needed to… Needed to what? Do, say, go? Was it something I needed to stop Carman?
“I had a dream. There was something about a purple typewriter,” I said. “And an alligator and a…monkey?”
“Skye, you’re not makin’ any sense.” He frowned, but I wasn’t paying much attention.
I stuck my tongue out and wiped it with my palms. “Purple monkey. Typewriter.”
Boone grasped my face in his hands and pulled me toward him. His eyes sparkled in the murky light, his concern palpable.
“Alligator?” I asked, my eyebrows knitting together.
“Ack, maybe you did hit your head too hard.”
“No, it’s the…” It was the dream. “The door…”
Flopping back on the bed, I stared at the ceiling. I was beginning to understand how Boone felt. Whatever I’d seen in my dream was gone and had only left a pile of purple alligator typewriter monkey nonsense in its place. Anyway, what was the purple thing? The alligator or the monkey? Or were they all purple? The orientation kept changing like an annoying Rubick’s Cube. One side was all the one color, but the others…
“I’m fine,” I
