Free The Crow of Connemara by Stephen Leigh

Finally, he let out a nasal breath. “Maybe. Jen, over there, where the music I like best came from, well, it’s easy to think that there’s something more behind or underneath the tunes. At least that’s what some of the musicians I knew who are from there tell me. I’ve wanted to go over for so long. There are old bones in the earth there, a sense of the presence of all that history and all those old gods. There isn’t that sharp separation between the natural and the supernatural there; the boundaries sometimes are all blurred. Over here . . . well, it’s different.”
    â€œYou’re just romanticizing the place, Colin. That’s all.”
    â€œMaybe, but then again, I won’t know until I actually get there, will I?” he answered, then stopped as she switched lanes again to exit at East Jackson. Jen wiped at her cheek, almost angrily, and he realized that she was crying. He put a hand on her shoulder. She sniffed and tried to smile at him.
    â€œI’m sorry,” she said. “You never quite managed to get along with either Mom or Dad. I’ve had my issues with Mom, too, but I was always close to Dad. I’m going to miss him so much, and the thought that he’s going to die, that we’re going to
let
him die . . .” She choked back a sob. “I wasn’t ready for this. Any of it.”
    â€œWe never are,” he told her, his own eyes tearing up in sympathy. “We think they’re going to be there forever . . .”
    Things can be forever. ’Tis possible.
The voice that spoke was a woman’s, a rich alto with a strong, lilting Irish accent, though it seemed that he heard other voices, both male and female, echoing the words—resonating inside his head.
We need you.
The statement sounded so clearly and so strongly that he gasped.
    Jen mistook the sound. Her right hand left the steering wheel and found his. “We’ll get through this,” she told him. “We’ll manage it together, little brother. I’m glad you’re here. I really am.” Her hand left his as she wiped at her eyes again. “Even if you are still a hopeless romantic.”
    He knew she tried to say it as a joke, but it sounded more like an accusation.

7
’Tis a Pity to See
    A S MAEVE WALKED DOWN Market Street in Ballemór toward the grocery on Bridge Street, she halted, causing Keara, Niall, and Aiden to stop as well. “There,” she said, pointing just ahead to the intersection, where the gargoyle-laden spire of St. Joseph’s Church strained to reach the gray clouds overhead. A gleaming black hearse was just pulling up to the front of the church, followed by a short line of cars, as a small group of mourners waited on the steps. “That’s Darcy Fitzgerald’s body in the box,” she said. The undertakers had opened the rear of the hearse, and six men shuffled forward to lift the coffin onto their shoulders and carry it into the church.
    An older woman in mourning tweed stepped from the sedan just behind the hearse. She watched as the coffin was raised, but then her gaze snagged on Maeve, across the street. Her eyes widened, then narrowed; the stare was long and assessing, as if the woman were trying to remember where she’d seen Maeve before. Maeve favored her with a smile.
    The old woman crossed herself, then spat on the ground toward the group. With a nearly audible huff, the woman deliberately turned away. She followed the coffin into the church, as the priest and his servers opened the doors for the funeral Mass.
    â€œWell, that was nice,” Niall said. “The old hag. Yeh should’nah been so accommodating to her when yeh went to gather the man’s soul, Maeve.”
    â€œIt’s not entirely her fault. The leamh have mostly forgotten the old ways,” Maeve said. “There’s too few left to teach them anymore.”
    â€œAye,” Aiden