The Absinthe Earl Read online

  “How is it you still live?” Lord Meath interrupted. “You must be three hundred years old.”

  Captain O’Malley stared, wide-eyed. “Who taught the whelp manners, I wonder?”

  “I’m sure he means no insult,” I said, casting the earl a warning glance. “He’s had quite a shock, meeting his ancestor under such circumstances. How is it you still live?”

  The captain folded her arms over her chest, and her gaze slid away from us, seemingly to examine the ship’s rigging. “As it happens, I’m a bit stuck in between, for murdering and the like. The Land of Promise awaits me once I’ve paid for my misdeeds. But the Queen here is the best and fastest of the Gap galleons, and ’tisn’t such a bad life—is it, boys?”

  “Huzzah!” shouted the crew. I flinched as a hedgehog-like creature scurried up a line dangling beside me.

  “The Land of Promise” referred to a paradisiacal Celtic afterworld. That much, at least, I understood. “What do you mean ‘stuck in between,’ Captain O’Malley?”

  “The Gap is ‘in between,’ Miss Quicksilver,” inserted Mr. Yeats. “The nowhere between worlds. It must be crossed to reach Faery from Ireland, and vice versa. These are, of course, only dimensional distinctions, as these countries occupy the same space.”

  I stared at him. If I had correctly interpreted his explanation, it sounded very much like confirmation of my theory about overlapping worlds. “How is it the captain is stuck?” I asked. “We boarded her ship from a train crossing the Irish countryside.”

  Yeats nodded. “And I boarded from the summit of Ben Bulben. But the Queen was not physically in either location. We boarded only her shadow.”

  “And how is that possible, sir?”

  He offered another of his placid smiles. “We are all touched, Miss Quicksilver. Did you not know it?”

  The meaning of this declaration was unclear—he might very well have been saying we were all mad. But before I could question him further, the captain said, “This life is no hardship if you’ve a taste for adventure, lass.” She winked at me. “Now, if you’ll join me in my cabin, I’ll stand you a drink to bolster your strength.”

  O’Malley held out her arm, indicating I should precede her.

  “No, Ada.”

  It was only the earl’s voice—speaking my Christian name for the first time—that called my attention to the fact that I’d moved to follow her. I glanced at him, and he shook his head. “We’ll neither drink nor eat while on board.”

  Indeed, what had come over me? Had I really been about to take the fatal step of a novice? According to lore, accepting an offer of food or drink while among fairies would exile me from the living world. I felt a tickle against my cheeks, like a cobweb, and swiped at them with the back of my hand. It seemed that a translucent veil had fallen over my eyes, blurring the edges of the earl’s figure. I swiped again.

  “Fairy glamour,” he said, reaching out his hand. “Stand close to me.”

  “My lord …” I grasped his fingers and moved beside him. The veil dropped. “I’m sorry, I should know better.”

  He squeezed my hand but did not release it. “Learning from books is not the same as being lectured by your grandmother since before you could walk.”

  “Surely you’ll not be so rude as to refuse to take refreshment with me,” the captain protested. “Not when I’ve saved you a long, uncomfortable journey.”

  “I don’t imagine you will shorten your sojourn in purgatory by luring unsuspecting Christians,” replied Lord Meath. “Do as the queen has bidden you. We shall wait here on deck.”

  “The devil take ye,” snapped the captain. “Hard to find good help in the Gap. A pretty little maid she’d make too. It’s only a matter of time, Lord High and Mighty.” Her gaze moved over my disarranged silver locks. “She’s been claimed by the gentlefolk, and they’ll have her in the end, mark my words.”

  I took hold of a lock of my hair. Was this what Mr. Yeats had meant by “touched”? Marked by Faery? I recalled the earl’s remark about my ancestress and the fairy kiss.

  “Captain O’Malley!” shouted the toad man suddenly. “Fomorian galleon to starboard!”

  No sooner had he uttered the words than a stone ball the size of a beer barrel smashed a hole in the deck directly behind the captain. I fell backward against the earl, and throwing an arm about me, he staggered back further.

  “Ah, Queenie!” the captain cried in shocked anguish. “Ye’ll pay for that, devils!”

  The stone ball was tethered by a chain, and figures began scurrying down the length of it toward us. They were jaundiced-looking creatures, shaped like men but moving on all fours. They had heads of wiry gray hair, and the pointy tips of their ears rose several inches before curling toward the back of their heads. They did not appear to be armed, except for their fangs and claws. Fomorians were described in the literature as a race of monsters—ancient sea raiders and enemies of the Tuatha De Danaan. They were connected with plague, blight, and drought. With darkness and death. Their king was a demon named Balor, whose gaze could level an army.

  The crew, armed with swords, swarmed over the invaders, and the captain shouted, “Prepare the catapult!”

  I turned to look in the direction of her shout, and indeed, a catapult was mounted on the afterdeck.

  “Don’t ask about it, miss,” Mr. Yeats cautioned. “The captain considers it uncivilized. But powder is tricky among fairies.”

  I supposed this was meant as an explanation of the catapult in place of cannon—that fairies somehow rendered the firing mechanism unreliable.

  Crewmen began shouting, and I glanced up to see a dark prow cut through the fog off the Queen’s starboard bow. On the hull, the name was inscribed in black, slashing letters.

  “Death Rattler,” the earl translated.

  The ship’s figurehead was a creature of nightmares: demon-like, with fire glowing in its gaping eye and mouth openings. The chain extended from the figurehead’s mouth to the Queen, and more of the creatures were moving along its length.

  “Release!” cried the captain, and the catapult hurled a volley of cannonballs at the ghastly boarding party, knocking half a dozen of them off the chain and into the void.

  “Reload!”

  “Captain,” called Mr. Yeats in a cool but cautionary tone, “remember our cargo. Remember what Her Majesty said: ‘for Ireland!’”

  Captain O’Malley swore and muttered, “Uppity, ungracious child.” I took this to be directed at Mr. Yeats, but then I recalled that Grace O’Malley was the queen’s ancestress.

  “All hands, prepare for the jump!” ordered the captain. “Set the navigator for Achill.”

  The toad man, still resting astride the Queen’s figurehead, held up a smoke-filled glass globe mounted in a metal casing. “Setting course,” he cried. He turned a crank on the side of the casing, and a small ship mounted on a hoop inside the globe shifted position. The color of the smoke changed from gray to red.

  “Flee the Gap!” shouted the captain.

  The earl fumbled for the line he had anchored us with before, and I went into his arms without waiting to be invited. As he worked to coil the line around us, the ship nosed out of the strange fog, and the solid edges of the bow softened to wispy outlines.

  But before the ship had passed out of the Gap completely, another stone projectile struck, this time stripping away the mainsail.

  The deck went out from under our feet, and the next thing I knew, we were falling away from the ship. The line halted our descent for only a moment before it snapped. Shouting, we made a panicked grab for each other but failed to catch hold in time.

  The setting sun had washed the face of the sea, many terrifying feet below us, in brilliant orange light. We seemed to plunge toward the mouth of a volcano.

  We broke through the surface of the water, and the cold forced the breath from my l
ungs, stopping my scream.

  INTO THE DRINK

  Edward

  The breaking waves meant we were close to shore, but I could not feel the bottom.

  Don’t panic, Meath.

  The first thing was to rid myself of the overcoat that threatened to drag me under the waves. I ripped it open and released it into the surf, shouting, “Ada!”

  I heard a woman’s cry and swam toward it, ducking under a wave as it curled over me. I had always accepted that I might die at sea, but not this way.

  “Ada!” I shouted again when I surfaced. This time I was rewarded with a mouthful of seawater, which I had to swallow to avoid choking. Striking out with my hands, I caught hold of something—the line that had bound us together, which was still loosely wrapped about my waist.

  Kicking to keep my head above the waves, I towed in the line, fist over fist. I found Ada at last, clinging to the other end. I caught her under the arms, but we both began to sink. Giving in to the drag, I worked blindly to release the buttons of her jacket, finally ripping it open and tugging it over her shoulders. Her skirt, too, I shucked off her. Freed at last from the heavy yards of fabric, she began to kick upward, and I followed.

  Our heads broke the surface and we gasped for air.

  “Swim!” I shouted, guiding her in the direction the waves were rolling. “Hard as you can!”

  Her eyes were wide, teeth chattering, her cheeks washed in pink from the reflected sunset. “Go!” I cried, and finally she began to swim.

  I kept pace beside her, glancing back every few moments to watch for cresting waves. There was no sign of the Queen of Connacht. Had she gone back through the Gap? Or perhaps into the sea? The Fomorians were age-old enemies of the Tuatha De Danaan; that much I knew, and little else. Miss Quicksilver would likely be able to tell me more if we ever found ourselves on land again. I could see the dark outline of the craggy shore ahead of us now, close enough for hope. If we were where I thought we were, there was a very real danger of being flung against the rocks at the foot of the highest cliffs in Ireland. But just east of those cliffs, I knew there was a softer landing spot, and though I could not see it, I guided us that direction.

  On instinct, I glanced over my shoulder—and saw a wall of dark water framed by bloodred sky. It heaved toward us, the crest already forming.

  “Hold your breath!” I cried, towing her with me and ducking under the curl of white water. I wrapped my body around hers as the water surged, dragging us like fish on a line. The violence of the wave spun our bodies, making it difficult to ascertain which direction was up. The rushing water roared in my ears, and for a moment I believed that this was the shape of my death.

  Then one of my boots struck sand. I helped the lady to her feet and half-dragged her toward shore, banging toes and shins on sharp rocks and mussel shells. The wave that had swept us so violently to safety now made its return, tugging at our ankles, sucking away the sand that supported our footsteps. I curled my fingers around her waist, holding fast, and when the strength of the undertow ebbed, we hurried the rest of the way to the small strand, where we fell to our knees.

  She was still struggling to recover, heaving and coughing, ripping at the buttons at her throat. I bent over her, tugged up the tail of her blouse, and worked loose her corset laces. She sank onto the sand, lungs finally taking in their full measure of cold sea air, and I scanned the landscape before us. Dark peaks bookended the strand, which glowed golden in the light of the rising moon.

  Keem Strand. And indeed, just over the ridge to our left rose the highest cliffs in Ireland. It was a near miss. I’d had other near misses in this spot. As a boy, I had played with Isolde near the drop-off—a place we were strictly forbidden to go. It was a thing I’d learned from my cousin—that we are most alive when death is near. As an adult, I came to realize that in death’s company was where my cousin found her existence most tolerable. It was a wonder we both had survived.

  My companion’s breathing finally quieted, and I knelt beside her. “There’s a cottage at the back of the strand. Can you walk there?”

  “Yes, of course,” she replied, bracing herself against the arm I offered as she rose to her feet.

  She was shivering violently. I whispered a prayer as we crossed to the cottage and opened the door.

  The inside was nearly as bleak as the exterior, furnished with only a bench and a pair of hard chairs. But my prayer had been answered—a stack of turf bricks stood by the hearth. Fishermen used the cottage as a warming hut on wet winter evenings, and they had left a striker, a basket of straw, and another of driftwood. Everything was wonderfully dry, and soon we were warming ourselves before the flames.

  Only when golden firelight was dancing over wet, chilled skin did I let myself look at her. Her state of undress came as a shock—I had done it out of necessity and forgotten. Her wet blouse, which clung to her slender form, had been ripped open to the top of her corset. Her hair hung in heavy curls that released sparkling rivulets over her flesh. The swell of her breasts above the loosened corset was a thing I could not allow myself to contemplate, lest I lose myself in their soft beauty. I raised my eyes and found hers resting on my chest. My borrowed coat gone and my shirt in tatters, I was as good as half naked.

  When our gazes met, she looked away quickly.

  “I apologize for this awkward state of affairs, Miss Quicksilver,” I said. “Rest assured that I know where we are. We have overshot our destination only slightly, and in the morning we’ll find someone to take us to the queen.”

  She made a valiant effort at smiling. “That is a relief, my lord.”

  “Have you any injury?”

  She shook her head. “Only bruised and chilled. And you?”

  “I am whole.” I glanced at the fire. “There’s enough turf to last the night. We’ll be safe here.”

  “Do you think it was all a dream, my lord?”

  My eyes moved again to her face, but she was staring into the fire. Though I suspected her question was rhetorical, I tried to answer her anyway. “As you know, I struggle to distinguish dream from reality. Had we not shared the experience, I would assume that my hallucinations were increasing in severity.”

  Her eyes were oddly bright in the firelight. “Do you recall what Captain O’Malley said when she was vexed with you?”

  I shook my head. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “Before Mr. Yeats interrupted her, she’d begun to say she didn’t care whether you were a descendant of the Danaan.”

  Laughing quietly, I replied, “She did not strike me as an especially trustworthy person. I wouldn’t put stock in anything she said.”

  Miss Q frowned. “Lord Meath, I’m sure I needn’t remind you that the most famous of the Danaan warriors was Diarmuid.”

  I studied her a long moment. “You believe this is important because of the sword?”

  “I believe this is important because inside the fairy mound, you told me you were Diarmuid. You spoke to me in a language I never learned—Old Irish, I now believe—and yet I understood you. And then you fought the púca with Diarmuid’s sword. I know that you want the world to take no notice of the fact you’re an earl, so I can only imagine how you might feel about a connection to the Danaan. But, my lord, I fear we no longer have the time for … for gentlemanly humility.”

  All this came out in a rush, her chest rising and falling rapidly in her excitement. For an outburst of this kind to issue from such a patient and sensible lady, I knew she must be trying to draw my attention to something she believed vitally important.

  And yet I could not see beyond the inconsistency in her story.

  “I said that I am Diarmuid?”

  Her lips parted, and she hesitated. “You did, sir.”

  “What else did I say to you, Ada? What else did I say in Old Irish?”

  I watched her throat work as she swallowed. “Y
ou said very little, my lord.”

  I rose from my chair and stood with my back to the fire, facing her. Trying to intimidate her, I confess. “Anything I said could be important, could it not? Please tell me again what happened last night. No omissions this time.”

  Ada

  He stood nearly in silhouette, and yet his eyes flashed fire. Like the Gap galleon that had brought us here, he seemed to drift between Irish naval officer and earl, native of wind and wave, and restless ghost of all of Ireland’s wasted, lonely places. Places once sacred to Faery and blighted by their exodus.

  A vision came to me then. I know of nothing else to call it.

  The earl’s visage faded, and I saw a woman lying in a field of flowers. The skirts of her gown billowed around her middle—she was heavy with child. Her glistening hair fanned out over the moss that her head rested on. She was sleeping peacefully, one hand on her belly. A cloud passed in front of the sun, shading her form, and I noticed she was ringed by perhaps a dozen twiglike yet animate figures. They danced around her, their laughter like autumn leaves stirred by the wind.

  “Be gone,” a voice commanded, and a man stepped into the clearing.

  Now came a sound like flames licking dry wood. The twig dancers’ movements became jerkier and more insistent.

  “Fate has woven together the threads of our being,” continued the speaker, still half veiled in shadow. “You shall not take her.”

  The twig circle tightened around her, their crackling protests intensifying.

  “The child of the child of her child, and still many generations hence,” he continued, stepping closer and speaking as though to disobedient children. His countenance was very like the earl’s but with a strange light behind his features. He was ageless and heartbreakingly beautiful. “I have foreseen that I shall know her.”

  The twig dancers paused now, waiting and watching, and I could see they each wore a thimble-size red cap. In a single motion, each removed its cap and tossed it onto the resting lady.

  The man bent low over her. With his head near her belly, he drew a sword, and my heart stopped. But he laid the sword beside the maid, and the twig dancers scattered with shrill cries of alarm. The man bent still lower, pressing a kiss onto her belly, then lifting her hand and placing the palm over his kiss.