“What choices?”

“So many, and some already made, as they brought you here. You came to the Welcoming Tree and went forward, not back, and so passed through the portal with Ireland and America and all the rest of that world on one side, and this world—your homeplace, Talamh—on the other.”

Breen nudged her wine aside. “This area’s called Tala? I haven’t heard of it.”

With some impatience Marg spelled it out. “Though you pronounce it well enough. It’s a world, as real and solid as any other. But we are not of the others, nor they of us. Some worlds are very old, some very young. Some embrace violence, others embrace peace. Some, as the world you were reared in most of your life, wish for machines and technology to both build and destroy. But here, we have chosen to abjure such things and hold on to the magicks, their powers and their beauties.”

Breen didn’t doubt this woman was her grandmother. The resemblance was too strong, and the grief when Marg had spoken of her son unquestionably real.

But that didn’t mean her grandmother wasn’t a little bit crazy.

“You’re actually talking about, what, a multiverse? That’s comic-book stuff.”

Marg slapped a hand on the table, made Breen jump. “Why are so many so arrogant they don’t just believe they’re all there is, but insist upon it?”

“Because science?”

“Bah. Science changes generation by generation—and more. Once in the realm of Earth the science said the world was flat—until they said it wasn’t. Science changes, mo stór. Magick is constant.”

“Science doesn’t change so much as it finds new data and information to adjust its findings. I mean, gravity was gravity, right, long before the metaphorical apple fell on Newton’s head. But . . . I understand things are different here, and I understand—to a point—why you didn’t feel able to keep in contact with me. I’m grateful, so grateful, for the money you sent that helped me come here. I’m staying through the summer, and I’ll come back and visit you. I . . . I’d like if you could take me—or show me—where my father’s buried.”

“You’ve gone there in dreams. You saw me as I saw you in the place where the Pious once walked. You heard the song of the stones and the murmur of prayers still spoken.”

Panic dropped on her chest. “You can’t know what I dream. I need to go.”

Marg got to her feet, pinned Breen with a look.

“I am Mairghread O’Ceallaigh, once taoiseach of Talamh. I am of the Fey, a servant of the gods. I am Maiden, Mother, Crone. You come from me, child of my child, and in your blood lives all the gifts given.”

The air changed. It . . . stirred. It rippled through Marg’s hair, sent it swirling. Her eyes went dark and deep as she lifted her hands, palms up.

Dishes rattled on the shelves. The sleeping dog woke, sat up before he let out a howl that sounded like joy.

“Break the chains on the restrictions locked around you in the other. Listen and feel and see truth.”

She swept out a hand, and the fire in the odd little stove roared as candles leaped to flame. “And here air whip, fire burn, here earth tremble, and water spill.”

Now in her hand a fountain of water spurted up, shimmered in the light.

“All these elemental, all these linked to the magicks that form a world. Our world, and yours. You have come home, daughter of Talamh, daughter of the Fey. You will know your birthright. And you will choose.”

With a flick of her hand, the fountain of water vanished. Candles guttered out, and the air and all went still.

“You . . . put something in the wine.”

With a roll of her eyes, Marg picked up her glass, drank deep. “Don’t be foolish. You’ve lived with lies and deceptions too long. I’ll give you neither. You are loved, Breen. Whatever your choices to come may be, you will always be loved. But you can’t make true choices until you awaken.”

Marg walked to her, put a hand on her cheek. “You need time yet. I’ll walk with you some of the way, and the dog will guide you back to the cottage. When you’re ready, I’ll do as you ask and take you to the place we laid the one we love.”

“I can find my way back. I can’t take the dog. I don’t even have the supplies to feed him and—”

“All you need for him is there. He’ll be a companion for you, for now, we’ll say. Do me this small favor and let him be with you for a day or two.”

“Okay, fine. I really have to go. It’s a long walk back.”

“It is a journey, one I hope you’ll make again.”

“I’ll visit you.” She owed the woman that much. But before she did, she’d read up on delusions and hypnosis.

Marg led the way to the door, stepped out, then smiled.

“I see you have other guides waiting.”

The falconer, Breen saw, with the glorious bird on her gloved arm. With a happy bark, the dog raced to them.

“I met her. I met her in Clare.”

“Oh, long before that. You and Morena were friends as babies, as close as her grandmother and I have been all our lives.”

“Was she in Clare to watch me?”

“Ah, child, so wary you are. She was there because she’s headstrong and saw the chance to see you again. I’ll leave Breen with you and Amish then,” Marg called out. “You’ll take her back safe, won’t you, and not badger at her?”

“We’ll see her back safe. I can’t promise it all.”

“Well, I suppose that has to do.” Turning, Marg laid her hands on Breen’s shoulders, kissed both her cheeks lightly. “Open yourself, mo stór, and see what’s around you, and inside you.”

She stepped back, and into the cottage.

And in the quiet alone, wept for what might have been, and what might be.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Because badgering was exactly what Breen had in mind, she walked down to Morena.

“Why did you tell me you worked for the falconry school?”

“But I didn’t, did I?” Cocking a hip, Morena put her free hand on it. The gesture reeked of sarcasm. “You assumed that. You didn’t remember me, and that cut a bit even though Marg and my grandmother both said you wouldn’t. Not right off.”

She lifted her arm so the hawk winged up. As she started walking, she turned. “Are you after staying or going?”

“I’m going.”

“You promised you’d come back when you went away, but I stopped believing it, as you never tried.”

“I’m not going to take flak for that. How am I suddenly in the wrong when I’m the only one I can see who didn’t lie? And I was three, according to my grandmother, when I left Ireland for Philadelphia.”

“You left Talamh.”

“Oh God, not you, too!” Out of patience, Breen threw her hands in the air, turned a circle. “Is it something in the local water?”

“I could ask the same of where you’ve been, as I don’t understand how you could forget who you are, where you came from. I’m still holding a grudge about that.”

Morena’s tone mirrored Breen’s frustrated circle. “We played, you and I, in the woods around Marg’s cottage, and in the dooryard of the farmhouse where you lived until your father left and turned it over to the O’Broins. We had tea parties and picnics and shared secrets whispering at night when we were supposed to be sleeping.”

“I was three! I’m sorry I don’t remember. But you’re not helping by fostering my grandmother’s delusions about this being some sort of Brigadoon.”

As if waiting for an insult, Morena’s eyes narrowed to slits. “What’s a Brigadoon?”

“It’s a fantasy story about a place that only exists for one day every hundred years.”

“Oh, it sounds like a fine tale.” Mollified by it, Morena reached down to pat the dog that trotted along with them. “But this isn’t that, as we’re here all the time.”

“She put something in my wine.”

“Ah, don’t be a git. Why would she be doing that to her own kin?”

“It made me see her doing the impossible.”

“Well now, there’s not much impossible for the likes of Marg. She’s as powerful a witch as I know.”

As the crazy built around her, Breen considered pulling her own hair out. “Now you’re all witches? Look, I get Ireland’s got its folklore and its legends, but—”

“Ireland’s on the other side, and I’m not a witch. I’m of the Sidhe.”

“I can see you’re a woman.”

“Sidhe,” Morena repeated. “I’m of the faerie clan.”

“Faerie clan. Of course. I should’ve seen it right away.”

Unfazed, Morena lifted a hand in a wave toward Harken as he led a spotted cow to what Breen assumed was a barn.

“It’ll be easier on you going back through with me. Harken and Aisling said you took a turn coming through, and likely because you’d blocked it all out.”

With the hawk circling above, Morena hopped the stone fence.

For the first time, Breen saw steps carved into the rise leading up to the tree.

“I fell. I lost my balance and fell, that’s all.”

“As you like.”

Seven steps, Breen counted as she climbed them. Steps of rough stone with mica gleaming in the bright sunlight.

“I was going after the dog,” she said in her defense. “And distracted because the tree’s fascinating.”

She gripped one of its curving branches, tried to climb up as gracefully, effortlessly as Morena.

She felt herself start to fall, as if the ground vanished under her feet. Then Morena gripped her hand.

The next thing she knew she stood on the path under a soaking rain.

“I don’t understand how—”

“Because I’m thinking you don’t want to.” Temper, very visibly, began to rise and spew. “You don’t want to take back what’s yours by right, by blood, would rather close your eyes to it and pretend.”