“Who are you, then? Huh? Don’t play games, Annie,” he said, moving around me, heading me off. “You ask me things you should know. You never speak of Declan. You never speak of Ireland! Not like we used to. You seem lost half the time, and you’re so different, so changed, that I feel like I’m seeing you for the first time. And dammit if I don’t like what I see. I like you!” He ran an impatient hand over his face, wiping the rain from his eyes. “And you love Eoin. You love the boy. And every time I’m convinced you really are someone else, I see the way you look at him, the way you watch him, and I feel like a feckin’ lunatic for doubting you. But something has happened to you. You aren’t the same. And you won’t tell me anything.”
“I’m sorry, Thomas,” I cried. “You’re right. I’m not the same Anne. She’s gone.”
“Stop it. Stop saying that,” he begged. He raised his face to the sky, as if begging God for patience. Hands fisted in his hair, he took a few steps toward the long row of homes along the square, putting distance between us. The lights of his house beckoned weakly, taunting us. A shadow moved behind the drapes, and Thomas froze, watching the dark silhouette against the tepid smear of light.
“Someone’s already here,” Thomas said. “Someone’s in the house.” He cursed and supplicated the heavens once more. “Why now, Mick?” he said under his breath, but I heard the words. Thomas turned back to me, pulling me into his side, keeping me close in spite of it all. My control broke.
I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his chest, clinging to him—and the impossibility of us—before our time ran out. The rain drummed against the pavement, counting off the seconds, and Thomas welcomed me into his body, his lips pressing against my hair, his arms encircling me, even as he groaned my name.
“Anne. Ah, lass. What am I going to do with you?”
“I love you, Thomas. You’ll remember that, won’t you? When this is over?” I said. “I’ve never known a better man.” I needed him to believe that, if nothing else.
I felt a tremor shake him, but his arms tightened around me, a vise of desperation that spoke of his turmoil. For a moment more, I embraced him; then I let my arms fall as I pulled back. But Thomas didn’t release me, not completely.
“It’ll be Mick. Inside. He’s going to demand answers, Anne,” Thomas warned, his voice weary. “What do you want to do?”
“If I answer every one of your questions, will you promise to believe me?” I begged, looking up at him through my tears.
“I don’t know,” Thomas confessed, and I watched his frustration disintegrate, washed away in the downpour, leaving resignation in its wake. “But I can promise you this. Whatever you tell me, I’ll do my best to protect you. And I won’t turn you away.”
“Liam was the one who shot me on the lough,” I blurted. It was the truth I was most afraid of, the truth that pertained to this time and place, and the truth Thomas might be able to explain, even understand.
Thomas froze. Then his hands rose from my arms to cradle my face as if he needed to keep me still while he examined my eyes for veracity. He must have been satisfied with what he saw because he nodded slowly, his mouth grim. He didn’t ask why or how or when. He didn’t seek clarification at all.
“You’ll tell me everything? Mick too?” he asked.
“Yes,” I breathed, surrendering. “But it’s a long . . . impossible . . . story, and it will take me a while to tell it.”
“Then let’s get out of this rain.” He tucked me against his body, and we moved toward his house, toward the soft light that glimmered in the windows.
“Wait,” he commanded and climbed the stairs to the front stoop without me. He knocked on his own door, rapping a rhythm that was clearly preestablished, and the door swung open.
Michael Collins took one look at the two of us and pointed to the stairs.
“We’ll talk when you’re dry. Joe made a fire. Mrs. Cleary left bread and meat pies in the larder. Joe and I helped ourselves, but there’s plenty left. Go. It’s been a helluva night.”
Mrs. Cleary was Thomas’s Dublin housekeeper. Joe O’Reilly, Mick’s righthand man, looked on sheepishly. The fact that it was Thomas’s home and Michael Collins was giving orders was clearly not lost on him, but I didn’t need any further encouragement. I climbed the stairs, my shoes squelching and my teeth chattering, and stumbled into the room Thomas had assigned to me, peeling off his suit coat and my red dress, hoping Mrs. O’Toole could rehabilitate the clothing like she’d saved my bloodstained blue robe. Our clothes were covered in a layer of soot, and they reeked of smoke, just like my hair and skin. I wrapped my robe around me, gathered my things, and took a hot bath. If Michael Collins objected to the time I was taking, too bad. I scrubbed my hair and skin, rinsed it, and scrubbed it all once more. When I finally made my way downstairs, my hair was still wet, but the rest of me was clean and dry. The three men were huddled around the kitchen table, speaking in voices that quieted when they heard my footfalls.
Thomas stood, his face scrubbed free of the grime but not the concern. He wore clean, dry trousers and a white shirt. He hadn’t bothered to button on a collar, and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing the wiry strength of his forearms and the tension in his shoulders.
“Have a seat, Anne. Right here.” Michael Collins patted the empty place beside him. The kitchen table was perfectly square, with a chair on each side. “Can I call you Anne?” he asked. He stood, shoved his hands into his pockets and sat down again, agitated.
I sat next to him obediently, the sense of an ending all around, like I was caught in a dream I was about to wake from. Joe O’Reilly sat on my right. Collins sat on my left. Thomas sat directly across from me, his blue eyes troubled and oddly tender, his teeth clenched against the realization that he could not save me from what was about to go down. I wanted to reassure him and tried to smile. He swallowed and shook his head once, as if apologizing for his failure to return my offering.
“Tell me something, Anne,” Michael Collins said. “How did you know what was going to happen tonight at the Gresham? Tommy here tried to pretend it wasn’t you who tipped him off. But Tommy’s a terrible liar. It’s the reason I like him.”
“Do you know the story of Oisín and Niamh, Mr. Collins?” I asked softly, letting my mouth find comfort in the sound of their names—usheen and neev. I’d learned the story in Gaelic, speaking the language before I’d learned to write it.
I’d startled Michael Collins. He’d expected an answer, and I’d asked a question instead. An odd one.
“I know it,” he said.
I fixed my gaze on Thomas’s pale eyes, on the promise he’d made not to turn me away. I’d thought of Oisín and Niamh more than once since I’d fallen through time; the similarities of our stories were not lost on me.
I began to recite the tale the way I’d learned it, in Gaelic, letting the Irish words lull the table into a hushed silence. I told them how Niamh, Princess of Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Young, had found Oisín, son of the great Fionn, on the banks of Loch Leane, not so different from the way Thomas had found me. Collins snorted and O’Reilly shifted, but Thomas was still, holding my gaze as I wove the ancient tale in a language every bit as old.
“Niamh loved Oisín. She asked him to go with her. To trust her. And she promised to do all in her power to make him happy,” I said.
“This is an odd way of answering my question, Anne Gallagher,” Michael Collins murmured, but there was a softness in his tone, as if my Gaelic had calmed his suspicions. Surely one who spoke the language of the Irish could never work for the Crown. He did not stop me as I continued with the legend.
“Oisín believed Niamh when she described her kingdom, a place that existed separate from his own world, and he went with her there, leaving his land behind. Oisín and Niamh were very happy for several years, but Oisín missed his family and his friends. He missed the green fields and the loch. He begged Niamh to let him return, if only for a visit. Niamh knew what would happen if she let him go back, and her heart broke because she knew Oisín would not understand unless he saw the truth for himself.” My throat ached, and I paused, closing my eyes against the blue of Thomas’s steady gaze to gather my courage. I needed Thomas to believe me but didn’t want to see the moment when he stopped.
“Niamh told Oisín he could go but to stay on Moonshadow, her horse, and to not let his foot touch Irish soil. And she begged him to return to her,” I said.
“Poor Oisín. Poor Niamh,” Joe O’Reilly whispered, knowing what came next.
“Oisín traveled for several days until he returned to the lands of his father. But everything had changed. His family was gone. His home too. The people had changed. Gone were the castles and the great warriors of the past,” I said. “Oisín stepped down from Moonshadow, forgetting, in his shock, what Niamh had begged him to remember. When his foot touched the ground, he became a very old man. Time in Tír na nÓg was very different from time in Éire. Moonshadow ran from him, leaving him behind. Oisín never returned to Niamh or the Land of the Young. Instead, he told his story to whomever would listen, so the people would know their history, so they would know they descended from giants, from warriors.”
“I always wondered why he couldn’t return, why Niamh never came for him. Was it his age? Maybe the fair princess didn’t want an old man,” Collins mused, locking his hands behind his head, completely serious.
“Cád atá á rá agat a Aine?” Thomas murmured in Gaelic, and I met his gaze again, my stomach trembling, my palms damp. He wanted to know what I was really trying to say.
“Just like Oisín, there are things you won’t understand unless you experience them for yourself,” I urged.
Joe rubbed his brow wearily. “Can we speak English? My Irish isn’t as good as yours, Anne. A story I already know is one thing. Conversation is another. And I want to understand.”
“When Michael was a child, his father predicted he would do great things for Ireland. His uncle predicted something very similar. How could either of them possibly know such a thing?” I asked, reverting to English once more.
“An dara sealladh,” Michael murmured, his eyes narrowed on my face. “Second sight. Some say there’s a touch of it in my family. I think it was just the pride of a father in his young son.”
“But time has proven your father right,” Thomas said, and Joe nodded, his face filled with devotion.
“I cannot explain what I know. You want me to give explanations that will make no sense. I will sound crazy, and you’ll be afraid of me. I told you I was no threat to you or Ireland. And that is the only reassurance I can give you. I cannot explain how I know, but I will tell you what I know, if it will help. I knew that the doors would be barred and a fire would be started only moments before it happened. When Murphy made his toast . . . I just . . . knew. I also knew the truce would be signed before it was. I knew the date, and I told Thomas, though even he had no knowledge of an agreement.”