The Angel (3 page)

“I remember,” her mother said.

“One of the emphases will be on twentieth-century im

migrants to America. I’ve been working that angle, and I ended up deciding to put together and illustrate a collection specifically of their stories. I have a wonderful one Gran told me before she died. She was from West Cork—”

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“I know she was. Keira…” Her mother’s eyes were pained.

“What’s wrong? I’ve been to Ireland before. Not the Beara Peninsula, but—Mum, are you afraid I’m going to run into my father?”

“Your father was John Michael Sullivan.”

But Keira was referring to her biological father. Her mother had returned home from a summer study program in Ireland at nineteen, pregnant with Keira. When Keira was a year old, her mother had married John Sullivan, a South Boston electrician ten years her senior. He was killed in a car accident two years later, and his widow and adopted daughter had moved out of Boston and started a new life. Keira had no clear memory of him, but when she looked at pictures of him, she felt an overwhelming sense of affec

tion, gratitude and grief, as if some part of her did remember him. Her mother never discussed that one trip to Ireland thirty years ago. For all Keira knew, her biological father could have been a Swedish tourist or another American student. She debated a moment, then said, “A woman on your old street in South Boston heard about the folklore project and got in touch with me. She told me this incredible story about three Irish brothers who fight with each other and fairies over an ancient stone angel—”

“Patsy McCarthy,” her mother said in a toneless voice.

“That’s right. She says she told you this story, too, before your trip to Ireland. The brothers believe the statue is of one of the angels said to visit Saint Ita during her lifetime. The fairies believe it’s not an angel at all but actually one of their own who’s been turned to stone. There’s more to it—it’s quite a tale.”

“Mrs. McCarthy told a lot of stories.”

“Her grandfather heard this one when he worked in the copper mines on the Beara Peninsula and told it to Patsy

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when she was a little girl in Ireland. The village where the brothers lived isn’t named, but there are enough details—”

“To pinpoint it. Yes, I know.”

“And the spot where the hermit monk brother lived. You could make a stab at finding it, at least, if you know the story.” Keira waited, but when her mother didn’t respond, continued. “Patsy told me you were determined to find the village and look for the hermit monk’s hut on your trip to Ireland before I was born.”

“She’s a gifted storyteller.”

“Yes, she is.”

Her mother lifted a small, filmy sheet of gold leaf to the light streaming in through the window. The use of gold—

real gold—was what distinguished a true illuminated manu

script, but Keira knew it was far too soon for her mother to apply gold to her work-in-progress.

“Do you know the difference between sin and evil, Keira?”

Keira didn’t want to talk about sin and evil. She wanted to talk about Patsy’s old story and magic, mischief and fairies. “It’s not something I think much about.”

“Adam and Eve sinned.” Her mother turned the gold leaf so that it gleamed in the late-afternoon light. “They wanted to please God, but they succumbed to temptation. They regretted their disobedience. They took no delight in what they did.”

“In other words, they sinned.”

“Yes, but the serpent is a different case altogether. He delights in his wrongdoing. He exults in thwarting God. He sees himself as the antithesis of God. Unlike Adam and Eve, the serpent didn’t commit a sin in the Garden of Eden. The serpent chose evil.”

“Honestly, Mum, I don’t know how you can stand to think about this stuff out here by yourself.”

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She set the thin gold leaf on the pure white paper. Keira knew from experience that the gold leaf was difficult to work with but resilient, able to withstand considerable ma

nipulation without breaking into pieces. Applied properly, it looked like solid gold, not just a whisper of gold.

“We all sin, Keira,” her mother said without a hint of a smile, “but we’re not all evil. The devil understands that. Evil is a particular dispensation of the soul.”

“Does this have anything to do with Ireland? With what happened there when you—”

“No. It has nothing at all to do with Ireland.” She took a breath. “So, how’s your work?”

Keira stifled her irritation at the abrupt change of subject. It felt like a dismissal and probably was, but she reminded herself that she hadn’t come out to the woods to judge her mother, or even for information. She’d come simply to say goodbye before flying out of Boston tomorrow night.

“My work’s going great right now, thanks.” Why go into detail when that world no longer interested or concerned her mother?

“That’s good to hear. Thank you for stopping by.” She got to her feet and hugged Keira goodbye. “Live your life, sweet

heart. Don’t get too caught up in all these crazy old stories. And please don’t worry about me out here. I’m fine.”

On her way back through the woods, Keira resisted the urge to look over her shoulder for the devil and serpents. Instead, she remembered herself as a child, and how her mother would sing her Irish songs and read her stories. Every kind of story—stories about fairies and wizards and giants, about hobbits and elves and dark lords, princes and prin

cesses, witches, goblins, cobblers, explorers and adventurers. How could such a fun-loving, sociable woman end up alone out here?

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But Keira had to admit there had been hints of what was to come—that she’d seen glimpses in her mother of a mys

terious sadness and private guilt, of a longing for a peace that she knew could never really be hers in this life. Her mother insisted she hadn’t withdrawn from the world or rejected her family but rather had embraced her religious beliefs in a personal and profound way. She viewed herself as participating in a centuries-old monastic tradition. That was no doubt true, but Keira didn’t believe her mother’s retreat to her isolated cabin was rooted entirely in her faith. As she’d listened to Patsy McCarthy tell her old story, Keira had begun to wonder if her mother’s trip to Ireland thirty years ago had somehow set into motion her eventual turn to the life of a religious hermit. Another mosquito—or maybe the same one—found Keira, buzzing in her ear and jerking her back to the here and now, to her own life. She swiped at the mosquito as she plunged down the narrow trail through the woods to the dead-end dirt road where she’d parked.

The story of the three Irish brothers, the fairies and the stone angel wasn’t about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Ultimately, Keira thought, it was about the pushpull of family ties and the deep, human yearning for a con

nection with others, for happiness and good fortune. Mostly, it was just a damn good yarn—a mesmerizing story that Keira could illustrate and tell on the pages of her new book.

“They say the stone angel lies buried to this day in the
old ruin of the hermit monk’s hut.”
Maybe, maybe not. Patsy McCarthy, and her grandfa

ther before her, easily could have exaggerated and embel

lished the story over the years. It didn’t matter. Keira was hooked, and she couldn’t wait to be on her way to Ireland. 28

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In the meantime, she had to get back to Boston in time for a reception and a silent auction to benefit the BostonCork folklore project that had brought her to Patsy’s South Boston kitchen in the first place.

She glanced back into the woods, wishing her mother could be at the reception tonight. “Not just for my sake, Mum,” Keira whispered. “For your own.”

Boston Public Garden

Boston, Massachusetts

7:00 p.m., EDT

June 17

Victor Sarakis didn’t let the heavy downpour stop him. He couldn’t.

He had to warn Keira Sullivan.

Rain spattered on the asphalt walks of the Public Garden, a Victorian oasis in the heart of Boston. He picked up his pace, wishing he’d remembered to bring an umbrella or even a hooded jacket, but he didn’t have far to go. Once through the Public Garden, he had only to cross Charles Street and make his way up Beacon Street to an address just below the gold-domed Massachusetts State House. He could do it. He
had
to do it. The gray, muted light and startling amount of rain darkened his mood and further fueled his sense of urgency.

“Keira can’t go to Ireland.”

He was surprised he spoke out loud. He was aware that 30

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many people didn’t consider him entirely normal, but he’d never been one to talk to himself.

“She can’t look for the stone angel.”

Drenched to the bone as he was, he’d look like a madman when he arrived at the elegant house where the benefit auction that Keira was attending tonight was being held. He couldn’t let that deter him. He had to get her to hear him out.

He had to tell her what she was up against. What was after her.

Evil.

Pure evil.

Not mental illness, not sin—evil.
Victor had to warn her in person. He couldn’t call the authorities and leave it to them. What proof did he have? What evidence? He’d sound like a lunatic. Just stop Keira from going to Ireland. Then he could decide how to approach the police. What to tell them.

“Victor.”

His name seemed to be carried on the wind. The warm, heavy rain streamed down his face and back, poured into his shoes. He slowed his pace.

“Victor.”

He realized now that he hadn’t imagined the voice. His gaze fell on the Public Garden’s shallow pond, rain pelting into its gray water. The famous swan boats were tied up for the evening. With the fierce storms, the Public Garden was virtually empty of people.

No witnesses.

Victor broke into an outright run, even as he debated his options. He could continue on the walkways to Charles Street, or he could charge through the pond’s shallow water, try to escape that way.

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But already he knew there’d be no escape.

“Victor.”

His gait faltered. He couldn’t run fast enough. He wasn’t athletic, but that didn’t matter.

He couldn’t outrun such evil.

He couldn’t outrun one of the devil’s own. No one could.

Beacon Hill

Boston, Massachusetts

8:30 p.m., EDT

June 17

Not for the first time in his life, Simon Cahill found himself in an argument with an unrelenting snob, this time in Boston, but he could as easily have been in New York, San Francisco, London or Paris. He’d been to all of them. He enjoyed a good argument—especially with someone as obnoxious and pretentious as Lloyd Adler. Adler looked to be in his early forties and wore jeans and a rumpled black linen sport coat with a white T-shirt, his graying hair pulled back in a short ponytail. He gestured across the crowded, elegant Beacon Hill drawing room toward a watercolor painting of an Irish stone cottage.

“Keira Sullivan is more Tasha Tudor and Beatrix Potter than Picasso, wouldn’t you agree, Simon?”

Probably, but Simon didn’t care. The artist in question was supposed to have made her appearance by now. Adler

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had griped about that, too, but her tardiness hadn’t seemed to stop people from bidding on the two paintings she’d donated to tonight’s auction. The second was of a fairy or elf or some damn thing in a magical glen. Proceeds would go to support a scholarly conference on Irish and IrishAmerican folklore to be held next spring in Boston and Cork, Ireland.

In addition to being a popular illustrator, Keira Sullivan was also a folklorist.

Simon hadn’t taken a close look at either of her donated paintings. A week ago, he’d been in Armenia searching for survivors of a moderate but damaging earthquake. Over a hundred people had died. Men, women, children. Mostly children.

But now he was in a suit—an expensive one—and drinking champagne in the first-floor chandeliered drawing room of an elegant early nineteenth-century brick house overlooking Boston Common. He figured he deserved to be mistaken for an art snob.

“Beatrix Potter’s the artist who drew Peter Rabbit, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

Simon swallowed more of his champagne. It wasn’t bad, but he wasn’t a snob about champagne, either. He liked what he liked and didn’t worry about the rest. He didn’t mind if other people fussed over what they were drinking—

he just minded if they were a pain in the ass about it. “When I was a kid, my mother decorated my room with crossstitched scenes of Peter and his buddies.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Cross-stitch. You know—you count these threads and—” Simon stopped, deliberately, and shrugged. He knew he didn’t look like the kind of guy who’d had Beatrix Potter rabbits on his wall as a kid, but he was telling the 34

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truth. “Now that I’m thinking about it, I wonder what happened to my little rabbits.”

Adler frowned, then chuckled. “That’s very funny,” he said, as if he couldn’t believe Simon was serious. “Keira Sullivan is good at what she does, obviously, but I hate to see her work overshadow several quite interesting pieces here tonight. A shame, really.”

Simon looked at Adler, who suddenly went red and bolted into the crowd, mumbling that he needed to say hello to someone.

A lot of his arguments ended that way, Simon thought as he finished off his champagne, got rid of his empty glass and grabbed a full one from another tray. The event was catered, and most of the guests were dressed up and having a good time. From what he’d heard, they included a wide range of people—academics, graduate students, artists, musicians, folklorists, benefactors, a couple of priests and a handful of politicians and rich art collectors. And at least two cops, but Simon steered clear of them.