The car accident that had scarred his brow, the topple under the waves that cracked his ribs; none of those had smashed a fiery halberd into his windpipes and depleted his oxygen quite to the extent as did the realization that he had a son.
With Brenda. A son with Brenda.
A son he could see only in his dreams.
Aiden.
How Aiden was theirs and not Monaghan's as Dylan had initially believed was a fleeting thought. He didn't need to know the specifics.
Well, he did - had something to do with his Boston fantasy, he was sure; probably obnubilated by the hand of Anteros…maybe Itero would know more…
That could wait.
Right now, he had to get to the Brenda of his adolescence if he wanted a prayer of ever having a family with her that he could father outside of his dreams.
That's all they had ever been: dreams. It had begun the night Brenda stood at the Pit and confided to Dylan that she was late. It had appeared again, this time in a daydream, whilst sitting at a table in the Pit. It had come in a more morbid manner the summer Brenda had left the country, and then again on K2.
Those dreams had haunted him more times than he cared to count after their final breakup and now, now that it was a reality, he had gone and fucked it all up.
Because he lived a whole other century away from his family.
The child he had somehow given to Brenda would never know him.
The love of his lives would be raising their child in that fucker Monaghan's home, in the days of iPads and iPods, whilst Dylan still impatiently waited for Google to get off the ground.
What did that make him? A deadbeat? Was he a deadbeat?
Fucking hell. He had never wanted to be a deadbeat.
Aiden Monaghan? Fuck that. He was Aiden McKay.
And fuck Monaghan, who Dylan now felt certain was in league with Anteros. If Dylan ever ran into Monaghan, he'd pound the guy.
Maybe.
Had Itero known? Could Dylan trust Itero, or was the fairy in on dividing him from his family, too?
Itero had given him the second chance. Was it intended in goodwill, or had it been a setup?
After all, to get that second chance, Dylan had to give up everything he had ever wanted without realizing he had anything to give up.
He no longer knew whether to trust the redo.
He had to talk to Iris, but first, he had to find Brenda.
"I never knew Steve's place is this massive." Brandon eyed the golf course that blended into the Sanders' forested backyard. "We needed your bike and my car to get all the way out here. You better know exactly where my sister is, or we're screwed."
"We took the bike because it's faster, and we took the car so the girls can be easily transported to the hospital if it comes to that," said Dylan as he fought to focus on the situation at hand and not on his warring spirit.
"What if we can't move them?" asked Brandon.
"Then I'll stay with them and you'll run for help."
"Why do you get to stay with them?"
"Because if you think I'm leaving your sister for even a second after I have her in my sight again, you're deluded."
"She's my sister."
"And she's my -" Mother of my child, mother of my child, the fucking mother of my child! - "…the future mother of my children?"
"You'll have to do better than that."
"The girl I'm gonna marry."
"Unless you plan on marrying her the second we find her, that still doesn't top brother. Twin brother, no less."
"Speaking of; you feeling anything yet?"
"A heaviness in my lungs that makes it hard to breathe, but I don't know if that's Bren or the absence of Bren."
When they were five, said Brandon, Valerie and Brenda had stayed out overnight in their favorite hiding place. The girls had hidden so well that even Brandon didn't know where they were, until the enthusiasm of a bison had echoed from Brenda's ears into Brandon's thoughts.
"This time," said Brandon, "I've got nothing."
"Do you think that might be because Bren isn't the only one you're looking for?" asked Dylan.
"Is this gonna be yet another one of those talks where you imply I have feelings for Donna? You think those alleged feelings are obstructing my connection with Bren?"
"Hey, you said it; not me."
"I'm not getting into it," said Brandon. "Now explain to me how you think they're out here."
"It's all in the phrasing." Dylan scrutinized the dilapidated building that Steve had said the Sanders family never used. Greenery grew within its cracks, indicating no one had used it in quite some time and perhaps had forgotten its existence. "Wilson said he didn't snatch Donna because he didn't snatch her. She's still on the property. Bren; she was just in the wrong place, at the wrong time. Probably saw Donna getting dragged off and went after the guy."
"So you think Wilson's goal was getting rid of Donna?" Brandon stood moments from punching a hole in the surrounding fence.
"If it was, then my bet is Kelly put him up to it."
"What is Kelly's problem?" asked Brandon.
Bren, thought Dylan. Val. Gina. She didn't like you dating other chicks. She didn't like me dating other chicks. She didn't like Steve dating other chicks, unless his chicks approved of his relationship with her.
Meanwhile, it was perfectly fine for her to move on with Colin, or with Matt, or with…who was that guy she was with when you were with that Tracey person? Mike? Mick?
Mark. I think it was Mark.
What were we doing, Brandon? Why did we let ourselves fuck this up, over her? Why did we let our relationships with Bren get shredded, over her?
Her. Kelly. The reason Brenda stayed away.
And I went back to her. I went back to the chick who repeatedly lied her ass off to my Bren.
I not only went back to her; I made sure she believed she was more important to me than Bren's ever been.
I let her believe she meant everything and Bren meant nothing.
My own lie. Lie upon lie upon more lies.
If I'd gotten help after K2, would it have all been different?
If Kelly gets help now, will she be different?
"Man, if we could figure that out, we'd all be better off." Dylan thought he would combust before he even found Brenda.
"How'd you figure this out?" asked Brandon.
"Your sister came to me in a dream and showed me Sanders' old pool." Dylan exuded an air of nonchalance. "I worked out everything from there."
"Oh sure, Bren will show up in your dream to tell you where she is, but won't show up in my; scratch that," Brandon hurried, "probably better I'm not dreaming about my sister. Shit. Bad image. Bad, bad image. I'd rather dream about Val. Wait, no I wouldn't. Yes I would. No, definitely not." Brandon performed a series of quick, one-handed jumping jacks in his attempt to shake off the unwanted visions. "So you think they're locked in this guest house?"
"It's not a guest house," said Dylan. "It's a fallout shelter."
"A fallout shelter? From the Cold War?"
It was not at all unreasonable, said Dylan. He told Brandon of the backyard fallout shelters created by Beverly Hills elites and celebrities in the uncertainty of the Cold War era. The Sanders mansion had been bought by Rush Sanders in the late nineteen-seventies; prior to that, it had belonged to a businessman with ties to Eastern Europe whom everyone said had been petrified of invasion.
"Then you think they're in there?" asked Brandon.
"No," said Dylan. "I think the fallout shelter leads to where they are. You heard Steve; this mansion is one of the Keating properties. I remember hearing Jack talking about them. Linford Keating apparently had a knack for buying up prime real estate with hidden secrets and then selling for double the price. Celebrities love secrets; more than that, they love a place where they can stash stuff in a hurry. My gut says this place is one of those. We just have to find a way in. And I'm pretty sure that way in is through the old pool."
It was the longest Dylan had been able to hold onto the words Brenda had spoken in their dream.
"Can you tell me where the hell you and Donna are?" he had asked her before they separated. Or, tried to; he hadn't been willing to release the blanket, as releasing the blanket always dispersed his vision of Brenda. "I mean, just before Halloween of junior year. You were at Steve's. Do you remember being at Steve's then?"
"With Donna and - and Bonnie?" Brenda's face had been painted in confusion. "Wait, are Donna and I friends with Bonnie Clayton? Were we practicing for Hello Day without Kel? I thought we performed with Kel."
"Kelly isn't exactly our favorite person right now," Dylan had said, "and after what you've just told me, I doubt I'll ever think of her the same again."
"Then that'll help Brandon get her sooner," said Brenda. "He forced himself to move on from her. It took his meeting Talia to succeed."
"It might've gone that way, but I don't think your brother's too into Kelly these days, either."
"What exactly are you doing over there?"
"Learning a lot of shit I didn't know before."
"Like where Donna and I are? You don't know where we are?"
"Ain't got a goddamn clue."
"But you do. You know exactly where we are."
Dylan had tried to tell Brenda that he didn't mean the women's respective cities of LA and Cork. Brenda had stopped him.
"Dyl, do you think you just randomly dreamt me up in Steve's pool? Do you usually go around picturing people standing in rundown pools?"
The realization had been the bolt of wisdom that woke Dylan and sent him peeling away on his motorcycle, with Brandon quickly following in the Mustang.
"Through the pool?" Brandon aimed his trepidation at Dylan. "Hang on; we gotta swim over there? On the weekend when Reina's out of town for a swim comp? You've got to be kidding me. My sister's never gonna make it out alive if I have to swim to her. I failed the lifeguard tryouts, remember?"
"That's no way to think, Walsh. Just help me pull off this tarp and you'll see."
Large enough to cover a pool that seemed a better fit for a university athletic center than for a backyard, the weight of the cornflower blue tarp caused Brandon to stumble.
It was, thankfully, half the size of the Neptune Pool at Hearst Castle in San Simeon. If it had been any larger, Dylan would have had no choice but to give up.
Despite the extra time it took to remove the tarp that would have been off faster with the aid of Steve, Brandon and Dylan succeeded.
Dylan gave a triumphant grin at the exposed pool. Designed in the form of a misshapen oval, it had been constructed of gunite and appeared in a bad state of disrepair.
It was, moreover, the pool that looked exactly like the one Brenda had stood in.
Neither Dylan nor Brenda had ever seen it.
Samantha Sanders owned two swimming pools: the one that lay out before Dylan and Brandon in poor representation of what Dylan believed it once looked like, and the one closer to the house that Steve had used for a number of chaotic pool parties.
"Start looking for anything that could lead anywhere," Dylan commanded. "It's gunite. We should be able to crack it."
"And how do you expect us to do that?" asked Brandon.
"We'll think of it when we get there."
"I thought you said we're losing the girls to, and I quote, 'a shit ton of cement?'"
"What does that look like to you?" Dylan flapped his hand in the direction of the shelter. "Marshmallow fluff?"
"It doesn't look like cement," said Brandon.
"Semantics," said Dylan. "We don't know how far the shelter stretches back and at some point, it could turn into cement. Are you looking or not?"
"I'm looking, I'm looking."
Brandon asked if it might be better for them to notify someone of where they were, in the event that they fell into an emergency situation of their own that left the girls worse off. Dylan thought it the perfect moment for a mobile, and wondered if he should purchase one for the twins. Brandon ended up leaving Dylan to scour the pool as he flew down the sloped hill towards a neighbor's.
Dylan was still examining the pool when Brandon returned, a steaming cup in his hands and a wiry-haired, older woman bearing an observant brow at his side.
"Ariadne Givens," she said, presenting a pruned hand to Dylan. "Brandon here tells me you think this building is a fallout shelter."
Dylan threw an annoyed glare at Brandon.
"You would be correct," said Ariadne in an accent Dylan couldn't place.
"Mrs. Givens was here when the former owner built the shelter," said Brandon as he feigned ignorance of Dylan's reaction.
"My dear boy," said Ariadne. "I was much more than here. I am the one who designed the fallout shelter for dear Elias."
"Elias?" Dylan struggled with a strong want of silence to concentrate and curiosity of Ariadne's story.
"Elias Liamonti, the original owner of this property," said Ariadne. "I had aspired to be an architect and Elias shared with me his desire to build a fallout shelter that could only be accessed through a swimming pool."
"Ha! See? I knew it!" said Dylan to Brandon.
"You believe the young ladies are locked in the shelter?" asked Ariadne.
"I think the shelter is hiding a tunnel," said Dylan. "Am I right?"
"There is indeed a tunnel," she said. "The issue is, I am unaware of how deep Elias decided to make it, or how far out it goes. He had rather hoped that it would stretch to the river."
"The river? But that's clear on the other side of the city."
"Which is why Mrs. Givens is coming with us," said Brandon.
"Mrs. Givens; look, no offense, but -"
"But an old woman would drag you down?" asked Ariadne with a knowing glance.
"I just want to get to Bren." Dylan's voice sank in decibel until it approached a whisper.
"Mrs. Givens has a cellphone," said Brandon.
That changed Dylan's mind in an instant.
Ariadne's partner had agreed to stay beside their house phone to call for backup, if the need arose. Dylan snuck glances towards Ariadne, searching for any sign that she was, in fact, a fairy.
How do you figure out if someone's actually a fairy?
"How is Itero these days?" Dylan asked, hands framing the side of the pool.
"Itero?" asked Ariadne. "Is that a band?"
Dylan thought the glint in Ariadne's eye said more than she let on, but he continued to move about the pool without quarrel.
Circling the width of the pool, he concentrated on conjuring up the image of where Brenda had stood and wished that he had kept her in that spot longer.
The sun slid behind the clouds. Shadows befell the area.
In the last light of day, going on forty-eight hours since Brenda disappeared, Dylan found the spot.
Linking both hands together, he applied the kind of immense pressure that he would were Nat to suffer another heart attack.
Pieces of gunite spattered downward, landing in a pile of offscourings that sat before an old door.
"Brandon!" hollered Dylan. "I've got something!"
Brandon almost tripped over his own shoes in his excitement. Ariadne traced the designs on the door.
"This'll be it," she said. "This leads to the shelter."
"Where's the key?" Dylan began to dig around the door.
"You don't have need of it." Ariadne pointed to a shape in a rock. "You just need to find the item that fits this stone. The door will then turn."
"Seriously?" asked Dylan irritably. "Were all fallout shelters this complex?"
"Elias was a unique individual."
The smile on Ariadne's lips seemed inhuman, convincing Dylan even more of her fairy heritage.
Or perhaps a kinship with the fairies.
Not that he could prove it either way.
Still, Dylan would rather Ariadne help them with good intention than have their quest thrown into bedlam by the manipulative games of Arís.
And if Ariadne led them to Brenda, so much the better.
Dylan recognized the deep etching as the shape of a book, and dropped down to begin combing through the pile.
"It's this one." Brandon pulled out a thick novel. "I'm sure of it."
"War and Peace," Dylan read. "Fitting."
He snatched the book from Brandon, plugged it into the etching, and turned the lever.
The entrance hoisted upward.
Elias must have been a smaller man, for Dylan had to hunch over in order to dart in. His first instinct was to call out for Brenda, though he knew she wouldn't be sitting in the shelter.
There it was. The tunnel, just as he had imagined it. Behind another door that locked from the outside.
He didn't wait for Brandon, or for Ariadne. His quickened footsteps turned into a man in flight, as if he had metamorphosed into a light rail.
He heard Brandon's distant calls for the girls, which were drowned out by Dylan's own yells.
"Brenda!" he exclaimed. "Brenda, can you hear me? If you can hear me, make some kind of noise to let me know you're alright! Something that will help us find you and get you outta here!"
"Dylan?" He heard the echo of a softened timbre.
It was not Brenda who spoke.
"Donna?" Dylan followed the sound of her voice, refusing to permit his imagination to cave to its worst scenarios.
"Oh thank God! I prayed and you came! Thank you, God! Dylan, we're over here!"
Why the fuck isn't Bren answering?
I killed her. I killed her. I fucking killed her.
I should've refused the redo. I should've told Itero to go fuck itself. I should've just let her go. She'd still be alive if I'd let her go. Oh fuck! Fuck fuck fuck!
The pain exploding in his chest was more than he could bear.
"Dy - Dylan?"
He threw himself towards the ground, almost onto Brenda until he stopped himself to assess her injuries.
"She was fine at first," said Donna, "but now she keeps mumbling about psych wards and hoovers and cholera and I don't know what a hoover is?"
"It's a vacuum," Dylan answered absentmindedly. Realizing Donna's statement, he cupped Brenda's jaw. "Bren? Baby, can you tell me what country we're in?"
"Ireland," began Brenda, and then shook her head. "No, no. England." She paused. "That's not right, is it? Ameri - 'Merica," she corrected with mocking emphasis. She emitted a playful giggle. "I thou - thought you were arrested."
"Arrested? That was Steve. I gotta get you help," said Dylan.
"Do we know a Jarlath?" asked Brenda.
"No," said Dylan.
"Good, 'cause he's a dickhead," said Brenda with a nod. "And I think I want to slay him. With a pestle."
"Do you even have a pestle?" asked Dylan. He fanned out his hands over Brenda. "Okay, so Bren's cooler than an icebox, and clearly in a state of delirium. How are you doing, Donna?"
"I think I broke something," Donna grimaced.
"Can you move?"
"I'm not sure. Maybe."
"1892," said Brenda. "I'm gonna sail the ocean blue, in 1892! From Boston, to Cork, aboard the gilded fork!"
"I think you mean trident, babe," said Dylan steadily. "I don't think you can sail those. Well, maybe if you're a mermaid. You - Bren, you don't think you're a mermaid, do you?"
"Of course I'm not a mermaid, silly! If anything, I'm Rán."
"As long as I can be Ægir. Maybe you're thinking of a ship design from one of our textbooks?"
Internally, he was screaming.
Boston? Why's she talking about Boston? Bren, what do you know about Boston?
Relax. Doesn't she have an American Revolution test coming up? I bet you she's running through her notes in her head, maybe about Sam Adams or the Tea Party or something.
Yeah, okay. Bite me.
And how do you propose I bite myself? Moron.
"Bren slipped when she was trying to help me up," said Donna. "She must've banged her head pretty hard because she's been like this ever since."
"She banged her head?" asked Dylan as he stared at Brenda. "That explains it. Can you tell me how you two got down here in the first place?"
Donna pointed upward, which lacked any kind of opening.
"From up there?" asked Dylan.
"I think I was pushed," said Donna. "I was standing up there and then next thing I knew, I was down here."
"How did Bren get down here?"
"I don't know. I conked out and when I woke up, she'd dropped down, too."
"Do you know who pushed you?"
"I don't. I'm sorry. I know that's not very helpful."
"No, it's okay. We can figure it out later. Right now, the priority is getting you both out."
"Bren said something about Kelly being in a fire? And shot? And I tumbled down the stairs? Do you think there's stairs up there?"
"Might be."
"She also said Kelly joined a cult, Steve met a leprechaun, and I married David even though he stole my money. I don't think he would, though."
"Would what?"
"Steal my money. Or marry me. But if he did steal my money, I couldn't possibly marry him. Could I?"
"I guess not."
Brenda had plummeted into the past she wasn't supposed to remember. She could recite the pasts of the others in stories that Dylan believed she had never heard.
It concerned him of what else she may know, if it would be a temporary or permanent recollection.
Concerned and exhilarated him, for there were events of their former life that he had hoped she would somehow recall.
There had been hurt. There had been misery. There had been fights and betrayals, largely on his end.
But there had also been love, the kind of love sixteen-year-olds could not begin to fathom.
The kind of love that inspired romantic poets of old, that painted sunsets within the mind's eye, that turned gelid nights into snug evenings - with or without a fire.
The kind that led to the ring he almost gave her, to the marriage they would have had.
The family they somehow did.
"Do you believe in them?" asked Donna.
"In the stories Bren told you?" Dylan had unintentionally tuned out whatever subject Donna spoke of.
"No, I asked about leprechauns. Do you believe in leprechauns?"
"There's a whole lotta stuff I'm learning to believe in, Donna. I'm not gonna deny nor confirm the existence of anything."
He wished they knew who had put Brenda in such a state.
Kelly? Would Kelly have done it? How would Kelly know about the tunnel? Did Wilson tell her? Would Kelly go that far? Did Wilson do it? Valentine? Could Valentine have done it?
He chose to rule out Emily Valentine. Emily had rarely spoken to Brandon, too enraptured with Marianne Moore to notice her love of a previous life.
That did not mean the image of Brenda reaching for a lighter beside a gasoline-covered float would ever vanish from his memory bank.
Whoever did it won't get away with this.
Unless…could it have been fucking Anteros?
What the hell does Anteros have against us?
Greek Me, I need to talk to you! What the fuck did you do to piss off Anteros!
Donna told Dylan that Brenda had complained of a tingling in her arm. Dylan looked over said arm and noted it had swollen.
"McKay!"
"Over here!"
"Brandon," said Donna, whose eyes began to glisten with remnants of shed tears.
As soon as Brandon and Ariadne came into view, Dylan gave the rundown.
"Jarlath?" asked Brandon. "We don't know a Jarlath."
"That's what I told her," said Dylan. "I've got Bren," he added, slowly rising with Brenda in his arms. "Can you get Donna?"
"Or I can get my sister and you can get -" Brandon cut himself off with one look at Dylan, who even in the dark must have shown his defiance in his face alone. "Well, just thought I would try."
Brandon looked down at Donna. "Should I pick you up?" he asked, tone lathered in uncertainty.
"I think that's okay," said Donna.
"I'm not as strong as Dylan," Brandon admitted in a moment of rare inferiority. "I might drop you."
"I trust you, Brandon," she said. That was all Brandon needed to hear to lower himself and loop Donna's arms around his neck.
Ariadne directed them back to whence they came. The journey out of the tunnel seemed a shorter duration than the journey in, though that undoubtedly stemmed from the tranquility Dylan felt at having Brenda tucked beside him.
Or as tranquil as he could feel when she was delirious and barely knew where she was.
She thinks she's in 1892?
He thought over his summer of research, the multiple pages he had read about Ireland in the year Brenda now believed herself to be in.
What does it mean? It's gotta mean something.
It means she hit her head and is confused, mate. Nothing more than that. Soon as you get her to the medics, she'll be herself again.
But the hoover…the hoover…
Yeah, except there weren't hoovers in 1892; were there?
Fuck, I mean vacuum.
"Bren?" he said quietly, aware that his girl had wandered into a half-sleep where imaginations soared and the boundaries of universes dissipated.
"Mm?" she replied.
"This Jarlath - he have a last name?"
"O'Connell," said Brenda, voice heavy with fatigue and unquestionably hunger. "Jarlath O'Connell. He's a skeeve. I hate him. You hated him first."
Dylan resolved to research Jarlath O'Connells who may have lived in the year of eighteen-ninety and two, though whether he would find the information remained to be seen.
He would tack it on to their European trip: studying local records, cemeteries, churches, anything indicative of lives long lost.
But that would be then and in the meantime, he had to get Brenda to the hospital.
Again.
Fucking hospitals.
"Thank you for coming back to me," Dylan said as he swiped his lips in a silken caress across the crown of Brenda's head.
"Thank you for loving me enough to fight for the return of us, even when I told you not to," Brenda murmured.
"You told me not to? When?" Dylan smoothed out her hair, grateful that the Mustang drew near.
"Our dreams." Brenda smiled. "I've been mad at you in those dreams, haven't I?"
"Dreams?" Dylan's breaths barred within his ribcage. "What dreams? Why are you mad?"
"Because you separated me from the very essence of my soul," said Brenda in a tone that said Dylan had made it more complex than it ought to be.
He braced himself, awaiting the words that would lift the lever of a guillotine to his person.
Monaghan. Brenda was furious with Dylan for separating her from her husband.
"I'll admit it was selfish, but -"
"You," she said to his pleased surprise. "Here," Brenda added, touching her palm against his heart. "My essence." She curled into the passenger seat of the Mustang as Dylan placed her down to buckle her seatbelt.
"Me," he said. "Damn right. I'm the essence of your soul, like you are the essence of mine. I am the love of your lives, and don't you ever forget it because you aren't getting rid of me so easily. It's you and I for eternity, babe."
"You said that already," said Brenda, "and you'll have to get out of jail first."
He had said it - in their dream.
"I told you," Dylan spoke as he tapered his overexcitement that Brenda truly knew of the dreams they had shared, "that's Steve. I'm not in jail. He won't be, either. Juvie at most, but that's only if we can't come up with a plan to clear his name."
"Oh, but you are," insisted Brenda. "You were accused of killing a priest. But I know you didn't. And I'm gonna prove it. I have to, or you'll die. I don't want you to die." She began to cry.
"Hey, hey," he knelt beside her to cup the hand attached to her good arm, "no one's dying. I'm not going anywhere, okay? But you are; straight to the hospital." He had assuredly never spoken to a priest in his lifetime - let alone taken the life of one - and had no plans to perish anytime soon. "You'll be sorted out in no time. Probably got too cold down there, hungry too, and I doubt hitting your head helped much." Dylan looked at her mud-caked shoes. "And the heels definitely didn't. How's about we don't wear those again?"
He turned around to thank Ariadne.
"B, did you see where Ariadne went?" Dylan spun around in a circle, peering out at the golden glow upon the horizon.
"Who?" Distracted in his task of setting down Donna, Brandon barely glanced up from the back of his car.
"Ariadne. She's gone."
"Weird. Must've crept off."
"Or flew off," muttered Dylan.
"Huh?"
"Nothing. Let's get our girls checked out. Your sister's under the impression that I'm in jail for killing a priest."
"Really now? I could see it."
"I resent that."
"Well, what kind of priest?"
"How many types of priest are out there?"
"Think she was dreaming about Steve's arrest and mixed it up with yours?"
"Somehow, Brandon, the thought of your sister dreaming about our friend Steve doesn't make me feel better."
"You'd rather she be dreaming about you in jail for killing a priest?"
"I guess even in her dreams, I'm Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know."
"Oh please."
Dylan remained with Brenda until her parents arrived. The tear stains upon Cindy's cheeks disappeared into her lifting cheekbones as soon as they spoke with Brenda's doctor. She had a dislocated shoulder, a disorganized memory, and a bout of hypothermia; but, added the doctor, Brenda had come out well, all things considered.
Dylan didn't know whether he wanted Brenda's muddled mind to return to normal if it meant she would no longer recall their dreams.
They had a child together. He wanted her to know.
But was that selfish? Was it more harmful to Brenda if she knew?
Would she keep dreaming up his death?
Dylan reluctantly excused himself to check on Donna, who he found pelting the doctor with questions about whether her fractured hip would be a hindrance to her Color Guard audition and Hello Day routine.
When Brandon popped in to tell Dylan that Brenda had fallen into a medically-induced slumber, Brandon didn't bother to cover his dismay at Donna's own sleeping figure.
Dylan swore Brandon's fingers stretched out towards Donna's hair, though they looped into his pockets as quickly as they had shot out.
"If you like her," said Dylan, "tell her."
"I can't," said Brandon. His gaze firmly set on Donna. "She's my sister's best friend."
She's also Silver's wife, but you don't know that and neither does he.
Poor Silver. Hope Donna doesn't start hiding her money from him.
"Second best friend. Miss me, boys?"
That voice.
He knew that voice; a bit too well, at times.
He would be lying if he said it sounded the least bit soothing.
But it wasn't exactly unpleasant, either.
Somewhere in the middle, he thought.
"Hey, Kit-Kat, wanna tell me where my girl is and how the fuck she landed in the fucking hospital, again? I swear, at this rate, I'm gonna lock Bren in her room and never let her out into nature or backyards of any kind. And Brandon, don't think I didn't see that. Has our resident Knightley suddenly become shy over a benign blonde?"
xx
If the sun had ceased to shine, she wouldn't have been at all surprised.
The household had grown dim. Demons seemed to lurk in every corner, or perhaps that was her mind playing tricks.
She hadn't had a decent night's sleep since he had, quite literally, walked out of her life.
Every time she started to drift off, Diolún's image appeared; his ragged, moaning image.
Crying out for her.
No, not for her. For the Brenda he thought her to be.
For the Brenda that, if she had been her, would know how to help Diolún who she feared now shared his dinner with rodents.
If he was given dinner.
She could not blink the image away. It was threaded into her eyelids, the memory of Diolún thrown into the back of a crowded wagon. The crowbar that had forced him down to the wagon floor. The gaunt faces of men and women alike had stared through her, as if they had stopped seeing.
As if she had become a ghost of their descendants' futures.
She couldn't just stand there and watch. She had begun to chase after the wagon, increasing her speed until the gravel tore through her thin shoes and she could run no more.
Her strength would have evaporated, if it hadn't been for her determination to continue on for her child.
She didn't have one fucking idea of how to help him.
Him, who had given up his freedom so that she would not lose hers.
Every idea Brenda had was far too modern for the times and made her wish she had read up on Irish prisoners in the nineteenth century.
Nuala had tried to dissuade Brenda's picture of the horrors Diolún would face in a lifetime of imprisonment by telling her of the General Prisons Board's planned reform.
That failed to comfort, for how much reform could there be whilst still under another country's thumb?
Aiden's intrusive wails brought welcome distraction.
He had wailed more than usual since Diolún's absence.
"I know, baby," Brenda had cooed to Aiden for many a night. "You miss Diolún. I miss him, too."
On that particular morning, following the feeding of her son, Brenda had sat down to read the latest issue of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society when her conscience decided to initiate a quarrel.
Why didn't I kiss him? I should have kissed him. He was right bloody there, lips ready and everything!
Because he isn't yours.
She leafed through the pages, trying to focus on the descriptions of Chiffchaffs and Willow-Warblers.
Brenda, however, had never been much of a birdwatcher and thus her conscience refused the distraction.
He could have been. He wanted to be.
And now; now, I'll either never see him again, or he'll be hanged.
I vote for never seeing him again.
I gotta get Diolún out of here. I gotta let him go.
He leaves Ireland; he lives.
It had been her idea for the trip into town, but that hardly helped in her queasiness when she raised herself onto the midnight black horse that had kept careful watch in her delivery of Aiden.
Shadow. Diolún's horse.
"It'll be grand." Lucas' smiles had become half-cast in gloom to match the melancholia that had enveloped the household. "Nuala is great with him."
"She is that." Brenda held onto the reins as she worked to steady her hand. "But I've never left him for this long before."
"You needn't come." Lucas peered out at the horizon. "I can make the journey alone. I certainly know my way."
"I am the one who asked for this journey. I would be remiss to stay behind," said Brenda definitively.
"Are you quite certain he can help my brother?"
"I am not certain of anything. Diolún held him in the highest regard. Perhaps the affection will be returned."
"When's the last time you rode?" Lucas' gaze swept over the bare back of Shadow.
"It has been a while. Why?"
"I believe Diolún would chop my ear off for allowing you to ride without a saddle."
"Allow me?" Brenda's tone came out in a challenge.
"Yes, I suppose allow wasn't the best choice of words. I must say that Diolún would be furious with himself and myself if any harm were to come to you. Me, especially."
"Harm? From riding without a saddle? Hardly."
"Brenda, you must remember that the terrain is different from what you have become accustomed. I am fully aware that it has been at the most fifteen years since you have travelled by horseback here."
"I shall be careful." Lucas could give a hundred warnings and none of them would change Brenda's mind. "I do not need to tell you that your brother means a great deal to myself and my son. You were there, Lucas. You saw us the night of Aiden's birth. Do you believe my son would have still seen daylight if Diolún had not been beside me to lift him into it? If I had labored alone, with one child stuck in the womb and the other awaiting his turn?"
"Nonetheless, I ask that you do not bring danger to yourself out of obligation or commiseration. Diolún would not want that."
"'Tis not obligation, nor commiseration. 'Tis merely affection."
"Affection is a shake of the hand, a reciprocal bow, an invitation to a dance. What I have seen pass from the eyes of my brother to your own, that which has been returned, surpasses affection."
"Then you must know I cannot sit at home or walk into work with the wonderment of whether our Diolún sits shivering beside frosted walls."
"He is correct. You are obstinate," said Lucas, but he quieted as the gaits of the horses melded with the wind.
Brenda would have delighted in the ride, if it had not been for the cruel daymares that distracted her.
The worst was the thought of Diolún, spread-eagled on the cold ground, body riddled with bullet holes.
She could not close her eyes to discard the daymares, for they followed her.
"What would you have me do?" asked Lucas as the outline of Cork city came into view. The River Lee shone splendidly beneath the wintry sun, which Brenda thought rude for her inner despair.
"You recently fixed the shoe of the Constable's horse, did you not?"
"You are aware that I did."
"Might you impress the Constable if you were to drop in to ensure his horse is properly healing?"
"I suppose. Shouldn't I follow along with you?"
"You will be of greater help to Diolún if you visit the Constable," said Brenda. "I shall meet you in front of market when daylight wanes."
Brenda disembarked from Shadow, tied the horse to a post to allow it to drink from a trough, and began entering various pubs.
She found the man she sought after asking a number of Corkonians of his whereabouts. He had not been in the pubs, nor the market. He had, rather curiously, jaunted down to the rain-soaked dock, which Brenda thought the perfect place for their impromptu reunion.
"Brenda! Lovely to see you, my dear. Terrible news about Diolún. Terrible, just terrible. I never would have taken the lad for a murderer of priests."
"That is because he is not," said Brenda. "It is why I have tracked you down. I would like to see him. I trust you can arrange for a meeting?"
"I am certainly the best man for the job," said Bransfield with a straightening of his tie, "but I cannot promise its possibility. Men in Diolún's position are unlikely to be allowed visitors."
"Diolún did not commit murder." Brenda clasped her hands together, covering her purse. "I feel it in the crevices of my toes and the gaps in my fingers. You know Diolún. Do you know of anyone with a gentler spirit than he?"
"I do not doubt your suspicion."
"Then you surely understand that Diolún has been wrongfully accused when he is innocent. I must know the events of that night. Diolún is the one who can tell me. It is imperative that I see him."
"A woman of your standing willingly walking amongst the incarcerated? It is unseemly," Bransfield began.
"It is of no concern -"
"Society will find it unseemly," he continued. "I, however, think it quite brave."
Diolún would be held in the local bridewell, said Bransfield, until transport could be arranged to a city gaol in another county. Cork City Gaol had, in recent decades, become a prison only for women and Diolún would not be brought within its gates as Brenda had anticipated.
"He will not go to any gaol," she said. "I've a plan, but I require your help to implement it."
"However I may be of service. I owe Diolún a great many debts."
Bransfield succeeded in his arrangements, though the process occurred slower than Brenda would have liked. She travelled into town twice more, awaiting Bransfield's news.
He told her in the dress shop, where she had gone to browse for Nuala's birthday present.
She couldn't leave the shop fast enough.
Bransfield accompanied her past the Gardaí. Most seemed to loom over her. One leered.
"The wealthy always find a way to break the rules, don't they?"
"He would be speaking of me," Bransfield explained, "though the family fortune is not what it once was."
"It still exists, though, does it not?" asked the churlish policeman. "Enough to get a siren in to visit a prisoner?"
I am not a siren, Brenda wanted to say, but she kept her head held high and her gait unaltered.
Nothing would prevent her from seeing Diolún.
Her coughs began when she heard the coughs of those around her that echoed throughout the molded cells.
"Brenda?" She ran to the voice. "By God, Brenda, whatever possessed you to come here?"
She could just barely make out his face, which had developed a considerable amount more scruff than she had last seen.
"Do you think I would leave you without company?" she asked.
"Company? Bren, you didn't -"
"I am only teasing."
"Yer life is not something to tease about."
"Nor is your life," said Brenda. "I desire you to tell me what happened on the night of Father Keating's death, and to not leave out any detail."
"I cannot tell ye," said Diolún. "I would rather face death by the impaling of a thousand spiked swords than see harm befall ye."
"And I cannot bear that thought. The sea; it calls to you, does it not?"
Diolún narrowed his eyes. "It will not work, Brenda. Whatever ye are thinking, it will not work. Participation is required, and that participation must be done willingly."
"What if I were to tell you," Brenda removed her threadbare glove and slipped her hand between the bars to stroke along Diolún's cheek, "that the child you have spent twelve years wondering about is alive and wonders about you, too?"
"Our child?" Tears slashed across Diolún's eyes. "Alive? But ye said before the cherub Liam that ye had never borne another."
"Another that I recalled." Brenda chose her words carefully, for she refused to lie to Diolún over something like his child. "A daughter," she said. "You were given a daughter. The time I have spent with you has reminded me."
She had become fluent in half-truths.
"A daughter." Glitter dotted Diolún's cheeks. "We have a daughter? Where might she be?"
"In Boston, I believe. The details remain hazy." Brenda did her best to wipe at his tears.
Diolún brought her hand down to kiss her palm, and then released it to the unconfined air.
"Brenda, I will not flee to Boston."
"You must. You must go and find her, and then you must leave Boston. I must not know of your whereabouts."
"Leave ye and Aiden? I will not do it."
"You will leave us regardless if you are executed, or if you remain a prisoner. At least this way, I will know you are safe."
"Come with me." Diolún's fingers gripped onto Brenda's. "Ye and Aiden. Come with me."
"Aiden is still so small," said Brenda, her own tears flowing freely, "and the sea is unforgiving to one so small. Besides that, my muddled recollection would be unfair to her."
If I leave Ireland, how am I to be found when Dylan's task is complete?
They - whoever they are - won't go searching all over the world for me.
Will they?
"I will send for ye." Diolún brought Brenda's knuckle to his lips. "I will find our iníon, secure a place for us to settle, and then send for ye."
Can I accept the permanence of this life?
Fuck, since when do I think words like permanence?
"You will be able to return," said Brenda confidently. "I will convince them of your innocence, and then you may return. This will always be your home."
"I cannot believe we are to part again, when ye have only just returned. All those years I spent searching, and now, I must say another goodbye? Life is a fiendish enchantress, but that does not seem a suitable description for this."
"No," agreed Brenda, "it does not."
"I want ye to know I am only agreeing to this so that our daughter does not know forlornness. We will not be complete until we are joined by her Ma and deartháir."
By that point, thought Brenda, perhaps you will be joined by her mother.
And I will be back in the future, with only the memory of you to speak to the time we had together.
But you will be alive. Free. That's all that matters.
Fuck!
Brenda masqueraded her agony as Diolún asked why the girl had not sailed with Brenda. She, of course, could not answer.
"Will you tell me, then?" she asked, diverting the topic. "What happened? A full account?"
He agreed, and managed to write out the story with the ink pot, quill, and page of parchment Brenda snuck through the bars.
It was, as she expected, almost entirely in Irish.
She would need Lucas to translate.
"That is quite enough, Ms. Walsham." Bransfield approached, carrying a subtle wink to Diolún. "I have been told you are dangerously close to overstaying your welcome."
"I understand," said Brenda, as rehearsed.
"Is ceol mo chroí thú, mo shíorghrá," said Diolún without once severing the eye contact he held with Brenda. "Go dtí go mbuailimid le chéile aris."
She knew the first part. Her grandmother Walsh had kept a copy of her wedding vows in the family Bible, with that exact sentence.
You are the music of my heart.
The second part had been told to her enough times by Diolún that it had become second nature.
Eternal love.
The latter, however; that made her lost.
"Until we meet again," translated Diolún. "Rest assured that we will meet again. We will all be together."
"If the Fates allow?" asked Brenda.
"Sorry?" asked Diolún.
"It is nothing," she said. "Look to the moon," she added. "When the hour is between dusk and dawn, look to the moon."
"I shall look to the moon," said Diolún as he nodded.
"I shall look to the moon as well." Brenda hoped he understood that she would see him off.
"Tell Aiden of the man who will carry him in his heart forevermore. Tell him the stories of the sea," he said.
"I shall. The sea calls us all."
By the softening of his worried eyes, Brenda knew Diolún had deciphered the message and understood the plan.
She would be there. She would not miss Diolún's ship, as he had missed Troil's.
She would say goodbye, a final farewell Diolún would believe a temporary separation.
It was for the best, she told herself as she walked out of the prison. Her son could not continue to live in a century as bleak as the one she had brought them to. She would not wait around for Aiden to grow and the constabulary to bring him in on false charges, as they had her Diolún.
She held the paper to her lips, then pressed the slanted scrawl against her chest.
His words embraced her.
She already knew she would read those words a thousand times over, revising and memorizing, until they became inlaid in her.
Diolún's words would live on, long after he had passed.
And when Brenda returned to her own time period, she would ensure the name of Diolún McKay was never forgotten.
If she could return.
She wondered if Dylan McKay knew it was up to him to bring her home, or if he was too preoccupied with rewriting his story with Kelly to realize Brenda had become entrapped in a world that insisted she submit to its rules.
Which she would never do.
-x
I had thought of the idea of a fallout shelter accessed by a pool, but it wasn't until I found articles about an actual fallout shelter that truly is accessed by a pool in a Beverly Hills estate that I went for it.
New-ish BD video is up at wish upon a dream on YouTube and wishuponamilliondreams on Insta.
Sources: the 1892 journal of the Cork Historical and Archaeological Society, courtesy of the Cork City Library reference desk; Business Insider, the CDC, Coldwar LA, JStor, the Los Angeles Times, the NHS, the website for GuideIreland, the website for Gohlke Pools, the Twitter page for Chicago's Irish American Heritage Center, the website for Irish Genealogy Toolkit, the website for PoliceHistory, and Google.
Irish glossary: iníon - daughter, deartháir - brother
Thanks a million! Stay healthy and safe out there. xx