Lake of Sorrows

“Ten in October. Both his sisters are away at school, so he’s on his own a lot. I suppose it would be good for him to have a companion.”

“And what does his father say?”

A look of pure astonishment crossed her face, and she turned away slightly before answering. “I lost my husband, three years ago.”

“I’m sorry, Catherine—I didn’t know. I didn’t want to presume—” He looked down. “Not much of a detective, am I?”

She met his gaze with a wry smile that made his chest tighten alarmingly. “Nonsense. You’re a fine detective. You’ve had a lot to deal with these past few days.” She suddenly leaned down to give Lugh one last scratch behind the ears, evidently a gesture of farewell. “I really should go.”

Ward felt his chance slipping away. In a few seconds it might be gone forever, and he couldn’t let that happen. He heard himself say, “I had a wonderful time at dinner the other night.”

“I did too, Liam.”

Ward was remembering how much he had held back during dinner, how many times he’d struggled to keep his emotions reined in so that hope wouldn’t get the best of him. Now, faced with his first real opportunity, he was nearly paralyzed.

They both stood motionless in the open doorway, until she finally spoke again. “For a time after my husband died, I tried living my life backward. But I found that it doesn’t work. The only direction I can live is forward. It’s terrifying, but it’s the only option I can see.” She reached up and brushed her lips against his in a brief farewell, but let her face remain close to his, so that he felt the warmth radiating from her skin. He felt momentarily unable to breathe, to think. But when she began to pull away, he caught her arm with his left hand.

“Catherine—I don’t suppose I could prevail upon you to stay one more night, to have dinner with me again?” Something in her eyes lit the dry tinder of his soul, and he felt a slow flame, damped down and presumed dead for so long, suddenly flicker to life in his chest.

“You could, Liam,” she said. “You could indeed prevail.”

4

Charlie Brazil picked his way through the charred remains of the house in which he’d been reared, searching for familiar remnants, any bits of his former life that might be worth salvaging. But the destruction was complete; all he saw was singed upholstery, charred bits of chairs and wardrobes, broken glass and shattered concrete. The fire brigade said it had been a gas explosion. His mother had known exactly what she was doing. She’d turned the sheep loose herself to keep him away from the house and out of harm’s way. He’d been confused, but he now saw it as the proof that she had wanted him to live. He didn’t want to think about his father.

Where was his mother now? He tried to imagine her, contained within herself, casting a shadow that moved somewhere across the earth, and knew he’d never see her again. He wasn’t quite sure what he felt. Maybe the anger, the worry would come later. For now, he was just relieved that she had not been in the house. He wanted her to live, too. He dug a toe into the debris, turned over the blackened radio that had rested on the kitchen shelf since his earliest memory.

Now he had a reason for the feeling he’d always had about this house—that there was something wrong here. His father had always talked about the house being unlucky, but Charlie was convinced, more than ever, that it wasn’t the house, nor the ground it was built upon. And yet there was something to the claim. Some negative force resided here. Never once did he remember his father turning in at night without checking the doors and windows, without shaking holy water over the doorjambs and the fireplace, warding off whatever might come in. It was as if he had expected an invasion. No doubt he had known of all sorts of dangers, of which Charlie and his mother had lived unaware.