Page 50 of Bargaining with the Devil

Something damaged and remade, not unchanged but stronger than before.

“I’ll take your weight if you get shaky.” He set her right hand at his waist. The left went atop his knee, just above the kneecap. “You squeeze down here while I’m working. Squeeze down tight, hard as you can, till it dulls the pain. Don’t watch once I start. Don’t look over. Close your eyes up tight, a stór, and just listen to my voice. That and nothing else. Close them now.”

She obeyed, gripping his knee.

“You know I have six sisters, aye?”

“Yes.”

“Mairéad was the oldest. Not quite three years younger than me. Next is Gráinne, four years younger than me. She’s married now with two little ones, Órla and Daire. I haven’t met them yet, but I’ll be changing that soon.” His voice was low, soothing. “Next in line are Aoife and Aisling. Twins, the two of them, not quite identical but close. Aoife is marrying soon. I hope to be there for it. Then comes Siobhán. She’s seven years younger than me. Loves flowers, does Siobhán.”

The names weren’t quite the point; he was working to distract her. She let herself fall deeper into the darkness she was enclosed in, Quinn her tether to safety.

“Eithne is the baby, born when I was eight. Didn’t have as much time with her as the others, seeing as I left home not too long after she could speak in sentences. But I’ve come to know her a little as an adult through letters. Well, she’s only seventeen now, not fully a woman. Still, almost grown up. ’Tis something else I’ll be changing soon, that neither she nor Siobhán have many proper memories of me. They were but four and five when I ran off to the Rifles.”

He was going to start soon. He’d been cleaning her arm till now, raising gooseflesh with the cloth and lulling her with his voice, but it was coming. She gripped his knee harder.

“Gráinne writes me occasionally. Aoife writes me regular, sent to the embassy in London and forwarded on to me when they can. And she includes bits from the other girls. She also writes for Mam, as Mam never learned to cipher more than her name. Aoife keeps me connected to home, even if a couple of months go by between batches of letters arriving.”

The first slice wasn’t so bad. It was like a bad scrape: uncomfortable but not too painful. But he’d not gone deep yet. She held her arm still as his damp cloth touched it, blotting at it. She bore down on his knee with her fingers as he wiped blood away.

“I don’t look much like my sisters. I told you once before that I resemble the man who sired me quite a bit. A little like Mam too, and you can see it a bit in Gráinne too that we have the same eyes. Mairéad too. But all the girls take their coloring from their father, mostly. Red hair like Dónall, or at least nothing dark as mine.”

Another slice. The bright, searing pain caught her almost unaware after the relatively shallow first pass. This time, despite her best effort, a cry escaped her. She dug her fingers deep into his thigh, resisting the instinctive urge to yank her arm away.

“You’re doing grand, a mhuirnín.” He wiped at her skin again and willpower alone kept her arm in place. “Just listen to my voice. When I was little, I was fascinated by the sea. We grew up right where Dublin Bay empties out into the Irish Sea. There wasn’t a day went by there weren’t large ships coming in or out to port.”

She tried to follow his words, but her mind was blanking. She wanted to scream, to cry out, but she didn’t. I’m brave, here on Heston. She breathed in through her nose, out through her mouth. Kept listening to Quinn’s voice.

“Huge ships with three masts. Smaller ones, all shapes and sizes. They can only navigate proper into the bay for a few hours at a time, and only if the weather is fair. Treacherous mudflats all through the bay so the channel’s small. Often right off the coast of Dún Laoghaire—’tis the nearest village to my mam; Dunleary, the English call it—there were ships anchored out at sea.”

Another slice. The pain was so intense that light flashed behind her eyes, nausea searing her gut so strongly she tasted bile.

Breathe. In through her nose. Out through her mouth. Quinn’s voice.

“Almost there, a stór. I’m trying not to go deeper than I need to.” Water trickled before he dabbed her arm again. “Once more, a mhuirnín, and ’twill be all gone.”

I’ve endured worse alone. I can endure this with Quinn.

“I dreamt of sailing off on one of those ships and seeing the world. Had to be stopped once, when I was nine, from ‘borrowing’ a skiff from one of the fishermen. Dónall caught me just before I pushed off into the water. He thrashed me proper and then sat me down to tell me how I’d break my mam’s heart and my sisters’ too if I disappeared on them like that. Even at that age, I knew Dónall didn’t much want me around, although he was never outright unkind to me, but I also knew he had the right of it, saying that about Mam and my sisters.”

She couldn’t help it this time when the knife’s edge bit into her. It was instinctive, trying to jerk her arm away.

His grip on her wrist was iron. “’Tis funny how life works out sometimes, aye? For I ended up leaving a handful of years later and likely broke Mam’s heart a little just the same. It’s weighed on me at times, but ’tisn’t like I can change it now.”

She squeezed her eyes shut tighter against the tears leaking out. Tried to shut out everything except Quinn.

“Being in the Rifles, ’twasn’t like I had a chance to come home. And then the other work keeps me away. I’ve been home but twice in those twelve years. So really ’tis just the letters and memories, keep me connected to home. ’Tis time to change that. Past time, mayhap.” He wiped her arm. “’Tis done now, the cutting.”

Her arm throbbed in time to her heart.

“’Tis done,” he repeated. “All but the bandaging.” His hands were gentle. They matched his voice.

She worked to allow his voice, his touch, to draw her from the burning, throbbing pain. She pictured a cool, dark forest. No, that wasn’t quite right. The forest was full of flame and choking smoke. But Quinn was waiting on the edge, beckoning her to safety. Holding his hand out to her.

“Aoife’s wedding is coming up the first of May. A Bealtaine bride, she wants to be. ’Tis our mam’s influence, teaching us all the old tales of the Tuatha Dé Dannan and the rest. Aoife has in mind to be a May Queen. And so she will. And I’ll be there for it if ’tis in the cards to make it there in time. ’Tis a few months off yet, so I’m hoping ’twill be possible.”

Fabric touched her arm.