‘Professor Kilmartin,’ he whispered, gazing through the ghostly mist of his own reflection in the glass, still disbelieving it to be true.
At last, in spite of the sceptics and narrow-mindedness of academia, the university had finally acknowledged his accomplishments. Convincing the old guard hadn’t been without its crucible of frustrations, and his patience was all but bankrupt because of it. But his thesis and the theories therein had shaken the very bedrock of Ireland’s ancient past. He’d forced their wilfully deaf ears to listen, to concede that the lore’s tapestry shimmered with golden threads of truth. All it took was a capable mind to tug at its seam.
The evidence was too credible to be ignored forever. No century since their banishment had passed without some record, however trifling or inconspicuous it may have been to the layman’s eye. The very nature of their gifts made the changelings’ presence throughout history impossible to substantiate. But they had existed, and David was of the belief that they walked amongst society still – those unfamiliar faces in the crowd, seen only once, hiding perfectly in plain sight.
How, in a world full of strangers, could humankind ever hope to isolate such an entity?
A hard rain had rolled in over the city at sundown, quenching stars before they’d even had a chance to glimmer. Puddles flooded the street outside, each one awash with ripples of amber streetlight. Dark bodies skittered between doorways for shelter. Others were too drenched to care. Somewhere out of sight, a woman screamed – most likely in jest but most certainly wet. A momentary distraction, hardly engaging enough to hold David’s interest for long.
The changelings’ number was too great for them to disappear completely. He’d yet to appoint some rational explanation as to how or why they had been subdued beneath the earth. Their powers were incomprehensible. Dispel the mythology’s magic, and their wondrous feats become almost feasible, and so to suggest defeat in battle was to belittle what they once were. But who was to say what they became? Perhaps, David considered, the daylight had come to command some sway over their movements. That would explain why cases alluding to some interaction or interference on their part were so novel. A few above but most below, slaves to some nocturnal rhythm, no different from the owl and the bat and those other species so rarely seen by human eyes. Such a lengthy period underground could have mutated them in some horrific way that kept them imprisoned in the darkness. It was, after all, in their very nature to change. If only he could isolate where the—
‘Darling,’ Madeline whispered, ‘you don’t look like a man who should be celebrating.’
A lifetime of research awaited him, and the questions far outweighed the answers he could hope to bring to light in however many years he had left. But for now, he would enjoy this moment.
‘Sorry, my love. I suppose it hasn’t quite sunk in yet.’
The table’s white cloth was set beside the restaurant’s window. Its rain-speckled glass mirrored a roomful of candlelight, where the soft play of ivory keys graced the air like a warmth. Cutlery chinked. Corkscrews squeaked. And two dozen or more voices blended into a wordless din; none so loud as to spoil the evening’s ceremony.
‘Perhaps it would help if I started calling you Professor then.’ Madeline smiled, gliding her hands towards him, reaching for his touch. ‘Just for a little while, you know, like teaching an old dog a new name.’
David squeezed her slender fingers and chuckled. ‘After all you’ve put up with, Maddy, you can call me anything you like. And I’m not that old, am I?’
‘Every professor is old, darling. It’s not your fault.’
It pained him to confess, if only to himself, how distant he’d become these past months, treading the slenderest of tightropes above an abyss of ancient riddles; the depth and darkness of which all too often tainted his sleep with nightmares. There were moments when he could feel it – that seed planting itself inside his skull, sprouting some fresh strand of thought that would grow and grow and occupy his full attention until eventually, like so many others, it would wilt and die, and only then would he snap out of its intoxicating reverie and take note of his wife’s loneliness. The sight of her blue eyes glazed with tears would evoke in him a weakening sorrow. His own disappointments he’d learned to shoulder. But it broke him every time to witness hers.
Madeline understood David’s obsession better than he ever could. She’d watched it toy with him since the day they’d met; lifting him, crushing him, and yet always leaving just enough will to go on, as though there could be no prize without due punishment. But in punishing himself, he had been in turn punishing her, and the time had come to change. He knew that now.
‘Try not to think about it for one night,’ she said to him, smiling through the sadness of knowing that even there and then, together, he still shared their special moment with his work.
David gripped her hands tighter but no words came.
He would pursue his passions in private. This was the only way forward that made sense. He would lecture in the lore he knew so well. And to those attentive minds that gathered in their droves to listen, this lore would remain simply that – stories to be appreciated but not to be believed. It was a job. A well-paying one at that. It could support his interests in the secrecy of his own supposed leisure, away from prying eyes and those snide whispers that snaked through the corridors of the university. The changelings would linger in his life as they always had – eternally out of reach, rarely out of mind. But they would become his curse and a burden that he alone would carry.
‘You’ve achieved so much,’ Madeline leant forward to whisper, perhaps for fear that his elusive fairies were listening in. ‘You can afford yourself some time off. It would do you good to be a part of the world again after such an absence. And we’ve so much to look forward to.’
A figure loomed between them, perfectly poised with one hand balancing a tray of two crystal flutes. A parting caress was shared before their fingers unlocked. The man’s crisp shirt and burgundy bow tie were reminiscent of an older time, and his youth offered David some reassurance that not all traditions faded over time; history still had its uses.
The waiter looked to Madeline with the subtlest insinuation of some prior agreement.
‘I do believe a celebratory toast is in order,’ he said; his mannerisms polished as the crystal.
‘I think a professorship is cause enough for celebration,’ Madeline said, winking over at her husband, ‘don’t you, darling?’
David couldn’t help but blush. ‘We’re celebrating far more than just that, my love,’ he said. ‘Could you take a photograph of us?’ he asked, turning to the waiter as he rooted around in his pocket. ‘I want to remember this evening. You see, my wife and I are—’
‘Don’t jinx it, darling,’ Madeline interjected with a grin.
‘It would be my pleasure, sir,’ the waiter replied, accepting the camera. ‘Special occasions such as this should always be captured. A photograph is a happiness that we can take with us wherever we go.’
David stole a glance at his wife as his hand touched the stem of his glass, posing for a memory that he was fated to cherish more than any other. Madeline’s silver necklace – gifted to her on their first anniversary – sparkled over that black dress he so adored. She’d worn it because it was his night. But the truth was that it was theirs.
The camera flashed. And with a smile and a nod, the waiter retreated, as gracious a host as one could hope for and one certainly deserving of a handsome tip.
‘And to think there were times when I thought you loved your precious fairies more than you did me,’ Madeline said with a smirk, captivating as it was playful.
‘No fairy could ever be as beautiful as you are in this moment, my love.’