Bannon skirted the table, her toenails clicking with purpose. She whined. Her high-pitched yelp sent the small offset shears shooting from his hand and clattering to the floor.
“Sweet Jesus!” he shouted, and the blue heeler barked, but she stood her ground, staring at him with her eyes of liquid coal. The last light of evening had faded—the high windows to the west retained a golden glow, but those facing north and east had darkened to thick blue. Chilled air pushed through the door he’d left open as he worked. The spotlight from his headlamp allowed him to focus on the fine detail before him, and the daylight hours had passed unnoticed. He’d skipped dinner, and now Bannon clamored for hers.
“You’re right, girl. It’s time to call it quits.” He picked up the snips from the floor, removed the headlamp, and arranged his workspace with the same precise attention he displayed while creating. Bannon sat at attention, following Daniel’s every motion, the tiny black patches of her eyebrows shifting up and down as her tail swept the ground in hopeful anticipation.
At last, Daniel pulled the tab on a can of dog food and forked the contents into a bowl. He sat on the front step and placed the bowl at his feet. As Bannon inhaled her dinner, he rubbed her back and craned his head down the driveway. He could see the roof of the Moyle house. In his hand was a key Gary Moyle had given him a couple of years ago after Daniel had readily agreed to keep an eye out and tend to simple maintenance between tenants. It was the least he could do to repay the Moyles, who directed so many tourists to West Ireland Excursions.
He turned the Moyle house key over and under his fingers. He hadn’t seen Annie since Saturday, when she’d simply up and walked away from his studio. She seemed to have vanished. He’d twice passed the Moyles’ driveway, and the Opel was gone.
“What am I doing, sis?” The heeler leaned heavily into his bent legs, her tail thumping. “Who is she to me?” A fellow survivor. A fellow addict for whom he felt a sense of responsibility.
“Dammit.” He sprang up, and Bannon barked at the sudden movement. In two minutes he’d grabbed his jacket, his phone, and the guide pack he kept readied with supplies and set off down the lane toward the cottage.
A VW Polo sat in the Moyles’ driveway. Daniel sagged with relief. Yet his knock on the front door went unanswered. He climbed the back patio steps and peered through the large glass doors. A small lamp next to the sofa glowed. Annie’s laptop sat on the kitchen counter, closed but plugged in. He tried the door handle. Locked. He went back around front and tried the handle there. Then Daniel inserted the key.
A slow, heavy drumbeat of fear at finding Annie collapsed on the floor, passed out in a puddle of vomit. Or worse. This gave way to a warm rush of relief as he searched the small cottage, seeing evidence of Annie’s presence but no signs of distress. Shoving aside his guilt over invading this private space, Daniel snooped. He opened the refrigerator, kitchen cupboards, and trash. Beyond some fruit and vegetable peelings, the rubbish bins were empty. The recycling held plastic and glass water bottles, yogurt containers, a copy of The Irish Times. No beer or wine bottles, corks, wrappers, receipts. Clothing hung in the closets or lay neatly folded in the drawers. Her camera bag sat on the kitchen table, and there was a novel on the nightstand. Annie wasn’t here, but the things that seemed to hold her essence were.
“Where are you?” He imagined Annie at the door, her shock at his intrusion, and his own voice stuttering out an explanation: I was worried. Afraid you’d gone over the edge. I had to make certain you were all right.
He left the way he’d entered.
Night had deepened to black, but the skies were clear and the moon was a hard, gleaming coin that bounced countless reflections off the sea. Too restless to return home, Daniel buckled the backpack strap across his chest and strode up the hill across the road from the Moyle house. He’d take the long way around and eventually end up in town, where there would be pan-fried trout and creamed potatoes at Tich Na Leigh. And bad but hot coffee. Bannon raced ahead, thrilled to be on an adventure after dark, when creatures might emerge from their hidey-holes in the thick shrubs or from under stone walls.
“Bannon. Hey, girl. I’m so glad to see you.”
Daniel stopped and stilled his breath, listening past the breeze that ruffled the short grass. The bowl shaped by the hills made a perfect amphitheater, carrying the woman’s voice across a hectare or more, but it sounded as if she stood only steps away. He wondered for a moment if it was the voice of the spirit that had brought him to Mise Éire. Then he heard his name.
“Daniel?”
He followed the voice, rounding one side of the bowl. His headlamp illuminated the scene before him: Annie lay just off the side of the road. Bare skin flashed white through her running tights and the arm of her jacket. She breathed heavily, through the tendrils of hair clinging to her face. The heeler sat by her side, whining, tail swishing the gravel; it began to thump as Daniel approached. Bannon circled and sniffed Annie, her snout worrying over the torn strips of fabric along Annie’s right side.