Chapter 1

Blue to Green

Brendan O’Neal was glum. He was moody. He was not enjoying himself at all. Being dragged on a trip across the entire ocean to a country where apparently there was nothing to do except watch goats eat grass and pass gas was not his idea of a good time. He could have been back home practicing with his team or working and saving up for that ‘81 Camaro from Newark he had seen online. Tromping half-way across the world on the wild goose chase that his father had him on was not tops on his priority list of things he wanted do in the summer before his senior year. It didn’t help that his sister was sitting next to him being her normal, irritating self.

He watched her for a moment, glaring at her and the iPod that had been annoying him throughout the entire journey. She sang along to every song and she must have had a billion of them, she flailed around “dancing“ in her seat occasionally knocking him upside his head. To cap it all off, she tried talking to him in the loudest voice that she had, embarrassing him and agitating everyone on board the flight.

After one final elbow to the ear, Brendan had had enough. “Lizzie, stop dancing!”

Lizzie danced on, oblivious to her brother’s plea-or maybe she was just invoking her right to selective hearing.

“Lizzie, stop dancing!” he said a bit louder. When she didn’t reply again, he snatched the headphones from her ears and jerked the iPod from her hand.

“Hey!“ Lizzie turned to her father who was sitting across the aisle and screamed, “Dad! Brendan’s trying to break my iPod !”

Oscar didn’t hear the spat between his children since he had his nose buried in a thick book about Ireland. He had bought the book in the London terminal while waiting for their connecting flight to Dublin. The anthropologist was a studious person when it came to understanding culture and civilizations, but the obvious sometimes escaped his radar.

“No, I’m not!” yelled Brendan. “I just want you to stop singing and dancing. You’re getting on my nerves!”

“Your face is getting on my nerves all the time,” replied the spunky fifteen-year old. Her face was scrunched and her curly hair bounced as she shook her head in defiance. “Do you see me yanking on your face? No!”

Brendan furrowed his brow and held his face out. “I’d like to see you try. It’d give me a reason to toss you off this plane.”

Lizzie turned back to Oscar and said, “Dad! Did you hear Brendan?”

“Hmmm?” grunted Oscar from a particularly interesting page about holiday traditions in Galway.

“He said that he was going to throw me off the plane. And he admitted that he’s a big jerk.”

“What? I did not!”

Oscar flipped the page and said, “That’s nice.”

“See, Dad just gave me permission.” Brendan started to get up and grab at Lizzie’s shoulders.

“Daddy!”

Oscar looked up and saw the whole ridiculous scene. “Brendan sit down and keep your hands to yourself.” He watched Brendan and his glower and then added, “Please act civilized on this trip. We don’t need any craziness out of you two.”

“Why do we even have to go to Ireland in the first place?” complained Brendan.

“You know that it’s important for my work, Brendan.”

…

A stranger watched the family with interest from three rows back. They were an odd unit with no obvious signs of power, but it was there. The stranger could sense it. This was a family that would be watched with great interest.

…

Brendan slumped down in his seat and stewed. He was angry at his dad, and his dad knew it. High school was winding down and he had a lot of work to do. The fall was going to be his big shot at earning a soccer scholarship––at least his coach had told him that several schools were interested in him. But, was he back in the States working on his game? No. He was stuck on a trip to exotic potato country with his brat sister and nerd father. No working out meant no scholarship, and no scholarship meant no getting away from these two.

“Look, Son, I know what you would rather be doing, but let’s face it, we only have one year left as a real family. After that you’ll be off to school starting your own life… it won’t be the same.”

“It hasn’t been the same since Mom died,” Brendan shot back.

“I know,” Oscar agreed, pain showing behind his glasses.

“Well, I’m looking forward to this trip. Unlike some people, I think family is important,” Lizzie said, narrowing her eyes at Brendan.

Brendan turned away to look out the window. “What family?” he mumbled, tossing the iPod at Lizzie.

Oscar heaved out a concerned breath. “Brendan, this trip is important to me. It’s a two birds, one stone kind of trip. You know?”

Brendan rolled his eyes and replied, “I know. I know. Your research for the university and…”

“…and we’re going to try and look up the old family tree. Right, Dad?” Lizzie interrupted her brother merrily.

“That’s right. It’s much easier to know where you are going…”

“…when you know where you’ve been. We’ve heard it before,” Brendan said in disgust. Why was this whole thing so important to the old man? Who cares if the family came from here! It has little to do with my life now, he thought.

Oscar smiled wryly, “Doesn’t make it any less true.” Oscar leaned over and patted his son on the leg. “You’ll see, son. Ireland is going to open your eyes to our past.”

Brendan scoffed. “My past? I still don’t know what my future will be!”

“I do,” said Lizzie. “You’ll be a loser.”

“Shut up, Lizzie!”

Oscar interrupted the siblings. “Come on, now. There are clear skies ahead of us; let’s not fight.”

Lizzie glanced past Brendan at the bright blue skies that they were gliding through. “You will probably never have a girlfriend either.”

Brendan thought about arguing with her but decided to say nothing instead. The scary part was that he thought she might be right.

…

In the churning waters of the North Channel near Islay, Aaron, and Mull, Scotland, swam the proud Queen of the Merrows. Queen Usis liked to traverse her kingdom alone when life became stressful and nearly too hard to handle.

She moved her powerful tail and cut through the water with the grace and speed of any dolphin. Her slightly graying hair trailed off her head flowing over her shoulders and into the water that she sped through. Her form was elegant and demure. She had heard many of the human sailors’ tales about the beauty of the Merrows in this part of the world and the mermaids in others. Her sister, Berish, was queen in the Caribbean, married off by their father many years ago to unite the tribes.

Perhaps a visit was due, she mused. The queen knew better of the trip, though. It would be for pleasure and she had a kingdom to think of, so leaving was out of the question.

Above her head, cutting through the surface of the water rode a large vessel. Another fishing boat, no doubt. She swam to the surface, some four hundred yards off, to observe. Though her age was beginning to slow her in some areas, her vision was not affected. Neither was her voice. Once upon a time her kind would lure the foolish humans into rocks and shallow waters, but those days were gone. The humans were too numerous, and at this stage in time, they were also too advanced. All she could do this day was watch the ship from afar.

She observed as the ship cut the engine off and stopped dead in the water. A small group of men, red-eyed and deliberate in their movements, came to the side of the vessel and lowered a large net into the sea. Several things struck Queen Usis as odd. The men were few in number, to begin with, and they were dropping their net in the heat of the day. The catch would surely avoid them in favor of cooler waters and the cover of the depths.

She dropped beneath the surface to watch the net stay empty, but what she saw instead shocked her. The net broke loose of its tether and floated freely in the channel. After a moment, the net billowed out like a jellyfish. All of this was odd, but the instant the net began to move through the water in a directed path, she knew something else was afoot. Magic, perhaps?

The net’s course quickly became obvious, so Usis dove as fast as her tailfin would allow her. The net narrowly missed her, but as she turned her head to find it again, she saw that it changed paths and pursued her once more.

She was a fast swimmer, but it became clear that she was no competition for the magical net. It clamped around her and encased her body in a strong fiber. The net drug her back to the fishing vessel, and the red-eyed men—though living or dead she could not say for certain—pulled her aboard and packed her away in a thick glass container. No words were exchanged. No violence was enacted, only the box and a lid, and then darkness as they stored her in the cargo hold like the catch of the day.

…

The airplane had made a nice, steady, and smooth landing in the Dublin Airport and had taxied to a stop near Terminal D. All of the passengers gathered their belongings after they were told that it was safe to do so, and began filing off the plane. Lizzie, Oscar, and Brendan were the last ones off. They stood in the plane’s doorframe as a family and soaked in the sun.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Oscar said with a huge smile on his face.

“Uh-huh,” replied Brendan, pulling on his shades. “This airport is tiny. I thought Dublin was supposed to be some big city here.”

“It is, idiot,” began Lizzie. “If you would have looked at the website that Dad told us about you would see that this isn’t a transcontinental airport. It doesn’t need to be big.”

“Whatever, Liz,” Brendan groaned.

“What’d I tell you, kids? Clear skies.” Oscar sucked in another long breath of fresh air. “It look’s like it’s going to be a great start to our trip after all.”

Almost instantly, the clouds covered the sun and dumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of water from the sky. Lizzie pulled her hood up and sprinted down the steps and towards the terminal.

Brendan pulled his hat a little lower and said, “Yup. You called it, Dad. Clear skies.”

Oscar shook his head and watched his son bound down the steps. After a small sigh, he followed.

…

The dark stranger emerged from the plane and continued to watch the family. He took the steps, not in any kind of a hurry, and followed the rest of the passengers into the terminal.

…

Oscar came through the double glass doors and spotted his children shaking off the droplets of water. Most of the passengers on the small connecting flight were walking a short distance to the baggage carousal.

Grumpy and damp passengers congregated around the circular cone that the Dublin airport used. The bags shot out of a window that was fed by a conveyor belt and then slid down to the cone to the waiting travelers. Their baggage had yet to come down and people around them didn’t seem to be in patient moods.

“Great. No bags yet,” grumbled a large man with a thick Scottish accent. The big Scotsman grabbed a rail-thin airport worker by the arm as the young man was strolling by and said, “Hey, when are they going to get our bags off the plane?”

To his credit, the skeletal airport employee didn’t show any signs of intimidation and jerked his arm free before he answered. “They’ll get it when they get it, now won’t they?”

“Bah!” retorted the Scot.

Brendan smiled at the encounter as the employee continued his stroll, apparently unaffected, to join his buddies standing near a cute blonde that manned the gate.

“Dad, who knows when these yahoos are going to get our bags off,” observed Lizzie.

As if on queue, the skinny employee started jumping around and making donkey noises in the midst of his conversation. His buddies laughed, but the passengers only grumbled.

“We could be here for hours,” Lizzie continued.

“Well, then that’s going to give me time to go and get the rental car.” Oscar patted Brendan on the shoulder and said, “I’ll probably need some help driving on this trip, Son.”

Brendan’s eyes lit up. “You serious?”

“Sure,” smiled Oscar. “That’s, of course, if you can handle the power of the vehicle they give me. I already put you down as a second driver.”

“Sweet!”

“You guys hang out here and get the bags. I’ll meet you at the pick-up gate in twenty minutes.” Oscar walked away studying the printout he had of the car rental company’s confirmation email.

Lizzie and Brendan walked over to the baggage carousal once sounds could be heard from the conveyor window. Moments later, a few bags began to plop out and land at the bottom of the cone. A few people scurried up to grab their bags, including the big Scot. He ambled up, and just as he took his bag by the handle, a large golf bag tumbled down and smashed him in the face.

“Whoa! Did you see that?” laughed Lizzie.

“What in the bloody hell was that?” The Scot bellowed toward the crowd of workers.

The thin employee strolled over to the big man. “Is there a problem here?”

“You bet there is,” huffed the Scot. “I got hit in the face by a bloody golf bag!” The large man’s eyes were small in his pillowy cheeks but they were intense and fixed on the young airport worker.

“Well, sir, just maybe you should have moved your big, fat face out of the way.”

The Scot’s face grew to a bright red and a low growl rumbled in his throat. Brendan looked on with the rest of the crowd and waited for the large guy to either choke the thin guy or blow his top like a volcano.

“You rude, little son of a…” the large Scot began to move toward the worker when an alarm with a rotating yellow light burst to life above the conveyor window. The worker and the Scot glanced up at the window and saw that there was a luggage backup.

“Don’t worry, folks. I’ve got this,” boasted the young worker. He began climbing over bags that already sat upon the cone, not being cautious or overly concerned about smashing the contents until he reached the window. “Why do you always have to do this, Bessie? You’re making me look bad.”

The big Scot glowered at the young man while everyone else just exchanged curious glances. The worker began tugging on different bags, trying to loosen the logjam.

“Come on! I’ve got you now!” he exclaimed as he pulled as hard as he could.

The bags came loose and an avalanche of luggage spewed from the window. The massive flow swept the worker up and threw him backwards down the carousal. Somewhere in the fray the young skinny guy was thrown aside as the rest of the bags crashed full force into the big Scot. People walked over and plucked their bags off of the big man one at a time. Lizzie had to get hers from the carousal. It happened to be one on the worker’s face as he traveled around and around on the cone.

“Uh… thanks,” she said as she lifted her bag off. “Found it!” she yelled over to Brendan.

Brendan collected his and his father’s bags and they made their way to the pick-up gate leaving a very strange scene behind them. If this was any indication of what it was going to be like in Ireland, Brendan and Lizzie were preparing themselves for a really weird vacation.

Brendan and Lizzie walked through the pick-up gate and set the bags off to the side. The pick-up gate was no more than a covered throughway where cars could pick-up passengers. There was a paved road that stretched in both directions. The storm was past, but there was still a drizzle that made it hard to see what surrounded the airport. Haze and mist were floating in the air and a ton of puddles mirrored the haze. It was an ominous view no matter where they looked.

Brendan sat down on his bag and noticed that they seemed to be the only people getting picked up at the supposed pick-up gate. “This must not be a popular spot. It’s so empty.”

Lizzie nodded. “It’s sort of creepy. I feel like we’re in a big cemetery.”

Brendan couldn’t argue with that.

“How long did Dad say?”

Brendan glanced at the time on his cell phone and said, “Twenty minutes.”

“How long has it been?”

“About an hour,” responded Brendan.

A low rumbling sounded from the distance and the O’Neal kids looked up the road. Two headlight beams were cutting through the haze. As it came a little closer, they could see a red Ferrari speeding down the road in their direction.

“Man, about time. Awesome car, though.” Brendan was imagining himself at the wheel feeling like a superstar. How sweet was that going to be!

“Maybe Dad will let me drive, too,” said Lizzie.

“Keep dreaming,” Brendan scoffed. “Dad’s never going to let you drive.”

“He’ll let me drive before he lets you,” she sassed back.

Brendan rolled his eyes. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

The Ferrari sped closer and showed no signs of slowing. The kids stepped back away from the road and leaned against the building. The car blasted through the pick-up gate splashing water all over them and in the process created such a vortex of wind that they were nearly knocked off their feet. Brendan wiped water from his eyes and looked over at his sister. Her curly locks were soaked and hung sadly in her face. He reached over and plucked a leaf out of her hair.

As they stood dripping, Oscar pulled under the awning in a very small, very European hatchback. It was tiny and sputtered. Black smoke choked out of the tailpipe and filled the air around them. The paint was spotty at best as the metal shone fully in several places, at least it did where the rust hadn’t already taken over.

Oscar popped out of the driver seat and slapped the top of the car. “Load her up, kids.”

Brendan and Lizzie stood frozen in place, sopping wet and shocked. Oscar apparently did not notice the glazed expressions and lack of movement and strolled over and placed an arm around his kids’ shoulders.

“She’s a beaut, huh? Soak it in. That is a European classic.” He slapped Brendan on the back and continued, “And the best part is, you’ll get to drive her around most of the time. I mean, I’ll be busy with my research, so you’ll get to have a little time to cruise. Hey, watch out Irish girls… eh?”

Oscar grabbed his bag and went to the trunk. Lizzie moved in closer to her brother. “Yeah, watch out girls, because the fumes may kill you.” She grabbed her bag and loaded it into the small space.

“Let’s go, Brendan. We’re burning daylight,” called Oscar.

Brendan loaded his bag as his mind flashed warnings of how lame this whole trip was really going to be. He only coughed seven or eight times on the fumes.

…

The dark stranger stood in the rain pondering his next move. It had become clear that this family had been what he was waiting on for centuries. All he needed to do now was to “get the ball rolling,” as the Americans would say.