Liam
We’d parked on yet another dull street, in another dull neighborhood, of another dull city. Ah, sure look it. At least it was something new to see—a new state. North Carolina.
I stepped out of Mum’s Audi and stretched. It felt good to be walking around since our last stop was more than three hours ago, back in a place called Asheville. We’d taken a self-guided sightseeing tour for three days, from our last house in Memphis to Cary, and if I never saw another Cracker Barrel, I’d die a happy man. Since Da had gone on ahead to meet the movers, he’d missed all the fun.
I reached for the football I’d tossed in the boot back in Memphis and spun it on my finger. Agh, they call it a soccer ball in the States, Liam. For as many years as we’d been returning here, each autumn was like the first time—relearning American English and trying not to be standing out like a tourist. Except now, I didn’t find myself much caring.
The sounds of a lived-in neighborhood met my ears—dogs barking, lawn mowers running, and kids laughing. The street offered up more trees than in our last few neighborhoods, but their thick, dark green canopies felt oppressive to me, nothing like the lively greens from home.
Da stood on the porch, rubbing his hands together, a smile glued to his face. He was always excited by the prospect of a new lead from another one of his visions.
“Isn’t this grand?” he asked. “The mountains, did you see ‘em on the drive? Fantastic, weren’t they?”
I ignored him and bounced the football between my knees and feet.
My brother arrived minutes later, having flown into the Raleigh-Durham airport an hour ago. Ciarán would be staying only the weekend to help us with the unpacking. Wherever we’d moved, finding movers cleared by the empath government was brutal. It meant that every year, we had to pack and unpack our personal possessions on our own, in case outsiders saw something they shouldn’t. Ciarán would be flying back home early Monday, and I’d be starting as a senior at a new high school, looking for my next target—again. If I’d been at home, I’d have been done with my Senior Cycle and have gone on to university by now.
As I concentrated on keeping my balance, I sensed a fleeting presence touch my mind, like fingers pressed against my skin. I jerked around, but saw not a soul. It took a moment to settle back into reality, as if I’d just woken and was trying to call to mind a dream.
The sensation stuck around like an itch I’d never be able to reach. Even though it wasn’t an empathic projection, I reinforced the mental blocks guarding my mind. Now that I was head of our clan and refused bodyguards while in the States, I’d want to be careful.
We made a quick supper of sandwiches around our kitchen table. I hadn’t much of an appetite. Each time we returned to the States, it was the same. I’d miss my cousins and the calm of the countryside something fierce. Wherever we’d lived here, I could never walk more than ten feet before I’d be staring at a chain-link fence, a dying patch of grass, or a rattling air-conditioning unit. Compared to our estate, everywhere here felt like the devil’s closet.
Mum waved her hand in front of my face. “You know, darling, you’re making it worse by brooding.”
“Stop trying to read me, yeah?” I must’ve relaxed my block, so I closed my mind off tighter.
“I don’t have to. Anyone can see what you’re feeling.”
Da and Ciarán were arguing about something useless, so I popped in my earbuds to drown them out and picked up my paper plate to throw it away. Splender’s “Yeah, Whatever” blared from my eighties and nineties playlist. How fitting. Mum frowned and shook her head.
I excused myself to go and unpack my room. The first thing to set up was my stereo, which already had Twenty One Pilots in the disc changer. In the coffin that was now my room, I fell back onto my bare mattress, staring at the ceiling, wondering how my last year in the States would be. If the drywall nails popping out around the ceiling fan were any indication, life would be grand.
Just grand.
Ciarán stuck his head around the door.
“What’s craic?” I asked. Hiding my sarcasm would’ve been pointless.
“Just checking on my little brother … the prince.” He waved his fingers in the air.
“Little? I’m tall enough to be stopping your cakehole, boy.” Ciarán stepped into the room and leaned a shoulder against the wall. He’d changed into some girlie-looking T-shirt and a pair of Da’s safari shorts. Smooth. “Couldn’t find a tie in Da’s room to go with that?”
“You’re in a maggoty mood.” He turned down my stereo and glanced into a box of books.
“Registered for your modules at Trinity, have you?”
“I have. When do your classes start here?”
“Monday. New school, same old shite.” I pushed off the mattress to unpack.
“Think you’ll be finding this soul mate in some little girl still in school? It’s a woman you’re needing.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me and shoved some books on a shelf.
“School means the girls are the same age as me, moron. I’m not a perv.”
“‘I’m not a perv.’ Jaysus, you’re even sounding like a Yank.”
I ignored him, flattened emptied boxes, and threw them into the corner. If the room were any smaller, it’d be regurgitating all the furniture stuffed in here.
“Oh, Ciarán,” he mimicked. “These girls can’t flirt, they’ve no sense of humor, and not a one can snog worth hell.” He laughed. “Did I sum up the last few years well enough for ya, dear brother? What you keep on about is a girl in pigtails. Now the women I’d shown you this summer, there’d been a few there worth a shag. But no, you’ve got this soul mate blather stuck in your head. What happened to you needing an outlet?”
“Don’t be making shite up now.” I’d never admit to needing an outlet to him. Those girls he’d put my way had been too old for my taste—or even younger than my targets here. Listening to him whine on about how I needed to find a right-now girl aggravated me to no end.
“Mother of Jaysus.” Ciarán shook his head. “You don’t shag a girl with your brain. A right poof romantic, you are. One of these days you’ll dive too deep into these visions of Da’s, and you’ll never come up again.”
I shoved a pile of my jeans into a drawer and slammed it shut.
“You’re chasing clouds here, Liam. To hell with Da. Come back with me, yeah? Screw these arseways visions and start living your life.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thumb drive. “Your latest estate reports.” With his eyebrows raised, he tossed me the reminder of the life waiting for me in Ireland.
Why had I come back here to the States after my summer at home? I ran my hand through my hair and sighed. I was eighteen now. I could leave and quit the search. Maybe I was some teary-eyed romantic looking for my damsel in distress. But there’d be no chance I’d be admitting that to Ciarán.
“I promised Mum,” I said, defending my decision.
“Ma’s boy,” he muttered.
“Why the bleedin’ hell are you even lurking about? Is it for the pure enjoyment of being a pissing arse?”
He fanned his face with a kid’s book about the fifty states. Our little cousin, Ian, had bought it for me as a birthday gift so I’d not “lose my way.”
I pointed to it. “Maybe you need to be finding your way to Maine if you’re having trouble with the heat down here.”
He frowned at the cover. “Who’s being an arse now?”
An hour later, we had most of my room sorted. Ciarán studied a photo from the box he’d just opened by my dresser. His back was to me, but in the mirror’s reflection, I could see the look of disgust flash across his face, leaving it pinched. I’d never have seen it if he weren’t standing where he was. He wasn’t an empath like me and Mum, but he’d learned how to block his emotions. Once he had, he never wanted to stop.
“I’ll bring up some Guinness later, yeah?” He dropped the photo back on the pile and left.
I maneuvered around boxes and picked up the photo. It showed the four of us not long after I’d felt my first empath ripple. So why was I getting Ciarán’s disgust? Hell if I knew how to figure him. I flung it back into the box.
I yanked up the silver metallic blinds over my window and stared out. My room had a view of our driveway and detached garage. Several of our neighbor’s overgrown trees hung heavy, leaning over the fence between. As if on cue, someone’s air-conditioning unit rattled to life, reminding me again we weren’t in Ireland.
I braced my hands on either side of the window and rested my forehead against the warm, west-facing glass. Why the hell was I back here again? I’d rather boil off my skin than have to be faking enthusiasm again for a target when I knew she wasn’t The One—all while we waited for Da’s next vision to confirm it. And dealing with the emotional drama when I’d break up with them? It was like throwing salt in the boiling water with me. No, I’d not let myself get sucked in to Da’s excitement like every year past. Of that, I’d make certain.
The back of my neck tingled, reminding me that the itch from earlier hadn’t ever left.