Liam spent the afternoon in the garden with ink and paper, drawing more maps and losing himself in mountain ridges, river deltas, and forest borders. He often found himself filling the skies with dragons, and this made him look for Aidan, but the dragon did not seem to want to be found.
Liam didn’t realize how much time had passed until he heard lively reel music and looked up to see Dr. Parker bent over a gramophone set up in the kitchen window. Dr. Parker’s hips were bobbing up and down.
“Come now, Grace! It’s high time you learned!” Dr. Parker called into the house. Liam rose quickly, leaving his drawing things, and crouched to watch Dr. Parker remove his shoes and stockings, all the while clapping in time with the music and calling for Liam’s mother.
Benson watched from the back corner of the house, ears alert with curiosity.
“I’m not any good,” Liam’s mother called from inside. She leaned out an upper story window, a blush coloring her enough to be seen from the garden below.
“Did I say you had a choice? Come down here!”
She appeared a moment later, and Dr. Parker swept an arm around her waist and pulled her to stand beside him
“I can’t dance these styles,” she protested. “I was never any good to begin with!”
“Take off your shoes. Squeeze the grass in between your toes. There. Can you feel the music in the ground?”
“I don’t see why I need to—”
“Oh hush and have some fun, Grace!”
Liam couldn’t decide if this was just another version of Dr. Parker’s authoritative self, or if the man was showing a different side. It looked a lot like the behavior that Liam’s mother called “charming.”
Dr. Parker kissed Liam’s mother on the cheek. Then he began to dance with her.
Liam’s mother bent her head to watch her feet as Dr. Parker spun her under his arm and swung her in a circle, counting out the rhythm. A minute later, Liam’s mother pushed herself free, gasping and covered with smiles, but still she shook her head.
“’Tis no use, Harold. I’m awkward.”
“Nonsense. You just need a better teacher.”
“Hannah Mallory dances.” Michael’s voice boomed out of thin air. Liam jumped, then found the gardener standing right behind him, hoe in hand.
“Stop sneaking up, if you please,” Liam hissed.
Michael had his head turned toward Dr. Parker. “You’ll find no better a dancer in County Wicklow than she,” he added.
Dr. Parker clapped his hands once. “Mrs. Mallory! Come!”
Hannah answered him instantly, as if she’d listened to the whole exchange through the kitchen window. “I’m preparing supper! It won’t cook itself, you know!”
“Let it sit! None of us are starving!” Dr. Parker laughed. “Come!”
Hannah emerged, wiping her hands on her apron, frowning darkly at Michael. Two of the servant girls leaned to watch from an upper floor window.
“Show Mrs. Parker what I mean about the jig step,” said Dr. Parker, taking Hannah in his arms. “Yes, like this. Then right-hand turn. Now left-hand turn. Swing in the center.”
Hannah followed Dr. Parker’s lead with the springy steps of a young girl. Her plaits swung loose from her head and bounced against her back as her feet skimmed over the lawn.
The music wrapped the dancers in a net of light and joy. Liam had seen his parents dance a handful of times, but his mother had always seemed reluctant. But Hannah was different. Hannah had been born to dance.
“She’s excellent,” Liam whispered.
Michael grunted. “The star of the county, she was. Nothing could keep her from the Saturday night dances.”
The song slowed to an end and Dr. Parker bowed gallantly as Hannah dipped in a curtsy.
“The Haymaker’s Jig,” she said, raising her eyes in admiration. “And, if I may ask, Dr. Parker, how did an Englishman come to learn this?”
A servant brought a water pitcher and passed around glasses.
“I’d a classmate from Munster at University. Dancing was an excuse not to study,” Dr. Parker grinned wildly. “We found a few girls happy to dance with us and make a regular party of it. One of those girls became my first wife, God rest her.” He raised his glass of water to Hannah. “You’re not so bad a dancer, yourself.”
“I thank you. I’ve not danced like that for quite some time.”
Dr. Parker drained his glass and set it down. “Now let’s do this properly. We need more couples.” He called to the servant girls. “Abigail! Maggie! Do you dance?”
The servants giggled and Liam heard their steps descending the stairs.
Had the world lost its senses completely? Liam felt like a ball tossed into the air, bouncing and spinning. Should these things please or distress him?
“Liam! You can dance with your mother while she watches Miss Mallory and me.” Dr. Parker called. “Mind you, if I get too jealous, I’ll steal her back.”
Liam’s head swam. Dr. Parker was joking with him now?
Liam pinched his own arm as he joined the dancers in a row, positioning himself to face his mother. He did not wake up.
Dr. Parker selected a new song on the gramophone, then clapped to mark out the time.
Liam followed the steps easily. He’d been watching Dr. Parker and Hannah.
Together with the servant girls, who could lead each other as easily as follow, they made three couples. They wove and spun, drew together in lines, then retreated. The air felt full of tumbling wheels of energy, and Liam felt a buzz in his ears. He thought he saw firebugs winking in the twilight’s fringe above the trees. Michael stood in silence, listening.
When the first song ended, they danced another. When Dr. Parker’s knowledge of dances ran out, Hannah taught them a few more. At last, the need for supper could no longer be denied, and they all bathed their tired feet by the pump.
Liam noticed that two buckets of water that had been drawn and brought to the kitchen door while they danced. Had someone overheard Hannah mention the pain in her wrists and how she couldn’t lift the water buckets?
The others had already entered the house, and Liam was still rubbing his feet with a towel when Michael spoke. “And what did you think of that, Master Finley?”
“It was like stardust had been shaken over everyone,” Liam answered. “I’ve never seen something like it. And I’ve never laid eyes on Dr. Parker in a state like that.”
“It’s spilling over.”
“What is?”
“That thing you called stardust. Like I told you, the worlds of this and the Far Country are so close they’re touching shoulders. And the magic is pleased with you. Its pleasure is leaking out. That’s what made this unusual bit of stuff take place. The mood will likely not remain past tomorrow morning.”
Liam thought again of the firebugs. He nodded.
“You should run in to supper,” Michael said.
***
It was a delicious supper. A meal without arguing or worrying or a strained silence that might rip at any moment. All the windows stood open to the rich smell of honeysuckle. Food disappeared from Liam’s plate like mist.
As he was readying for bed, Liam took the crown from the maze and leaned it on his sill against the windowpane. The silver encircled the glowing disc of the moon when he knelt and looked through it. He set up his newest map from that afternoon in the window beside the crown. The moonlight glowed softly through the paper.
A second later, a snout tapped against the glass as if trying to push itself through the crown. A pair of golden eyes blinked at Liam. Aidan clung to the sill outside the window. Liam laughed, opened the glass, and scooped the dragon into his arms.
Aidan wriggled away and dropped to the floor where he scampered over to the hearth and curled himself onto its stones as if he’d lived there for years.
Liam turned back to the window as lamplight carved the shape of a doorframe somewhere in the garden below. It was the door of Michael’s cottage, standing open. Liam put out his own lamp and dropped to his knees. On the cottage’s threshold sat two silhouettes that leaned with elbows on knees, comfortable like old friends.
The moon peeked over the woods, as if spying playfully on the scene below. Lamplight glittered on glass cups and a stout bottle. Liam pushed his window wide and heard a woman humming.
“Now what is it that changed your mind?”
That was Michael’s voice. It was a private whisper. Not meant to be overheard, but the clearness of the night air and a wisp of mischievous wind carried the words easily into Liam’s reach.
“Is it not enough to say I’d like to be friends again?” came an answer in Hannah’s voice.
“More than enough.”
A flare of cherry-red light, then a cloud of pipe smoke. Michael gave a gusty sigh.
Liam hugged his shoulders. If this was the good that came from magic spilling into the mortal world, he hoped it never left. He hoped the night would go on forever.
“When I was dancing, I remembered the girl I once was,” Hannah said. “The one with hopes and dreams and a daring sense of humor. Before I ruined myself.”
“Not ruined.”
“No one wants me now. I’ve made my peace with that.”
“No one is a rather large number. You’d be made a liar if but one man would have you.”
She laughed. “I’m long past flattery. I told you, I’ve made my peace with it.”
“Made your peace, you say. Does that include forgiving yourself for mistakes made in foolish youth?”
“On a night like this,” Hannah paused, “anything is possible, I think. Something lovely is thick in the air. I could eat it like custard.”
An owl hooted a soothing coo.
“You’re the one who brought the water to spare my wrists from lifting it,” Hannah said.
“Guilty.”
“And the porridge and honey for the brownies?”
“Me again.”
Hannah laughed. “And how did you know the porridge wouldn’t set off my temper? Wasting food like that? I could have withheld your supper as punishment. I can be a heartless crone when I want.”
“I’m a gambling man. I took a chance on it.”
Hannah laughed.
The wind ruffled the oak leaves in the forest. Two firebugs looped in a sleepy circle above the sitting figures.
Hannah spoke in a low whisper. “’Tis all quite simple, really. Magic is simply another way of looking for the brightest beauty of the world. It’s a layer that only the very young or the very brave will ever see.”
“A lovely definition, Miss Mallory. I’ll toast to that.”
A soft clinking of glass was followed by a quiet flare of the pipe stem and more rich waves of tobacco.
Michael said, “I’d have killed a man for the chance to dance with you today.”
“You’re one to think a murder is made noble, if done for a higher cause. And dancing with me would have been high enough cause for you, now wouldn’t it?” Hannah teased. “You told me once that as long as you’ve moonlight, you can see. Can you see me now, Michael?”
“Dimly, but I can see you. My eyes have been feasting, if you care to know.”
“How many fingers am I showing?”
“Four.”
“You’re right. It was four.”
Liam held his breath as Michael’s shadow drew close to Hannah’s. He shut his window and climbed back into bed.
They’d have their kiss in private. He’d let them keep the rest of the magic for themselves. He had enough left of his own to bring on the best of dreams.
Liam heaved Benson into bed, wrapped him in the old blanket, and covered them both with his quilt. Benson’s breath seemed less raspy tonight, as if the air of the nearby Far Country were healing him, too.
As Liam drifted off to sleep with Benson’s steady breath in his ear, he heard Hannah and Michael singing a joyful, soft-voiced harmony.
While no phantom of night but a form of delight
Ran with arms outspread to her darling boy
And the girl I love best on my wild throbbing breast
Hid her thousand treasures with cry of joy.