“I’m a soldier. Not a good one.” I let that hang a second. “I think I die in every vision. Usually stabbed, sometimes shot, once drowned. But it’s never quick. I feel every second.”
Canon’s eyebrows pulled together. “You remember any names? Places? Dates?”
“Not exactly.” I dug a thumb into my palm, grounding myself. “Just the images of people. She, the woman I see, says ‘my love’ more than anything else.”
Moab looked at Canon. “Historical cross-check?”
Canon shook his head. “Sounds like the Seventeenth century, most likely. Irish Catholic. Would’ve fought Cromwell’s bastards, maybe died at Drogheda or Wexford. But the records are—”
Vin cut in, uncharacteristically loud. “Sparse. They’re sparse.” He looked up, eyes shining. “But the pattern fits. Cycle of violence, trauma echoing down the bloodline.”
I tried to laugh, but it came out as a cough. “Maybe I’m just a cliché.”
“No,” Scarlette said. Her hand stayed. “You’re not.”
The silence came back, heavy as a casket.
Canon finally spoke. “What do you want us to do?”
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I let myself remember it all: the taste of mud, the rush of fear before the end, the woman’s voice singing me back. “I want to know who she was. And why she keeps coming back.”
No one mocked me. Not even Moab, who just nodded like he got it.
Vin flipped back a page in his notebook. “Maybe you need to go. See it for yourself.”
I almost told him he was crazy. Almost. But the pull in my chest was a chain, and I didn’t want to be free of it.
“Dublin,” I said.
“Dublin,” they echoed.
Scarlette squeezed my arm, then let go. “We’re coming with you. All of us.”
Canon smiled, barely. “Road trip, then.”
The tension broke a little. Moab got up and grabbed a fresh round, sliding a beer to me instead of whiskey. “Can’t have you blacking out on the plane.”
I took it, hand unsteady. The others saw, but nobody called it out.
We drank in companionable silence, the kind that means something got settled.
Later, alone in my room, I stared at the ceiling and tried to conjure the graveyard again. This time, the vision came easy. The stones slick with rain. The iron gate was cold against my skin. The woman—Catherine, her name whispered in a language older than the one I spoke—waited for me.
She smiled, sad and knowing, and touched my face.
I wanted to tell her I was coming, but the words stuck in my throat.
I opened my eyes and found my hand clenched tight around the beer can, crushing it flat. For once, I let it go.
In two days, we’d go to Ireland. Maybe find a piece of what I’d lost.
Or maybe just put the ghosts to bed for good.
Toolie
The next night, we met in the corner again, but the air was different. Charged. A storm crouched above Lexington, thunder rolling low enough to set off the car alarms on the street outside. The RBMC clubhouse was full of ghosts and drunks, but none of them came near our table. Even the hang rounds knew not to break this circle.
Moab brought the bottle and four chipped glasses. Vin came with two new notebooks, the pages already dog-eared. Canon showed up last, pale from a shift at the shop, hands still stained with grease. Scarlette was waiting for me, hunched over the end of the table, fingers drumming slow on the sticky wood. All of them stared when I came in. Not hostile. Not friendly, either. Something in between.