“You’re not putting them in a sack,” I said, allowing no room for argument.
No smoke twisted from the cottage’s moss-riddled chimney. I tried to remember if this was Marina’s home or if it was one of the two next to it that looked almost exactly the same.
There was something about this one that felt familiar, with its shutters hanging off their hinges and door painted a faded blue. This had to be it. I was almost certain.
“How else am I supposed to get it to the house?” Rían grumbled, opening one of the sacks and giving it a shake. The wind caught it, blowing it open like a barrel.
“You’ll figure it out.” He was the man with the plans, after all. How hard could it be to convince a few children to leave this hovel and hide somewhere else until their Mammy came back from the dead?
With a quiet curse, the sacks disappeared.
First things first. We needed to make sure Marina’s husband wasn’t going to catch us. The lack of smoke was a fairly good sign, but if the state of her clothes was any indication, they may not be able to afford fuel for the fire. Best be sure, just in case.
I sneaked past the sheets still flapping on the laundry line to find the door unlocked. Tiny shoes waited by the threshold. There were two bedrooms. Both empty. A kitchen that stunk of vinegar, and a living room the size of our dining table. All empty as well.
The husband wasn’t there.
But neither were the children.
“They’re not in the house,” I told the lads waiting in the shadows out front, closing the door behind me.
Ruairi sniffed the air, brow furrowing. Rían gagged, holding a hand over his nose. All I could smell was piss and pig shite.
Then I heard something.
Soft sniffles.
The others must’ve heard it too, because we all hurried for the back garden at the same time. Ruairi reached it first, raising his nose toward the sky.
To the right sat a pig sty with a few pigs huddled in the corner. To the left was a garden, wilted and dry.
And slap in the middle stood a shed.
A shed someone had bolted and locked closed.
Rían glared at the rusty lock dangling against the gray wood. “The door is locked.”
Feck it anyway. With the door locked, there wasn’t a hope of convincing Rían to help. I wouldn’t have enough magic to get the children to the path toward town, let alone all the way back to the portal in Gaul.
Ruairi nudged the sagging corner with his shoulder. The wooden shack groaned. “A gust of wind could knock over the rotting thing.”
The sobbing inside the shed grew louder, accompanied by hushed whispers.
We didn’t have time for this. There were children locked inside of a feckin’ shed. Ruairi reached for the lock. I stopped him with a hand on his elbow. Breaching a locked door was a capital crime. It didn’t matter that we had a good reason. And Ruairi couldn’t come back from death.
“What’s that over there?” I pointed to the sea’s cresting waves barely visible on the horizon.
Rían and Ruairi both turned to check.
I yanked the lock, breaking the fastenings. “Oh, would you look at that.” I flicked the dangling metal. “It’s not locked anymore.”
Rían’s jaw worked, but for once, he kept silent. If he had a problem, I had no doubt he’d kill me over it later.
I drew the door aside to find three pairs of tear-filled eyes staring at me from the darkness.
The tallest child had a round face with delicate features and shorn red hair. In her arms, she cradled a tiny baby. Couldn’t be more than two or three months old. The little boy at her side clung to her grimy dress.
“You can come out now,” I said quietly to keep from scaring them. “We won’t hurt you.”