Blood

A chill blasts down the road, shortly followed by a grey car headed at full speed. Not what I’d been hoping for.

You stupid, child, I think, because I am. A stupid little girl.

What in hell had I been thinking? Asking Mallory to get me at seven o’clock in December? December, which I believe is islander for pretty-fucking-cold. Well, almost December.

I hadn’t been thinking, is all. I just wanted…out.

George’s had been awful, as I knew it would be. Stupid Sarah had kept trying to talk to me about ‘this and that’, as she called it. ‘This’ being Hannagan and ‘That’ being Mallory. If a day came that I let Hannagan do anything, well, it wouldn’t. And then Mallory…who I then decided to let take me to some place where I will likely die at seven o’clock.

I’ve lost—

I shiver, whether from thinking or the cold. I think it’s going to snow.

No you, stupid, stupid, child. It is snowing.

The white spots, dark blurs in this light, cascade around me, freezing my face and hands.

Another car wanders down the road this time slowing, and then stopping at the end of the lane. Only it can’t be Mallory Fionn, because it’s my Aunt Jo’s car, meaning it has to be…

“What the hell are you doing?”

Mattie.

He rolls down his window, frowning up at me.

“Uh…” Was there anything I could say that might convince Mathew Hather that I am up to something good? Not likely, mostly because I’m not.

“Uh…” he mocks.

“Well what are you doing?” I say.

“I’m going out for dinner. Mum’s gone mad, again. Care to join me?”

“You? Never,” I say.

He smiles like the madman he happens to be. “I’m hurt, cuz. Honestly. Who are you waiting on, then?”

I scowl. “Nobody.”

“Then it only makes sense for you to join me. I’ll pay.”

“Well if I had’ve known you’d pay,” I say bitterly.

“What’s got you so peevish?” Mattie asks with a hint of earnest.

“I ain’t peevish, Mattie, I just—”

“Why are you so set on standing here in the cold?” he squints at me. “It’s true then?” he laughs horribly.

“Is what—” I start to ask, but my cousin interrupts me again.

“Just get in before you do something stupid, Lorna.”

I glance up at the dark sky, as though that’ll make me feel any better.

Sensing defeat, I walk around Mattie’s car and get in the passenger seat.

“Now that wasn’t so hard,” he says as I slam the door.

“Fuck you.”

I don’t really mean it, but it seems like the thing to say when you’re cousin cancels your plans for you.

Mallory’s going to hate me, I think with a little discomfort.

I hear the shifter click into gear just before Mattie directs his car to the right side of the road.

Snow beats at the windshield, much more furious than it had been when it was just me. Maybe it’s the island’s way of saying I’m doing wrong.

“Mattie?” I ask.

“Yeah?”

“Next time someone calls me a whore or something of the like, you get to take the blame.”

He smiles. “So you were waiting on a boy.”

He laughs to himself.

“I never said that,” yet I can feel my face turn red. Even my skin’s a mutinous bastard.

“So, which one’s caught your fancy, cuz? Oh, for all things holy, don’t say Jamie Hannagan.”

“Jamie Hannagan,” I say with a smirk.

Mattie glances at me quickly as though he’s judging how serious I am. “That really ain’t funny.”

I want to spit at him. Badly. “Neither is thinking I fancy Hannagan!”

For all his talk, Mattie’s a decent guy, which shows in the shade of red his cheeks flush to. “I s’pose not.”

“Why couldn’t you have just let me be?” I ask in exasperation.

“Why won’t you tell me who you were waiting on?”

At a stalemate, we sit in silence all the way to Kappamor, which in truth isn’t very far, but it feels it.

It doesn’t help that I think of Mallory for the most of it. The rest I spend wondering why I care.

Kappamor is snowy, just like the rest of Faer. Yet it’s different. Kappamor seems…unnatural in the white dust. Which is stupid since it’s snowed every year that anyone can remember. But still…

“You’re hungry, right?” asks my cousin.

“Uh, yeah.”

Having lunch (which Gram decided ran late enough to count as supper as well) with George and Sarah had meant I’d eaten next to nothing.

So we head to the pub, which I’m sure has a name, but I don’t think anyone really remembers it.

Owned and mostly operated by Sam and Beth Mueller, the pub is probably the only place people go to as a group on Faer, other than the church, but that’s different. You’re obligated to attend St Agatha’s each Sunday.

Mattie cuts the engine in the rather full parking lot, asking me to be civil before letting me leave the car. Rather demanding for a semi-kidnapper, if you ask me. But he didn’t, bastard.

The pubs blazing oil lamps blind me for a moment, before I adjust. It’s hot thanks to a good combination of stoves, lamps and people. The lamps mean the power must have gone out, which is strange, considering how light the snow is.

“Oh, looks like Justin’s got the bar tonight. Wanna go say hello?”

Mattie’s teasing me, as he’s apt to do.

“How am I supposed to be civil when you’re being shitty?”

He laughs in his mad, good-natured way, guiding me to an open table near the back.

Chairs clamour over the raucous laughter of some of the dock-workers as Mattie and me take our seats. Manners dictate that I should be saying hello to the fishermen, since they’re some of my dad’s mates, so I don’t.

“Oh, looks like Justin’s got Cynthia tonight. Wanna say hello?” I ask Mattie in my sweetest voice.

Mattie fancies Cynthia Quigley, even if he won’t tell her so. It’s bloody obvious, though. At least, it is if you know him like I do.

Truth be told, most of the island expects me to marry Mattie within the next couple years. It’s not exactly uncommon for cousins to marry on Faer but…Mattie’s my first cousin. My dad’s nephew. It’s just…gross, anything closer than second is too close in my book. Thank God I don’t have any second cousins.

And then he’s also Mathew Hather, and I’m Lorna Owens, which means we’re mates and won’t—couldn’t—be any more than that, even if we weren’t related.

“What can I get you, tonight, Mathew?”

I glance up at Beth Mueller.

Even though she’s ugly as sin, Beth is one of the most welcome sights I could imagine, since it means Sam—a much better cook—is the one in the kitchen.

“Uh, whatever’s cheapest on tap, and then whatever Sam happens to be making. For Lorna as well—the food, not the beer,” says Mattie.

Beth smiles, making the skin go tight over her round face. “You got it.”

I scowl at Mattie as Beth walks away across the common room. “Buy me a drink.”

Mattie laughs. “No way in hell am I buying you a drink.”

“Why not?”

He sits back in his chair, tilting it so that he can pretend not to watch Cynthia at the bar. “Your brother will kick my ass if I bring you home drunk.”

“Who said anything about getting drunk?”

There’s more laughter in front of the fireplace as Billy Drummond tilts to the side in an impersonation of either a gull or Eddie Hannagan.

I watch Mattie watch Billy for a minute, before he turns back to me.

“Please, you hold booze worse than an Indian.”

“Is that saying something?” I ask, completely confused.

“I dunno, my dad sometimes says it.”

We both laugh, because neither of us know anything about Indians.

“Damn mainlanders,” I say.

“Yup. I still ain’t buying you a drink, though.”

“C’mon, Matt!”

For some weird reason, he likes being called ‘Matt’.

“Stop it, Lorna. Please.”

“Just a tiny drink, this big,” I hold my fingers about six inches apart.

“No!” He says, covering his face with his hands.

I hold my fingers about two inches apart. “This big?”

He sighs without looking, meaning I’ve won.

“A tiny drink. And if Reid asks, you hit your head.”

I smile. “Thank you, Mattie.”

Gullible bastard, I add in my head as he grabs something from his pocket.

He holds out a couple bills, letting me take them reluctantly.

“A really tiny drink.”

“Yes, Mathew. I get it.”

He rubs his temples in the way he’s apt to do. “Christ on a crutch…you’ll be the death of me, one day.”

“Love you, Mattie.”

He scowls, but not like I do. He doesn’t have a face that’s meant for scowling, like mine must be. Even when he scowls, he looks like he’s about to smile, half the time because he is.

When I scowl, I look like I’m going to spit or throw something, half the time because I want to.

“Well I won’t shed any tears if you die of alcohol poisoning,” Mattie says, waving his hand in the typical gesture for ‘go on’.

So I weave through the usual pub-dwellers, almost being crushed by Davie Floyd, another of my Dad’s mates, as he staggers backwards with a roar of laughter. I get half a tankard of beer across my sleeve.

“Oi! Watch it, mule!” I say with a scowl. My Gram is going to kill me.

“You what?” asks Davie.

“Well you’ve got a gut like one!”

All his mates laugh at that, Davie doesn’t quite, but he does smile. “You got a big mouth for a little girl, Lorna Owens!”

“Better than a little mouth on a big man,” I sneer, although Davie had made the comment amiably.

’”Is that right?” he says.

“Oh, let her be, Dave,” says Billy Drummond. “Off you go, Lorna. Give my best to your Da.”

I nod slightly at Billy with a smile. I don’t mean to smile, but I just happen to imagine Mattie’s current face. Maybe I will be his death, it’s totally possible he’s fallen off his chair and broken his neck.

I don’t reckon anyone would notice in this lot.

“It seems you can hardly walk across a room without causing a stir,” says Justin Fionn as he takes Mattie’s money.

“Hm, you reckon?” I say, distracted by the sound of the door opening.

Fuck me, I think.

“What kind of joke is this?” Justin cries with a hint of genuine shock.

Mallory shrugs, staring at the floor, but when he looks up, our eyes meet for longer than decent. He looks…I don’t know...

“Here,” says Justin off-handedly, pushing a drink that could likely be called many things, but not tiny, in front of me.

I turn around to go back to Mattie, but Cynthia Quigley has somehow found her way into my seat, likely while I had my minor run-in with Davie Floyd, so I just sit back down.

C’mon Mattie…

So I sit there, half defeated, as Mallory takes the stool next to me.

“I get that it’s one thing to stand a guy up, but I am pretty sure it’s another to try and run away as well,” Mallory says in a quiet voice. Mind you, it could just be that his voice is quiet.

“My cousin kidnapped me.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he says before sitting up and taking a bottle of something from his brother. “Cheers.”

“What?” I snap without meaning to.

Mallory looks down at me with his white and black eyes, which are slightly eerie in the lamp light. I ain’t too fond of being looked down at, so I sit up.

“That’s not what I meant,” he says, taking a more than fair sized swig from his bottle.

My eyes follow the bottle sceptically. “You drink?”

Mallory laughs a little harsher than I would have liked. Then again, there’s no reason that what I would like matters.

“You could say that.” He looks like he wants to add something else, but doesn’t. “I think your table has freed up. That’s the cousin you meant, eh?”

Across the room, Mattie’s gaze meets mine, and he smiles his annoying little smirk that means more than I can explain.

“I really wish it wasn’t,” I say as I stare down into my glass. I haven’t had much ale, but Mattie’s right—I don’t hold my booze too well.

Bugger him, I think as I down more than I should of the light ale. My throat stings and my eyes begin to water. Then, of course, I begin to cough rather violently.

“You sure you want that?” Asks Mallory, who appears to have the decency not to laugh.

“Yes.”

“Okay,” he says sceptically, downing more of his own drink. His Adam’s apple moves as he swallows. “What?”

The oil lamp behind the bar casts half his face in shadows when he looks at me directly, turning one eye hazelish.

“Sorry,” Mallory says, glancing away again.

“Heya, Mal. How’s it goin’?”

Cynthia swats at one of the O’Toole boys hand’s, I honestly don’t think their mother could tell you which one, as she almost dances up to where Mallory’s sitting, her brown skirts swirling around her ankles.

Unfortunately for Mattie, he ain’t the only lad on the island with a thing for Cynthia Quigley, not anywhere near it actually.

“I swear, five minutes,” says Justin Fionn.

Cynthia leans closer to Mallory, rolling her eyes. “You know, he wasn’t supposed to work at all tonight. And you seem to think you’re the bastard.”

“Five minutes.”

“Five minutes,” she mocks in a low voice.

“Fine! Who do you suppose should manage the bar then?”

“Beth!” Cynthia calls across the room, walking forward.

“Are you alright?” Mallory says quietly.

I look back at him, but he’s turned to his brother.

“Uh, yeah. I’m fine.”

I slip off across the room towards Mattie. God, if only I were a better person.

“Did I not say summat about you and stupid?” he says, waving a fork in my direction. Then he balks. “W-What happened to tiny?”

“Can you bring me home?” I ask as I sit on the edge of the chair opposite Mattie. There’s a plate with a chicken thigh and a heap of pepper-filled mashed potatoes sitting in front of me, still steaming hot.

“No. Eat.”

I set down the mug in front of me, which Mattie then takes and lifts to his lips.

“Uh,” he groans. “When you throw up I ain’t gonna hold your hair.”

Ignoring him, I stare at my plate and will my stomach to settle down. I wish I knew if it was some kind of alcohol poisoning or guilt, ’cause I sure as hell hope for the first.