Chapter 3: The Beach and the Window
The days in Ballymore took on a fragile, liminal quality. Brigid worked. The journal, pacified by the Féth Fiada’s binding, was no longer a screaming alarm in her soul, but a low, computational hum. It was learning, she could feel it—absorbing the organic rhythms of the ancient power, integrating them into its cold mathematics. She was the bridge.
Annie kept her close, teaching her the properties of herbs that grew nowhere else, their leaves edged in silver, their roots humming when pulled from the soil near the fissure.
“This one,” Annie said, her skilled fingers severing a stem of moon-pale flowers without harming the plant, “it doesn’t just knit bone. It knits intention. If you mean to harm when you administer it, it becomes a poison. If you mean to heal, it becomes a miracle.” She handed the bunch to Brigid. “Hold them. Feel the potential.”
Brigid took them in her left hand, the right, with its leather-covered palm, hanging awkwardly at her side. She closed her eyes, trying to sense what Annie described. She felt only a faint, botanical tingle, overshadowed by the deeper, more terrifying tingle of the thread tethering her to her own time. It was there, in her mind’s eye, a shimmering lifeline stretching into chaos. Every hour, she felt its tension.
“Good,” Annie said, though Brigid felt she was a poor student of this green magic. “Now, the fennel-gold. It grows just over this ridge. Its pollen can clarify sight, both of the eye and of the spirit. We’ll need it for the next phase of communing with the Source.” She led the way up a sheep path, her skirts brushed with dew.
Brigid followed, the basket on her left arm. The journal pulsed once, a mild, curious thrum, as if noting the change in elevation. She focused on placing her feet, on the smell of wet earth and gorse, on anything but the yawning absence of Will and Sarah. The loneliness was a physical cavity in her chest.
Then the world lurched.
It wasn’t like the initial, violent translocation. This was a sickening side-step, a staggering vertigo as if the ground had turned to oil beneath her. The green-grey hills of Ireland dissolved into a smear of color and sound.
She was standing. On sand. Blinding, white-gold sand that burned through the soles of her simple leather shoes.
The heat hit her next, a solid, wet wall of it, carrying the salty, ripe smell of ocean and the distant, rhythmic thump of music with a heavy bassline. She blinked, her eyes watering against the glare. The misty cool of Ballymore was a fading memory. In front of her, sprawling and elegant against a cerulean sky, was a house. Her mother’s Miami beach house. But wrong.
The lines were the same, the modern architecture, the wall of windows facing the sea. But the paint was a different shade, weathered by years of salt and sun she hadn’t lived through. Lush, mature palm trees framed it where she remembered younger plantings. It looked settled. Older.
A tremor of pure disorientation shook her. The journal on her hand flared hot, then cold, spitting erratic, silent calculations across her vision like a heads-up display gone mad. Insufficient data. Temporal coordinates unstable.
“No,” she whispered to it, to herself. “Not again. Please.”
But she was here. Wherever—whenever—here was.
Cautiously, heart hammering against her ribs, she took a step forward. The sand gave way. Her 19th-century dress, the borrowed woolen stockings, were absurdly out of place. She moved toward the house, drawn by the sheer, desperate familiarity of it. It was a ghost of home.
As she neared the side of the house, a sound filtered through the thumping music. Not from the outdoor speakers, but from an open upstairs window. A rhythmic, wooden creaking. And voices. Gasping, urgent voices.
She froze beside a blooming bougainvillea, its magenta flowers violently bright. The window was slightly ajar, the sheer inner curtain drifting in the ocean breeze. Inside was a bedroom. Not her mother’s room. A guest room, maybe. And in it, two people were fucking.
The young man was on his back, muscles corded in his shoulders and arms. He had a shock of familiar red hair, a face that held echoes of Johnny’s sharp features but softened with youth and passion. He was gripping the hips of the young woman straddling him, his fingers digging into her flesh as she rode him with a powerful, relentless motion.
The woman was breathtaking. Sun-kissed skin, short blonde hair damp with sweat at her temples. She was all lean muscle and sensual curves, her breasts bouncing with each downward plunge, her head thrown back in ecstasy. The afternoon light gilded the sweat on the valley between her breasts.
“God, Marty, right there,” she moaned, her voice husky and rich. “Don’t stop. Just like that.”
Marty. The name meant nothing. A stranger.
She tightened her thighs around him, rising up until only the head of his cock remained inside her, then slamming back down, taking him deep with a wet, slapping sound that carried through the window. Brigid’s breath caught. It was raw, athletic, completely uninhibited.
“Fuck, Beth,” the young man—Marty—grunted, his hips bucking up to meet her. “You’re gonna make me come.”
“Not yet,” she commanded, leaning forward, bracing her hands on his chest. She changed her angle, grinding her clit against his pelvis in tight, dirty circles. “You’re doing so good. Such a good student. Now make me come first.”
He groaned, a sound of desperate pleasure. His hands moved from her hips to cup her ass, kneading the firm flesh, spreading her open as he thrust up into her from beneath. “You’re the teacher,” he managed, his voice strained. “You feel so fucking good. So tight around my cock.”
Beth’s moans escalated, losing their words, becoming a high, keening cry. Her rhythm broke, becoming frantic, her body tensing like a drawn bow. “Yes! Right there, baby, right there! I’m coming! I’m coming on your cock!”
She shattered, her body convulsing, her inner muscles milking him. The sight, the sound, was violently intimate. Brigid felt like a voyeur to a sacred, private rite.
Marty held on for three more shuddering thrusts before his own control vanished. “Beth! Shit!” His back arched off the bed, a raw shout tearing from his throat as he erupted inside her, his release triggering another, smaller climax from her that had her collapsing onto his chest, both of them gasping, slick and tangled.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing and the distant bass. Beth nuzzled his neck. “See?” she murmured, laughter and satisfaction in her voice. “A-plus. Top of the class.”
He chuckled, a low, happy sound, and kissed her shoulder. “Only because I have a great teacher.”
Brigid stood frozen, a statue of anachronistic cloth and shock. The heat, the passion, the sheer normality of it in this distorted version of her mother’s house was more destabilizing than any magical fissure.
A hand clamped down on her shoulder.
The grip was firm, familiar, and utterly unyielding. Brigid’s heart slammed into her throat. She spun, or tried to, but the hand held her fast.
She was face to face with her mother.
Shiv O’Connor looked… the same. Perhaps a new fine line or two around those piercing green eyes, but the fierce, beautiful face was unchanged. Her red hair was swept up, a few loose strands dancing in the sea breeze. She wore a simple linen dress, but her presence was a monarch’s. And the look in her eyes as she gazed at Brigid was not one of shock, but of profound, knowing appraisal. A twinkle, reserved solely for her youngest, warred with a deep, abiding worry.
“Mam?” Brigid choked out, the word a child’s plea.
“Brigid Moira,” Shiv said, her Irish brogue a anchor in the surreal storm. Her eyes flicked to the window, where the post-coital murmurs of the lovers could still be faintly heard, then back to her daughter. She didn’t ask what Brigid was doing here. She knew. “You’re in the future, my heart. A fair piece ahead of where you left from, by the feel of the time-sick on you.”
“The journal… it just… I was in Ballymore, with Annie, and then…” Brigid’s words tumbled out. “Who are they? This isn’t… when is this?”
“A possible when,” Shiv corrected softly, her thumb stroking Brigid’s shoulder through the rough wool. “A when that needs you to get back to your own when to become solid. Time isn’t done with you yet, a stór. You’ve a path to walk. A knot to untie.” Her gaze intensified. “You’ve a lot to do before you can stand up for Aisling at her wedding.”
Aisling. The name was a gut-punch of guilt and longing. The photo in her pocket felt like a lead weight.
“The wedding… I’m missing it,” Brigid whispered, tears finally breaking free, cutting through the sweat and salt on her cheeks.
Shiv’s hand came up, cradling her face. Her palm was cool. “No, my brave, foolish girl. You are ensuring it. This detour is part of the journey. The journal chose you for a reason. The Féth Fiada is working on you. I can smell its green fire on your skin, mixed with that awful, beautiful math.” She leaned closer, her voice dropping to a whisper meant only for Brigid. “Aisling will need her maid of honor. So you finish your business in the past. You learn what that book has to teach. And you come home. We’ll be waiting.”
She kissed Brigid’s forehead, a blessing and a dismissal. “Now go. You’re not supposed to be here this long. It makes the threads fray.”
Brigid felt it then—a reverse lurch, a terrible suction from the center of her being. The world—the blazing sun, the sound of the sea, her mother’s beloved face—began to smear and stretch.
“Mam!” she cried out, grabbing for Shiv’s hand.
“I love you, Brigid-Bear,” Shiv said, her smile unwavering, sure as the tide. “Tell my great-gran I said hello.”
The lurch was a violent yank. It felt like being pulled through a keyhole made of cold static.
She stumbled, her knees hitting soft, damp earth. The basket of herbs flew from her hand, scattering moon-pale flowers and silvery leaves across the moss.
“There you are!” Annie’s voice, thick with relief, cut through the ringing in Brigid’s ears. “By the Source, girl, you vanished! I turned around and you were just… gone.”
Brigid knelt on the ground, gulping in the cool, peat-scented air. The oppressive Miami heat was gone. The sound of the ocean was replaced by the whisper of wind over the hill. She was back. The journal on her hand was fever-warm, its hum agitated, confused.
“I was…” Brigid panted, looking up at Annie’s concerned face. “I was somewhere else. A beach. A house. My mother’s house. But… older.”
Annie’s eyes narrowed. She crouched, gathering the scattered herbs with a practiced efficiency. “A time-slip. The bond between you and the artifact is still volatile. The Féth Fiada’s integration is forcing calibrations. Your… anchor points are fluctuating.” She helped Brigid to her feet, holding her steady. “How long were you gone?”
“Minutes,” Brigid said, the word feeling utterly inadequate. “Only a few minutes. She said… my mother said… I have a lot to do.”
Annie studied her face, seeing the lingering shock, the tear-tracks, the dazed wonder. “Your mother. In this future?”
Brigid nodded, unable to speak.
A slow, understanding smile spread across Annie’s face. It was the same rousing, resilient smile Brigid had seen after Padraig had left. “Then you have your proof, a stór. The path exists. Your family exists. You have a future to get back to.” She looped her arm through Brigid’s, pulling her gently back toward the cottage. “The journal is learning. You are learning. These slips are its way of… testing equations. Trying to reconcile the map with the territory.”
“It showed me strangers,” Brigid murmured, the image of the two lovers seared behind her eyes. “A young man… he looked like my brother Johnny. And a woman. They were…”
“Living,” Annie finished simply. “People do, in the future. They love, they fight, they fuck. It’s what we’re protecting. All of it.” She squeezed Brigid’s arm. “Now, we have fennel-gold to find. And then, I think, we begin your first real lesson in speaking to time. Not with numbers, but with will. The Féth Fiada has given you a thread. We must teach you how to pull it without unraveling everything.”
Brigid walked beside her, the ghost of Miami’s sun still on her skin, the echo of her mother’s touch on her shoulder, and the vivid, pounding memory of a life—Marty and Beth’s life—that was waiting for her to secure its past. The journal’s hum settled into a new, more determined frequency. It wasn’t just calculating anymore. It was listening.
It was listening. The realization steadied her more than Annie’s arm ever could. The journal’s hum wasn’t just an echo of its own logic; it was a response. To the Féth Fiada’s green fire, to her distress, to the violent slip through time. It was a tool, and it was finally aligning to the hand that wielded it.
Back at the cottage, Maeve surveyed the half-empty basket and Brigid’s stark expression. “A slip,” she stated, intercepting Annie’s quieter explanation. Her sharp eyes didn’t miss the lingering tremor in Brigid’s fingers. “The bond is crystallizing. Good. Painful, but necessary.” She pointed a bony finger at the hearth. “Sit. We’ve coddled the integration enough. Now you must direct it.”
“Mother, she’s just returned from a temporal dislocation,” Annie argued, placing a protective hand on Brigid’s shoulder.
“And she’ll suffer more of them, worse ones, if she doesn’t learn to steer.” Maeve’s tone brooked no debate. She pulled a worn, smooth river stone from her apron pocket—a twin to the one Jan used in the future, Brigid realized with a start. “The Féth Fiada showed you a thread. I want you to show the book that thread. Make it understand the destination, not just the math of the journey.”
Brigid sat on the rough-hewn stool, extending her right hand, the journal’s leather now feeling less like a foreign graft and more like a tough, metallic scar. Maeve placed the stone on top of it. “Close your eyes. Don’t think of formulas. Don’t think of year numbers or coordinates. Think of her. Think of Aisling.”
Aisling. The name cut through the fog of dislocation. Brigid conjured her cousin’s face, not from the rain-soaked future-alley vision, but from a sun-drenched Chicago day. Laughing, her black hair whipping in the wind off the lake, stealing a bite of Brigid’s deep-dish pizza. The feeling of her hugging Brigid after the body-switch fiasco, thin but fierce, all sharp bones and sharper loyalty. “You’re stuck with me now, cousin.” She thought of the wedding invitation, the elegant script, the hope in Aisling’s voice when she’d asked her to stand up.
She poured that feeling—sisterly love, protective joy, the sheer want to be there—down her arm, into the journal fused to her palm.
The river stone grew warm. The journal’s hum shifted, the frantic, analytical static smoothing into a coherent, purposeful tone. Equations didn’t flash; instead, a single, elegant line of symbols, glowing a gentle green-silver, etched itself across the inside of her eyelids. It was a path. It was an address, written in the combined language of Archimedean calculus and Old Magic.
“It sees it,” Brigid whispered, awe diluting her exhaustion.
“Of course it does,” Maeve said, a trace of satisfaction in her voice. “Intent is a force. Now, hold that image. Hold that thread. The next time the slip tries to pull you, you push that into it. You aim. You are not a leaf on a temporal wind, girl. You are an archer. That feeling is your arrow. The journal is your bow.”
Present Day. Mike and Casey’s Backyard.
The scent of charred meat and melted cheese fought with the residual ozone of high-grade sex magic. Will and Sarah, now dressed in borrowed sweatpants and t-shirts, sat huddled together on the deck steps, physically spent but spiritually buzzing from the ritual’s afterglow. The torn seam in reality was gone, but the certainty it gave them was a tangible warmth between them.
Hank Powers, a man built like a retired linebacker, presided over the hissing grill with the solemnity of a high priest. Flames licked at dripping fat. “The key is the press,” he announced to anyone listening, wielding his spatula like a scepter. “You gotta lock in those juices. Commit to the sear!” He smashed a quarter-pound patty with alarming force.
Mike, sipping a beer beside him, watched a glob of grease ignite a small flare-up. “The key is also not burning my house down. You gonna clean up the apocalyptic mess you’re making when you’re done?”
From her patio chair, Fatima didn’t look up from her book. “He will make a mess. I will make sure that he cleans it. This is our equilibrium.”
Near the flower bed, chaotic motion unfolded. Polluck, the notched-ear tomcat, was a blur of orange and white fury, chasing Godfrey II in tight circles. The golden retriever pup, his tongue lolling, bounded with joyful, clumsy leaps, clearly thinking this was the best game ever invented. From her blanket on the lawn, baby Rick let out a squeal of glee, his tiny fists waving at the spectacle.
“See? Rick gets it,” Hank said, sliding a massive, precarious burger onto a plate. It was a mountain of meat, cheese, grilled onions, and what might have been a fried egg, all threatening to escape its bun. “The Famous Powers-Burger! Exclamation point included, no extra charge.”
Johnny O’Connor materialized then, not from the back gate, but from a slight shimmer in the air near the peony bushes. He held a six-pack of glass-bottle Cokes, cold and beaded with condensation. He looked, as always, like he’d just wandered in from a different, more rumpled timeline.
“Johnny!” Jan called, wrapped in a garish floral robe. She nodded at the sodas. “You only bring the non-alcoholic drinks when you have to do some serious time travel. It’s telling.”
Johnny set the Cokes on the outdoor table with a soft clink. “I don’t drink, Jan. You know that.”
“I stand by my statement,” she said, taking a defiant swig of Mike’s beer.
Johnny’s blue eyes, so like the future Marty’s Brigid had seen, scanned the yard, taking in the exhausted triad, the manic pet chase, the burger theater. His gaze finally settled on Jan. “Were you successful?” His tone was flat, carrying the implicit weight of a brother who’d followed Jan’s intuitive leaps into disaster more than once.
“1899. Ireland,” Jan said, sitting up straighter.
“Can you be more specific?” Johnny asked, popping the cap off a Coke with his thumb.
Jan stammered. “It was… green. And old-timey. The Féth Fiada’s energy was all over the signature. A big, green-silver knot.”
Johnny took a slow drink. “We’ll figure it out. Though it would be easier if Brigid were using Perpetual Sunrise magic instead of architected primal math. Our protocols are… cleaner.” He said it without judgment, a simple statement of technical difficulty.
Hank swooped in then, distributing plates. “Food’s up! Don’t talk timelines, talk taste buds.” He slid the monstrosity in front of Mike, who eyed it with skepticism that quickly morphed into hungry concession after the first messy bite. Cheese, egg yolk, and burger juice immediately cascaded down his fingers.
“Damn it, Hank,” Mike muttered, but his mouth was full. He swallowed. “This is… annoyingly delicious.”
“Told ya!” Hank boomed. He presented a slightly less chaotic burger to Casey, then turned to Fatima. “For my beautiful, plant-consuming queen.” With a showman’s flourish, he produced a perfectly grilled veggie patty on a fresh bun, with separate, clean utensils laid beside it. “Separate grill space, untouched by the flesh of the innocent. Or the guilty. Whichever.”
Fatima finally smiled, closing her book. “You are occasionally thoughtful, my love.”
Jan, her mouth full of Powers-Burger, pointed at Johnny with a free hand. “Okay. We got a when, roughly. What’s the plan?”
Johnny wiped his mouth. “Will and Sarah stay here. They’re Brigid’s lifelines, her anchor points in this now. Their bond is the strongest tether. You, me, and Stacy go.”
“Why Stacy?” Jan asked.
Stacy Steinberg, who had been quietly observing from the rail, answered without missing a beat. “To keep you out of trouble.” She said it like someone confirming the weather.
Johnny gave a slight nod. “Also, Stacy has prior exposure to time travelers and temporal phenomena. Her personal timeline has a… pliability. She’ll transition through the stream with less metaphysical drag. I can synchronize our apparel and equipment to the era with minimal resistance.” He glanced at the pistol holster on the kitchen counter. “Including your sidearm. Though we shouldn’t need it.”
“Things happen when Jan is around,” Stacy and Mike said in unison.
“Hey!” Jan shouted, brandishing her burger. She deflated a second later. “Okay, fair.”
Johnny continued, unfazed. “But things happen regardless. So we take it. Once everyone is finished, we depart.” His calm was absolute, a deep pool next to Hank’s roaring barbecue fire.
They ate with a focused speed, the urgency settling over the group like a physical weight. Will and Sarah held hands tightly, a silent promise to hold the line. Casey wiped Rick’s face, her eyes lingering on Mike with that ‘here we go again’ fondness. Hank scrubbed his grill with comic vigor under Fatima’s watchful eye.
Finally, Johnny stood. He didn’t make a grand gesture. He simply held out his hands to Jan and Stacy. Jan, still in her robe, shrugged and took one. Stacy, now wearing practical jeans and a tank top, took the other after a moment’s hesitation. Godfrey trotted over and sat expectantly on Johnny’s foot.
“Stay close,” Johnny said, his voice low. The air around them began to waver, like heat rising from summer asphalt. A faint golden light, the signature of the Order of the Perpetual Sunrise, coalesced at their feet.
Then they stepped. Not through a door, but into a fold.
The backyard vanished.
The sensation was not of movement, but of the universe rearranging itself around them. Pressure, light, sound—all stretched and snapped.
They stood on compacted earth, under a canopy of strange, gnarled pines. The air was cool, thick with the smell of damp vegetation and foreign blooms. Wooden structures with sweeping, curved roofs lined a dirt path. The clothing on their bodies had shifted. Jan’s robe was now a finely patterned kimono, modestly tied. Stacy’s jeans and tank top had transformed into a dark hakama and simple kosode. Her holster was empty, but a real, sheathed katana hung awkwardly from her obi. Johnny wore the robes of a monk.
Godfrey, now looking oddly placid, wore a small woven straw vest.
“Uh, Johnny?” Jan’s voice was a tight whisper. “Was the plan to wind up in… what looks like feudal Japan?”
Johnny’s usual calm fractured for a microsecond, his eyes rapidly scanning their surroundings. “No. This was not the planned spatial-temporal coordinate.” His voice was low, tense. “The transit was deflected. There’s more interference in the time stream than I accounted for. The journal’s activation, the Féth Fiada’s integration… it’s causing ripples that are destabilizing local passage.”
“Local passage?” Stacy hissed, her hand instinctively going to the katana’s hilt, her fingers unfamiliar with the grip.
“We’ve been shunted. Like a skipped stone.” Johnny’s brow was furrowed in intense concentration. “Brigid’s activities are creating… eddies. We hit one.”
A shout rang out, sharp and authoritative, in a language none of them understood. From behind the pine trees and along the path, figures emerged. Men in lacquered armor, bearing spears and stern expressions. Their movements were precise, threatening. They fanned out, surrounding the three disoriented time-travelers and the golden retriever in the straw vest.
The lead guard barked a command, leveling his spear.
Godfrey let out a cheerful woof and wagged his tail, apparently convinced these new people with pointy sticks had come solely for his amusement.
Jan slowly raised her empty hands. “Okay,” she breathed out, her eyes wide. “So. New plan.”
The circle of spears tightened.