Chapter 2: The Church

Meg Boyle drove out of Leenane in County Galway for one last glimpse at the site she’d chosen for her company’s new wool processing plant. Wild Woolens based in Pennsylvania had tasked her with finding a place to build closer to the source of their world-famous wool products.

Meg glanced at the sheep on either side of the road. “Can’t get much closer than this to the sheep.” The site sat across the street from the beach, right next to a church that was in disrepair. She figured Wild could knock down the church and build a plant as big as they might need. It was rocky terrain, but things could be leveled.

She stopped her car by the church. Getting out she sniffed the salty North Atlantic. The only problem might be the fact that tourists were fond of this road. If the plant could be back from the road it might work out. She didn’t want to spoil the countryside.

With her car parked along the Wild Atlantic Way, Meg trekked up the small hill to the church. Where her gargoyle friends sat like silent sentinels guarding the land. They looked out to the sea as if the threat would come from there.

“Hello, boys,” she said.

She sat on a low, stone wall facing the ocean that grabbed at the shore then retreated as if to try again. “You guys have such a nice view. I’m in no hurry to leave Ireland.”

Looking back at them, she knew they wouldn’t answer. She wondered how old the church was. There were no markings and no sign for a tourist to find out about it. She thought that odd, but then again, maybe the locals didn’t think anything of the church being here.

She’d asked at the local pub, but they didn’t seem to know what she was talking about. Maybe the church was a secret, but with the number of busses that probably came by here during tourist season, she can’t imagine it was a well-kept one.

“What have those stony eyes seen?” she said to the one in the middle.

She often had the impression that he was listening to her. She hadn’t given him a name out loud, but in her mind he was Donal. No “d” at the end like a true Irish name. It suited him.

She whirled back to the ocean. Gray clouds threatened rain, but that was a constant in Ireland in the fall. She breathed in the clean air.

“As much as I love traveling and that I’ve met you, fine gentlemen, I’m hoping my boss retires soon. It might be nice to put down roots. Of course, I do know some things about her that might hasten her retiring, but I don’t want to use what I know unless necessary.”

She wouldn’t say these things to anyone else. She figured these three wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone of her ambitions.

“I mean, it is past time. She’s had the job for ten years. She isn’t going to be promoted and there have been others who have been promoted above her. You’d think she’d get the hint that she has no future in the company.”

Still, the three gargoyles remained silent. Not that she minded. She trusted them more than most humans. “Even if you can’t talk, you get to watch the ocean all the time. I don’t live near the ocean. Oh, I take trips down the Shore in the summer, but it isn’t the same. And this coast is much prettier. Not nearly as many people.”

She stood and stared at them for a moment. “I wonder why someone put a church here. I can’t imagine there were too many people here when this church was built.” She shook her head. “Not like you three can tell me.”

Cocking her head, she said. “I wonder why you are the only gargoyles I’ve seen out here.”

She’d taken a trip to Dublin and seen some there, but that was all she remembered. This was the first time she had thought of this being an odd place for a church and gargoyles.

She heard a noise. A sheep was eating on the other side of the wall.

“I bet you can’t tell me either.”

The sheep just chewed and stared at her. She had one more page to write on her report and include pictures. As soon as she sent it, she would be closer to going home. Not that she was in a hurry.

“I’ve loved it here and for the first time in my life, I feel as if I’m home. How odd,” Meg said.

She’d never been to Ireland and as much as she had the red hair and green eyes of an Irish lass, she didn’t know if she was truly Irish or not. Having been adopted she didn’t know much about her heritage.

She shrugged. “Well, gentlemen, until next time. You guys have a good evening.”

She strolled back to her car. She started it then gazed at the gargoyles one more time then turned her car back to Leenane where she was staying. Her head was already full of the report she had to finish and send.

Then she’d have to make reservations to go home. She’d always been happy to get back, but not this time. Something about Ireland called to her the way no other place ever had.

She might never figure it out.

Chapter 2 The Brothers

“She’s it,” Donal said.

He could communicate with his brothers telepathically. Otherwise, his time in stone might have driven him nuts.

“You’re sure?” Sean said.

“I’m sure. She’s it. I can feel my heart softening. She must be the one that I am supposed to protect,” Donal said.

“Wow. After all of these years. And of course, Donal finds his first. Lucky guy,” Declan said.

“He is always the lucky one,” Sean said.

“If I were that lucky I wouldn’t have been stuck in stone here with you two lugs,” Donal said.

He would have lived and died in his own time. Instead of watching what had happened to the fairies, he’d been born to protect. They’d died off and somewhere along the line the fairies had forgotten who they were. He’d bet that Meg had no idea who she was.

That made his job even harder. She wouldn’t have any idea why he was protecting her. The fairies had gone into hiding when the humans took over the world. They renamed his part of the island County Galway. What did that even mean?

He was Donal of Connaught. Not Donal of Galway. If he could sigh he would. He sighed in his head.

His brothers were still whinging about him being lucky. “I’m the oldest. You didn’t have to tell the Queen what our father had done. She could have made me stone and you would never have known what had happened to me.”

“Still, why do you get to go first?” Sean said.

“Because she is my fairy. Not yours,” Donal said.

He wasn’t going to apologize for finding his fairy first. He never would have thought they were going to find any of theirs. The fairies were all elsewhere and finding one from his kingdom let alone another one had always been a long shot.

“What will you do?” Declan said.

“The Fairy Queen told me the rules before she left. I have to be in the fairy’s presence for a whole day before I lose the curse,” Donal said.

“A whole day. The sun must be in the same place for the beginning and the end?” Declan said.

“Yes.”

“How are you going to do that?” Sean said.

“I don’t know. She doesn’t spend that much time here, but I’m sure I have a few days to figure it out. I already feel as if I could fall off of this wall. Maybe I can go with her.”

“Without legs? Or only stone ones.”

“I don’t know everything, you mugs. I’m guessing some things here,” Donal said. “If you two be quiet and let me think maybe I’ll figure it out. You’ll have your chance and I get to sort out what needs to be done. That way neither of you messes it up.”

One of them would screw it up. He knew it. They hadn’t been mature when they’d been turned to stone. Hanging on a building in stone hadn’t helped them grow up.

He attempted to wiggle. He wasn’t as well attached to the ledge he’d sat on for hundreds of years. He just had to figure out how to get off of this without breaking into pieces. That sounded easy, but the ground had rocks and moss. The moss might cushion his fall, but not enough if he landed on his head.

He tuned out his brothers’ arguing to concentrate on the task at hand. How would he get to Meg? He couldn’t walk and rolling would take too long. Besides, he had no idea where she was staying. A lot had been built since he’d been up on this church.

He knew which direction she’d gone in leaving them, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a long distance to where she slept.

“Oy,” Sean said. “You ignoring us?”

“Yes. I am,” Donal said. “I have to get off of this ledge and not break into pieces.”

“You could use Meg as a cushion,” Declan said.

“And what if he hurts her. What would he say?” Sean said. Then he laughed. “He couldn’t say anything if he didn’t lose his stone façade.”

“Very funny,” Donal said. “Neither of you are helping.”

He wished his brothers would just shut up, but they wouldn’t. He’d lived with them on this ledge for too many years. The first year had been all about whining. At some point, they’d settled into their fate. Too bad they’d kept fighting with each other. Once a millennia one of them would come up with an idea and the other would punch holes in it.

Donal had adjusted quicker because he was a realist. Being the oldest, he’d been shown how life could be. He just hoped that fairy was worth it to his father, but he assumed that his father had probably left her to raise the baby herself.

Having taken over the family and raised his brothers, Donal hadn’t been surprised by his father’s action. The man could be sober and still not be responsible. How he was a Foley, Donal had no idea. The Foleys had always been responsible for the fairies.

His father had been the lone disreputable Foley in generations.

Donal had learned to stop cursing the man years ago. Now he just wanted to get off this ledge and meet his fairy as a being, not a stone statue.

Hopefully, he could remember how to change his forms. She might be scared by a gargoyle. He didn’t know if any of his kind still existed. She didn’t appear to have wings, but she might not know she was a fairy. She might not even believe in fairies.

He sighed again. This was going to be an uphill battle once he managed to get off of this ledge.

“You come up with anything, Donal?” Sean said.

“I have to fall onto something soft.”

“Meg is probably soft,” Declan said. His voice held a wistfulness that Donal understood.

Of the three of them, Declan was most like their father. Donal can only hope that he’d had enough of an influence on his brother to overcome that.

“I can’t land on my fairy,” Donal said. “I’d hurt her.”

She wasn’t a waif, but she still weighed less than a block of stone. She weighed a lot less than he did as a being, but he liked her curves. Her eyes sparkled when she smiled.

He shook himself from his daydreaming. He needed a real solution to this problem. “Can either of you help me solve this?”

“Nope,” Sean said.

“I got nothing,” Declan said.