“I got it. I guess I’ll call it, too.”

As they walked back to their rooms, she dipped her head toward his shoulder. “It’s been a really good first day.”

“And don’t you forget to write about it—push hard on my exceptional driving.”

“Naturally. And tomorrow we end with dinner and music at a pub. Who knows? Maybe somebody’ll remember my father. He used to sing in pubs.”

“I remember. You said that’s how your mother met him.”

“Yeah, on a trip with friends when she was in college. Here in Clare, so maybe he still sings around here. Or in Galway.”

“I hope we find him, but either way . . .” He walked her to her door. “Remember the name of your blog.”

“Finding Me.”

“That’s the first thing. See you in the a.m.”

“Night, Marco.”

She woke at four thirty. She stumbled out of bed, grateful she’d left the bathroom light on so she wouldn’t run into anything in the dark.

She grabbed her laptop and, taking it back to bed, tried to document the already fading dream.

I was in a big building, a ruin, I think. Stone walls, windows without glass, some no more than slits. There were carvings on some of the walls and—are they lintels?—over doorways. No doors, just openings into what must have been other rooms.

Some of the walls had niches where something must have stood at some point. I could see the sky overhead—blue—a lot of clouds, but white ones.

Everything echoed so I could hear my own footsteps. But it was more than that. Sort of like there had been voices and they still echoed inside the building.

There were stone markers on the floor, and I think carvings there, too. I can’t see them now, but I knew they were graves, like the big stone—coffins?

There was a kind of courtyard surrounded by stone columns where the grass grew—green and tall with little white stars of wildflowers.

And stone steps, pie-shaped, forming a curve, that led up.

I went up, I don’t know why. I wasn’t really afraid, but I want to say I could feel the air thrum, I could feel it beat on my skin.

I stepped out, and could see a round tower with a pointed cap, the hills and cottages in the distance. Even smoke rising up from chimneys. Below I saw sheep with their thick wool and black faces grazing on the grass.

And a graveyard with stone markers, and beyond it, beyond the round tower, one of those stone circles. Not like the pictures I’ve seen of Stonehenge, but much smaller. Beyond it a river snaked toward a bay. The sun was strong enough to dance light over it, like the white starry wildflowers.

It was all beautiful. The wind was in my hair, but warm and soft.

I think I was happy.

Then I watched a rider come. A brown hooded cloak, a white horse with its hindquarters dappled with black. She rode to the graveyard, dismounted. She held flowers. I can’t remember if I knew what kind, but I think they were white.

She walked to one of the graves, laid the flowers there, and stood with her head bent.

It felt like intruding, so I started to step back, but then she pushed off her hood. She looked up at me.

She looked like me. Or how I might look when I’m older. And I could see the red stone pendant I’d seen in the forest/waterfall dream around her neck.

She spoke to me. I wish I could remember more clearly, but I think she said something like: You have to look to find. You have to ask to have the answers. You have to awaken to become.

Breen sat back, thought it through. She’d had vivid, unusual dreams as a child. Unicorns, dragons—she’d always had a thing for dragons—dancing in the air with butterflies. She’d dreamed of riding white chargers and faeries, and all the wonderful things her father had wound into his stories.

But that had all faded, even—she thought—before he’d left. Then she’d replaced those fanciful dreams with anxiety dreams. Schoolwork, college courses, teaching.

She found it interesting, even comforting, they’d come back.

Maybe she’d buy a book on dream interpretation.

Since it was still far too early for breakfast, she settled for a Coke, and writing her daily blog.

It was fun to recount the day, the arrival at Shannon, the drive, the castle, all of it. When it satisfied her, she followed Marco’s instructions carefully, uploaded some of the pictures, and put it all up.

Out of curiosity she brought up the previous blog, then goggled.

She now had forty-six comments, and two hundred and two views.

More than two hundred people read what she’d written, and forty-six of them had taken the time to comment.

Because it’s new, she decided—and Sally spread the word. Still, it was just wonderful.

Hell, in a full week of teaching, she’d been lucky to get that many students to raise their hand in class.

Charged, she changed into workout gear, chose one of her videos to stream.

She knew the castle had a fitness center, but she wasn’t ready for that.

Even when she finished, dressed in what she thought of as her Irish adventure wear—boots, jeans, a navy V-neck sweater over a white tee—she had time on her hands.

It was as if every day was a Sunday, only better, as she didn’t have a single chore on her list. She grabbed her phone, her key, her cross-body bag, and her jacket and set out on a dawn walk.

The sky, pale, pastel blue, cupped over the hills. It had lovely clouds streaked with roses and reds where the sun topped their rounded tops. Everything smelled fresh and new and possible.

She walked along the paved path, up green rises and stone steps where morning birds sang in the trees. She walked, prizing the quiet and solitude, pausing to take pictures of the castle as the sky brightened, or a tree that looked like something out of a fairy tale.

She found herself at the stables, where a brown horse watched her approach. Since she’d only ridden horses in childhood dreams, she kept a wary distance.

“Hi there. You’re very handsome.”

She stepped a little closer, and when he blew air out of his nose, she all but heard him think: Come and pet me.

But she decided close enough.

“Maybe tomorrow,” she told him.

She took his picture, checked the time, and started her walk back imagining what it was like to work in such a place.

She could do that. Maybe she’d apply for a job. After Marco went back, she could think about it. Maybe here, maybe some historic hotel in Galway.

Before she went back, she opted to detour to the walled gardens.

And there her heart simply soared.

A vined archway welcomed her. The beds beside the stone paths simply thrived with flowers. She recognized some, but most were a lovely mystery. She wanted to know more, made a mental note to get a book on flowers as well as dreams.

She could learn to do this, couldn’t she? Learn to plant and grow and tend? To make something beautiful. While she watched butterflies flutter and bees buzz by, she bent down or over to sniff.

She smelled sweet and spicy, earthy and light, marveled at the textures and colors, the spreads, the spears. And at the skill and knowledge to create something that looked as if it had grown entirely on its own.

She could learn. She sure as hell knew how to study, as she’d spent her entire life doing just that. She’d study what she wanted to study this time around.

She sat on a bench to soak it all in while clouds, puffy and white as sheep, grazed over the blue. And shook her head at herself.

“Waiting tables in a castle one minute, a gardener the next.”

Pretty clearly she didn’t know what to do with herself.

She rose, reluctantly, to go back and meet Marco, but paused one last time to take a close-up picture of a luscious spread of deep purple flowers.

Enchanted, she brushed her hand over them.

They vibrated.

She snatched her hand back, imagining angry bees or snakes. Ireland, she reminded herself. No snakes.

But something.

But nothing moved, and everything went so very quiet.

Carefully, she touched her palm to the clump again, felt that odd hum under her skin.

“That’s weird, right? It’s like . . . it’s growing. Even I know it doesn’t work that way. Time for coffee,” she told herself. “It’s obviously time for coffee.”

Rubbing her palms together, she walked away.

And didn’t see the new flowers spread up from the bed and reach for the light.

CHAPTER SIX

Breen approached driving the way she’d approached oral exams. With terror and determination. Her hands might have clutched the wheel like a woman clutching a life buoy in a raging sea, but she navigated the skinny, twisty roads with steely eyes.

She’d never really been a tourist, so she approached that new designation by diving in headfirst.

She made her list, mapped out the routes. There were ruins to explore and wonder at, the Cliffs of Moher to marvel over. There was the edge of the world to dare at Loop Head, old abbeys and round towers, graveyards.

Lunch in a pub with a peat fire simmering, brown bread and farm butter.

While she didn’t find a book on dreams, she found one on flowers when they shopped in Ennis, where baskets of flowers hung and the narrow, winding sidewalks begged to be explored.

She bought a scarf of rainbow colors for Sally, and one of greens and ambers for herself. She ate strawberry gelato in a sugar cone, lit a candle in a beautiful old church that smelled of peace.

When it was her turn behind the wheel again, she managed to drive into the little village of Doolin and park.

“More awesome views,” Marco declared. “But before we get out and hike—again—I gotta tell you, Breen, you handle the driving better than me.”

“My palms are still sweaty.”

“Maybe, but you’ve got it down.”

“You’re the most excellent navigator. And still, walking’s a big relief.”

“Prepare to be relieved.”

Out of the car, she lifted her face to the sea breeze before hitching on her battered backpack for the cliff walk. One thing she’d learned on this momentous first full day—she wasn’t troubled by heights.