Day. We will meet on the bridge and the next time we will make our wish together. To start a journey anew, as one.”
“I will,” she promised without hesitation. She wanted to kiss him one more time but he turned to greet the late comers to his party. But there was something special in his eyes as he waved goodbye, something that belonged only to her. There was a skip in her step as she raced down toward the magical bridge.
She had to cut through part of the forest to make it all the way to the lake, but she felt confident of her bearings. If nothing else, she could sleep in Kian’s cottage. It would soon be hers someday, if she could figure out a way make this dream a reality.
It couldn’t be a dream, she decided. Never had any of her dreams been so linear and connected. This was real. Maybe some alternate universe, or some spiritual plane. But she knew that Kian was real and the feelings she had for him were real. So she was going to figure out a way to cut her ties with NYC one way or the other.
First she had to get out of the forest, which seemed even longer and darker than she had originally calculated. Lights flickered in the distance, and shapes and shadows moved in her peripheral vision. Before long she couldn’t even see the castle anymore. Her overactive imagination got the better of her the darker it got. She could swear that she heard something behind her, stirring in the brush. She whirled around more than once, ready to drop kick any assailant, whether real or fantasy.
She heard him breathe before she saw his face.
“You, girl!” he called. She turned to face Carrick, who stood just yards away from her with two equally imposing friends. “You owe me a gold coin, now don’t ya?”
“Stay back!” she commanded at once. “Or you will have to deal with Kian.”
The men all chortled heartily. They hardly considered this a threat. “Let him come,” Carrick said as he advanced. “I’ll have already spent everything worth having.”
Her eyes widened as she backed up a step. Carrick’s cohorts flanked her on either side. “Look, I have coins. I have lots of coins.” She pulled the plastic bag from her pocket. “You could be rich. Just take them and go.” She dropped all but one coin from the bag onto the ground.
“I will,” Carrick said. “After.”
She spun on her heel and took off like hell. She barely dodged the hands of Carrick’s friends, much less any of the many dark trees that stood in her way. In the air she could hear the distinct, sharp and eerie cry of a woman in the distance.
“You better run, girl,” Carrick called behind her. “The banshee is calling for you!”
A scream lodged in her throat. Though her dream had morphed into a nightmare, it still felt disturbingly real. The branches from the trees scratched her arms and legs as she flew through the thicket. The wails grew louder around her, like she was surrounded.
And then, up ahead, like a mirage, she could see the moonlight glancing off of the lake. It was her only hope.
Her feet barely touched the ground as she barreled through the edge of the forest. The wails still swirled around her as she broke free from the trees. Carrick and his friends were still hot on her trail. She stumbled and dropped the coin.
“No, no, no!” she cried as she pawed at the ground. She could hear the men approach, their heavy footfalls vibrating the dirt beneath her fingers.
“There she is. Take her!”
At last she clasped the gold coin in her hand. She scrambled to her feet and tripped down the slope toward the water’s edge. Though the moon glimmered across the dark water, she couldn’t think about what romantic promises she would share there with Kian. There was only surviving, nothing more.
She paused ever so slightly when she got to the bridge. The castle set the darkening horizon on fire with the lights of its celebration, one that Kian was likely bringing to a close. If magic was real she’d stay forever in this fantastic place, the lady of the castle with the man she knew that, beyond all reason, she was meant to love. This time she tossed the coin into the water with a different wish: “Take me where I belong.”
She was sorely disappointed when she awoke to find herself in her same shabby apartment. She could feel the heat of his body against hers, and the raw skin of her mouth from where his kiss had left its imprint.
Somewhere down the street, a siren blared, wailing loud… just like a banshee.
She covered her eyes with her arm and sighed.
This time she was so wound up she couldn’t go back to sleep at all. There were dark circles under her eyes as she went to O’Shannon’s that night for their big St. Patrick’s Day celebration.
Every time the door open she glanced up in expectation, as if to find her handsome knight walk through the door to rescue her from the mundane existence to which she seemed cursed. But Kian Mulcahy did not walk through the door.
Worst of all her weird little customer who always left her the magical coin didn’t show up either. It was a much more modern crowd. The women wore neon-green wigs while all the men drank their touristy green beer by the gallon and tried their best pickup lines with phony Irish accents that only made her pine for Kian even more.
By last call Siobhan was decidedly in a funk. She still stayed until the last of her customers and coworkers were gone, just like the nights before, but this time when she opened the door there was no green meadow or sunshine. It was just the same dark, dirty alley that had always been there.
She was so depressed she couldn’t bring herself to go back home. She couldn’t face the lonely emptiness of her tiny single bed and the echo of her silent apartment. Instead she walked the city streets until the early predawn hours, for once comforted by the presence of the strangers who walked past her. They were high and happy with the remnants of St. Patrick’s Day, and she tried her best to feed off of their energy. But it was all second best. Before long she felt even more alone in the crowd. Unconsciously she headed for the only green meadow in New York City – the vast sanctuary of Central Park – and her feet never stopped moving until she found her way to the bridge that arched over the lake to watch the sun rise.
She heaved a heavy sigh as she leaned over the bridge to look into the murky depths of the water. It was bitter cold and snow tried to light upon her shoulders. She was so lost in thought she didn’t even notice someone else join her on the bridge until she heard an angry outburst in a thick Brooklyn accent.
“I hate this city!”
She turned in sympathy to the other person on the bridge, and sucked in a breath when she fell into those familiar blue eyes. He looked chagrined to see her standing there; as if he was unaware there was anyone else on the bridge to witness his outburst.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Just having a really bad night.”
She hid her smile. No matter what mood he was in her heart soared to see his handsome face. “No ‘Happy St. Patrick’s’ for you, I guess.”
He joined her where she stood by the rail. “You could say that.” He sighed as he glanced over the sky, where hints of dawn streaked across the horizon. “Worst of all it’s my own fault.”
She glanced down at his hand. He held a gold engagement ring, clearly discarded by the person he had given it to. “I’m sorry.”
He glanced down and then back at her face. He tried to brush it off. “Don’t be. It wasn’t some tragic love affair. I think we were just going to get married because it was expected of us. We graduated. We got the jobs. Naturally the next step in life was marriage. We thought the decision was easy but in the end it was just easier to say goodbye. There wasn’t anything at all wrong with her or with us. It just wasn’t… right. You know?”
She nodded. She knew.
He sighed. “I just wish it all wasn’t so complicated.”
She gave him a sympathetic smile. “You’re in luck. This here is a magic bridge.”
He arched an eyebrow her direction, feeling his mood lighten for the first time all evening. “Magic?”
“Legend has it a leprechaun lives under this bridge. Rumor has
it he’s pretty cranky because he lost all his treasure. But if a human returns his gold to him, he’ll grant a wish.”
He grinned as he thoughtfully appraised the impish woman standing next to him on the bridge. She was a lovely, pale-skinned redhead with the bluest eyes he’d ever seen, next to his own, of course. And she was clearly trying to cheer him up. It was too adorable to resist. “You believe in leprechauns, do you?”
Their eyes locked and something very familiar passed between them. “I do now,” she said. “You should make a wish.”
He turned to face her. Hers was a familiar face he could faintly remember, as if it hovered somewhere on the edge of a dream. To be there on that bridge with her felt right. He glanced down at the ring and wondered what kind of wish such a trinket could fetch. He gave her a smile before he chucked the ring into the water. They both watched it sink before he turned back to face her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t catch your name.”
“Siobhan Flannery,” she said as she held out her hand.
He took her hand in his and uncharacteristically brought it to his lips for a kiss. It seemed an old-fashioned thing to do, but with this unusual woman it felt perfectly natural. “I’m Kian. Kian Mulcahy.”
She grinned even wider. “How ‘bout I buy you breakfast, Mr. Kian Mulcahy?”
“I think I’d like that, Miss Flannery.” He gave her that heart-stopping smile. “All I have to my name is this,” he said as