Cabhan. Fear spurted through her at the thought he might have played some part. Had he gone after her mother because in the end she’d resisted his call?
Meara punched the accelerator, rocketed around curves, raced her way with her heart at a gallop to the little dollhouse nestled with a handful of others just along the hem of Cong’s skirts.
The house stood—no damage she could see to the white walls, the gray roof, the tidy dooryard garden. Tidy, true enough, as the small bit of garden in front and back was her mother’s only real interest.
She shoved through the short gate—one she’d painted herself the previous spring, and ran up the walk, digging for her keys, since her mother insisted on locking the doors day and night in fear of burglars, rapists, or alien probes.
But Colleen rushed out, hands clasped together at her breast as if in prayer.
“Oh, Meara, thank God you’ve come! What will I do? What will I do?”
She threw herself into Meara’s arms, a weeping, trembling bundle of despair.
“You’re not hurt? For certain? Let me see you’re not hurt.”
“I burned my fingers.” Like a child she held up her hand to show the hurt.
And nothing, Meara saw with relief, a bit of salve wouldn’t deal with.
“All right then, all right.” To soothe, Meara brushed a light kiss over the little burn. “That’s the most important thing.”
“It’s terrible!” Colleen insisted. “The kitchen’s a ruin. What will I do? Oh, Meara, what will I do?”
“Let’s have a look, then we’ll see, won’t we?”
It was easy to turn Colleen around and pull her inside. Meara had gotten her height from her long-absent father. Colleen made a pretty little package—a petite, slim, and always perfectly groomed one, a fact of life that often made Meara feel like a hulking bear leading a poodle with a perfect pedigree.
No damage in the front room, another relief, though Meara could smell smoke, and see the thin haze of it.
Smoke, she thought—more relief—not fog.
Three strides took her into the compact, eat-in kitchen where the smoke hung in a thin haze.
Not a ruin, but sure a mess. And not one, she determined immediately, caused by an evil sorcerer, but a careless and inept woman.
Keeping an arm around her weeping mother, she took stock.
The roasting pan with the burned joint, now spilled onto the floor beside a scorched and soaking dish cloth told the tale.
“You burned the joint,” Meara said carefully.
“I thought to roast some lamb, as Donal and his girl were to come to dinner later. I can’t approve him moving in with Sharon before marriage, but I’m his mother all the same.”
“Roasting a joint,” Meara murmured.
“Donal’s fond of a good joint as you know. I’d just gone out the back for a bit. I’ve had slugs in the garden there, and went to change the beer.”
Fluttering in distress, Colleen waved her hands at the kitchen door as if Meara might have forgotten where the garden lay. “They’ve been after the impatiens, so I had to see about it.”
“All right.” Meara stepped over, began to open the windows, as Colleen had failed to do.
“I wasn’t out that long, but I thought since I was, I’d cut some flowers for a nice arrangement on the table. You need fresh flowers for company at dinner.”
“Mmm,” Meara said, and picked up the flowers scattered over the wet floor.
“I came in, and the kitchen was full of smoke.” Still fluttering, Colleen looked tearfully around the room. “I ran to the oven, and the lamb was burning, so I took the cloth there to pull it out.”
“I see.” Meara turned off the oven, found a fresh cloth, picked up the roasting pan, the charcoaled joint.