Chapter 12: Unbearable

Siannon exited the captain’s quarters to find the ship docked and the skeletons disappeared. The gloomy overcast of Macnylleth had given way to bright sunshine. She looked out at the village beyond the harbor with surprise—the ship had brought her to Wicklow, her childhood home, which she had last seen at age 16 after her father had died.

The first thing she noticed after leaving the ship was the people at work in the harbor. They appeared normal, and they spoke Irish, Siannon’s native language, although one she rarely used. Welsh and English were more natural to her, but she spoke polite greetings in Irish and understood when others answered her. Tears filled her eyes as the unbearable loneliness of the past day washed away from simple human contact.

Although nearly forty years had passed, Wicklow was almost identical to her memories. Her sense of being in a dream resurfaced, though her dream on the ship seemed to contradict that possibility. This wasn’t her world, however; that was certain. She knew that other dimensions of reality interacted with hers. The question was how could she return?

Near the center of the village was an open hut attached to a small house. The ringing of a hammer on an anvil pierced the morning air. Siannon approached the blacksmith’s shop and saw her father, dead almost four decades, young and healthy, forming a set of horseshoes while a black-haired girl of eight played behind him with a small sword and shield.