Chapter Text
Adam pushed the hood of his rain jacket back to let the drizzle fall on his face; hopefully, the damp chill would keep him alert enough for standing upright and walking. It might also help fight off the lingering nausea from the plane. Adam mentally cursed his roommates’ combined powers of persuasion.
He’d applied to NUI Galway on a whim. Their Biodiversity and Land Use Planning Master’s degree did interest him, but there was approximately zero chance he’d actually be able to do his graduate studies internationally. As fate would have it, though, Gansey had picked up the mail the day his acceptance letter had arrived.
“Adam!” he exclaimed. “It looks like some university in Ireland really wants you to attend. Shall we visit?” This last part was in jest; Gansey knew how Adam felt about planes
“I, um…” Adam quickly opened the envelope and scanned the first sentence. We are pleased to offer you… “It’s an acceptance letter, actually.”
“It’s a whaaat?” Henry asked, bouncing up from the couch where he’d been engrossed in some video game to come read over Adam’s shoulder. “Parrish! Are you going to abandon us for the other side of the pond?”
“Doubtful,” Adam replied, letting Gansey pluck the letter from his hand. “There wasn’t an application fee and it looked like an interesting program, so. It’s not like I’ll be able to actually go, though.”
“Hmm,” Gansey said. “Have you read all this yet?” Before Adam could point out that they hadn’t given him a chance, he went on, “it says they’ll reimburse you for travel and lodging when you come interview for this fellowship --”
“Okay, give me that.” Adam made a grabby motion and Gansey obliged. “Let me read all this myself before it becomes the subject of household speculation.”
There was no point accepting the fellowship interview if the fellowship didn’t offer full tuition and a stipend. You couldn’t work on a student visa, Adam was pretty sure. And no, Henry, he wasn’t going to accept Seondeok paying for his education now that he was an adult. Though she was much more like a parent to him than his biological parents, there were still some things he couldn’t bring himself to accept. But it turned out the fellowship did offer those things, so Adam’s only remaining objection was his phobia of flying.
“You applied to a university on the other side of an ocean, surely you planned for this,” Gansey insisted.
“Well, no. I expected there was no chance of getting enough funding to actually go, so I didn’t give it a second thought once I sent off the application.”
“My mom has super strong calming tea I can get for you,” Blue offered.
“Which will undoubtedly be so odiferous that security confiscates it,” Henry countered. “I’m sure my mom knows where to get extremely effective sleeping pills.”
Adam kept a straight face, barely. “I will not be accepting questionable drugs from anyone’s mom. I’m sure I’ll survive.”
“Ah-ha!” Henry exclaimed. “So we are going. I knew you’d be unable to resist our combined powers of persuasion.”
“We?”
It did, in fact, turn out to be “we”. Unlike Adam, his friends had immediately noticed that the interview dates fell over spring break. They’d had the trip half-planned before Adam even decided for sure he would go.
Not two hours out of the airport, their group had already split up. Everyone else declared themselves to be ravenous, while Adam was still suffering the effects of motion sickness. He didn’t think he’d be able to stand even the smell of food. It had only made sense to insist they get breakfast without him.
By now he was regretting his decision to go for a walk, though. While the rain kept him awake, it also chilled him more the longer he walked. He started scanning the shops in hopes of finding something other than a restaurant that was open at this hour.
The shops all had civilized opening times like 10 am, not whatever godforsaken hour this was. Adam didn’t want to pull his hands out of his pockets to check. On a whim, he turned down a wide gravel path that led into a copse.
After entering the trees, Adam realized the path was probably a driveway, actually. A wrought iron fence surrounded a ramshackle garden abutting a stone building. The path disappeared under the bumper of a vintage BMW, which peeked out from beneath its rain cover.
Adam was about to turn around when he noticed the sign at the opposite corner of the fence: SHOP ENTRANCE THIS WAY, it announced in blocky red letters. An arrow pointed around the side of the building.
It was sure to be closed like every other shop, but at least he wasn’t trespassing. Adam followed the faint grass path towards the front of the building. A stone walkway led out to the main sidewalk a short distance away. Closer to the building, the walkway meandered through flowerbeds and trellises that were almost as unkempt as the back garden, though all the plants looked to be flourishing. Adam wondered if the shop’s owner shared Persephone’s philosophy on gardening: keep the plants healthy and otherwise let them do as they please.
At the end of the path, two stone steps led up to a heavy wood door set into ivy-and-moss-covered stones. Metal letters with a fresh coat of black paint had been nailed into the worn planks of the door. LYNCH LORE & LEGENDS, they said. An incongruously modern black and red OPEN sign hung from the doorknob.
Adam looked through the window to the left of the door. It displayed a few leather-bound tomes that Gansey would undoubtedly swoon over, but no sign containing the shop’s hours. He tested the doorknob; it turned. The wood groaned as he pushed the door open and went in.
The door opened into a short, narrow hallway containing only a combination coat/umbrella rack. Adam removed and hung his jacket while he took in the main room of the bookshop.
Every wall was covered floor to ceiling in built-in bookshelves, even the walls of a back alcove containing a small desk with an ornate old-fashioned cash register. The bookshelves were solid wood, finished with a dark stain that should have made the room feel oppressive. This effect was prevented by the lamps attached at intervals to the cornices. They were small lamps, with short curved brass necks and bell-shaped green glass shades, but there were so many of them that, combined with the light coming in the front windows, they brightly illuminated the whole store.
The shelves displayed a good number of old, leather-bound books like those in the window, as well as antique cloth-bound volumes. Haphazardly interspersed among these presumably valuable books were yellowing paperbacks and battered hardbacks.
Along each side wall, two doors interrupted the bookshelves. Three of these doors opened into dim rooms, with faint sunbeams making brighter paths to the windows. The fourth door was closed and framed by a pair of potted trees that barely missed scraping the ceiling.
Adam started browsing the shelves on the wall to his right. Most of the books here looked antique, while the rest were large, textbook-style hardbacks. They had titles like Táin Bó Cuailnge and Lebor na hUidre. Adam read a few more of the Irish titles before giving up on this section and entering the nearest side room.
Two lamps turned on as he walked in; one a floor lamp next to the doorway, the other on a side table next to an overstuffed forest-green sofa that sat under the window. Or maybe it was a large armchair. The three walls not containing the window and sofa were covered in bookshelves. These books looked more pedestrian than those lining the main room and had English titles like Celtic Mythology and The Book of Irish Legends.
“There you are. Thought maybe my doorbell was announcing a ghost,” said a deep voice with a heavy Irish accent.
“Is that what you call that awful creaking sound?” Adam asked as he turned around.
Adam looked at the voice’s owner and carefully, deliberately closed his mouth against its natural inclination to gape. The man was leaning against one side of the doorway, and his broad shoulders filled most of it. He was a few inches taller than Adam, with sharp blue eyes and closely shaved dark hair. He looked like he might have stepped out of one of the legends in his books and acquired modern clothes: black combat boots, distressed black jeans, and a dark grey flannel shirt unbuttoned over a black t-shirt.
“It’s an atmospheric doorbell,” the man said defensively. “Before you ask, I have no desire to fix it and get a real doorbell.”
Adam nodded. “Makes sense,” he said, glancing around the room again. “Your doorbell says ‘everything in here is well-loved, if you wanted shiny new books gtfo.’”
One side of the man’s mouth quirked up. “Any doorbell of mine would actually say the fuck off part, but that’s the idea. So, have you decided?”
“Decided what?”
“Whether you wanted these books, or shiny new ones.”
“Oh.” Adam blinked rapidly, in case that might clear the cobwebs from his brain. “Well, I wanted an interesting place to stop in out of the rain, and this definitely delivers better than a shiny new bookshop. Though I don’t think those’re open at this hour anyway.”
The man grinned. “Lucky for you my hours are whenever the fuck I want.”
“Lucky for me,” Adam agreed, “though that doesn’t sound great for business.”
“Don’t come in here and tell me how to run my business,” the man snapped back, though his expression suggested he was more amused than offended. “Tea?” He turned and walked towards the desk in the main room. As he followed Ronan, Adam noticed the black barbs of a tattoo just barely peeking out above his collar.
The desk now held a black teapot covered in an intricate gilt pattern of Celtic knots. A stack of four matching teacups with gilt rims balanced precariously next to it. “Do your ghost visitors drink tea?” Adam asked, gesturing to the larger-than-necessary stack of cups.
“You never know,” the man replied solemnly. “Always best to be hospitable. Especially when supernatural entities are involved.” He plucked two cups from the stack and began pouring tea.
Adam realized he was about to sit down and have tea with someone whose name he didn’t know. “So,” he said, “are you Lynch, or is that just an alliterative name for your shop?”
“I’m a Lynch.” The man -- Lynch -- raised his eyebrows. “My brothers share ownership of the name and the shop. So I usually go by Ronan, to avoid confusion.”
Adam nodded. Ronan looked expectantly at him. Oh, right. “Adam,” he said. “Parrish.” Ronan handed him a cup of tea and gestured at the side room to their left.
Adam followed him in. This room matched the other side room Adam had visited, except that it had dark green upholstered chairs on either side of the window with a table in between. Once they were seated, Adam asked, “is the tea part of the bookshop experience, or do I get special treatment as the first customer of the day?”
“Nah.” Ronan looked at the floor. “You looked like you were about to fucking keel over, is all. Figured you needed to get some caffeine in ya.”
Adam wasn’t sure how to respond to this. It was certainly true, but he’d assumed he was hiding it well. He had years of practice, after all. “Well,” he said finally, raising his teacup, “Thanks for the rescue.”
Ronan raised his back. “Couldn’t have you cracking your head open on my bookshelves.”
“No,” Adam agreed. “Could’ve gotten messy.”
“And been a shit-turd way of starting off your first day in Ireland, I’m guessing.”
“So, you get jet lagged customers so often you can guess how long they’ve been here?”
“Eh.” Ronan circled one finger around his face. “I’ve seen sleep deprivation in the mirror often enough.”
They sipped tea in silence until Ronan sat down his cup and asked, “Anyway, what brings you here? I get the impression you don’t get on planes for fun.”
Adam grimaced at the reminder of his recent experience. The tea seemed to be settling his stomach, at least. “Nope. I’m interviewing for a fellowship at the university.”
“What department? I’ve been around there a bit.”
“Biodiversity and Land Use Planning.” Adam attempted to decipher Ronan’s last sentence. “You’ve ‘been around there’? Are you in school there or does that just mean you’ve, like, walked around the campus a lot?”
Ronan snorted. “Neither. As you’ve probably noticed,” he said, his tone changing to something more formal and professional than Adam would have guessed him capable of, “My bookshop is an invaluable resource for Irish language and literature and history and stuff.”
“You’re a scholarly resource for Irish stuff , got it.”
“So anyway,” Ronan continued in his normal voice, “I know most all the professors in those subjects and they let me drop by their classes when I want to. Also I’ve given a couple lectures.” He said this last bit with a level of nonchalance that suggested he was extremely proud of it.
Adam’s brain helpfully provided him with an image of Ronan, dressed just as he was now, lecturing in one of Adam’s college classrooms. “I’d like to have been there for one of those,” he said honestly.
Ronan grinned ferally. “Come to school here and maybe you’ll get the chance.”
Just then, Adam’s phone started buzzing. “Ah,” he said, “that’s probably my friends. I’m gonna tell them to meet me here, if that’s ok.”
Ronan shrugged. “The sign still says I’m open.”
Adam picked up the phone to hear a definitely over-caffeinated Henry on the other end. “Yeah, Henry,” he said in response to his roommate’s enthusiastic rambling. “I’m at a bookshop on-” he turned to Ronan. “What’s the address here?” He relayed the answer to Henry. “Y’all should meet me here, Gansey will love it. Okay, see you in a minute.”
“A literal minute?” Ronan asked, once he’d hung up.
“Nah. I think it’s a five-minute walk, but knowing them it will take closer to ten.”
“I’m gonna put the tea stuff away then,” Ronan said, standing and picking up their now-empty teacups. “Don’t want to set any unrealistic expectations.” He strode quickly from the room.
Adam followed more slowly, just catching a glimpse as Ronan disappeared down a hallway off the back wall that Adam hadn’t noticed before. He started browsing the books in the desk alcove.
It was several minutes before Ronan came back, much longer than Adam had expected. So he started when Ronan spoke. “Careful. If you stay back there too long, you might have to ring up a customer. It’s like finders-keepers for employees.”
Adam grinned as he turned around. “Must’ve missed the fine print on the entrance sign,” he said. “What happens when your found employee has to get on a plane at the end of the week?”
Ronan returned the grin. “You get extradited back here. I know the fine print’s boring as shit, Parrish, but you really gotta read that stuff if you want to know these things.”
They were interrupted by the front door’s creak. Adam had wondered if Ronan was exaggerating about using it as a doorbell, but the sound was distinct enough even with his deaf ear turned away.
“Ahoyyyy,” Henry called into the store. “Ready to join our day of questing, Adam?”
“Henry.” Blue patted him on the shoulder. “Be less weird, or I’m removing your coffee privileges.”
“ Oh ,” Gansey breathed, “what a delightful place.” He’d started perusing the books on the nearest wall while the others were still removing their coats.
Ronan watched all this silently, then gave Adam a bemused glance.
“Yeah,” Adam responded to the silent question, “the sleep deprivation may be amplifying it a bit, but they’re always like that.”
Gansey abandoned his examination of the books and strode over to Adam and Ronan. “Would you be the eponymous Mr. Lynch?” he began. “May I just say, I’m enchanted by your bookshop. Would you happen --”
Ronan appeared dumbstruck by this overt display of Ganseyness, so Adam held up a hand to stop him. “Gansey,” he said, “this is Ronan. Ronan, Gansey.”
“Ah,” Gansey said, realization dawning, “was I--”
“Yes,” Adam confirmed, “You very much were.” To Ronan, he added, “his parents are politicians, he can’t help it sometimes.”
Ronan nodded as though this explained everything. “So,” he said to Gansey, “I think I detected a question in the flood of nonsense?”
“It was sincere nonsense,” Gansey protested. “But yes, I was wondering whether you specialize in Irish mythology, or if you do other Celtic mythology as well? Welsh particularly?”
“Uh,” Ronan replied. “Yes to both. There’s a couple shelves for Wales in there.” He flicked a hand towards the side room where he and Adam had been sitting earlier.
“Excellent,” Gansey began. Before he could make it to the room, Henry dashed over to block the doorway.
“Gansey-man”, Henry said, pressing his hands into either side of the doorway so he could let his head and torso hang forward. “Remember the plans we made over breakfast? Like, literally minutes ago? This was not among them.”
“But--” Gansey protested, attempting to duck under one of Henry’s arms.
Henry moved the arm down to thwart him. “Ah-ah-ah,” he scolded. “No buts. We will return here later in the week. I shall build enough time into the itinerary that you can hunt dusty dead kings to your heart’s content. But for now, adventure awaits!” He made a marching motion towards the front door.
“Adventure awaits here ,” Gansey grumbled, but he turned back to Ronan. “Ah, I suppose we’ll be returning at a later date. What are your hours?”
“Pfft, hours ,” Ronan scoffed. He pressed several buttons in succession to open a drawer of the cash register, and retrieved a business card. He handed this to Gansey with a put-upon sigh. “You can call if you wanna make sure I’m open.”
“Thank you,” Gansey said. “Oh! Adam. I called the B&B to see if we could check in early so you could get some sleep, but unfortunately they won’t have any rooms ready. I hope you’re up to some traipsing about?”
“Ehm,” Adam started. He was certainly capable of “traipsing” while exhausted, but now that the option of not doing that had been hinted at, it sounded far more appealing.
“I’ve got a couch in the office,” Ronan interjected. Pulled from his internal deliberation, Adam blinked slowly at him. Ronan shrugged. “You look like you’re gonna pass out regardless, so.” He waved an arm at the hallway. “Couch, take it or leave it.”
But you’re here to vacation with your friends and but what if Ronan’s actually a murderer who lures victims with his bookshop were weak arguments against Adam’s fatigue. Well, the latter was probably an absurd argument anyway. “Yeah,” Adam said, “Couch sounds good.”
Blue left off her examination of the trees to come over and gently punch Adam’s bicep. “Have a good nap,” she said. “Don’t miss us too much.”
“We’ll be sure to regale you with tales of all you missed,” Henry added.
“Call us when you wake up,” Gansey said practically. “See you later, Ronan.”
Once they’d left, Ronan jerked his head to motion Adam to follow him down the hallway. It was short, with a bathroom on the right and a closed door with a PRIVATE sign at the end. Ronan reached into the doorway on the left and flicked the lightswitch. There was a desk containing several helter-skelter piles of papers and books, and a bookshelf that was almost equally unorganized. More stacks of books were strewn around the floor. The proffered couch appeared to be the only clear surface.
“Make yourself at home,” Ronan said.
Adam yawned as he sank onto the couch. “How’d you know my home contains roommates who consider piling things everywhere an organizational system?”
“This is a perfectly reasonable organization system, if you’re not a nerd-ass,” Ronan retorted. “Go to sleep.” He turned out the light as he went out.
When Adam came back to the public part of the store a few hours later, he wondered if he was even more jet lagged than he’d thought. Had the trees framing the closed door really been that big before? The door was no longer closed, either. It was probably just that the room beyond was dark, but it looked like the doorway framed by the trees was an entrance to another world. The ley line was really strong here.
As Adam came closer, a small girl darted out of the room, skidding to a stop when she noticed Adam staring at her. She wore an off-white fisherman sweater that hung to her knees and was dotted with dirt and grass stains. Wisps of light blonde hair peaked out from under a matching beanie that was pulled down over her ears. She clutched a silvery branch to her chest with both hands.
Adam dropped to a crouch, trying not to startle her further. “Hello,” he said softly. “I’m Adam.”
The girl approached cautiously, and it was then he noticed her legs: furry, bent in a decidedly ungulate way, and ending in hooves. She put her face right up to his and stared into his eyes for an uncomfortably long time. “You can see me,” she said, finally.
“Course I can see you. You’re here, aren’t you?”
“I’m here, but most humans are less here. So they don’t see me.”
“Opal? What the fuck?”
Opal turned to Ronan, who had entered without them noticing. “This is Adam,” she announced. “He belongs here.”
“No, runt, he’s just visiting.” Ronan frowned at her. “You know you’re not supposed to let visitors see you.”
“I didn’t let him,” Opal said, “I told you. He belongs here.”
“Let me know when you’re ready to be less fucking cryptic about that,” Ronan told her before turning to Adam. “You’re a seer, I guess? You don’t look like this is a particularly shocking revelation to you.”
“Psychic. I think it’s basically the same.”
“Psychics are more likely to be charlatans,” Ronan muttered. Before Adam could protest he added, nodding toward the doorway, “but you gotta have some fucking strong psychic powers to see that.”
“I don’t know that my powers are stronger than the average psychic. They’re….different. Maybe seer is a good description, actually.”
Adam got the impression Ronan was trying to regain his equilibrium. “Really? You see fairy folk a lot?” He might’ve been hopeful or frightened or confused; Adam wasn’t used to people being so difficult to read. Then again, maybe he was all three.
“Not so many fairy folk where I’m from. Magical objects, stuff hidden on the ley line. But it’s more that I can see whatever I need to find. So why did I need to find you, huh?” He asked, turning to Opal.
“You. Belong. Here.” She repeated, irritated. “You need the thin place.”
“He has thin places at home, he just said,” Ronan interjected.
“Yeah,” Adam agreed, “I do.”
“ No ,” Opal snapped, “He belongs here. This one’s his place.” Adam thought Ronan looked….a bit disgruntled, maybe, when he told her Adam was going home at the end of the week.
“He’ll come back,” Opal told them firmly, before vanishing through the doorway. Adam remembered Persephone’s cryptic prediction that he’d meet someone and something in Ireland. He had folded it up and put it in the drawer labeled “don’t drive yourself bonkers thinking about this.” The thing was, it was a fool’s errand to try understanding what Persephone’s predictions meant, but they always came true. Adam was all but certain that the “something” lay beyond the mysterious doorway. Was “someone” Opal? Ronan? Was he engaging in wishful thinking? He shut those questions away in the drawer with Persephone’s prediction and stepped closer to the doorway.
‘“You can’t just wander into Tir na nÓg,” Ronan exclaimed, grabbing Adam’s wrist as he attempted to peer through. “Jesus, isn’t that the first thing they teach you about thin places? Please tell me you know something .”
“Yeah,” Adam reassured him, not making any effort to free his wrist. “I do have psychic training. I just...was hoping I might see something without going in.”
“You won’t. There’s some magic shit there to stop anyone seeing through. I don’t know what,” in response to Adam’s questioning look, “it’s been there for centuries, at least. And there’s also some newer shit for good measure.”
“Hmm,” Adam examined the doorway and stretched a hand toward it. “Maybe-”
“ No, you are not going to try to figure it out, Einstein. I’m giving you back to your friends in one piece and with your mind no more messed up than it already is.”
Adam stopped trying. He grinned at Ronan. “Maybe another time then. I better call them.”
The Tale of Niall and Aurora Lynch
When Niall Lynch was a young man, he had a fairy lover, a leannán sí. Now Niall Lynch was more learned in the fairy lore than most Irishmen of his day, and he knew that mortal lovers of leannán sídhe perished prematurely, the price for romancing a fickle sprite. So Niall loved his fairy lady, but he knew he must leave her if he wanted to live to a ripe old age.
As it happened, there was a young lady living down the street from Niall who was almost as fair as his fairy love, and many times more kind. Her name was Aurora Behan. Niall thought, if Aurora came to love him, that he might be able to forget his leannán sí. So he wooed her, and found her to be even more lovely than she appeared from afar, and as they fell in love, Niall Lynch found himself thinking of the fairy lady less and less.
At first, when Niall did not come to her fairy-mound, the leannán sí suspected nothing; for she knew that mortal men were almost as fickle as fairy men, and besides, what were a few mortal months to immortal fairy folk? But Niall Lynch had charmed her to a degree no man had managed for many long centuries. And so, one night, she found herself creeping, invisible as a wraith, silent as the wind, into his bedroom. There, she found a mortal woman asleep in bed with him; for it was Niall and Aurora’s wedding night. The leannán sí fled silently, but she was wroth, and began plotting her vengeance.