“You really think this woman could find Donal?” Judith was contemplative.

“She believed she could.”

“What do you think?”

He nodded.

“So if you find her, you’ll be helping to find Donal.” She was deep in thought. “You know, Willie and I were going through the photo album last night with the kids and Katie pointed to Donal and asked who he was.” Her eyes filled. “Neither Katie or Nathan remember him, they’ll never have a memory of him and Rachel”-she looked down at her baby in her arms-“she doesn’t even know he existed. Life is going on without him and he’s missing all this.” She shook her head.

Jack couldn’t think of anything to say, didn’t think there was anything to say. The same thoughts ran through his head every second of every day.

“What makes you so sure that a woman you’ve never even met, a woman you don’t know anything about, has the ability to find Donal?”

“Blind faith.” He smiled.

“Since when did you ever have that?”

“Since I spoke to Sandy on the phone,” he replied earnestly.

“There was nothing…” She paused and decided to ask it anyway. “There was nothing between you two, was there?”

“There was something but it was nothing.”

“When is something ever nothing?”

He sighed and decided to avoid the question. “Gloria doesn’t know about Sandy, not that there’s anything to know, but I don’t want her or the rest of the family knowing about the agency.”

Judith didn’t look happy.

“Please, Jude.” He grabbed her hand. “I don’t want to bring everyone through all this again, I just want to try by myself. I need to.”

“OK, OK.” She let go, holding her hand up in defense. “So what are you going to do now?”

“Simple.” He put the file, diary, and phone back into his bag. “I’m going to start looking for her.”

25

I was sixteen years old, in Mr. Burton’s office. I was sitting on one of the burst velvet chairs, the same since the day I’d arrived over two years ago, but for the extra foam on display. I was staring at the same posters on the walls of the cramped room. The bricked walls had been clumsily painted white, some holes still black and naked of paint, others holding clumps of white. It was all or nothing in this room, never even. Blu-Tack clung to parts of the walls, corners of old posters still hung on to the Blu-Tack. Somewhere in the school I imagined a room fully stocked with cornerless posters.

“What are you thinking about?” Mr. Burton finally spoke.

“Cornerless posters,” I replied.

“Ah, that old chestnut.” He nodded. “How was your week?”

“Crap.”

“Why crap?”

“Nothing very exciting happened.”

“What did you do?”

“School, ate, slept, school, ate, slept, multiplied by five more times and to be multiplied by a million more weeks in my life. My future looks bleak.”

“Did you go out at the weekend? You were saying last week that you’d been asked out by a group of people.”

He always wanted me to make friends. “Yeah, I went out.”

“And?”

“And it was OK. There was a house party. Johnny Nugent’s parents were away, so we all went there.”

“Johnny Nugent?” He raised his eyebrows.

I didn’t answer but my cheeks pinked.

“Were you able to forget about Mr. Pobbs and enjoy yourself?”

He asked it so seriously, I studied the Blu-Tack again, feeling slightly embarrassed. I’d had Mr. Pobbs since I was a baby. He was a gray, fluffy, one-eyed teddy bear in blue-striped pajamas, who slept in my bed, and any other bed I stayed in, every night. My parents and I had been away for the week a short time before and as soon as we’d returned I had repacked to go stay with my grandparents for the weekend. Somewhere in changing over my clothes, I’d misplaced Mr. Pobbs. It had upset me deeply all the time I was at my grandparents’ and I’d taken to a two-week-long search of the house on my return, much to my parents’ dismay. Last week we had discussed my not wanting to go out with Johnny Nugent at the weekend because I’d have preferred to find Mr. Pobbs, my trusted friend, no matter how ridiculous it sounded. It had been difficult leaving the house to go out for the night knowing that somewhere in there, Mr. Pobbs lay hidden.

“So you went out with Johnny Nugent?” Mr. Burton went back to the question.

“Yes, I did.”

He smiled awkwardly. He’d obviously heard the rumors too. “Is everything…are you…” He stopped talking and instead made trumpeting noises with his lips while he thought how to rephrase his question. It was rare to see him awkward, as he always seemed to be in control. He was in this room, anyway; other than the small hints of personal information he revealed mistakenly during our at times candid talks, I knew nothing of his life outside of these four walls. I also knew not to ask any questions, because he wouldn’t answer and because I didn’t want to know. Not knowing, asking and him not answering, reminded me that we were strangers in a way. Only inside this room were we familiar. We had created our own world, had rules to follow, and had a line between us that, although it couldn’t be passed, could be danced upon on playful days.

I jumped in and stopped his trumpeting lips from launching into an orchestra of brass instruments. “Mr. Burton, if you’re wondering if I’m OK, then please, don’t worry. For once in my life I’ve lost something and I’ve no intention of searching for it or expect it to come back. I think I’m cured.”

We laughed. And laughed. And when there was an uncomfortable silence while I fantasized about him curing me, too, we laughed again.

“Will you see him again? And by that I mean did you enjoy the company of others? Did you enjoy going out, did you relax, could you forget about all the things that are missing?” He started laughing again. “Did they manage to reach Scathach’s island?”

While my head was banging against the headboard in Johnny Nugent’s parents’ bed, I’d had an epiphany. I’d remembered where I thought I’d put Mr. Pobbs aside in my grandmother’s house, before packing my clothes. I had called her the next day and expected Mr. Pobbs to be found, lying under the bed staring with his one eye at the broken springs beneath. But he wasn’t and we had arranged for my search of my grandparents’ house the following weekend. Even though Johnny Nugent had asked me out. I was going to explain all this when I frowned and asked, “Wait a minute what’s Scathach’s island?”

Mr. Burton laughed. “Sorry, that just slipped out. It’s a bad analogy.”

“Explain!” I smiled, watching his face redden.

“I didn’t mean to say it. It just popped out. Never mind, let’s move on.”

“Hold on a minute, you don’t let me get away with that! I have to repeat everything I mumble.” I laughed, watching him squirm for the first time in my life.

He composed himself. “It’s an old Celtic story, and it was a stupid comparison.”

I motioned for more.

He rubbed his face. “Oh, I can’t believe I’m telling you this. Scathach was a great warrior woman who trained many heroes of the time. Legend tells us that it was almost impossible to reach her island, so that anyone who did was considered worthy to be trained in martial arts.”

My mouth dropped. “You’ve named me after a warrior woman who trains martial arts?”

He laughed again. “The point is that she was a woman who was hard to reach.” He stopped laughing when he saw my face. He leaned forward and grabbed my hand. “I think you’ve taken that the wrong way.”

“I hope so,” I said, slowly shaking my head.

He groaned and thought fast. “It’s just that only the strongest, bravest, and most worthy people could reach her.”

I relaxed a little, liking the sound of this. “How would they reach her?”

He relaxed a little too. “First they would have to cross the Plain of Ill Luck, where they would be pierced by razor-sharp grass blades.” He paused while he studied my face to see whether he should go on or not. Happy that I wasn’t about to punch him, he continued. “Then they would face the Perilous Glens with devouring beasts. Their final task was the Bridge of the Cliff, which was a bridge that tilted upward whenever anyone tried to cross.”