FicWad

Grateful for a few days' respite, Jack spends his time with Lynn. The twins arrive on the evening of the nineteenth. The brothers sit down to a small dinner, though Shane and Jack have already eaten with Lynn and Jason, but the twins had been packing since noon. Nevertheless, the elder brothers drink ale and whiskey with the twins, though they do not eat. Lynn flits in and out serving food and drink. Jason is sleeping up in his room. After dinner, the men sit in the drawing room drinking port wine and brandy. Jack stretches out on a chair by the fire. The twins sit side by side on the sofa. Shane curls his huge frame up on the chair across from Jack. The family only gathers on major holidays, though Jack and the twins see each other frequently, but their sister, who lives far to the north, only visits rarely and never without good reason.

Shannon and her daughter Siobhan arrive early the next morning. Only Jason is awake to greet his aunt and adult cousin when they arrive. His aunt is not fond of this. She asks Jason to wake his father with due haste, which he tries to do without success. Instead of waking his father, he wakes Lynn, who dresses and goes downstairs to meet the visitors. Shannon is not pleased. She wanted to speak with Jack, not his new girlfriend. Lynn goes upstairs to wake Jack. He moans incoherently before stumbling out of bed. It is not yet dawn, and Jack is the patriarch of the Shepherd clan, so he takes his sweet time showering, shaving three days' worth of stubble, and dressing in a bulky Aran sweater and wool trousers before going downstairs. His sister is not amused, but she is as kind as she can manage to Jack nonetheless because he is both her patriarch and her host.

Jack, who had gone out to fetch one last Yuletide gift the previous night, greets his sister with a simple "How're yeh?"

"Jack, is John here?"

"Nay, he's still in hospital wi' Maire."

"An' what does the mother o' your children think o' ye sleepin' wi' the Demon o' Lust?"

"She wishes us luck."

"Don't ye dare make a bollocks o' this one."

"Aye, ma'am."

Shane comes downstairs showered and fully dressed just before the sun comes up. Jason is sitting on the kitchen floor annoying Lynn, who is preparing pancakes for breakfast. Shannon runs over to Shane and hugs him tightly, fussing over him as if he were a newborn child. She read about the raid of his town in the newspaper on the first night of her journey and had no way of knowing if her brother was even alive, let alone coming to Jack's house for Yule.

The adults take turns watching Jason while preparing for company. Jack, the lord of the manor, scrubs the floors himself, despite his less-than-perfect back, much to the amusement of his siblings. Lynn helps Shannon and Siobhan in the kitchen while the twins set up guest rooms and chairs, and Shane shovels and chops wood, hauling much of it upstairs to the guest rooms that the twins have prepared. Yuletide morning is spent doing the same, excepting Jack himself, who is helping Shane outside. Finally, Jack's back can take no more and he is forced to recline on the sofa until his sister can help him, an activity that he does not mind one bit.

Kerrigan and Morietur are the first to arrive. They are Demons, but Kerrigan represents a Demon, a Banshee, and a Vampire all at once. Morietur is clean-shaven, and his wild auburn hair is pulled back into a braid. Kerrigan made him retract his horns, wings, and tail and wear his black tuxedo and robes of state. He seems stiff and uncomfortable in such formal attire, but his wife either does not notice or is decidedly ignoring the fact. Kerrigan is wearing a dark red silk gown with exceptionally wide skirts and countless layers of gathers of ruby silk. She stands on her toes to hug Jack, who is somewhat fearful of such interaction in front of Morietur, Kerrigan's fearsome husband.

The Kavanaghs arrive next. Nuala Kavanagh is the Lianhan-Shee. She is also the triplet sister of Kerrigan from the life when Kerrigan became a Banshee as Edana Kavanagh, as well as by creation. Nuala is wearing a blood red and white silk gown. With her is their half-Banshee, half-Vampire brother Avalon, who is similarly slight of build and extremely fair-complexioned like his sisters. He wears his long curly hair neatly about his shoulders. Avalon wears a black tailcoat and a red waistcoat. The Devil arrives with Lord and Lady Death. For most of the next hour guests arrive. All of the Generals under Jack and Kerrigan and a handful of Senators arrive early in the evening. Later, Jack's oldest friends arrive. Many of them traveled from the depths of District Thirteen to be there. Some have wives and children. Others came alone. Ten men, including Jack, from the original Thirteenth Bridgeton Light Infantry survived the Vampire Revolution, and they are all there. Everyone brought either food or drink, and some brought gifts, though most did not. Some brought instruments. After the feast, most of the guests stay overnight because many are too inebriated to make their way home safely. Jack has several rooms in his house which he uses rarely. The feast is as much his sister's as his. The scale of the affair is grand, and it lasts late into the night through countless courses of rich food and strong drink. It seems as though the food, drink, and dancing will never end. The guests range from Kerrigan and Morietur, the wealthiest citizens in Hell, to those from Jack's first army unit, many of whom are impoverished. Jack, being prone to excess, drinks, eats, and dances too much and is the last one to go to bed.

During dinner, just before dessert, Jack called for silence, bent down on one knee, despite the pain in his back, and proposed marriage to Lynn, who looked to the Devil as if for permission. The Devil merely nodded, raising his glass gracefully, and gave her a hint of a smile. Lynn immediately accepted Jack's proposal and pulled him into her arms. Even Michael Crane, who had not smiled since before his brother died, came as close to smiling as he is able. The women all admire Lynn's new ring with its emerald and diamonds. The men all clap Jack on the back and comment on how lucky he is. When he sees Lynn in bed, he cannot help but smile, though his head is pounding with fatigue and intoxication and his back is aching from having been on his hands and knees and having shoveled and chopped firewood for so many hours.

The next morning, Jack awakes with Lynn lying on top of him. His sister, who only drinks on holidays, brings him some herbal tea. He assesses his house with a clear head. Only the guests who came from other districts stayed the night. Kerrigan and Morietur invited the Devil, Lord and Lady Death, the Kavanaghs, and Logan Harte to stay with them in their nearby vacation house, which is, of course, larger and more opulent than Jack's house could ever hope to be. Remaining in Jack's house are District Thirteen residents, military officers, his family, and the McFinns. Dermott McFinn made a huge breakfast for everyone who stayed. Jack sits at the head of the table in silence while Lynn compliments Dermott's cooking and Jason runs around and under the table with Mike's sons. Dermott's two daughters sit quietly in a corner. Mike, detecting Jack's annoyance, sends the boys into the kitchen and tells them to mind the fire. There are sausages, eggs, and soda bread, and, of course, there is plenty of alcohol.

"How about outside in the woods?" asks Lynn.

"Hmmm...?"

"The wedding... how about outside?"

“In the snow?” asks Mike before Jack has the chance to agree.

“I suppose not… damn! The Senate Hall would be perfect. ‘Tisn’t for rent,” says Jack with a hint of aggravation.

“Where then?”

“Jack, ye could ask Morietur,” says Dermott. “He can hold the weather.”

“I don’ know. He’s none too fond o’ me.”

“Have his wife ask.”

“An’ get her killed?”

“He’ll do nothin’ o’ the sort. Morietur won’ do shite to her.”

“What’ll stop him?”

“He’d die wi’ out her.”

“Please don’ talk about that,” Mike says in a pained manner.

The men fall silent, but Lynn keeps asking Jack questions. He promises to take her to a florist and a dressmaker after breakfast. None of the men want anything to do with the wedding preparations, even if it is the wedding of an old friend. Dermott contents himself with cleaning the dishes. Sullivan goes out to the barn to feed the sheep. Mike starts to chop firewood. Daniel King, another bartender from District Thirteen, starts sweeping. The military men grumble and go over charts. Jack and Lynn spend the day north of Jack’s house in a wealthy shopping district. The area is fairly unfamiliar to Jack, however they manage to find a dressmaker of good repute. Lynn sets her eyes on an off-the-shoulder ivory gown with sleeves that come to a point on the back of her hands, gemstones sewn onto it, a matching choker, a very wide skirt, a long train, many gathers, and much embroidery and lacework. She insists on that very dress, which somehow fits her perfectly, though she will not allow Jack to see her in it out of superstition. Although money is not an object to either of them, Jack worries that his wedding may offend some of his friends, whose own weddings, if they have been married, were on pain of death or were small affairs with no extravagance, save perhaps a single bottle of good alcohol. They next venture to a florist who makes the boutonnieres and bouquets as they wait. Jack is hardly paying any attention.

They return to his house around noon. Daniel King is in the kitchen. He automatically pours a whiskey when he sees Jack as though he is behind a bar rather than on the other side of a kitchen table. He says little. In fact, the only acknowledgment that there is another person in the room is the absentminded pouring of alcohol. Jack gets the feeling every time Daniel is around that perhaps he is as scarred as Mike is, but in all the time he has known him, Daniel has always been quiet and reserved, a gentleman in the robes of a barkeep. Daniel walks over to the fire and stirs a stew that is bubbling gently in a heavy cast iron pot hanging from the hook on the arm of the fireplace. Daniel King is the proprietor of the Three Kings, a tavern on a hill in District Thirteen on the far side of the city of Bridgeton, which bridges districts Thirteen, Five, and Twenty. There is nothing very remarkable about Daniel King’s appearance. He has gray-blue eyes and hair that is somewhere between golden and straw-like, and his skin is slightly darkened from many years in the army and on the farm where he grew up. He is unmarried and childless. He is never the first to make a gesture toward another. The few friends he does have rarely see him. He is neither remarkably bright nor remarkably stupid. He does his job and sleeps. He enjoys few pleasures in life. His tavern is an old house on the hill that once belonged to someone with some local prestige, but he has neither the time, skill, expertise, nor funding to return it to its former glory. His long-dead brothers once helped in maintenance and management of the property, hence the name Three Kings, however, they died in the war, and, unlike Michael Crane, Daniel King cannot bring himself to take an apprentice, nor can he find a new partner. The room is lit by a blue glow from the snow outside and by the flickering of the fire over which Daniel is bent. Jack finds it interesting that Daniel was left alone in the kitchen, but everyone else, save perhaps Michael, forgets themselves at the holidays.

Jack finishes his whiskey and wanders around his house alone as if taking stock of his guests. Michael Crane is enjoying a rare moment of peace with only his daughter for company in the dark of Jack’s ballroom. Kerrigan had convinced him that he needed a formal ballroom on the first floor of his house. He uses it as extra dining and dancing space on the holidays, but it sees little other use. The curtains are drawn, and there is but one solitary candle on the piano to light the scene with its erratic flicker. Michael is sitting in a delicate chair so obviously designed for a woman that he looks horribly out of place, sitting there in his best suit with his baby girl dressed up like a porcelain doll propped up on his knee in the center of the spacious room.

Jack finds Michael’s sons, the Callahan boys, the Malone boys, and Jason in the yard with Sullivan O’Shea. They are playing some game involving running and shouting in the deep snow. Mrs. Morrighan McFinn is sitting with her daughters in the drawing room where she is instructing them on something, possibly etiquette or handwriting. Dermott McFinn is pacing in the back hall apparently lost in thought. Shane is in the bar hidden in a back corner of the first floor drinking more than he should of the type of hard liquor that he knows he cannot handle, Jack assumes, to try to block out the thought of what may have befallen his comrades. Jack has been in the same spot doing the same thing many times before. He knows that words will do Shane no good. He continues up the main staircase unnoticed. He finds one of the generals on the second floor admiring the paintings on the wall. General Murdock pauses in front of the smallest picture: an aged photograph of Jack’s first army unit, and he turns to face Jack as if the man in the back row might not be the man standing in the hall. Ryan Murdock, who usually does not come to parties, stands there observing Jack with his one good eye and hobbles over on his wooden leg and cane. He looks back to the picture, and Jack disappears.

Shannon is bathing in the third floor bathroom. Jack knows from the singing and the smell of lavender. Her daughter Siobhan is sipping tea periodically as she works on embroidering something that Jack cannot see through the crack in the door to her room. The twins are binding books in the room in which they are staying on the third floor. Jack watches silently for a while. Sean takes the folded signatures out of the briefcase they brought and sews them artfully together, his long, nimble fingers making light work of something that might take Jack an entire day to complete. Seamus takes the stacks that have already been sewn, glues them, cuts the pasteboard and fabric for the covers, glues the covers together, and paints the name on the front and spine delicately. The dried signatures will be cut and glued into the books when the twins return home after Jack’s wedding.

A few rooms away, Keegan Callahan is enjoying a quiet moment alone with his wife. With seven sons, four still living at home, and a fairly small house, quiet moments are a rarity for the Callahans. Jack leaves them alone. Eamon Malone and his wife are in the hallway. The Malones are probably the poorest people Jack knows. Eamon’s mother died when he was only a small child, and his father was nowhere to be found after he was born. His grandfather raised him as well as he could. Several men later, his mother died in childbirth, and all but two of his half-brothers, one older and one younger, and one of his half-sisters died as children as a result of poverty. After some time, their grandfather lost a leg in an accident. Mister Malone, who could no longer work, married his granddaughter off at a tender age to prevent her from going into prostitution and sent the eldest and youngest of her brothers into apprenticeships. Evan had been apprenticed to a blacksmith. Edward went wayward and was killed in a duel at nineteen. Erin died like her mother in childbirth. Eamon was a hardened criminal at the age of seven, before his mother died. He had spent time in prison for various crimes throughout his youth. Still, when the call came to overthrow the king, he signed up the first chance he got, perhaps out of resentment, perhaps out of spite, perhaps out of the idea that he might actually become noteworthy for something. That was when his sister and younger brother were alive. Someone was there to care for his grandfather. His grandfather is still alive. It is many a day when he is upstairs with friends and his grandfather starts playing his old fiddle in the room below. The only reason that they own a house is that their grandfather owned it long before his accident. Eamon's grandmother drank herself to death when his mother was only a child. His relationship with his only remaining half-brother is strained at best. Evan lives in the attic and wants nothing to do with Eamon. He leaves for work before anyone else is up and returns while they are all eating dinner. He locks the door to his room when he is in it and when he is away. He only comes down to do chores when he is sure everyone else is in bed. The only member of the family to whom he talks is their grandfather. Eamon prefers not talking to Evan anyhow. His half-brother always scared him. Still, every holiday when Eamon, his wife Bevin, and their sons stay at Jack’s house, the house miraculously cleans itself in Evan’s spare time. It takes Eamon about half an hour to properly mess it up again, driving his half-brother up a tree, no doubt. Eamon barely remembers what his half-brother looked like ten years earlier, and it has been at least ten years since Eamon saw him face to face. The estranged half-brothers could not be more different. Eamon is boisterous and prone to vice, and Evan is the only member of the entire known Malone family with no criminal record outside the revolution and a distaste for alcohol. Eamon is a decorated general, and Evan would not touch a gun if his life depended on it, for his only crimes were in harboring and aiding rebels. Eamon loves people, and Evan avoids them at all costs. Still, much as he cannot stand his pretentious half-brother, Eamon would die to protect him. The two of them are all their grandfather has left, after all.

Jack finds John Murphy passed out in the bathroom in a pool of blood, booze, and vomit. He is not at all surprised by that. What does surprise him is that Mick McMahon, their friend from Earth, is with him trying to wake him up. Mick looks to Jack and grunts hello. Eloquence was never his strong point. Jack asks if he can help and is told to grab John’s feet and help lift him into the tub. Careful not to slip, Jack does so and turns on the shower with ice cold water. He then moves on while John is screaming for mercy. He comes across the O’Caseys. Ronan is a general, however his father, with whom he lives, is a simple blacksmith. Ronan has many brothers and sisters, though they are all adults. Unlike the Malones, the O’Caseys are a family who relied on charity rather than theft to survive, though many treated them like common criminals in passing. Ronan is studying a map of tactical maneuvers and his father Saxen is pointing things out to him with an iron rod designed to move pieces on such maps. Neither father nor son is looking forward to the prospect of a war, and the threats have been coming for months. Neither a confirmation of attack nor a notice of retreat has come, and, with Jack having been absent since he lost custody of his son and only recently returned to his normal semi-coherence, Ronan has aged a decade in a handful of months. Many of the O’Casey boys are in the army, and Saxen is worried about the welfare of his sons, his grandsons, and one of his great-grandsons. Jack notices that Ronan’s hand is bandaged. In peacetime, Ronan works with his father in the blacksmith shop. His hand was badly burned. Jack walks in and moves three of the pieces on the map in accordance with a letter which arrived in his absence that morning.

He leaves the O’Caseys and peers into his office only to find Maire and their son John. She gives him a cold nod of recognition and hands the baby to him. Jack greets and thanks her, but she only tells him before she leaves not to even think about drinking with both of their sons in his care. Maire has not always been so frigid to Jack, but he somehow wishes that she had been because he never would have meet her at that party; could it be over five years ago, he wonders? Of course it was. Jason was born a few weeks before Beltane. He remembers his sister fawning over his baby son when she came to visit. Those times were happy. There was the party. Maire, the perennial advocate for temperance, had accidentally drunk the wrong thing, and Jack, being an opportunistic man, had elected to offer himself to her in hopes that she might like the idea as much as he. Of course, their little encounter went as planned, but there was one little hitch. They got married as soon as she found out she was pregnant, and then Jason came along. The troubles started soon after that. They knew the marriage was hopeless, but after a fight, they figured that they might make up for the squabbling by being intimate, and John came, but Maire would not be stopped by a nasty little glitch like a baby from filing divorce proceedings against Jack. She would not fall for his trap this time. She warned Lynn. She is not happy about her now ex-husband, who spent the entire three months since he lost custody of Jason and the then-unborn John in court, drinking, sleeping with and now marrying a close friend of hers who has had her share of bad relationships. Jack is not a bad father, nor is he a bad man. He is a terrible keeper of promises and an alcoholic. His heart is in the right place, and Maire knows this well, but his head is elsewhere all too often. No amount of her nagging would break him of his habits. Still, she thinks, poor Lynn. Poor boys. Maire spent years learning proper Banshee and many more learning proper Vampire. She is also fluent in Demon. Jack never even lost his farm-boy Irish accent. What an influence on their sons! Drinking, whoring, improper speech. Awful! Distasteful! Yet, Lynn seems to see something worth keeping around. Maire has no idea what it might be. All she knows is that she needs to move her things within the borders of the Vampire District before the Werewolves attack, lest the sons of a Vampire Senatorial General be found in the No Man’s Land that is the rest of Hell. She worries for her boys. They are not their father’s. They are hers. She is convinced.

Jack runs into Lynn in his bedroom where he goes for a moment of quiet, putting John onto a blanket on the floor. After all, a premature newborn baby cannot go far, Jack figures. He wakes up from a short nap to Lynn playing with his son and making a note of every possible way Jack’s son looks like he does. They bring the boys to the jeweler after eating Daniel’s luncheon stew. No amount of help could make Daniel King’s cooking delectable or even desirable. On the other hand, Jack did not have to cook. John sleeps in his father’s arms while Jack and Lynn decide on wedding rings. Jason whines about the cold and having to stand while his father decidedly ignores him. They then stop in a pub, despite Jack’s promises to Maire that he would not consume alcohol with John around. Jason has seen him drink hundreds of times. He even lets Jason try a little sip of his whiskey. The bar is unfamiliar to him. It is a posh place in District Five. He never drinks in District Five. He always goes over the border. He would rather drink cheap whiskey and tell stories among friends than rub elbows with high society. He had some difficulty ordering his drink. The bartender seemed fairly clueless as to the idea of serving straight whiskey in a glass with nothing else. The bartender kept insisting that whiskey is drunk with something else mixed in or on ice. Jack has never heard of most of the drinks that the man is describing. After nearly ten minutes of arguing, Jack asks to see the bottle of whiskey and a glass. He pours himself a shot and drinks it and asks the bartender to mimic what he poured. The bartender keeps his mouth shut and does as he has been asked. He was taught to keep it shut. He has no education or money to speak of, and these people are rich. He is lucky the boss keeps him on, in his opinion. That being said, he has never been asked for something as strange as an unmixed drink other than champagne or brandy.

After an hour or so in the strange bar, Jack returns to his house with Lynn and the boys. It is a miracle they make it with him driving, as he is so inebriated that he has begun to sing. His wedding is in a week and a half. He has yet to even decide on a location. At least he knows where everyone he wants to invite can be found. When he returns to his house, it is time for dinner. Something was made of leftover duck and the oysters are still good. Jack does not attend dinner. He locks himself in the bar and drinks more after putting John to bed and leaving Jason strict instructions to go to bed when Michael puts his boys to bed. He is the only person with the keys to his office, the library, and the bar. Not even his fiancée can sneak in. He empties the bar of the last of the whiskey, gin, and poitín. Once he has cleaned out the bar, he feels moderately better, or at least more numb than before, however, something is persistently bothering him. Once everyone else has gone to bed, he sits in the drawing room drinking a glass of whiskey and smoking a cigar in front of the dying embers of the fire from the evening which he missed. He hears a knock on the front door and gets up to answer it, swaying and swaggering. He risks opening it, and on the step he sees Kerrigan. Morietur offered to hold off the weather, and Death offered to perform the wedding ceremony. She comes in for a short while to warm up from the frigid air, and notices Jack’s state of intoxication. She helps him to the sofa and lights his cigar for him. She offers to help him upstairs, but he is restless. He insists that he could drink more, which she does not doubt; however, Kerrigan knows of Jack’s promise to Maire, and she insists after about an hour that he go to bed.

He does not sleep well after his drinking binge. He tosses and turns, eventually falling off the bed with a dull thud as he lands on the carpet. Around two in the morning, his restlessness wakes Lynn, who was sleeping peacefully until he accidentally kicked her with his long legs. She sits by his side concerned until his eyes finally close. Eventually he falls into an uneasy sleep curled up with a pain in his side worse than he has ever felt with Lynn gently stroking his hair and singing hypnotically. In his intoxicated state, he knows one thing outside of pain and exhaustion: Kerrigan was right in saying that he drank too much. He wakes up late. Lynn is already downstairs. Jack’s head is pounding, and his entire body aches. It takes him nearly half an hour to arrive at the bathroom halfway down the hall, but before he can even throw up, his son runs into him at full speed shouting, jumping, and knocking Jack to the floor. Shane feels almost as ill as Jack does, but he knows that by midday it will pass. Their sister helps Shane. He does not drink much normally and almost never gets hangovers. Jack, on the other hand, drinks far too much. He can’t remember what he drank, but he remembers Kerrigan sending him to bed. Jason wants his father to play with him. Jack wants nothing more than to pass out. He swears he will not drink ever again.

Jack sends the boy downstairs for breakfast, but he himself does not make it downstairs in time to even catch the last scraps of breakfast. He stumbles down the stairs and into the kitchen to find tea. Some semi-coherent thought pulsing at the back of his brain tells him that it will help. He stumbles out the back door into the bright glow of the sun reflecting off the snow. It is an assault on his bleary eyes, so he grabs a couple of logs and a handful of kindling and returns to the dark interior of the house. He proceeds to light a fire and put on the kettle. After hearing the whistle of a teakettle for over a straight minute, Michael Crane runs into the kitchen, baby in his hands, to find Jack seizing violently. He runs to the back door and calls Sullivan O’Shea inside to help. The shouting brings Dermott McFinn down the hall from where he had been showering. Mike hands his daughter to the Banshee wearing a towel, figuring that Dermott being half-clothed, drenched, and much smaller than he and Sullivan, would be less-useful for moving Jack away from the fire. Daniel King walks in looking as calm as if nothing dire is happening, drenches the fire with the water from the teakettle, and stamps out the embers that jumped out of the fireplace. Jack stops momentarily, so Mike and Sullivan, for the sake of moving, tear off their jackets, vests and shirts, leaving only suspenders and wife beaters, and take the opportunity to grab his feet and head respectively and carry him into the drawing room where there is a plush carpet by the unlit fireplace and several pillows to cushion his head. Daniel takes Jack’s spare set of keys off of a hook on the side of the liquor cabinet and closes the drawing room from the guests. Dermott sits on the stairs in the foyer with Mike’s daughter as she sleeps. None of them want to tell Lynn. Daniel tears four straws out of the cornhusk broom in the kitchen and snaps one in half. Dermott draws the short straw, so he goes to find Lynn, handing Mike’s daughter off to Daniel.

Lynn runs down to be with her fiancé. Mike stands with an old towel in his hands and a grim expression on his face. Jack wakes up on the carpet after having a second seizure, looking up into Lynn’s tearful face. He mentions that she might postpone the wedding by a couple of days and send the twins out to take care of things. Lynn wants to find Kerrigan for help because Kerrigan is accustomed to Jack’s drinking habits. Jack insists that he can walk upstairs alone and has work to finish. He ends up tripping on the main staircase and requiring Mike to help him up. He collapses again on the landing. Mike grabs several heavy woolen blankets from a closet and puts them on the bathroom floor where he carefully places Jack. Nobody tells Jason what happened to his father. Somehow, it never comes up. After a handful of hours, Jack stops seizing and throwing up. He goes upstairs to his office to work feeling considerably better, so he thinks. He takes a handful of aspirin dry for his aches and sets to work with Lynn on seating people at tables for the wedding. It is not so bad, he thinks. His hand is a little shaky, but he’d been shaking to various degrees since the night previous, sure, was it not one of these slight tremors that kept him awake?

For the next day and a half, Jack and Lynn plan their wedding. He does not sleep well and refuses food, however neither is inherently unusual for Jack. It is the voices. He hears his father, his uncle, his brothers, his sister, his friends, Lynn, and even Liam’s mother expressing disappointment. He feels horribly guilty. He forgets how long it has been since he drank, but late one night, he starts shaking visibly and somewhat violently. All of a sudden, Kerrigan walks in, her face bloodied and bruised. Jack lunges off the drawing room sofa to reach for her by the door. He stumbles forward and reaches for her, but she remains out of his reach when he falls down and feels himself being dragged backward. There is an awful ringing in his ears that turns to keening. He stands on what seems at first like a great precipice. It is the dead of night and he can feel the gloom encroach on his body. The night is almost sickly green with fog obscuring most of his legs from the knee down. He looks across the opening upon which he is precariously perched and sees a tombstone. He cannot read the name clearly. He looks down and sees an open empty coffin. A pair of unseen hands thrust him forward and into the opening just as he catches his own name on the stone. He falls for an age and lands with a thump in the coffin, which snaps shut. He hears dirt being piled on top of him. He bangs on the lid and screams, but the dirt piles heavier. He starts kicking and clawing and all the while, worms eat their way easily through the thick wood that Jack cannot break. At first the drilling is incredibly painful. Jack looks down, somehow able to see in the total darkness, and notices that his feet have been picked clean to the bone. The worst of the pain is his stomach, but once it is half eaten away, he starts to become cold. He can feel his heartbeat slowing down. He is breathing slowly and shallowly. He is almost out of air. He can no longer move his legs. His body is numb, and the drilling has become pleasant. It almost tickles as an army of worms eats his nearly-destroyed liver as if it is a delicacy. Then everything fades to black.

He sees his son alone on an otherwise empty stage at night. Jason is standing in a beam of light from a window in a house nearby the outdoor stage reciting the rosary very slowly and without emotion. He sees a photograph at his son’s feet and recognizes it. It is his half of the picture of himself and Maire from their wedding. Maire’s half lies ten feet away. Out of nowhere two ravens swoop down and grab him by the shoulders. They carry him up into the black oblivion, his son not noticing his presence or departure.

A battlefield fades into view. He knows the field. He remembers the battle. He has been here before. It is a hot day just after Lughnassadh. Jack is wearing heavy, green wool trousers and a heavy, green wool jacket over a leather breastplate, a starched, white cotton shirt almost as stiff as the wool and leather, and a wife beater. The suspenders holding up his trousers rub against the breastplate and his shoulders. He is carrying nearly half his weight in ammunition, and, considering that he is, in his mind, rather heavy, that amounts to about the weight his body is telling him that he is. His helmet, which is the same stiff leather as his breastplate, is causing his vividly orange hair to fall in his eyes. He shouts to his friends. They are outnumbered four to one by an enemy that is half brutal police force and half invading army. The twenty-five men do not fear. Nothing that the state could throw at them could be worse than the streets have. The people will have no more. They rush forward as if they own the battlefield already. Twenty-five men go to war. They slay the enemy with what they would like to think is tactical genius but is probably more of a result of numbness from drunkenness and fatigue. They are already battle-worn and have a reputation as being the toughest, or possibly craziest, band of rebels to ever take up arms against the crown. None of them have been in Hell for very long. They are all Earth-born men. Perhaps that makes them more willing to rebel, but they were not exactly free in life either. They face hanging if they are captured. They have no homes or wives and nothing to which they might return. They have nothing save what they can steal from the enemy dead. If they go back, they will die. If they go forward, they may die. The crown offers them nothing. Survival drives them. They are connected to the rebel army, but they work alone, whether they are ordered to or not. They are finally fighting in real armor. It is not as fancy as the metal suits that the crown provided for the hired soldiers. The rebels gave them clothing and food. For three years they fought with only rags for clothing and blankets and only the food that was given to them by rebel sympathizers and what they could steal from their enemy and from the fields.

Jack mounts a bayonet on a rifle that it does not fit exactly. He has no musket balls so he puts bits of broken metal in with a bit of gunpowder and waits. The enemy tries making ordered charges against them. After all, were these men even protected aside from their helmets? The rebels run forward with alarming speed despite their bulky clothing and cut down the first line of men loading their muskets. They draw swords and slash at the remaining soldiers. The order is given to retreat. A young man in the unit, his hair sticking wildly around his helmet, goes after the man calling the orders. He is not yet old enough to shave. He arrived in Hell when he died of plague. His brother had been hanged by the crown of England for rebelling. The young man, whose boyish face is streaked and aged with sun, dirt, cold, and wind, charges forward alone. The older men call for him to come back, but he does not hear them. He loads his pistol and fires, shooting the soldier in the eye. The captain’s guard thrusts a sword down into the young man’s chest behind his armor and kicks him in the chest before turning and leaving with the captain.

The enemy gone, all twenty-four of the fallen man’s comrades crowd around him. They carry him back slung between them, his agile young body weighing seemingly nothing, and one man heats up a sword. The young man’s brother cannot watch. He walks as close to out of earshot as he can get without being seen by the enemy and smokes a cigarette, cupping his hand around the lit end so he will not be shot in the dim light of evening. He still hears the scream. He runs back to be with his baby brother, to whom has been given a strong anesthetic of mandrake and opium as well as an antiseptic paste of yarrow and a sleeping aid of hops, coriander, and whiskey with a whiskey chaser. To make the poor boy sleep on the cold ground would be asking Death to take him, so his brother piles up anything soft he can find, including his own bed, to make the poor boy comfortable. Every man in the unit had been hit at least once but none as bad as this. Mike Crane takes off his helmet and that of his brother. He tells him a story their mother told them once back in Ireland, before the plague. Mike died on the gallows at the age of twenty-three. His brother, fifteen years his junior, died six years later of plague. Mike spent his life trying to save his brother and his death likewise. Mike holds his brother and tells their mother’s tales and sings her lullabies. He urges his brother to fight, but his brother dies just before sunup. He asks that his brother be cremated so that he might carry the boy with him. Instead, the boy is interred in a rebel sympathizer’s cellar.

Lynn does not leave Jack’s side despite his madness. She has heard him shout utter nonsense and seen him run violently after men who are not attacking him. Still, she stays. After a week, she has all but given up hope when he suddenly stops shaking. He looks incredibly skeletal and pale, but his eyes light up when he sees her. She tells him that a week has passed since he started hallucinating and that their wedding is the next morning. She has taken care of the entire wedding and of him. His sister stands by the door of his room looking relieved.

“Ye gave us quite a fright, Jack. ‘Tis good to see ye well again,” she says, handing him breakfast and insisting that he eat. Once he has finished, she says, “There’s someone what wants to see ye,” and she lets Jason into the room.

“Da'?” he asks. Jack motions for him to jump up onto the bed. Lynn fetches John, who has grown considerably stronger in the time Jack has been ill.

“Ach. Son! Did ye miss me?”

“Aye, da’. The Crane boys taught me how to use a stick like a sword, an’ Mister O’Shea brought me into town, an’ he let me take off me shirt an’ box wi’ him, an’ ma’ stopped by, an’ she said she was glad ye was gettin’ off o’ the drink, an’ a mean man in a dress stopped by wonderin’ where ye was, an’ the end. Oh, an’ Miss Kerrigan stopped by an’ taught me how to say somethin’ in Irish. Wanna hear it, da’? Huh? Huh? Huh?”

“Aye, son. Tell me.”

“Sé leighas na póite ól arís. D’ye know what it means? Huh?”

“Aye, son, I do, but ye may tell me anyhow.”

“It means, '’Tis the cure of a hangover to drink again.’' Jason shifts to sitting on his other leg. “Da'? What’s dul-… dil-… del-eer-ee-uhm trem-ens?” he asks, having considerable trouble with the Latin where he did not with the Irish.

“Why d’ye need to know?”

“Someone said ye had it.”

“Aye, I did.”

“Is that why you couldn’t play wi’ me?”

“Aye, son. ‘Tis an awful kind o’ sick. ‘Tis why I’ve not been meself the last week or so.”

“Da'? Can ye play wi’ me?”

“Aye, son, but not in this… rain? ‘Tis midwinter.”

“Morietur did that,” Kerrigan says from by the fireplace. “It was his idea to have a peat fire in here as well. He thought that it would remind you of home.”

“I’ll be sure to thank him. Jaysus, did I die?”

“Three times. ‘Twas Kerrigan what brought ye back,” says his sister.

“Jaysus but it hurt! Someone help me up. I’ve the need to see me own house.” Kerrigan helps Jack up, though she is by far the farthest from his height. She takes him by the hand and steadies him. When he sees his reflection in the mirror he gasps, “I’ve the look o’ the face o’ Death.”

“No, Jack, you do not. Although my son certainly is a man after your own heart, the two of you look absolutely nothing alike.”

“’Twas a figure o’ speech.”

When they are out of his room and alone, Kerrigan takes the chance to warn him that Morietur is downstairs. “It is wonderful to see you feeling somewhat better. I was worried beyond belief about you, Jack. You mean a lot to all of us.”

“An’ what’ve the army? Need we move now?”

“No, Jack, nothing has happened. Do not worry yourself. Even if something had happened, I would not bother you while you are ill. You poor thing. Come here. Let me make you some tea.”

“Ye needn’t.”

“I want to. Oh, come here.” She pulls him close and hugs him tightly. When they reach the drawing room, she sits him on the couch. Morietur is seated in one of the armchairs with one ankle resting on the opposite knee, reading a book that Jack cannot comprehend due to language.

“Thankee, sor. It means a lot, these little memories o’ home.”

“I know, Jack. After all, you were an endearing little child. It seems like only yesterday I taught you to write your name.”

“If ‘twasn’t for ye, I’d not be where I am now. Again, thankee.”

“Take care of Lynn. You are a kind man. She deserves a kind man.”

“Understood, sor.”

Jack spends the night before the wedding sober. He figures that he should do the opposite of what he did when he married Maire. Kerrigan sits by him to let him know that everything will be alright. Despite her urging him many times over to eat something, he refuses consistently. Morietur offers to watch John during the wedding ceremony, as he will be sober and has sons of his own, though they are all adults. Jack’s nerves start to irritate him around eight in the evening. He, being unaccustomed to dealing with nervousness sober, resorts to chain-smoking cigars. When he runs out of cigars within reach, he starts with his pipe. He lets Lynn sleep in his room, but decides that it would be unlucky to sleep in the same bed as her the night before the wedding, so he stays on the couch, which is ill-advised considering his height.

Kerrigan insists he come and stay with her at her vacation house a few doors down. Jack has only been there a few times, and every time he is there, the opulence amazes him. Everything is black marble, black velvet, ebony, and silver. Her vacation house makes his home seem like a cottage. The entry is so grand that he could not run from one end of it to the other without gasping for breath, but perhaps that is the cigars. Death comes downstairs. Kerrigan’s vacation house does not have many bedrooms for its size. Three entire floors are devoted to a library of epic proportions. The first floor is a formal dining room, a ballroom, a drawing room, and the kitchen. The second floor has all of the bedrooms and two offices. Only four bedrooms even have beds. One of them is occupied by Kerrigan and Morietur, one is where the Devil is staying, one is where Nuala and Avalon are staying, and one is Death’s room.

Jack decides that he will take the spare bed in Death’s room, not realizing that by bedroom Kerrigan means bedroom, small kitchen, walk-in closet, and bathroom suite. Everything is black, white, and silver. There is not a spot of green to be seen except for his suit. He hangs his green tuxedo in the closet and puts his things on the dresser before going downstairs with a large box of cigars, an equally large pack of strike-anywhere matches, and an ashtray from his own house because neither of the residents smoke. The Devil, Death, Kerrigan, and Morietur enjoy spirited conversation over red wine. Jack does not drink wine often. He cannot stand the taste and is determined not to drink for once. He speaks little and smokes cigars as if his life depended on it. Outside, a gentle rain falls. The snow melted while Jack was delirious. If he wandered outside the immediate area, he would see that it is still the heart of winter because Morietur specifically changed the weather for Jack’s wedding.

Around eleven, Jack and Death go upstairs. They take turns changing into pajamas in the bathroom and they curl up into their respective beds. Death, who has little tolerance for alcohol, sleeps wonderfully, while Jack, who cannot sleep without alcohol, tosses and turns. Kerrigan comes in around midnight, wearing a black and white plaid flannel nightgown that floats to the floor and carrying a candle which she places on the nightstand between the two beds. She brushes Death’s wild black hair out of his eyes and kisses him on the forehead. She pulls up the last blanket for him. She plans to do the same for Jack, but, upon seeing that he is fully awake, pulls up the blanket and sings him a lullaby which puts him into a gentle sleep.

The next morning, Jack gets up, stretches, and goes downstairs. Kerrigan sees to it that he eats some toast with butter and jam. He showers, but he does not shave on the grounds that his hand is shaking too much to do so safely. Kerrigan comes up with an ivory rose for his lapel. When she sees that he has not shaved she sits him in a chair that just seems to appear out of nowhere and does it for him. He is amazed that she knows how. She laughs it off as having a husband and sons. She helps him with his tuxedo, though he insists that she need not fuss so much. She even pulls his long hair back into a short plait and queue and ties an emerald green ribbon into it. He sees no need for the fuss. She puts the rose in his lapel and smiles up at him. She then hunts the house all over for Death, whom she finds lying on the kitchen floor in his pajamas curled up clutching his head. She picks him up and hands him a cup of something that looks like tea. He drinks it apprehensively, though he knows precisely what it is. Gradually his head stops spinning and he rights himself before showering and shaving. Kerrigan dresses him as if he were a very tall doll, just as she did with Jack. She insists he wear a long high-collared robe. She attempts to make the black poof on top of his head that he refers to as hair into something presentable, though she only has moderate success. His hair combed and mostly flattened, Death goes downstairs to see his father, who says he looks ridiculous and tries still less successfully to fix his hair. Death shakes off his parents’ attempts to fix his hair and leaves for Jack’s house on foot.

Dermott McFinn, Michael Crane, Sullivan O’Shea, and Daniel King were up before dawn setting up the chairs and altar in a clearing in the forest. They set up a wooden arch with ivy and roses. None of them know what they are doing with flowers, but within an hour, they have asked Jack’s sister to direct. They are now helping her in the kitchen. Though they have no experience with fine dining, Jack and Lynn are not fussy people, and, aside from Daniel, who must be supervised in a kitchen lest he attempt to mix things that he thinks might go together, they are not lost. Jack’s sister made the cake and is now frosting it. The twins are making what they think is Banshee cuisine, but is truly just fancy-looking shepherd’s pie. Kerrigan comes shortly after Death to help Lynn with her dress. Kerrigan fastens the hooks and eyes in the back of Lynn’s gown and fixes her very long orange hair into an ornate series of braids, making a crown out of some of it on top of her head and leaving some to tumble down the back, straightening some pieces and defining the curls of others, and putting ivory roses in various places. Lynn carefully puts on her green eyeshadow and peachy pink lipstick before Kerrigan mounts her tiara and veil elegantly among her ornate hairdo. Lynn stays upstairs while the guests arrive.

The best man is John Murphy, and the groomsmen are Shane and the twins. The maid of honor is the Banshee Kitty O’Neil, and the bridesmaids are Shannon, Kerrigan, and Nuala Kavanagh. Death stands at the altar in his priestly robes. Dermott McFinn’s younger daughter, who is a month younger than Jason, is the flower girl. Jason is the ringbearer. John and Kitty lead the procession followed by Shane and Shannon, Seamus and Nuala, and Sean and Kerrigan. They separate before the altar, the men going to Death’s right and the women going to his left. Jack walks up the aisle alone and takes his place in front of the altar to the right of Death. He is followed by Jason who hands him the rings and stands next to his uncle Sean. Dermott’s daughter scatters ivory rose petals in Lynn’s path before standing next to Kerrigan. Lynn floats gracefully down the aisle between the chairs and stands opposite Jack. She is escorted by the Devil who takes his seat in the front row next to Morietur, and Death begins to speak.

“Friends, we are gathered here today to celebrate and to join in matrimony Jack Shepherd and Lynn O’Brien. If anyone objects, speak now. Marriage is an institution that is meant to last. For both Jack and Lynn, the first time did not work. Jack’s first wife left him and Lynn’s first husband lies in the ground. We may all hope that the love that has blossomed between these two will continue to grow over the coming years. Please join me in the wedding of these two privileged individuals. All rise. Mister Shepherd, do you take Lynn to be your lawfully wedded wife?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to cherish, protect, and keep her?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to care for her in good times and bad, in sickness and in health?”

“I do.”

“Miss O’Brien, do you take Jack to be your lawfully wedded husband?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to cherish, protect, and keep him?”

“I do.”

“Do you promise to care for him in good times and bad, in sickness and in health?”

“I do.”

“You now must exchange rings. The ring is a symbol of unending love. It has no end. Just as removing a diamond from a ring does not break the circle, the cessation of life does not end love. By placing the rings on each others’ fingers you are signifying unending love. You may now exchange rings.” Jack carefully slips Lynn’s ring onto her finger. Lynn slides a plain gold ring onto Jack’s finger. He holds her hands in his while Death lays a white cloth over their hands and places his own hand on top of it. “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may now kiss the bride.”

Jack gently kisses Lynn and they lead the procession back up the aisle followed by John and Kitty, Shane and Shannon, Seamus and Nuala, Sean and Kerrigan, and Jason and Dermott’s daughter. At the edge of the forest, a uniformed man stops Jack and Kerrigan and says, “I regret to inform you both that the border has been breached. We have been doing our best to keep them back. We need the both of you and the other officers here assembled to join us at the front posthaste.”

“Look, wee gobshite, no corporal will be tellin’ me to report on me weddin’ day. We’ll head out tomorrow mornin’. ‘Till then, I trust ye to hold ‘em off. ‘Swhat ye’re payed for.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll pass that along.”

“Oh, and speak in your normal voice, Corporal Callahan, or I’ll tell your da’ ye’re a traitor to your kind.”

“Aye, sor.”