Excerpt of Tangled in Time by Barbara Longley

His features were strong and angular—broad forehead, long,
straight nose, flaring slightly at the nostrils, high
cheekbones and a wide, expressive mouth over a tapered
chin. Though he was fair and freckled, his eyes were a
deep, rich brown, and they were filled with keen
intelligence. He must have been quite strong in life to be
this vivid in death. He was the most colorful spirits
she’d ever encountered. He looked almost corporeal.

She eyed his coarse linen shirt, worn under a vest made of
some kind of sleek fur. Seal? A green woolen cloak rested
over his shoulders, held in place with a gold brooch of
Celtic knots
with a crouched wolf effigy in the center. Suede leggings
fit him snugly, and the soft leather
shoes he wore resembled moccasins. He reminded her of the
ancient Roman descriptions she’d
read of Celtic warriors, and the pictures of equally
ancient rock and wood carvings she’d studied
in books.

Standing a bit straighter under her perusal, he cocked his
head slightly. “What might ye be called, Álainn?”

Aww, he’d just called her a beauty, and he’d said it with
such an enticing Irish lilt too.“Regan MacCarthy. And
you?”

“Fáelán of Clan Baiscne at your service,” he said with a
bow. “Fáelán means wolf.”

“I believe it’s the diminutive form of the word, isn’t it?
That would make you Little Wolf.”

“Ah, well, even the mightiest bear starts out as a cub,
aye?” He winked at her. “An bhfuil
Gaeilge agat? An dtuigeann tú?”

“I don’t speak Irish well, but I do have some Gaeilge, and
yes, I did understand what you just said.”

“Hmm.” His gaze bored intently into hers. “And ye see me.”

“I do. Just so you know, I’ve helped many like you, and—”

“Many like me?” He crossed his arms in front of him,
widened his stance and lowered his
brow. “Meanin’ what, exactly?”

“Ghosts.”

He stomped around in front of the tomb’s entrance and let
loose a string of expletives, all in his native Irish.
“I’m no scáil; I’m cursed. Woman, do ye have any idea who
or what I am?”

Huh. She’d been demoted from beauty to woman. “Little
Wolf, better known as Fay-lon of Clan Bask-nuh?” Regan hid
her grin and checked the horizon. The visitor center would
open at nine. She slipped into her shoes and gathered her
things.

“I am one of Fionn MacCumhaill’s elite, one of the Fianna
who served the high king,
Cormac MacArt himself. Do ye have any idea how difficult
it was to become one of the few
skilled enough, clever enough to be ordained into the
Fianna? Do ye have any idea how
prestigious it was to be counted amongst their ranks? Why,
I defeated nine warriors at once, I
did.”

“After walking barefoot through snow up to your waist and
climbing over a mountain, no
doubt,” she muttered. His ego certainly hadn’t diminished
with death.

“Nay.” He flashed her a look of confusion. “’Twas
midsummer. I passed many such tests to become one of
Fionn’s warriors, not the least of which was proving my
skill with sword, bow
and lance.”

“Good for you.” Out of all the deceased she’d encountered,
this boasty ghosty took the prize for being the most
entertaining. Regan couldn’t wait to call her sisters to
tell them about today’s encounter. Was she supposed to
help him? Was that what drew her back to Newgrange and not
the magic after all?

No. Fáelán was but one of many ghosts hanging out on this
hill. And she had no interest in working with dead people
anymore. Honestly, she never had. All she’d ever
wanted was to be ordinary and to have all the ordinary
things life had to offer, like a job she
loved, a husband, children and a nice house in the burbs.

She started down the hill, heading for the fields she
needed to cross to get to her rental car. “I believe you,
but the Fianna existed in what . . . the second and third
centuries? This is the
twenty-first century, so—”

“Ye know our history.” His gaze lit with approval. “I’m
cursed, I tell ye, by the Tuatha Dé Danann princess
Morrigan. Tricked me, she did. Came to me in the guise of
a mortal and seduced me into her bed. Had I known her true
identity, I never would have lain with her, and—”

“And you’d be long dead regardless. Nobody lives into
their thousands.”

“And”—he scowled—“not knowin’ the brief tryst meant aught
to her, I took another lover soon after. Morrigan caught
me and my lover between the furs once upon a winter’s eve,
and that is when the fae princess cursed me.”

“Killed you more like.” No point in mincing words. If he
was to cross over, he had to first accept his state of
deadness.

“Nay. I told ye, I’m no ghost.”

Fáelán strode ahead, turned and faced her, forcing her to
stop in her tracks or walk right
through him. She hated the walk-throughs, hated the creepy
chill and the overwhelming fight-or flight instinct that
shot through her every time it happened. Even thinking
about it caused a
shudder.

“Do ye want to hear the curse, lassie?”

His expression was so earnest, so hopeful, how could she
resist? “I’m guessing you wish to share it with me.”

“I do,” he said, his gaze roaming over her face, coming to
rest upon her lips.

She turned away. Too strange, this feeling of attraction
to a dead man. “Go ahead, but we
need to keep walking. I’m trespassing here and don’t want
to get caught.”

“If we must, but I won’t be able to do justice to the
recitation.”

“Oh?” He was funny, charming and somehow vulnerable. Add
to that his breathtaking good looks, and she could see why
a fae princess might want to crawl between the furs with
him. “I know how difficult it can be to walk and talk at
the same time, but I trust you’ll do the best you can,”
she teased, earning her another disgruntled look from her
ghostly companion. “You
remember the curse word for word after all this time?”

“Of course.” His shoulders squared. “I had to commit to
memory all the verses of poetry
about our people’s history, and I recited every last word
to Fionn without error afore I could be
ordained into the Fianna. I also proved myself a poet in
my own right.”

“Boasty ghosty,” she muttered.

“Cursed,” he snapped back, just as they reached the wooden
fence separating the heritage
land from the fields beyond. “I’d lend ye a hand, lassie,
but I fear I cannot. I exist in the void,
whilst ye reside in the earthly realm. We cannot touch.”

More likely, if he tried, her hand would go right through
his. “It’s all right. I can manage.” She climbed over the
fence, only to find him already on the other side by the
time both her feet hit the ground. “So, the curse?” She
set off across the field.

Fáelán cleared his throat, shook out his arms and huffed
out a breath. He began, in a rich
baritone, projecting his voice from his ghostly diaphragm
. . . in Irish. She hated to admit it, but her curiosity
had been piqued. “Wait. My Irish isn’t good enough to get
much out of what you just said. Can you translate the
curse into modern-day English for me?”

“Of course. I’ve had centuries aplenty to learn all forms
of English, French and German. I
suspect ye might be from the Americas, but your accent is
none too familiar. Where are ye from,
Álainn?”

“Tennessee. The curse? Please continue.”

He cleared his throat again and seemed to ponder for a few
moments. Finally, he began.

“Foolish, fickle human,

’tis a royal covenant ye have broken.

Harken well to my edict,

for ’tis your penance now spoken.

By wind, water, earth and fire I vow,

’til blood of sidhe in a mortal will tell,

’twixt here and shadow shall ye dwell.

Not without mercy, a daughter of Danu be,

I grant ye one path by which ye might be free.

During the interludes when the realms collide,

in the earthly world may ye bide.

Seek she who sees ye, and woo her well.

For once your heart is fully given,

when your life for hers ye’d gladly give,

in the earthly realm may ye once again live.”

“Impressive.” He truly was a poet if he could spew out
something like that at a moment’s
notice. “What does the curse refer to when it mentions
realms colliding?”

“During solstices and equinoxes, the veil between the
worlds lifts, and the realms merge. I know of only three:
the shadow realm where the dead go to be judged afore
rebirth, the void realm where the fae make their home and
the earthly realm where we humans are meant to
dwell.”