"Mrs Doyle was right."

Disappointment clung to every word that Cormac breathed out as the spinning rings slowed and our window to the past faded.

As I stopped recording, I surmised that it had been easier for him to accept the notion of an attack from the sidhe than it was to consider than another human was capable of such barbarity.

"Yeah," I agreed despondently. "I wish she hadn't been, though."

Cormac crumpled into a seated position and brought his thighs up to meet his chest. Wrapping his arms tightly around his bent legs, he rested his chin on top of his knees.

I folded my legs under my body and sat next to him.

"I'm so sorry, Cormac," I murmured gently, touching his arm as I spoke. "I knew the two of you didn't get along, but this is extreme."

"Aye," Cormac sighed. "I knew he was thorny, but I didn't think he'd do anything like this."

There was a sombre pause as I started to put the pieces together.

"Eamon was the one leading the charge on those burning effigies, wasn't he?" I surmised.

Cormac stayed silent, burying his face in the gap between his chest and his knees as he nodded, and I squeezed his arm gently in understanding and solidarity.

The sun glowed amber as it brushed against the horizon in the west, painting the underside of the lingering clouds with fuchsia and magenta hues. The delicate shades washed over the paddocks, casting long shadows and saturating the landscape with a mellow ambience that prevailed in sharp contrast to the malevolence we'd witnessed through the aperture of the pendant.

"Do you think God scorns sodomy?" my companion asked after a while, his expression sullen as he twisted his head to face me.

"No," I told him honestly. "I believe such judgements are a human trait. Besides, these preferences we have aren't a choice. I have faith that He wouldn't shun us for an attribute that was outside of our control."

Cormac inhaled deeply and then nodded.

"Aye, that makes a lot of sense."

"What do you want to do?" I asked, flicking on the locked screen of my phone as I tried to determine our options. The battery had four per cent of its power remaining. Once it was gone, I had no way of charging it, which meant that the images we'd just seen would be erased forever. I endeavoured to convey the urgency to my companion with compassion in my tone. "If we're going to the police, it should be tomorrow."

"How do you think the police will react to seeing that?" he asked, glancing sideways at the device.

It wasn't clear to me whether he was referring to the phone itself or to the crucial evidence that was now stored on it, but either way, it was a good question.

Although local law enforcement had existed previously, nationally organised, uniformed policing had only been introduced in Ireland as part of the Constabulary Act of 1822, and it was therefore a relatively new concept. Everyone involved was undoubtedly still getting used to it.

But of course, there were bigger concerns than whether there were likely to be teething problems with the newly integrated law enforcement system. Like whether my video footage would be seen as credible proof of misconduct, or as black magic.

"I don't know," I confessed. "But it seems like the best chance we have of bringing Eamon to justice, and I'm willing to take the risk."

Cormac tilted his head, and looked at me, confused.

"You seem to take a lot of risks for me, Mr O'Rourke."

"Any feat of significance involves risk, Mr Brogan," I countered with a light, friendly nudge. "A ship is safe in the harbour, but that's not what ships are built for. And besides, now that we've seen first-hand how dangerous Eamon is, it seems to me that doing nothing at all might be a bigger risk."

Cormac released a dispirited sigh, and his expression reflected his internal conflict.

"We don't have to if you don't want to," I assured him. "I'm just worried about what else he might be capable of, that's all."

"No, you're right," he agreed, albeit still a little reluctantly. "I just didn't want it to come to this. It's not what Mam would have wanted."

I recalled Cormac previously telling me that their two mothers had been close enough to meet regularly on a social basis and nodded my understanding.

"I suspect your mother wouldn't want you to be living in fear for your life either," I pointed out. "We can't always decide who we get along with. Remember, it was Eamon that chose this destructive behaviour, not you."

Uncertainty continued to linger in his eyes as he digested my words.

"Aye, I know," he conceded after a while. "We should take what we've got to the police in the morning."

Indigo fringes were emerging around the base of the clouds as the last fading segment of the sky's golden orb sank deeper into the horizon. As the heavens darkened to ultramarine, it seemed like a sensible time to return to the farmhouse.

Standing, I tucked my phone and the pendant into my pocket and offered Cormac an outstretched hand. Not that he needed help standing, of course. The gesture was more an attempt at building a connection than it was to serve any practical purpose.

"We should get back," I advised as he accepted my hand and I helped him to his feet. "We don't want to miss out on Mrs Doyle's seafood coddle, do we?"

My companion managed a weak smile in response.

"Not after all the effort we put in to get the ingredients," he retorted, as we began the walk south towards the paddocks.

Relieved that he appeared to be responding well to a shift in ambience, I decided to inject a little humour in an attempt to lighten the mood further.

"We certainly made good use of our mussels," I said, gently nudging his good arm.

Cormac rolled his eyes and tried to throw me a disparaging look. However, a slight twitch of his lips told me he was deliberately holding back a smile, leaving me unable to resist continuing the banter.

"And besides, it would be shellfish to leave her to eat by herself," I added playfully.

His upturned lips widened into a grin and his green eyes sparkled a little in the waning light as they met mine.

"Aye, she might get crabby if we get back too late," he reciprocated.

"That was fin-tastic," I quipped, commending his participation in our repartee.

"We need to use the Amfáinne. You're out of time."

I froze the instant I heard the unexpected but unmistakable 'voice' of the sidhe resound through my head, and my demeanour immediately soured.

"Did you hear that?" I asked Cormac as I spun on my heel, trying to find the source of the words.

"I didn't hear anything," he replied, inevitably sounding concerned by my altered stance.

"I thought I heard one of the sidhe," I explained cautiously as my eyes continued to scan the darkening fields for signs of life.

Cormac instantly swivelled, scouring the sky for movement. It was a matter of seconds before he spotted it.

"There!"

I twisted to see where he was pointing. My pulse picked up when I saw an adumbral pair of wings flitting through the dusk in our direction.

Without another word, both Cormac and I instinctively started to sprint towards the farmhouse. But despite our best efforts to outrun it, the shadowy silhouette caught up with ease.

Circling around us, the body of the dark sprite seemed to augment, blowing up like an intimidating balloon as its now familiar message resonated through my head, this time with a greater sense of urgency.

"We need to use the Amfáinne! You're out of time!"

Suddenly it was in front of me – its confrontational disposition unmistakable as it dove and flapped in frustration.

An icy tremor plunged down my spine and my heart rate spiked as I tried to shield my face with my hands.

"I don't know what you're talking about!" I screeched back, alarmed and confused as the constant, protracted whipping of its wings near my face overloaded my senses.

I staggered backwards to put some distance between us, but the dark shadow followed. Thrashing my arms around in agitation, I tried to knock the sidhe away from me, to no avail.

"It's close to you ... I feel it," the ethereal voice spilled into my brain as I continued to flail in panic.

"Close to me?" I repeated, trying desperately to work out what could possibly be close to me that was of interest to this sprite when we were surrounded by open fields in every direction.

Aware that it must be something that was also in the barn several nights ago, my stomach dropped as the sharp realisation hit me.

The pendant.

Instantaneously, I became defensive, stepping back even further as I continued to lash out. I wasn't about to give up the only possible route I had back to my own century just because this creature demanded it.

"What do you even want it for?" I shrieked, sifting through my memories in a frenzy as I tried to figure out what might have spooked it during our previous encounter. If I could establish what drove it away before, I reasoned that perhaps I may be able to do something similar again.

"You're out of time!" came the supernal response to my question.

It appeared that the sidhe wasn't in the mood for an interrogation, then.

I blinked as that thought seemed to trigger the world to move in slow motion. Classical images of interrogations from old movies rushed into my mind. Picturing the bright spotlight shining directly on the squinting eyes of the uncomfortable suspect, combined with my recollection of the swift exit of the sidhe in the presence of luminescence, sparked my brain to come up with a potential theory.

It had to be worth a shot.

Frantically searching my pockets, I found my familiar phone case with relative ease. My thumbprint unlocked the device as I whipped it out, and I had the torch flicked on within moments of its extraction.

Thrusting the bright light at the silhouette, I held my breath and invoked a silent prayer.

"The weapon!" I heard the sidhe's agonising scream reverberate through my skull as it disengaged.

"You don't like the light, huh?" I fired back in exasperation, pursuing it with the torch still shining directly at it to ensure it stayed away from Cormac.

In the next blink of an eye, the shadow was halfway to the next field as it retreated.

With no intention of following it, I powered down the torch and breathed out a sigh of relief.

"Are you all right?" Cormac asked as I watched the sidhe depart.

"Yeah," I replied. "A little shaken, but nothing I won't get over. What about you?"

"Aye," he confirmed. "I think you took the brunt of it."

Turning to face my companion, I tried to regulate my breathing and regain some composure as I remarked on our latest discovery.

"Well, at least now we know what the Amfáinne is."