In the ensuing weeks, Deirdre seemingly drops from the face of the earth.  For all intents and purposes, it’s as if she has disappeared.  But despite the apparent lack of her presence, she’s been far from idle.  If anything, she has withdrawn into the world of her own activity, an insular little place walled off from the outside.

Her mind has become a flurry of words and music, spinning and whispering through her head so fast she can hardly keep track.  They’re like birds, or bats, swarming about her, diving in and swooping past, and each time she grasps at them they slip past her fingers.  But once she finally – finally – manages to close her mental fingers around the fleeting forms…well, it’s all worth the effort.

She’s been holed up in her dingy apartment at night, pen flying over notebook papers, writing and scratching and scribbling.  Her apartment, already a mess beforehand, has become a wasteland of torn-up sheets of paper, crumpled scraps tossed about haphazardly.

“What in the bloody hell?” Harry exclaimed when he wandered in one night.  He stood in the doorway looking at the place.  “This what you’ve been doing the past few nights?  I thought one of…them…had done ya in.  I haven’t seen hide ner hair of you.”

“I’ve been busy,” she said.  Her electric guitar was propped up against the wall beside her.  She scribbled out one last line and turned to it, hoisting it onto her lap and plucking at the strings.  She leaned back over the sheet, crossed the last few words out, wrote in something new.  Harry just stood staring.

“I got an estimate on the repairs, not including the new finishings and whatnot.  Talked to a few companies about an electronic security system.  It’s doable, I think.  Barely.  The place better rebound quickly, or this will be the last go.”

Deirdre didn’t seem to hear him.  She just sat, scribbling, plucking chords on the guitar.  Finally she looked up.  “That’s good…whatever you need to do,” she said absently.

“So…” Harry said.  “All those folks who signed up, what do you want me to do about them?  You had a plan about that, right?”

“Yeah,” Deirdre said quickly.  “I know what to do.  I’ll take care of it.”

“How’s -- ” Harry gestures at her, and looks about at he mess of papers on the floor.  “The songwriting?”

Deirdre shrugged, finally putting the pen down.  “It’s coming, that’s really all I can say.  It’s hit or miss, some nights.  Sometimes I’ll write until dawn and it’s all just crap, and then other times I’ll be hit by something, and it’s like a miracle.  I just start writing and writing without knowing what it is.  I think…I think I might have the workings of an album here.  I don’t know.  I’m trying not to be that optimistic.”

“Ya know, the Greeks thought their songs and poems and stuff came from some goddess spirits…muses, nine of ‘em.”  Harry said, finally taking a seat.   “They’d whisper in the poets’ ears and tell ‘em their secrets.  The Greeks would always open up their poems praising the muses for the inspiration.”

“I’ve heard that story.  There’s magic in music.  The ancient Irish believed it.  The bards were almost on level with the old druids.  They could work magic into their songs and storytelling – they could put dragons to sleep and rouse entire armies to bloodlust.  There was one who could change into an eagle, they said.  I think that’s where they got the story of Merlin or something.”

Whatever magic there is in the music, it demands much.  When she’s not hunched over the small table in the apartment scribbling away, she’s wandering the streets aimlessly.  She’s trying to grasp at the threads to put her life back in order, and the rope is only unraveling further.  Is this what it’s like to go insane?  But no, she can’t be any more insane now than she had been those years ago when these fits of frenzied inspiration used to come on her.  But she hasn’t had one of those bouts in years, and certainly nothing ever like this.  But the similarities are there.  Now, like then, she’d walk the midnight streets, no route in mind, just following each path her footsteps took her.  She’d finally come to in some strange part of town, and somehow find her way back home in the end.

But Harry was right, she can’t hole herself up.  She made a promise to him, and a commitment to Thorns itself – and its people.  She’s never forgotten that or abandoned that.  But the music…the music is taking over.  And she would almost wish she could toss it aside to give her some peace, some time to think…if only she could trust that it would come back to her.  

Finally, one night, she forces it down.  She suppresses the manic chords and lyrics swooping through her mind.  She takes out the list of names and numbers she had gathered after the break-in.  She calls the first number.  And afterwards she calls the next one.  And the next.  And the next…and on and on, until by dawn’s break she has called each number, talking personally with each person on the list or leaving a message for them.  Though the effects of her supernatural charisma may have worn off long ago, the memories of her impassioned speech still remain.  Each person she talks with is eager to help – indeed, some have been chomping at the bits.  They’ve only been waiting for the word, waiting for her and Harry to organize something.

And, like the crazy scheme that it is, somehow Project Thorns begins molding into something more than just the passionate, inflamed rant that bore it.  Bit by bit, piece by piece, it begins falling into place.  Deirdre doesn’t quite know what the next step is, or the step after, or really what the final culmination – the last bit of fruition – will be.  This is something more than just rebuilding a club, no matter how beloved.  She has to pause as she puts down the phone and scans the next number on the list.  Is this how the great revolutionaries felt?  Surely, she’s not so narcissistic to call this a “revolution” or even any sort of “movement.”  But still…did Martin Luther feel this way when he nailed his ninety-five theses to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral?  Was this what the people of Dublin felt in 1916 when they erected the barricades?

She shakes those thoughts away.  What the hell is she thinking?  She almost laughs at herself.  She must be going crazy to be entertaining thoughts like these.  No, this is no grand thing.  This is just her life – strange, twisted, macabre as it is.  This is just her way of pushing through the ashes and finally taking control over a course of events that she has ultimately had no control over, not since the night the shots rang out behind that club.  Not since the first time Da struck her across the face with his belt.  This is nothing any more or any less than that.

The phone is ringing at the other end.  “Hello?  This is Deirdre McNevan.  Is Lily there?  Oh, good.  Listen, you remember the night at Thorns…the break-in?  Yeah, yeah it was a real tragedy.  Thank…thank you.  I was just reacting, I didn’t think anything about it.  Yes, we’re putting things back together.  That’s what I’m calling about.  Anyways, there’s going to be a benefit at the Muadhnait Fiachra…yes I’ll be there.  I’ll be performing.  Yes, we’re putting Project Thorns together.  Yes, that’s the first step.  Good, good.  I’ll see you there…”

And the ball keeps on rolling.  And Deirdre is tying the threads together.