Fatal Roots

by Sheila Connolly

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  Rose came out of the kitchen, scrubbing paint off her hands. “I lost track of time. Is everyone gone?”

  “If everyone means Billy, my mother, my half sister, and three students, then yes. I hope things pick up soon. What’ve you got happening tomorrow?”

  “A couple of classes in Skib in the morning, then back here, I guess. It might be that Susan will be here too, but I’m not sure yer mother’s happy with the idea.”

  “I have no idea what either one of ’em’s thinking, except I think Susan won’t be in the way and I think she wants to help. Ciara and her pals asked me if I wanted to go with them looking at forts in the morning—they’re still exploring, and they’ve got fancy machines to play with.”

  “Do yeh want to go?”

  “I don’t know. It’s not like I’m needed here all the time, but I feel guilty if I’m not here, because it’s my place and I’m supposed to be running it. When will you be in?”

  “Before noon, most likely. If Mick comes in early, we can manage.”

  “Is Sophie taking the same classes as you?”

  “She is. I think she already knows more than I do. Niall said he’d be by later in the day. He’s better behind the bar than in front of the cookstove.”

  “Very true.”

  So, Maura decided, she had a choice about whether to tag along with Ciara and her friends to try to figure out some local history based on very few facts, with nothing of her own to add. At least she didn’t have to decide before morning. Maybe if she didn’t go with Ciara in the morning, she should stop by and visit with Bridget. Bridget probably knew more about which land belonged to whom than she did, and would know where the fairy rings were. Plus Maura had a feeling that Bridget would be interested in what Helen and Susan were doing here. She’d met Helen, but Susan would be a pleasant surprise to her. She hoped.

  As she cleaned up the few tables in the pub, Maura wondered about the stories Ciara had told her regarding the ring forts. Did anyone around here still believe in fairies? What an odd question in the world today, even if this was rural Ireland. But from what little she had been told, there were local people who still took fairies seriously. She herself hadn’t met one yet—that she knew of—but she had seen enough things that couldn’t be easily explained to ignore the idea. If nothing else, she was going to be polite to fairies, even if she never met one. Just in case.

  No one came in after ten, so Maura told Mick she was leaving and that they should take two cars to her cottage so she wouldn’t have to decide whether to go with Ciara in the morning. She could wait to see what the weather was like. Mick didn’t comment, but then he seldom did. She wasn’t exactly in a hurry to move this relationship any faster—in fact, neither of them seemed to be—but she’d like to have a vague idea.

  They arrived in Knockskagh at the same time. There were no lights on in the nearest homes, including Bridget’s. A waning moon provided some light, and Mick said, “Can we walk a bit? I’ve been inside the pub all day.”

  “Sure, as long as we don’t walk through any cow pats,” she told him. “Uphill or down?”

  She couldn’t see his smile, but she could hear it in his voice. “Up’s toward the piggery, and it smells as bad at night as in the day,” he told her. “What about we follow Bridget’s field? It’s level, at least, and she has no cows.”

  “Sounds good to me. I’m not particularly tired. Should we be worried that business is slow?”

  “And why would yeh be wanting to do that? You own the place, and this one here, and all you need is enough to pay your staff.”

  “True. I guess I’m used to worrying. Gran had trouble finding a job that paid enough to cover the rent in the city, and we’d nowhere else to go.”

  “Until she sent you here,” Mick said quietly. “She knew you’d be taken care of.”

  “I guess she did. I wish she’d had an easier life. I wish we’d had more time together. I miss her.”

  “I’m lucky to have Bridget. And you.”

  His last statement hung in the air. It was as close to a declaration as he’d come, but she understood that. He’d had problems in his life that were more painful than hers, and it had been a big step forward when he’d shared his story with her not long ago. And now here they were on a moonlit hillside in Ireland, and she had no idea what to say. I’m glad to have you in my life?

  They were silent for a few minutes as they made their way along the barely paved lane. Maura finally said, “It is lovely, isn’t it? It’s nothing like Boston, which was all noise and lights and crowds.”

  “Do yeh like it?”

  “I think I do. It gives me more time to think, and there’s no hurry to it. Like these fairy forts that Ciara’s looking at. They’ve been around for, what, a thousand years? And they’re still here, and people tidy them up and then leave them alone. There’s no rush to make changes. Were the people who built them the same as people today?”

  “I’d tell yeh, yes and no. Remember how many of the Irish left the country for one reason or another, like in the Famine, and then never came back? There used to be far more, even in rural areas. And you’ve seen how long memories are. Leavin’ the rings alone is kind of like honoring the ones who built them, who’ve been gone a long time.”

  “You think Ciara is wrong to want to know more about them?”

  Mick thought for a moment. “She’s young yet. The story she wants wouldn’t be like the story that Bridget or Old Billy tells. We’ll see what she finds and what she does with it.”

  “I’m about the same age she is, you know.”

  “I think yeh have an older spirit, though yeh may not know it. Or maybe the fairies were waitin’ for yeh to come home.”

  “So this is home?”

  “Yeh don’t think so?”

  Maura stopped walking for a moment, to listen to the night. A distant cow lowing. Some kind of bird? She’d seen a lot of pheasants nearby, but did they sleep at night? In Boston she’d always felt on edge, worried about having enough money or finding a new job or staying safe on the streets at night. Here? She felt a sense of peace, which was new to her.

  “I think I do. Thank you for letting me see it. Ready to go back now?”

  “Happy to.”

  When they reached the cottage again, Mick said, “I’ll be glad to open Sullivan’s, if yeh want to go with Ciara.”

  “Remember that Rose will be in class in the morning. Think you can manage?”

  “I’ll talk to Niall, if it looks like we’ll be busy.”

  “We need to use him a bit more—people do like him. I’ll try not to take all day. I’m more interested in finding how much land belongs to me than looking for circles. Or if three busloads of tourists show up all at once, give me a call on my mobile and I’ll be there.”

  “Fair enough. But there’s music come the end of the week. I’ll check with Rose fer the details.”

  “Traditional or modern?”

  “Traditional, I’m thinkin’,” Mick said. “It’s what the tourists want. It’s the younger ones who want current groups, but there aren’t many of those around at the moment. But before yeh start worryin’, it’s going well, old or new, and we’re makin’ a bit of money. Just enjoy it.”

  “I’ll do my best. And I think it’s time for bed.”

  Chapter Nine

  The coffee was made and on the table the next morning, and Maura had found a loaf of bread she’d forgotten she had, and there was always butter. Mick was in the shower when there was a knocking at the door. Ciara, so early? She really was enthusiastic about her project. Maura opened the door to Ciara and her two friends.

  “Good morning! You’re out early,” Maura greeted them. “Come on in—there’s coffee.”

  “Good morning, Maura,” Ciara said. “We’ve heard it may rain later in the day, so we wanted to look at as much as we can before it starts. Then if it rains, we can map out our plans, and maybe do a bit of research online. You sa
id don’t have a computer?”

  “Nope. Never did. I used a few at the library when I was in school, but I’ve never owned one. So far I haven’t needed anything I can’t get on my mobile. Where do you think you’ll be looking this morning?”

  “The one you saw the other day—it’s the closest. There’s a big one this side of Drinagh a few miles away, another one up the hill beyond at Drinagh West, and others scattered around. We wanted to try a two-prong approach. Darragh will use the ground-penetrating radar to see if anything shows up below the surface, and Ronan will handle the drone, which will record some pictures. It’s nothing fancy, but if Darragh finds something, Ronan can look at it in a different way—his drone is good at capturing geographic details. And we’ll measure and take some notes. I only hope there are no cows around any of our targets.”

  “I did tell you about the ring fort up the hill, didn’t I?”

  “Past the piggery? I think you did. It’s hard to recognize from the road, or what used to be the road, but I checked on an aerial view on my computer and it does look large, and it’s an interesting site.”

  Maura smiled. “There have been known to be cows there. And the road is lousy.”

  Mick emerged from the bathroom with a towel around his waist. “Good mornin’,” he said. “You’ll be havin’ a busy day?”

  “At least half a day,” Ciara said. “We don’t fancy mucking around in the fields in the rain.”

  “Maybe you can talk to Old Billy again,” Mick suggested. “In case yeh’re wondering, he’s always at Sullivan’s, and you’ll have seen that he loves to talk.”

  “He does that!” Ciara smiled cheerfully. “We want to get to know the lay of the land a little better, so we can follow what he’s telling us. Give us a couple of days.”

  Mick nodded once, then turned to Maura. “I’ll be getting’ dressed now so I can head for Leap. If yeh see Bridget, tell her I’ll try to come by later.”

  Maura watched him climb the rickety stairs quickly, and admired the view. She wondered briefly what Ciara made of him, but she wasn’t about to worry. “So, coffee? Yes or no?”

  Ciara glanced at her friends. “I think we’d rather get started now. Will you be joining us?”

  “If you’re going to the circle we saw earlier, I’d like to know more about that one, since I guess it’s mine. Can somebody actually own a circle, or does the government have other ideas? Like it’s a public monument? But in any case, I should get to work by midday. We all have cars, right?”

  “We do, since we have equipment to shift. Three, actually, since I came early on my own, and Darragh and Ronan followed me a day later, and yours. But you know where we’re going. And maybe we’ve time for that cup of coffee.”

  Maura filled cups, then joined the others at the table. “You didn’t answer my question. Are fairy forts legally protected by anyone, local or national?”

  “Not really. It’s usually the land that matters to people, not what’s on it. There’ve been times when people didn’t hesitate to level the rings to give themselves more grazing land, back in the seventies, I think, but then there were a lot of accidents, so people thought twice about doing it anymore. Nowadays people take good care of them, even if they’re using the field.”

  “And are there still fairies around?” Maura asked, trying to keep a straight face.

  “There could be. That’s another historic tradition. Time was people in the country took them seriously and were careful how they spoke of them.”

  “Were any of those stories due to a bit too much to drink? I thought I should ask, since I do run a pub.”

  “Not necessarily. Women often saw or heard things they couldn’t explain, and not everyone had the money for liquor. And there were more outside the villages and towns than within them. It’s an interesting history, but say what you will—the rings are still there. Some say they’re portals to the fairy world.”

  “Do I want to know more about my own ring, or should I just stay away from it?” Maura asked.

  “Just be polite to whomever you see on the road, and I’m sure they’ll tell you whatever you want to know. Like you said, Irish country people love to talk.”

  “True, and I should get to know my neighbors better,” Maura told her. “You ready to go?”

  Ciara looked at her friends. “I think we are. I’ll lead the way.”

  They reached the field that surrounded the ring in minutes. Maura was surprised again that she hadn’t noticed an odd mound in the middle of the field, but then, there were no fields in Boston, except the Public Garden, so she’d had nothing to compare it to. Plus, seeing it only from ground level made it impossible to tell that it was a circle. Mostly it looked like a large lump.

  The guys got out of their car, where they’d been waiting, and started unloading equipment. The pieces themselves weren’t large, so it didn’t take long. Maura didn’t recognize either of the two main items, and they seemed out of place in a rolling pasture with a leafy lump in the middle of it. She wondered briefly what the heck she was doing here; she’d gotten along just fine not knowing anything about fairy forts or fairies in the time she’d spent in Ireland.

  She and Ciara had walked around the perimeter earlier, and they hadn’t found anything that looked like an entrance into the interior. Had there ever been one? Or had some later farmer filled it in to keep the cattle from disturbing the fairies? Maura had to stop herself from snorting. There was no way she could come up with a logical explanation of any of this. But Ciara and the guys looked like they were playing a giant game. Ciara couldn’t stop smiling, and Darragh and Ronan followed her around, lugging their borrowed equipment.

  “Can I walk along the top of the wall?” Maura called out, although she wasn’t sure she needed anyone’s permission.

  “Sure,” Ciara called back. “It’s pretty sturdy—the base is earth, and it’s been there a long time. But watch the brambles—they can trip you up.”

  “Thanks,” Maura replied, and scrabbled up the bank on one side. It wasn’t hard, and the top was fairly level, maybe five feet above the surrounding land. As far as she could tell, there was nothing to see inside the ring except more dirt and grass and weeds. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting—something made of stone, maybe? A small house, or the ruins of one? Tombstones? But if ever there had been a structure, there wasn’t now. She tried to work out the orientation. Her best guess was that she was standing on the eastern side. The ring was a near-perfect circle, even after a millennium or so, and she wondered how anybody had laid it out. She also wondered again how it had survived, since she did know how often it rained in this part of Ireland. Why hadn’t the earth simply dissolved away over time? One more question she couldn’t answer.

  She took a moment to pivot around and look at the rest of the site, and decided there really wasn’t anything much to see. Sure, there might have been houses or cottages or whatever around it in the past, but clearly they hadn’t lasted well. There were a few modern houses visible, but they bore no relation to the ring. She couldn’t see her own cottage from where she stood, and she wondered if it would be visible if all the trees were taken down, but she wasn’t about to do that.

  She watched the students walk slowly around the interior, studying small details she couldn’t even see from where she stood. She’d seen the Drombeg stone circle when she’d first arrived in West Cork, but that was made of large stones, the largest being taller than she was. The fairy fort was far wider, but there wasn’t a stone of any size in sight.

  Maura realized she was getting bored. In a way she envied Ciara, who was clearly excited to be where she was, doing what she was doing. But Maura was finding that she really wasn’t interested in a dirt circle in a grassy field. No doubt there were others around, but they’d all look more or less the same, although they might vary by size. She wondered briefly if there was anything special about the leafy plants that covered the ring, but she didn’t know anything about plants in general, and Iris
h field plants in particular. It was good to have seen this monument, on her own land, but she didn’t feel the need to see any more of them. “Ciara?” she called out.

  Ciara looked up at her. “What?” she called out.

  “I think I’ll head for Leap now. If you find anything interesting, you can stop by the pub and tell me about it, or stop by the cottage tomorrow morning. Good hunting!” Maura turned and stumbled her way down the side of the ring and headed for her car.

  As she drove toward the village, she had to acknowledge that she would never have been much of an archaeologist. Maybe there was a good reason she had never had a chance to go beyond high school. More education might have been entirely wasted on her.

  She arrived at Sullivan’s before noon, but there were few patrons inside. She did hear giggles coming from the kitchen, so she assumed Susan had come back, and that she and Rose were having a good time, which pleased her. She could only hope they were accomplishing something, but there really wasn’t that much that needed to be done, and they’d have to wait for the appliances, whatever the source, before finishing things up.

  Mick was behind the bar. “Any great finds?”

  Maura sat on a stool. “Not that I could tell. I got as far as standing on the edge of the fairy ring, but I really didn’t see much but dirt and grass and stuff. Okay, it’s a nice big circle, but there’s not much to see.”

  “And were you expecting a fairy wedding or some such?” Mick asked, smiling.

  “I don’t think so. But I guess I was hoping it would look more special. The others seemed happy, though. I didn’t stick around long enough to see how their research toys worked, but I told them to stop by here if they found anything interesting. And that’s all I’ve got. Anything happening here?”

  “Susan’s back, as if you can’t tell,” Mick told her.

  “Sounds like she and Rose are enjoying themselves. And I’m not going to complain if things aren’t getting done fast. It’s nice to hear Rose laugh—I don’t think she has a lot of friends her own age. Did Helen say she was going to pick Susan up later, or does she have her own way to get back to the hotel?”