by Amy Harmon
“Eoin?” I called. Surely, he was awake by now. He and Brigid were somewhere in the house. He hadn’t felt well enough to be outside, and he’d obviously been searching for something in my drawers. He was the only one who would leave such a mess behind.
I finished straightening my things and made an inventory of my jewelry and the small stack of gramophone discs, trying to figure out what he’d been looking for. I heard a soft tread outside my door and called out again, not looking up.
“Eoin? Did you go through my drawers?”
“It wasn’t Eoin,” Brigid said from the doorway, her voice odd. She clutched a sheaf of paper to her chest, her face stricken, her eyes wild.
“Brigid?”
“Who are you?” she moaned. “Why are you doing this to us?”
“What have I done, Brigid?” I asked, my blood beginning to thunder in my ears. I took a step toward her, and she took an immediate step back. Liam, a rifle in his arms, stepped around her. He pointed the gun at my chest, his gaze flat, his mouth grim.
“Brigid,” I pled, my eyes riveted on the weapon. “What’s going on?”
“Liam told me. From the first day. He told me you weren’t our Anne, but I didn’t want to believe him.”
“I don’t understand,” I whispered, wrapping my arms around my waist. Oh my God. What is happening?
“Eoin was looking for something. I caught him in your room. I scolded him and began putting everything back in your drawers. The envelope was on the floor,” Brigid explained, her words rapid, her voice hoarse.
“And you opened it?”
She nodded. “I opened it. And I read it. I know what you’re planning. You have Thomas fooled. Michael Collins fooled. But you didn’t fool Liam. He warned us! And to think Thomas trusted you. He married you. And you’re plotting to kill Michael Collins. It’s all written out.” She held the pages out in front of her, her hands shaking so hard the paper danced.
“No. You’ve misunderstood,” I said quietly, my voice and eyes level. “I only wanted to warn him.”
“How do you know all of this?” she shrieked, shaking the papers again. “You’ve been working with the Tans. It’s the only thing that makes sense.”
“Brigid? Where’s Eoin?” I whispered, not even bothering to defend myself or remind her that the Auxies and the Black and Tans were gone. She’d drawn the worst possible conclusion, and I didn’t know if anything I said would help my case.
“I’m not telling you! You’re not his mother, are you?”
I took a step toward her, hand outstretched, a plea for calm.
“I want you to leave,” she said, raising her voice. “I need you to go. Walk out of this house and never come back. I’m going to show this to Thomas. He’ll know what to do. But you have to leave.”
Liam motioned toward the front door. “Go,” he clipped. “Move.”
I walked on wooden legs, leaving my room and moving into the foyer. Brigid stood with her back against the wall, the papers clutched in her hands. I ignored Liam, directing my pleas to his mother.
“Let’s call the Dublin house. On the telephone. We’ll call Thomas, and you can tell him everything. All of it, right now,” I suggested.
“No! I want you to leave. I don’t know what I’m going to tell Eoin. He thought his mother had come home.” Brigid began to cry, her face crumpling like the pages she clutched in her fist. She dropped them to mop at her streaming eyes, and Liam stooped and picked them up, stuffing them into the waistband of his trousers.
“Is Eoin all right, Brigid? Is he safe?” I asked, my eyes clinging to the wide staircase that led to the second floor where I’d left Eoin a few hours earlier.
“What do you care?” she cried. “He’s not your son. He’s nothing to you.”
“I just need to know if he’s all right. I don’t want him to hear you crying. I don’t want him to see the gun.”
“I would never hurt Eoin! I would never lie to him, never pretend to be something I’m not!” she shrieked. “I’m protecting him from you. Like I should have done the moment you arrived.”
“All right. I’ll go. I’ll walk out of this house. Let me get my coat and my handbag—”
The outrage that bloomed in her eyes and cheeks was more frightening than her trembling and her tears.
“Your coat? Your handbag? Thomas bought those for you. He sheltered you. Cared for you. And you tricked him! You tricked that good, generous man,” she raged.
“Go,” Liam demanded, waving his rifle toward the door. I obeyed, abandoning every action except the one that got me out of the house uninjured. Liam followed me, the gun pointed at my back. I opened the door and walked down the front steps, Liam on my heels.
Brigid shut the door behind us. I heard the locks engage, the old-fashioned bolt sliding into place. My legs gave out beneath me, and I collapsed onto the grass in a quivering heap.
I didn’t cry. I was too stunned. I simply knelt, head to my chest, hands in the damp grass, trying to formulate a plan.
“You’re gonna wanna start walkin’,” Liam demanded. I wondered if Brigid was watching from behind the curtains. I prayed Eoin wasn’t. I rose slowly to my feet, my eyes on the gun Liam held with such ease. He had not hesitated to shoot me once, with two men looking on.
“Are you going to shoot me again?” I said, my voice loud and ringing. I hoped Robbie would hear and intervene. I felt a flash of shame and prayed Robbie would stay away. I didn’t want him to die.
Liam’s eyes narrowed, and he cocked his head, considering me, not lowering the rifle from the crook of his arm.
“I suppose I am. You just keep coming back. You have nine lives, Annie girl.”
“Annie? You told Brigid I was someone else. Did you tell her you tried to kill me too?” I challenged.
Fear flickered across his face, and his hands tightened on the gun. “I didn’t mean to shoot you. Not the first time. It was an accident.”
I stared, not understanding, not believing, and even more afraid than I’d been before. What was he talking about? The first time? How many times had he tried to kill Anne Gallagher?
“And on the lough? Was that an accident?” I asked, desperate to understand.
He approached me, nervous, his gaze sharp. “I thought it was the fog playin’ tricks on me. But you were real. Brody and Martin saw you too. And we got the hell outta there.”
“I would have died,” I said. “If Thomas hadn’t found me, I would have died.”
“You’re already dead!” he shouted, his temper flaring suddenly, and I flinched and stumbled back.
“Now I need you to walk down along the trees there,” he ordered. His hand shook as he pointed toward the trees, and I realized he was frightened too. “I heard one of my boys is buried in the bog. That’s where we’re heading, by way of the lough.”
I wasn’t going anywhere with him. Not to the bog. Not to the lough. I didn’t move. In a flash he was on me, one hand fisted in my hair, a barrel in my belly.
“Turn and walk,” he hissed, pressing his mouth to my ear. “Or I’ll shoot you right here, right now.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Move.”
I began to walk, helpless to do anything else. His hand was so tight in my hair that my chin was forced upward. I couldn’t see where I was placing my feet and stumbled repeatedly as he pushed me toward the trees.
“I saw you in Sligo today with one-eyed Robbie. I figured Tommy was out of town if Robbie was with you. So I thought I’d pay a quick visit to my mother. Imagine my surprise when I arrived and found her crying, upset, telling me you’re working with the Tans. Are you workin’ for the Brits, Annie? Are you here to kill Collins?”
“No,” I panted, my scalp screaming. I tripped, and he yanked me forward again.
“I don’t care if you are. I just want you gone. And you’ve given me the perfect excuse.”
We cleared the trees lining the lough and began sliding down the embankment to the beach. Eamon�
��s boat was pulled up on the shore, and Liam strode toward it, urging me along.
“Push it out,” Liam demanded, releasing my hair and shoving me forward as we neared it. He kept the gun pointed at my back, clearly not trusting me not to flee. I hesitated, my eyes on the lapping tide.
“No,” I moaned. Don’t go near the water, love.
“Push it out,” Liam yelled.
I obeyed, my limbs heavy, my heart on fire. I pushed the boat into the lough. Water filled my shoes, and I stepped out of them, leaving them behind. Maybe Thomas would find them and know what happened.
“Oh, Thomas,” I whispered. “Eoin . . . my Eoin. Forgive me.” The water was at my knees. I began to cry.
“Now get in the boat,” Liam commanded, wading out behind me. I ignored him and kept walking, knowing what I had to do. The water lapped at my thighs, clinging and ice cold.
“Get in!” he shouted and pressed the barrel of the gun between my shoulder blades. I pretended to stumble, falling forward, arms extended, and let go of the boat. The frigid water rushed up to catch me, covering my head and filling my ears. I felt Liam’s hand in my hair, grasping, desperate. His nails scored my cheek.
A shot rang out, oddly amplified by the water, and I screamed, expecting pain—expecting the end. Water flooded my nose and my mouth, and I tried to stand, choking. But Liam was pressing me down, his body heavy above me. I struggled, kicking and scratching, trying to free myself from his arms, to break the surface. To live.
For a moment I was weightless, free, cocooned in a breathless bubble, and I fought to stay conscious. The weight pressing me down became hands pulling me forward, grasping, lifting, dragging me onto the pebbled shore. I flopped onto the sand, gagging, choking, and retching as the lough lapped at my feet, penitent. The taste of the lake, the grit between my toes—all of it was the same. But there was no fog, no gloom, no overcast sky. The sun caressed my shivering shoulders. It was as though the world had flipped, tipping toward the sun, and dumped me out of the lough.
“Where did you come from, miss? Good God almighty. Scared me to death, you did.”
I still couldn’t speak, and the man above me was silhouetted by the setting sun. I couldn’t see his features. He pushed me onto my stomach, and I coughed up another bellyful of water.
“Take your time. You’re okay,” he soothed, crouching beside me, patting my back. I knew his voice. Eamon. It was Eamon Donnelly. Thank God.
“Liam. Where’s Liam?” I rasped. My lungs burned, and my scalp screamed. I laid my head on the shore, grateful to be alive.
“Liam?” he pressed. “Can you tell me more, ma’am?”
“Eamon,” I coughed. “Eamon, I need Robbie, and I can’t go home.”
“Robbie?” Eamon pressed, his voice rising in confusion. “Robbie or Eamon? Or Liam? I’m sorry, ma’am. I don’t know what you’re asking or who you’re asking for.”
I rolled back onto my side, too tired to push up to my hands and knees. I peered up at Eamon, a Herculean effort. But it wasn’t Eamon. I stared, trying to orient myself to the face above mine, the face that didn’t match the voice.
“Jaysus wept!” he gasped. “It’s you, lass. Dear God. What the . . . where the hell have you been? W-what . . . w-when,” he stammered, asking questions that I couldn’t process.
“Mr. Donnelly?” I cried, the horror rasping in my throat. Oh no. No, no, no.
“That’s right. You rented the boat from me, miss. I didn’t want you to take that damn boat out. You know I didn’t. Thank Mary, you’re all right. We thought you’d drowned in the lough,” he confessed, horrified.
“What day is it? What year?” I mourned. I couldn’t look around to ascertain for myself. I didn’t want to see. I pushed up to my hands and knees, struggled to my feet, and stumbled back into the water.
“Where’re you goin’?” Jim Donnelly asked. Not Eamon Donnelly. Jim Donnelly, who lived in the cottage by the dock and had rented me a boat. In 2001.
I fell into the lough, desperate to return, even as I refused to admit I’d left.
The man yanked me up. “What are you doing? Are ya out of yer mind?”
“What day is it?” I cried, fighting him.
“It’s July the sixth,” he bellowed, wrapping his arms around my upper body, dragging me back to the shore. “It’s a feckin’ Friday!”
“What year?” I panted. “What year?”
“Huh?” he stammered. “It’s 2001. We’ve been lookin’ for you for more than a week. Ten days. You never came back to shore. The boat, everything, was just gone. The rental company came and took your car when the Gardai were done with it.” He pointed toward the parking lot that didn’t exist when Thomas lived at Garvagh Glebe. When Eoin lived at Garvagh Glebe. When I had lived at Garvagh Glebe.
“No,” I wept. “Oh no.”
“The Gardai have been here. They’ve been over the lake with equipment. They even sent divers down,” he said, shaking his head. “What happened?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t really know what happened. I don’t really know.”
“Is there someone I can call, ma’am? Where the hell did you come from?” he muttered, trying to coax me back to his cottage, to warmth, to the call he was desperate to make. I wanted him to leave. But he kept his arm firmly around my shoulders, leading me away from the lough. I needed to return to the water, to slip beneath the surface and back to the time before, to the place I’d left, to the life I’d lost.
Lost. Gone. Just like that. A breath, a submersion, and I died and was born again. Liam had tried to kill me. And he’d succeeded. He’d taken my life. Taken my love. Taken my family.
“What happened to ya, lass?”
I could only shake my head, too distraught to speak. I’d been through this all before. And this time, Thomas and Eoin weren’t here to help me through it.
26 April 1922
Anne’s gone. She’s been gone for ten days. I returned to Garvagh Glebe late on Sunday, the sixteenth. My home was in chaos. Maggie held Eoin, who was feverish and ill in her arms. His crying made each breath a struggle. Maggie could hardly look at me, she was so distraught, but she murmured one word—lough—and I was out the door, running through the trees to the beach where Robbie and Patrick were scouring the shore for Anne’s body. Robbie, doing his best to explain the unexplainable, wept as he relayed the day’s events.
Liam had tried to force Anne into a boat on the lough at gunpoint, and Robbie had shot him. When Robbie ran into the water to pull Liam off her, she was gone.
Robbie said he searched the water for an hour. All he found were her shoes. He thinks she drowned, but I know what happened. She’s gone, but she’s not dead. I try to console myself with that.
Robbie dragged Liam back to the house where Brigid did her best to tend to him. Liam has a bullet wound in his shoulder, and he lost a lot of blood. But he’ll live.
I want to kill him.
I removed the bullet, cleaned the wound, and sutured it. When he cried in pain, I showed him the morphine, but I didn’t give him any.
“Thomas, please,” he moaned. “I’ll tell you everything. All of it. Please.”
“And how will you ease my pain, Liam? Anne is gone,” I hissed. “I’m letting you live. But I will not ease your pain.”
“That wasn’t Annie. She wasn’t Annie. I swear it, Tommy. I was trying to help you,” he moaned.
Brigid claims she found a “plot” in Anne’s drawer, a list of dates and details outlining the assassination of Michael Collins. Brigid doesn’t know what happened to the pages. She said Liam took them, and he said he must have lost them in the lough. They are both convinced my Anne was an imposter. They are right. And they are horribly wrong. I want to wrap my hands around Liam’s neck and howl my outrage into his ears.
“She looked like Annie. But that wasn’t Annie,” he said, shaking his head, adamant.
I was flooded with a sudden, terrible knowledge.
“How do you know this, Lia
m?” I whispered, almost afraid to ask, yet filled with a dizzying reassurance that I would finally know the truth. “Why are you so sure?”
“Because Annie’s dead. She’s been dead for six years,” he confessed, his skin damp, his eyes pleading. I could hear Brigid approaching, shuffling towards the room I used as a clinic, and I rose, slammed the door, and locked it. I couldn’t deal with Brigid. Not yet.
“How do you know?” I demanded.
“I was there, Thomas. I saw her die. She was dead. Anne was dead.”
“Where? When?” I was shouting, my voice so loud it echoed in my grief-soaked brain.
“At the GPO. Easter week. Please give me something, Doc. I can’t think straight through the pain. I’ll tell you. But you have to help me.”
With no fanfare or finesse, I jammed the syringe into his leg and depressed the morphine, pulling it free and tossing it aside as he wilted into the bed beneath him. His relief was so pronounced, he began to laugh softly.
I was not laughing. “Tell me!” I roared, and his laughter turned into chagrin.
“Okay, Tommy. I’ll tell you. I’ll tell you.” He sighed heavily, his pain retreating, his mind travelling somewhere else. Somewhere far away. I could see it in his eyes, in the way his voice fell into a storyteller’s rhythm as he shared an account he’d probably relived a thousand times in his head.
“That last night . . . at the GPO, we were all trying to be nonchalant. Trying to act like we didn’t care that the roof was about to cave in on us. Every entrance was in flames but the one on Henry Street, and getting down Henry Street was like running a feckin’ gauntlet. Men were running with their weapons, shooting at sounds, and in the process, shooting each other in the back. I was the last to go. Declan had already gone on ahead with O’Rahilly. They were going to try to clear Moore Street for the rest of us, but right away the word came back that they’d all been shot down. My little brother was always so feckin’ willing to be a hero.”