“I’m not bothered. I’m glad she found a relative. It makes me jumpy, though. What if someone up and claims me?”
Nula stopped in the middle of the path. “You wouldn’t like that?”
“No. Why would I like that? You and me and Joe, we get along fine.”
“But Joe isn’t—”
“Joe’s just fine.”
Nula looked up into the sky and down the path and then she turned and looked back toward the house. “Naomi, lass, I have always worried that someone might come along and claim you.”
“You worried about it? So you would have been bothered by that?”
“Of course! That was hard on me and Joe, that worry. You were a great, unexpected surprise dropped into our lives, and it took us a long time to accept that good fortune. Maybe we kept a little too much distance sometimes, but—”
“Poor, poor, pitiful me.”
Nula picked up the routine. “Yes, you ragamuffin lass, now pick up your feet and get a move on. We can’t stand here gabbing all day.” From her pocket Nula withdrew a small packet wrapped in green cloth. Inside was another packet wrapped in plastic. “Look who I brought along,” she said, extending her hand toward me.
At first I thought she held sand.
“It’s Joe,” she said, with a crooked grin. “I could hardly see Ireland without him, could I?”
“I thought you buried his ashes.”
“Only a few of them—the rest of his ashes are in that red cookie tin at home.” She winked at me. “Joe and I weren’t blood related, but we were a good match, don’t you think?”
Nula took a pinch of ashes and scattered them near a clump of lavender. “Purty, don’t you think, Joe? Mm?” From the packet she retrieved another pinch. “Don’t know anybody who knew Joe like you and I did, Naomi. We were a good match, you and me and Joe.” Nula flicked bits of Joe over a rosebush.
To one side of us stretched a vast, rolling green lawn; the other side was bordered by rosebushes, lavender, and magnolia trees. At this time of morning the path was shaded by trees arching over us, and it looked as if we were entering a strange and enchanted land.
We met the gardener, a sturdy-looking man wearing work trousers, boots, and a collared shirt and tie, who introduced himself as Michael. He wiped his hand on his trousers and shook each of our hands. When he came to me, he said, “Dust yer arm hurt yer, lass?”
“No.”
“A dog ate it,” Lizzie said.
Michael-the-gardener nodded, as if that was the sort of thing he heard regularly.
Pilpenny suggested that Lizzie and I run ahead. “If you stay on the path, you’ll come to a bridge over a stream, and on the far side of the bridge is the orchard. You can run free in the orchard, except for the fairy ring, stay clear of that.”
“A real fairy ring?” Lizzie asked.
“As real as ever a fairy ring was,” Pilpenny answered. “You won’t have any trouble spotting it—it’s in the middle of the orchard, beyond the sundial. Don’t enter the ring.”
Lizzie said, “Naomi, did you hear her? She said we mustn’t enter the fairy ring.”
“I heard her, Lizzie. I’m not deaf.”
It felt good to run, after that long plane ride and long sleep. The air smelled of—was that salt and sand? Were we that near the ocean? It also smelled of green, green grass and of sweet fruit. We raced along the winding path, shedding our recent squabble, catching glimpses between the bushes of gentle hills and meadows, of low rock walls and stubby trees and hulking boulders. Soon we came to the stream and the most unusual wooden bridge. It did not go straight across the wide stream. Instead it jogged this way and that: left, then right, then right again, then left, right, left. You could not easily run across it because of the frequent turns.
“Did you ever see such a crooked bridge?” Lizzie asked. “I never did in my whole life. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Do you think it makes any sense at all, Naomi?”
“Didn’t Finn talk about a crooked bridge?”
“Did he?”
“He drew it in the dirt—”
“Oh, I remember. Isn’t that funny? What a coincidence.”
On the far side of the crooked bridge were two tall pillars, much like those at the front entrance to the main house. On top of each pillar was a tall crow (or, as Patrick, the driver, had said, a rook) and joining the two pillars in a graceful arch was a sign in iron letters:
ROOKS ORCHARD
Beyond the entrance were row upon row of fruit trees.
“So there really is an orchard at Rooks Orchard,” Lizzie said. “I didn’t think the name of the place might actually mean something, did you, Naomi? Did you expect a real orchard? And maybe there are—look! There. Rooks!”
“Cor, cor, cor,” came the call of a rook overhead. “Cor, cor, cor, cor.” More rooks, maybe a dozen, circled above the trees.
“How about that?” Lizzie said. “There’s this enormous hotel place and plum jam and a new auntie and magnolias and roses and lavender and a crooked bridge and an orchard and rooks—there is too much coming into my head, Naomi.”
Again, the mention of the crooked bridge and now the rooks and the orchard reminded me of Finn. It was like a flash of a photograph before it disappeared.
We were surrounded by fruit trees that stretched as far as we could see. Following the path, we came to a sundial, and beyond it, the fairy ring. Mushrooms the size of my fist formed a narrow rim. The interior of the ring was a mix of grass and flowers and flattened areas that snaked through the grass.
“A real fairy’s ring?” Lizzie said. “My mother talked of fairy rings, I just remembered that. Isn’t that peculiar? They dance and play music in there. No humans or animals can go inside the ring. Terrible, terrible fates befall you if you trespass on a fairy ring.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know, maybe your head would be chopped off. Maybe you would be struck blind, or maybe you would vanish altogether—poof!”
I balanced one foot atop a mushroom.
“Don’t, Naomi, don’t do that.”
I rolled the mushroom the slightest bit under my foot.
“Don’t, Naomi, please don’t.”
I dipped my foot inside the ring and quickly drew it back again.
“Naomi!” Lizzie said.
“Nay-oh-me. Lizz-ee.” From far away someone called our names.
“Now you’ve done it,” Lizzie said. “If something gets us, it’s all your fault.”
CHAPTER 46
ACROSS THE OCEAN: A STORM
Back in Blackbird Tree, a steady, strong wind pushed heavy gray clouds over the town. Blacker clouds and wilder winds galloped behind them, blasting leaves and limbs off trees, signs off posts, shingles off roofs. The wind howled through the town, slamming against doors and shutters. Thunder bellowed and lightning cracked overhead.
Cats slid onto porches, trash barrels banged against garages, people dived into doorways, all seemingly calling, Let me in, let me in.
Inside his home, Mr. Canner held Tales of Ireland against his chest as he dozed in his chair. In Mrs. Broadley’s boardinghouse, one-armed Farley held an iron crow and whispered, “Mary-Mary.”
Crazy Cora, face pressed against her cold bedroom window, watched a lone chicken flutter and tumble down the street. Witch Wiggins opened all the windows in her house and let the wind race through. The curtains twirled wildly, magazines leaped into the air and flew through the rooms, and her colorful birds dove under the sofa.
A buzz was heard through the town as wires plunged to the ground and flapped like whips. The lights went out.
“It comes, it goes,” Witch Wiggins said.
CHAPTER 47
REAL OR NOT REAL?
As we returned to the main house, Lizzie said, “Is this the only hotel in the area? Is that why we’re staying in this grand place? It must cost a fortune.”
Pilpenny blinked. “Hotel? This isn’t a hotel. Did you all think—?” She gaped at us.<
br />
“What is it, then?” Lizzie said.
“It’s Rooks Orchard. It’s Sybil’s place.”
Nula staggered backward. “Wha—?”
And that is how we learned that Rooks Orchard belonged to Sybil Kavanagh.
Inside, we met Dora, the cook, who offered us “wee cakes.” To me, she said, “Dust yer wonky arm urt yer, lass?”
“No.”
“A dog ate it,” Lizzie offered.
A bell rang at the front and Pilpenny went to answer it. We heard a man’s voice in the hall.
“Eezer slister,” the cook said.
“What?”
We looked out into the hall and saw Mr. Dingle standing there.
“Eezer slister. SYBIL’S SLISTER. Yer got taters in yer ers?”
Lizzie took offense. “We do not have taters in our ears. We just cannot understand you sometimes. What does ‘eezer slister’ mean?”
“Ut means EEZER SLISTER.”
Upstairs, Lizzie was as wound up as a tin soldier. “Naomi, what are you thinking? That Dingle Dangle man—that eezer slister—seems to know everybody. And I don’t think Auntie Pilpenny is crazy at all, do you? I hope not, because if she is crazy, then maybe I could be crazy, too, since we are blood relatives—”
If the wall were closer to me, I’d have banged my head on it.
“And when you stepped in the fairy ring—oh, Naomi—well, isn’t it strange that the Dingle man showed up right after that? And I’m thinking there is some bad news.”
Out of the donkey’s ears …
“Naomi, I’m all mixed up. Are we really here? Is this real or not real?”
“What is ‘real’?”
“Naomi, sometimes you make me dizzy.”
I wanted to tell her that, as we were leaving the orchard earlier, I thought I had seen a boy in the shadows. For an instant, I thought I saw Finn. But I did not tell her.
I wanted to tell her what I thought I had seen at the side of the path: a flat stone, with crude markings:
But I didn’t tell Lizzie because maybe the boy and the stone were not real.
CHAPTER 48
ACROSS THE OCEAN: WIND AND FIRE
For three days the rains pelted and the winds howled through Blackbird Tree. Trees lay like fallen soldiers, signs skittered across fields, tarps battered their dark wings through the air, tractors lay upended, their underbellies exposed. Thunder raged. Lightning spiked roofs and trees.
Mr. Canner slept in his chair, Tales of Ireland now on the floor at his feet.
One-armed Farley, in Mrs. Broadley’s boardinghouse, hid under the blue quilts on his bed, cradling the pair of iron crows.
A tree had fallen on the roof of Crazy Cora’s house, crushing her bed, but not her. She was in the bathroom at the time.
As the air crackled with lightning, Witch Wiggins felt a jolt. Her whole body trembled, her hair stood on end, the air boomed with thunder. Across town she watched a giant bolt of lightning dart from the sky, crashing into a barn roof. A second bolt, even stronger, lit up the house near the barn. A few minutes later, smoke. And then, fire: the barn, the house.
The following morning, twenty or thirty residents of Blackbird Tree gathered in the yard of what had been Joe and Nula’s house. What remained were charred and smoking stubs of timber; lumps of black, smoldering furniture; and a few stray, colorful items poking from the ashes—a red cookie tin, a yellow platter, a blue mug.
The chicken coop was no more; the chickens were no more. The barn was now a hill of smoking ashes, with a few ragged beams jutting up at odd angles, their pointed ends stabbing at the sky. The rounded top of a chest lay collapsed on its burned contents, like a giant turtle shell. Beneath it poked the heads of two iron crows.
Crazy Cora stood with Mrs. Broadley from the boardinghouse and Mrs. Mudkin from the church.
“One day it’s all there, and the next day it’s gone,” said Mrs. Broadley.
“Poof!” said Crazy Cora.
“I heard they went to Ireland,” Mrs. Broadley said.
“For good?”
“I’ve no idea.”
“Who’s going to tell them?”
“No idea.”
“It was Witch Wiggins, you know.”
“Says who?”
“Ever’body.”
Mrs. Mudkin closed her eyes. “We should pray.”
“I ain’t praying,” Crazy Cora said.
Mrs. Mudkin said, “Lord, please bless—”
“I ain’t praying.”
“—this land and the people who—”
“I ain’t praying.”
“—have toiled on this earth—”
“Stop that praying.”
“I can pray if I want to.”
“Then be quiet about it.”
CHAPTER 49
FROM DONKEYS’ EARS
We received the news of the fire that burned our house and barn.
“To the ground,” Nula told us. “It’s all, all gone.”
“The chickens?”
“The chickens, too.”
“The house, the barn? All of it?”
“Gone.”
Lizzie blurted, “You’re homeless. Oh, it’s awful, awful. It’s so entirely pitiful.”
And at that moment, when it felt as if bad stuff was pouring out of the donkey’s ears, it did seem entirely pitiful.
CHAPTER 50
ACROSS THE OCEAN: THE WITCH VISITS
After Mrs. Broadley, blue purse in hand, set off for her weekly grocery errands, Witch Wiggins entered the boardinghouse, always unlocked. At one-armed Farley’s door, she knocked.
“Artie? You there?” she called.
“Eh? Who’s that?”
“Hazel.”
The door opened quickly, as if he’d been expecting her.
“I’ve brought you something,” she said. On the table, she placed her parcel and unfolded the newspaper wrappings.
One-armed Farley gasped. He leaned over to study the items and then rushed to the cabinet and retrieved the two birds that had been Mary-Mary’s. “Identical!” he said, setting his two beside the pair that Hazel Wiggins had brought.
She explained that she had retrieved them from the ashes of Joe and Nula’s barn. “These are rooks, you know, not crows.”
One-armed Farley gently stroked the new rooks. He lined all four up in a row and then he rearranged them so that the old two were facing the new two. “They will need time to get acquainted,” he said.
“Or reunited.”
One-armed Farley stared at her. “Reunited? You mean—?”
“I think they were all together once.”
“Together.” He nodded, and then he crossed the room to a small desk, and from its center drawer, he pulled a piece of blue paper. He folded it carefully and handed it to Hazel Wiggins.
CHAPTER 51
ASHES
We were a small procession: Nula, carrying a black urn containing her sister’s ashes; Pilpenny; the cook and the gardener; the Dingle Dangle man; and me and Lizzie. The sun shone on the wide lawn, the trees casting long shadows across the path. And so we walked between sun and shadows, until we came to the Crooked Bridge.
“Pardon me, Nula,” Pilpenny said. “Sybil always liked me to run her across the bridge. May I?”
Nula handed the urn to Pilpenny, and off she went, urn cradled in her arms. Left, right, right. “Whoopsie!” she called. At the far end, she said, “There, Sybil. Once again we escaped the evil spirits.”
As we entered the iron gate with rooks atop each pillar, Pilpenny pointed out Sybil’s sleek black rook circling overhead. Down the center path we went, past apple and plum and pear trees. “Have to pull plums before long,” Pilpenny said. “We’re a bit late on the pears.”
We passed the sundial, made a wide berth past the fairy ring, and stopped at the end of the path. Pilpenny indicated a newly mown patch of meadow beyond. “There. That’s what she wanted.”
We could make out a small hole, abo
ut a foot square, and two flat stones, side by side. On one stone was Sybil’s name. The other stone was blank.
“Why two stones?” Lizzie asked.
Pilpenny turned to the Dingle Dangle man. “That’s best left to Mr. Dingle to explain. After lunch. It’s part of Sybil’s revenge.”
“Revenge?”
“You’ll see,” Pilpenny said.
After Nula placed the urn with Sybil’s ashes into the hole, Pilpenny added a book. “Sybil liked a good murder mystery,” she said. “I think she’ll enjoy this one.” The title was After the Funeral.
Mr. Dingle shoveled dirt back into the hole and said a prayer.
“Before we go back,” Pilpenny said, “I want to show you something.” She led us to a tall oak near the edge of the line of plum trees. At the base of the oak was a well-tended patch of grass and a smooth gray stone with crude markings:
A squeak came from Nula. “Is it him? Is this Finn’s grave?”
“No,” Pilpenny said. “Not long after Sybil came here to Rooks Orchard, when Finn took her wages and her heart and went along to another lass, Sybil scratched her broken heart into this stone—she was dramatic, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Nula agreed.
“The stone used to be up there in the meadow where she is now buried, but it was moved here to mark the spot where Finn’s son, Finnbarr, died.” She looked up into the branches of the oak tree. “He fell from this very tree. Almost a man, still a boy in his heart, and a boy will climb a tree simply because it’s there, won’t he?”
I had an odd sensation: I saw myself back in Blackbird Tree when I was younger, falling, falling from a tree. Maybe I died then. Maybe it only seems like I’m still alive.
“Sad,” Nula said. “Do you know the whereabouts of Finn, the father?”
“His grave is next to his son’s in the Duffayn churchyard.”
“Alas,” Nula said.
“But he’s still prowling around here. You’ll see in time.”
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