Mythology Abroad

by Jody Lynn Nye

  “No,” Keith admitted honestly. “But what about the tenants? It’s not their fault they’re going to be living over a magic volcano.”

  “They’d call you a nut if you told them that,” Diane said firmly. “Nobody is moving in here against their will. They’d think you owned one of the houses down there.” She pointed to the offended neighborhood.

  Together, they walked the perimeter of the entire housing estate, looking for anything which had been left undisturbed. The area around the streets had been piled high with the earth excavated from the building sites. Mature trees had been pushed down and left in scattered heaps like jackstraws.

  “They must haf left directions to where they had gone,” the leader said sadly, “if there vere any who could leaf them. But it is all destroyed, beyond where they beliefed it might be, by the big-footed fools. Are ve the only vuns left?”

  “Maybe they’re still close by,” Keith suggested hopefully, unwilling to declare the Master’s folk dead. He threshed his way out into the nearest large field and called out a halloo with his hands cupped around his mouth, “Yo! Little People!”

  “Oh, stop that,” Diane said impatiently, running out after him and bringing him back. “This field is full of nettles. Let’s get out of here. You’re soaked, and so am I. So are they.” She nodded back at the Master, who was standing in the growing downpour looking lost. “This place is too creepy to stay in.”

  There was silence in the little car for a long while. Keith turned the heater on full blast to try and dry them, but succeeded only in making them feel sticky and uncomfortable. He rolled down the window a crack, and let the coolness of tiny drops of rain come in.

  “Do you think they stayed close by?” Keith asked the Master, who was sitting deep in thought, stroking his beard. “I mean, you guys are not too big on travel.”

  “I haf no idea. There is no vay to tell vhen the village vas abandoned.” The Master stared sadly into space.

  The rain began to break up. Brave spears of sunlight poked between the clouds and lit up that much of a hill or this much of a valley, striking up the golds and greens in the landscape, and dropping curious shadows down the valleys. The photographer in Keith refused to be contained any longer.

  He pulled the car over near a likely field, where the hedge was low, and climbed up. Beneath him lay a broad and handsome valley like a sampler, dotted with sheep or stitched with growing crops. Clusters of woods lay at the right intersection of the perfectly straight lines of trees and brush which separated fields.

  “Yoo-hoo! Little Folk!” he called down, waving his arms. “Hey, Holl, how do you say ‘where are you’ in your language?”

  “I don’t,” the Little Person shot back. “Don’t waste your time. Take your picture and come down.”

  “All right, spoilsport,” Keith said. “I’m only trying to help.”

  O O O

  Michaels huddled over the wheel of his car and wished again for the omnidirectional microphones of the American secret service. O’Day was signaling to someone, with an air of expectancy. He feared that it was quite likely to be the connection that would make this entire investigation worthwhile, and his elderly listening mechanism couldn’t pick up a sound. The small blue car rolled again, and Michaels followed, careful to keep his distance. An unexpected turn could throw him into line-of-sight, or lose O’Day in the distance. Something was sure to happen imminently.

  O O O

  At any likely point when he wanted to take a picture, Keith repeated his antics on the hedge, and called out to any of the Little Folk who might be listening. Holl had given up trying to stop him, and sat in the car patiently with Diane, waiting for Keith to run out of film.

  They stopped on a ridge of land that overlooked two points in the great valley, both satisfyingly picturesque. Happily, Keith got out, and leaned over the gorse-covered wall on one side to take an exposure. The hedge on the other side was too high and too flimsy to climb. Eyeing the nettles and gorse cautiously, Keith walked back to the car. Bracing one foot on the car bumper and the other among the heather, he hoisted himself up far enough to see over the wall.

  Below was a broad sward of green populated by a herd of cows, who stood or lay on the flattened, wet grass, ignoring the waving and shouting of a figure like a demented scarecrow.

  “Hello there,” a voice called from behind him. Keith twisted his spine around and glanced back. There was a tan car parked about fifty feet behind him. A man had climbed out of it, and was walking toward them. He was of middle height and had wavy red hair.

  Keith jumped down with his hands on the car roof for balance. “Hi!” he called back. “What can I do for you?”

  “Nothing for me,” the man said cheerfully, coming up close to him. “Having a bit of car trouble? I saw you waving. I thought you might be signaling for help.”

  Keith laughed. “Oh, no. Everything’s fine. We’re just taking pictures. Beautiful day for it.”

  The man looked up and down at his sodden clothes, and grinned at him. His eyes were hazel-green. “It is now. Goodbye, then.”

  “Thanks anyway,” Keith called. The man threw him a salute and drove off.

  “Didn’t he look like the map of Ireland?” Keith commented. “As my grandmother would say.”

  “I would say he looked just like you, plus ten years or so,” Holl called through the window in amusement.

  “I noticed,” Keith said, winding the film forward in his camera. “My uncle Rob and he could almost be twins.”

  “But what I found more interesting is that the sticker on the back window of his car said ‘Doyle’s Garage,’” Holl pointed out. “He did offer to help you fix your car. I wonder if he owns the place, or merely rents from them.”

  “What?” Keith leaped into the driver’s seat. “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “I thought you could read that for yourself,” Holl protested. The others braced themselves as the little blue car leaped forward. It raced down the road in pursuit of the sedan. Keith thought he saw the tan car ahead of him.

  “We’ll catch him at the next turning,” he said.

  The next intersection was a blind angle to a crossroads. Each of the other three branches was empty. “We lost him,” Keith said sadly.

  “Never mind,” Diane said. “If you had any doubts before if we were in the right place, you better have lost them now.”

  “Oh, well,” Keith said, pulling over to the side of the road. It was narrow, so the left wheels were wedged up among the nettles and gorse. A quick glance in the mirror showed the Master’s crestfallen face. He was still hurting after finding the old homestead abandoned. Keith needed a distraction, any distraction. He looked up at the way posts at the crossroads. “Look, that way is Killargreany. Isn’t the next place on my list there?”

  Diane found the sheet of paper in the map compartment and read it. “That’s right. Boy, that must have been right up the road from your family. Married, born, married, died, born, born, born, married, born …” She ticked off the highlighted entries in the sheaf of parish records. Keith took off the parking gear and headed toward Killargreany.

  The Killargreany church was larger and more elaborately decorated than the small parish church of St. Michael’s had been. Set in a valley embraced on two sides by the glowing golden-green mountains, it had a serene solidity that made the travelers stop simply to look at it. The stone walls had long ago gone green with lichen. The shrubbery around the churchyard side had been allowed to grow wild, but it had done so artistically. Birds sang from the great yew trees clustered within the low stone walls.

  Numberless generations of local men and women had attended this church and had been buried here with its rites. Large tombs, some new, some old, and some decrepit, jostled elbows with every description of memorial stone, some of which stood at drunken angles in the ground. Keith took one look at the extensive churchyard, and made straight for the church door. “I’ve got to have expert help on this one. I wonder if
anyone’s here.”

  The huge wooden door opened quietly on its hinges. Inside, the church was cool and dim. Diane shivered once violently, and felt all right after that. They stood for a moment to allow their eyes to become accustomed to the light.

  Above them, the high, vaulted ceiling began to emerge from the gloom. It was held up by heavy beams of blackened wood. The door through which they had entered was at the rear of the right side of the building. At the front of the church, to their right, a window of jewel-colored stained glass glowed with warm blues and reds.

  “How beautiful,” Diane breathed. “This place is old.”

  At its foot, there was an altar, covered with an embroidered cloth and bedizened with colored dashes and dots from the window above. In the middle of the tabletop stood a gold cross with a circle set at the juncture of the crosspiece and upright.

  Rows of carved wooden pews marched back toward them along the aisle. Keith stepped forward to caress the smooth polish with the palm of his hand and wondered what Holl would think of them, and why he wouldn’t enter churches. That was something which would warrant investigation when he had the time to think about it.

  A table stood at their side of the church, behind the last row of pews. On it were arranged stacks of small pamphlets. One showed a line drawing of the church, and said in two languages “The History of Our Church.” There was a box with a slot in the top nearby, which read “Pay Here Please” in black letters.

  “Honor system,” Keith noted, digging in his pocket for change.

  The large coins falling into the box sounded like chains clanking, echoing in the quiet building. Keith was reading one of the flyers by the light from the door when he heard bustling near the altar place. A door opened, and an elderly priest in long black vestments emerged, straightening his glasses on his nose.

  “Visitors, by the look of you?” the old man said, a question and a statement in one phrase. “Welcome. Ah, it’s getting late, and I’m behind in my duties. It’s no excuse, but it’s a sleepy summer day. The lights should be on by now. I’m Father Griffith.” He smiled at their surprise. “One Welsh ancestor and it’s followed me for eight generations.”

  Keith introduced himself and Diane, and explained his reason for visiting. “I’m hunting down my family line. I think that this is the area where my folks came from. The Genealogy Office told me this would be the first place I should look, and then branch out into the smaller parishes around here.”

  The priest shook their hands. “I’m pleased to meet you both. Do you know, we get many visitors over the year, most of them from America. And where is it you might be coming from?”

  “I live outside Chicago. Diane is from Michigan.”

  The priest nodded expansively. “Ah, Chicago. A great place. I’ve never been there myself, you understand, but so I’ve been told, and the films that are made there! Shocking, some of it.”

  “They’re all true,” Diane said impishly.

  “Doyle, Doyle,” Griffith mused, studying Keith’s face. “There’s enough of those, to be sure. What’s the names you’re looking for, then?” He took Keith’s hand drawn family tree and began to peruse it, steadying his thin-rimmed glasses with one hand. “Ah, well, you’ll not find this one here,” he pointed, and then read the small-penciled notation underneath. “I see you know that already. Good. I’m a great historian, if I am going to have to say it for myself. I’m always browsing among the stones out there, getting to know my parishioners, even the ones who are not precisely with us any more, if you understand me.”

  “It looks like my three-times-great grandfather, Emerson O’Doyle, was the one who moved away from here. He was born in this parish, and married here too, I think. It looks like he went to open a practice in Arklow, and left from there to go to America,” Keith explained, pointing out the names in the family tree.

  “You don’t know why they left, then?” Griffith asked, looking at him over the tops of his glasses.

  “No,” Keith said. “We’ve only got a few letters and things that were saved. None of them say why.”

  “You can make up great stories and all, but it’s usually a fundamental thing which drives a family to leave the land of their birth. I think I know the reason for this one. The name stuck in my mind, which is why I remember it. It’s this way.” Griffith beckoned them around to the aisle and along the wall. He stopped before a white, engraved stone only a few inches square.

  “Pray for the soul of Padraig Thomas O’Doyle, Died April 5, 1855, aged sixty-three days,” Keith read. “Beloved son of Emerson and h …” His voice stopped on the reference to the dead child’s mother.

  Diane finished for him. “… His wife Grainhe Butler O’Doyle.”

  “How sad, to have survived the Famine, and lose his first little son like that,” Father Griffith said sympathetically. He nodded when Keith held up his camera, giving silent permission to take a picture of the cenotaph. “If it’s a happier note you’d be wanting, I can show you where his uncle is buried: Eamon. He lived to be seventy-eight.”

  In spite of himself, Keith laughed. “I’d be happier if you could tell me where to find the living half of the family, Eamon’s children—or great-great grandchildren now. My folks would like to get to know them. Do you know many Doyles?”

  “Ah, yes, I know everyone. In a small place like this, we all know the ins and outs of each other’s business. I’ve got to look up me records. It occurs to me that I might know someone who’s come down from the family of Eamon O’Doyle, second son of Fionn,” Griffith recalled suddenly, one finger in the air to mark a mental place. “And you might think of putting up a notice on the board with your name and address. That may stir memories I lack.”

  He guided Keith back to the pamphlet table, and gave him a sheet of paper, and then disappeared into the rear of the church. While Keith was printing his message, the priest arrived with an armload of big, leather-bound books. “These are the current birth and baptismal records, along with the marriage and death registers for this parish. The old ones go to the Central Archives when they’re written to the last page. My clerk will as likely have my ears for pulling them out of her office, but as you’ve come all this way I’m not wanting to stand on ceremony.”

  “Thank you, Father!” Keith began to thumb through the pages. Here and there he spotted the name Doyle. Furiously, he jotted down names and dates and the names of babies’ parents. “I should have given myself a lot more than one week for this job.”

  “Well, you’ll be wanting to come back, then,” the priest said hospitably, and dropped a fingertip on Keith’s notice. “Just scratch down there the place you’re staying while you’re in Ireland. You’ll excuse me now, as it’s nearly time for evening prayers. You might think of staying yourself, if you have the time. And good afternoon, Mrs. Murphy. How are you this fine day? Not a drop of rain or a wisp of cloud.” The priest moved away to place a hand on the arm of a very old woman walking slowly into the aisle of the church. Squinting through filmy blue eyes, she smiled up at the black-coated clergyman, who helped her to a pew. After he tacked up his notice, Keith waved a silent farewell to the priest. Father Griffith nodded companionably to him, never breaking off his conversation with the old woman.

  “That’s a great piece of luck,” Diane said, as they wandered around the churchyard. “There were their names, right there, together, even carved in stone. Hmm!” She stretched out her arms in the sunshine and turned up her face to be warmed. “What a nice place to be buried, if you have to be dead. It’s really lovely here.”

  ***

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  They walked back to the car. Keith was jubilantly buoyant with the success of his visit. Holl listened to the narrative intently.

  “So what will you do with the birth records you copied down?”

  “Mr. Dukes suggested that I look in the phone books, and send letters explaining what I’m doing. A lot of the people might consider a phone call to be intruding, so I should j
ust approach them politely from a distance.”

  “That sounds sensible,” Holl agreed.

  The Master, now seated in his old place in the back seat, said nothing. He seemed to have retreated inside himself to think. As they headed back to the Keane home, Keith tried several times to start cheerful conversations. After the Master ignored his questions and remarks, he decided wisely to leave the leader alone with his thoughts.

  “I’m still soggy,” Keith said. “We’re not far away from the guest house, but why don’t we stop and have a drink or something, and warm up? Then we can go back and change for dinner.” On the backdrop of the still-gray sky, Keith had noticed a glow of white light over the treetops which might mean a pub or a farmhouse in the distance. He was hoping for a pub.

  Following the glow, Keith wound upward through the two-lane roads, and arrived in front of a white-walled building that announced itself proudly as The Skylark, which was The Highest Pub in Ireland.

  Keith coaxed the reluctant Master into the pub’s lounge.

  “There are many of your folk in this place,” the Master said, “Are you not concerned that they vill see us?”

  The American peered around the corner. “It’s pretty dark in there. Look, there’s a fireplace with no other lights around it. We’ll go and dry out a little, and then if you think it’s safe, we can have a drink. If not, we’ll just go before there’s any trouble.”

  “That sounds prudent,” Holl said. He pushed the door open and stood by as the others passed inside.

  “Ach,” said the Master. “You are behaving like vun of the Big Folk. Too bold!”

  Rather than being oppressed by the dimness of its lights, the Skylark was made cozy and inviting. A coal and peat fire glowed red in the ornamental iron firebox and touched lights in the complicated patterns of the enameled tiles with which the hearth and wall were lined. Overstuffed chairs and sofas sat under the curtained windows, which were shut tight against the cool evening wind. There were knickknacks on the walls, some of them unidentifiable even in full light. With Keith between them and the customers at the rectangular bar, the Little Folk made their way toward the old-fashioned settees near the fireplace.