The Irish love to talk.
Late that afternoon, Colin walked back down from Mrs. Egan’s to the town center. For the first time, he noticed the presence of many strangers in the town. There were faces he didn’t recognize, too well-dressed and too oblivious to the streets and shops around them to be tourists. Also walking in the main part of town were several sailors in uniform, both men and women. Colin turned away from the square, walking toward Beach Road with the mist fogging his glasses.
Despite Superintendent Dunn’s caution, he still wanted to go back out to Inishcorr, if only—he told himself—to get his guitars.
About a kilometer down Beach Road, he came to the small marina where the Grainne Ni Mhaille usually tied up when Maeve and her people came to Ballemór, which was also where most of the Galway hookers and other small craft in the area docked. He paused at the end of the main jetty, cleaning his glasses on his sweater as he looked at the pebbled beach and scanning the piers and jetties for the Grainne Ni Mhaille, as if nothing had changed and Maeve would be there, waiting for him. The bright red sails of a few other Galway hookers caught his attention, but none of them had the lines of the Oileánach’s boat.
He walked up the steps and out along the dock toward the small office building. Behind the counter there, in front of a wall displaying a large chart of nautical knots and a display of embroidered tea towels of Irish linen with nautical themes, a bored-looking young woman was texting on her phone. She glanced up from the phone as Colin entered; then, with an audible sigh and a distinct frown of irritation, set the phone down. “’Morning to yeh,” she said. “Fine weather we’re having today.” Her gaze traveled over him; he could see her sizing him up. She nodded. “Looking for a ride around the Head? How many would it be? ’Tis a couple tourist charter boats in dock yeh can hire . . .”
She stopped as Colin shook his head. “I need to get out to Inishcorr,” he told her, and was rewarded with a laugh.
“Tiz me berries,” she said, and at the confused look on Colin’s face, shook her head. “Yer joking around with me, right?” She laughed again. “Goin’ to Inishcorr, are yeh? Hope yeh can swim, then.”
“No, I’m serious. I’ll pay whatever I need to pay, but I need to get out there.”
The mocking, abbreviated laugh was repeated. She glanced down at her phone on the counter. “Mister, have yeh not been listenin’ to the news? The Naval Service is stopping any ships from gettin’ to the island, but that’s nah the worst of it.”
Colin heard the tone in her voice, and his eyes narrowed. “I’ve . . . been away for a few days,” he told her. “What do you mean?”
“Yeh really don’t know? It’s all bolloxed up out there. There’s been a fog around Inishcorr for the last three days. Yeh can’t even see the bloody island well enough to get close. The fog just sits there: all day, all night, thick as an old London Particular with no wind blowing it away. It’s feckin’ weird and unnatural, if yeh don’t mind my sayin’ so. People are saying ’tis the devil’s work.” She shrugged and picked up her phone. “So yer outta luck, Mister. No one here’s gonna take yeh out that way.”
“I can pay well,” Colin countered. “Whatever it takes.” Or my credit card can do that . . .
“Yeh can offer to pay whatever yeh want. Still won’t happen.” She looked at him, raising her eyebrows, and returned her attention to the phone’s screen, obviously dismissing him.
“You’re certain there’s no one? No one at all?”
“That’s the craic.” She raised her eyebrows to him again. “Sorry, mate.”
Colin lifted his hands in defeat. “Well, thanks anyway. Look, if you hear of someone, I’m staying up at Mrs. Egan’s for the next few days. You could send word there.”
“Sure, and I’ll do just that,” she told him without looking at him, her attention back on her phone. Colin knew that she’d forget him and his request before he made it back to the Beach Road. He left her and walked out onto the pier again. He glanced west, toward where the inlet widened as it met the open Atlantic. He could see a few of the islands beyond that hugging the coast, gray and faint in the mist, but Inishcorr couldn’t be seen from here.
He made his way back down to the Beach Road.
Before Colin reached the intersection for the town center, he turned and made the long, slow climb up a walking path winding through the heather and brush from Beach Road to the Sky Road that ran around Ceomhar Head, knowing that farther out around the Head, he would normally be able to glimpse Inishcorr. At least he might be able to see if what the young woman at the marina had told him was true.
Gray streams of clouds rolled by overhead and a misty, erratic drizzle had started as he made the long walk. A few cars, their tire treads hissing on the wet blacktop, slid past him: tourists out to gaze at the lovely vistas the headland afforded. After an hour’s walk, Colin reached a turnout beyond which the lower reaches of Ceomhar Head spread out toward the sea, with the closest islands hugging the coast. Beyond, gray waves rolled in to thrash white and foaming against the unyielding, stolid granite of Connemara.
He should have been able to glimpse Inishcorr from here—a low hump nearly on the horizon, on a good day blued with distance but clearly visible. Today, there was nothing. Out where Inishcorr lurked, he could make out two coastal patrol vessels, one of them a large “Róisín” class ship. Between them there was a white smudge, a cloud that appeared to have abandoned the sky and come to rest on the ocean’s surface. Colin stared outward as if the intensity of his gaze could manage to pierce the fog and reveal the contours of Inishcorr, as if he expected that because he was there that the mists would part and the island reappear. Magically, like the mythical Hy-Brasil suddenly revealed behind its misty blanket once every seven years.
The fog remained stubbornly opaque.
Colin sat on the wooden railing at the edge of the turnoff. A steep slope ran down to a farm where distant sheep were grazing, a thin trail of smoke coming from the farmhouse chimney. A tiny form—the husband? the wife?—moved from the back door toward a barn. The landscape was bucolic, belying the presence of the patrol vessels. He watched the white dots of the sheep moving against the deep green of the field, glancing out past the shore to the implacable fog.
Out there was his lover. Out there were his guitars, his laptop, his clothes. Out there was the place he had been told needed his presence. Out there, he could feel deep in his gut, was where he was supposed to be. His destiny. He reached into his pocket and dragged out the cloch. He held it in his hand, gazing into its milky, green depths before draping the chain over his neck.
Maeve, talk to me. Show me that you’re still there. Damn it, you said you needed me. Show me that I haven’t done something really stupid. Again.
The stone was terribly cold in his hand, and again he thought he could hear faint whispers of voices in his head as he held it. Maeve, he thought silently, as if he could project his mind to hers. I’m here. Give me a sign that you can hear me. Tell me how I can get to you. Help me.
If Maeve heard his internal plea, she didn’t reply.
He stood there watching the play of clouds and sea until another quick shower curtained the view in rain, then he slid the pendant under the collar of his sweater as he turned to walk back toward Ballemór and Mrs. Egan’s, still wondering how he could reach Inishcorr and Maeve.
A garda’s car passed him as he was walking back toward the village, heading in the same direction. Colin gave it little notice until he saw the car stop just beyond him and back up with a whine of its transmission. The car stopped alongside him; the garda who was driving remained in the car but two passengers in the rear seat got out, a man wearing a naval uniform and Superintendent Dunn. They approached Colin, who felt a sense of trepidation.
“Identification,” the officer said without preamble, holding out his hand. Under his officer’s cap, his blue eyes were cold and unsympathetic.
Dunn said nothing. Colin reached in his pocket for the passport Dunn had just given back to him this morning, handing it to the man.
“Is there some kind of problem, Officer, Superintendent?” he asked, but neither answered. The officer snapped open the passport and scanned it. Colin saw the driver reach for the radio microphone. The officer gazed steadily and impassively at Colin’s face before glancing once at Dunn.
“Colin Doyle,” he said, as if tasting the name. As Colin watched, he handed the passport to the garda driving the car, who picked up his radio and began relaying his passport number to someone. “You were just enquiring at the Beach Road Marina about hiring a boat to take you to Inishcorr.” There was no question in the man’s tone. “Superintendent Dunn informs me that he’d already warned you about going back out to Inishcorr.”
“Yeah,” Colin told them. “I was warned.”
“Inishcorr is currently under naval interdiction,” the officer responded. “Going there would be a crime. For someone like yeh, here on a visa, that would mean immediate deportation.”
“I don’t recall Superintendent Dunn mentioning anything about an interdiction.”
“The interdiction order was just issued a few hours ago,” the officer answered. “But the Superintendent advised yeh not go there, regardless, did he not?”
Colin could feel the heat of his cheeks reddening. “He did. I also told him I wanted to get the guitars and laptop I left out there. I was just seeing if that were possible.” He could feel Dunn staring at him, and he stared back. “From what I’ve been told, it appears it’s not.”
“’Tis not,” Dunn agreed, and the naval officer nodded.
“Yer a friend of these Oileánach, Mr. Doyle?”
Colin shook his head and shrugged at the same time. “Yeah, I’m . . .” He paused. “. . . a friend of one of them,” he finished. “I went out to play music with them, to learn the songs they know. That’s the reason I’m here in Ireland—to study music.” He had the sense that he was rambling, giving too much information and speaking too fast. The officer continued to stare, impassive, then turned away and leaned into the open window of the car, speaking to the garda who was driving. Colin couldn’t hear what they were saying. Finally, the officer stood up again. He had Colin’s passport in his hand, and extended it back to Colin. As Colin took it, the officer’s fingers continued to grip the blue cloth.
“As the Superintendent told yeh, yeh ca’nah go out there, sir,” he said. “Those ones on the island, they’ve broken the law and taken land that isn’t theirs, and they’ll be made to leave one way or t’other. Yeh can’t be there when that happens. Do we have an understanding, Mr. Doyle? I don’t expect to hear yer name again in connection with trying to find a way out there. In fact, I’d advise yeh to leave the Connemara area entirely, just so there aren’t any . . . mistakes. Go study yer music somewhere else in Ireland, why don’t yeh? There’s music a’plenty elsewhere in the other counties. Would yeh like a ride back to Ballemór with us, then?”
Colin shook his head. “No, I prefer to walk. You’ve given me a lot to think about.”
The officer let go of the passport, nodded to Colin once, and got back into the cruiser. Superintendent Dunn remained outside. He took Colin’s arm and moved him a few steps away from the car. “Yeh understand the man, then,” he said to Colin.
“I do, Superintendent.”
“Good. Between the two of us, Mr. Doyle, I di’nah give a bollocks when the Oileánach took the island. I’da been satisfied to let ’em have it—and I di’nah push it until I had to. Same with yeh—if yeh’d been able to get yerself out there, whether to get yer instruments or to stay, I would’nah have cared. ’Tis yer business. But now it’s all a pain in the hole with the Naval Services involved, and there’s nothing either one of us can do.” Colin saw him glance back at the car. “Do yeh understand me, Mr. Doyle? The Oileánach will have to deal with others now, not me, and if yeh want to stay in Ireland, then yeh ca’nah go back out. Yeh see that?”
“I do,” Colin told him.
“Good. I hope yer as smart as yeh sound, then.” Dunn released Colin’s arm and nodded once to him. The man’s face nearly crinkled into a smile, then he turned and went back to the car. He opened the door and slid into the back seat with the naval officer.
Colin watched the driver start the car, swing it around on the narrow road, and head back toward Ballemór. Colin watched them, standing at the side of the road. When the cruiser vanished around a curve, he glanced back toward the sea, but even if the fog around Inishcorr had vanished, he could no longer have seen the island.
He began walking again.
27
The Gray Daylight
THE WHITE SHROUD covered the island, masking Inishcorr from the patrol vessels around it but also making it difficult for the residents to move around easily. The fog was at its thickest about Keara’s house, so much so that Maeve found herself stepping carefully, looking down at her feet because the ground even two strides away was hidden and indistinct. It would be easy to trip over a hidden clump and twist an ankle. She breathed in the fog, exhaled it, and her movements caused tendrils to writhe and snake around her. Reaching the door, she knocked; Niall opened the door. Beyond him, the small cottage was stuffed with fog in which shadows moved slowly, speaking in mist-hushed voices. “How is she?” Maeve asked quietly.
“Nah good. The girl’s failing,” Niall answered, and she could hear the accusation in his voice and see it in the lines of his face. It’s your fault. She’s doing what you commanded her to do, and it’s slowly killing her. It’s your fault. Niall stood stolidly in the doorway, blocking her entrance.
“Then yeh’ll let me see her,” Maeve said, and Niall, ponderously, stepped back to let her into the room. She could see a few others of the Oileánach there in the front room, as if holding vigil. They nodded to her as she passed into the bedroom where Keara lay—nodded with respect, but also with the shadow of the same accusation that had been in Niall’s voice.
Keara’s breathing was a hoarse rasp, and her voice a husk as she intoned the repetitive words of the endless chant that held the fog in place. Her eyes were closed, and the fog vomited from her mouth with every word, white and thick. Aiden, her lover, sat in a chair next to the bed, leaning over to wipe her brow with a cool cloth. He glanced up at Maeve as she entered. “How much longer does she have to do this, Maeve?” he asked.
“Not too long, I hope,” she answered. “I’ve felt Colin. He’s free again and on the mainland. I’ll be bringing him over now.”
Aiden nodded. His face was worried as he glanced at Keara, chanting on the bed. Niall had followed Maeve to the bedroom, leaning against the open doorway. “She ca’nah continue this much longer,” Aiden said. “I won’t allow it. Three days now she’s been at this without sleep, and ’tis burning her up. If we end up having t’ fight to keep the island, Maeve, then we have t’ fight. I’d rather it come to that. I won’t be letting Keara kill herself just to keep ’em away for another day.”
“I don’t want that either, Aiden.”
“She’d do it, though,” he answered. “Because it’s yeh who asked, she’d do it without thinkin’ about the cost. She loves and respects yeh that much. If yeh told her that she had to keep going, had to keep this up, she would do it until her last breath.” His eyes shimmered with threatening tears, and he sniffed almost angrily, blinking them back. “Yeh need to tell me that yeh won’t ask that of her. Tell me yeh won’t.”
When Maeve didn’t answer, Aiden nodded with a frown. “That’s what I thought,” he said.
“I still believe it won’t come to that,” Maeve said. “Once Colin’s back, once I have the cloch, we can start the process and Keara can rest. The others can hold off the leamh while we get the gateway opened.”
“So he’s coming?”
“He is,” Maeve answered. “I know this. Very soon.” Aid
en nodded, and Maeve moved to the bed. She caressed Keara’s sweating face, brushed the damp hair back from her brow. Keara gave no indication that she was aware of Maeve’s presence. She continued to chant with her eyes closed, her voice a barely audible mumbling, the white clouds billowing from her mouth, smelling strangely of the sea. “Colin will be on his way this evening,” Maeve repeated, leaning close to her ear, “and once he arrives, you’ll be able to stop, Keara. You’re giving us the time we need, my dear, and we all owe you everything. We’ll remember this—your name will be forever part of the tales we’ll tell when all this is over.”
She glanced at Aiden, at Niall.
“Soon,” she told them. “He’ll be here soon.”
Outside, the air was cold and damp with the fog. Maeve pulled her cloak tight around her as she looked around the mist-curtained landscape.
“An’ if he doesn’t arrive?” Maeve turned around at the voice. Niall had followed her from the cottage. “If he changes his mind now that he’s free and just leaves to go home? What then? Yeh’ll let Keara die waitin’ on him when we could be trying another way? When we could just let the leamh come and fight them? I thought you old gods and heroes loved a glorious death, even one in vain.”
“That way will cost far more lives than just Keara’s,” she answered. “Yeh know that.”
“Aye. But it wouldn’t cost Keara’s, would it?”
“Her life is more important than anyone else’s?” Maeve retorted. “She understands the issues and the danger, and she was willing, Niall. She was’nah forced. We’re at war with the modern world, and she’s a soldier. Soldiers sometimes die. That’s the way of things, ain’t it? She’d be one of yer heroes, eh?”
The Crow of Connemara Page 29