There are some people who say the Finns are cursed. I am a man of science myself, and I don’t believe in curses. I am an educated man. I was a teacher in Ireland before I emigrated, on that same ship, Cathleen, and I wish to make a record of what happened.
Eileen’s husband, Robert, mistreated her. He was violent. She kept it secret from everyone except her sister Eva. On the night before I was sailing to Newfoundland with my family, on May 10, 1832, Eva went to Eileen and Robert’s house and found Robert attacking her sister. Eva hit him over the head with a frying pan.
It seems this was his death blow, but before he died he cursed the sisters and their children and their children’s children. Eileen and Eva set the house on fire to cover their crime and left the next morning at dawn with me on the Cathleen. They told me what happened. I knew they both would have hanged if they had stayed, and I didn’t blame either of them for what they did. If I had known how Robert was treating Eileen, I might have killed him myself.
We kept it quiet on board the ship, but then we ran into bad weather off Newfoundland and the ship was blown off course from St. John’s into Conception Bay. It was a bad storm, and we feared for our safety. Eileen was upset and said it was Robert’s curse that had caused the storm, and she was overheard by some of the other passengers. The ship went aground not far from the little community of Buckle. We did our best to get the women and children to safety, but Eva and Eileen were both lost.
In the next few days there was a lot of talk about a curse and the Finns, and in the end it was made very clear that we weren’t welcome there. With our good friends from Ireland, the Keegans, we sailed a few miles up the coast and found this little hidden harbor of Slippers Cove, and we settled here. Unfortunately there were Barretts in Buckle, and eventually rumors reached them from Ireland about Robert’s death. No one was ever sure exactly what had happened, but the rumors and the bad feelings about the Finns grew, fed by the Barretts.
Over the years, we’ve made our lives here. We have some contact with the inhabitants of Buckle, but we mostly keep to ourselves. There have been a couple of weddings joining our families to families there, and the talk about the curse died down a bit.
But now with the death of Martha and Moira, I fear those rumors will begin anew. I have forbidden my family to talk about it, because it is my strong belief that a curse lives only in the minds of those who believe in it, and the misfortunes that come to those who are cursed come because they believe they will come, not because they are preordained.
I do not believe my sisters did wrong. Eva was defending Eileen, and Robert could very well have killed her if Eva had not struck out at him. The shipwreck was caused by the bad weather, not the curse. And now Martha and Moira’s deaths, I believe, were because of some weakness in their brains, something they were born with, and not caused by the curse.
The Barretts in Buckle hold a lot of bad feeling for the Finns. They refuse to speak to us and they warn their children against any contact with ours when we visit the town. I also know that there are people here in Slippers Cove, Finns and Keegans, who believe in the curse. Despite everything I can do to persuade them it is all in their minds, they persist in believing in it. I will do my best to keep any knowledge of the curse away from Moira’s twin girls, Catriona and Caitlin, but I fear that there are enough people who know about it that they will find out about it as they grow up.
I wanted to lay out the facts in this letter, for those generations that come after, because the rumors about the curse may grow and people may forget what really happened. My sisters Eva and Eileen were good women, and so were Eileen’s daughters, Moira and Martha. My deepest wish is that their children and their children’s children can live out full lives without this shadow of horror poisoning their lives.
I am giving this letter to my good friend Homer Duggan, of Buckle, whom I would trust with my life. He has always treated me and my family with respect, and I am going to ask him to keep this letter hidden away in my grandfather’s silver box and never to read it unless there is some trouble in the future about the curse and people need to know the truth. I will give him the family Bible that records our sad history, and we will start using a new one with the slate wiped clean. I am also giving him two of my paintings he has always admired, along with the old red traveling trunk that came with us from Ireland. I will rest easy, knowing that the Duggans will keep our secret as long as it is necessary.
Michael John Finn
CHAPTER SIXTY-FIVE
THE WHIRLPOOL
“So he didn’t believe in the curse,” said Ruby.
“No. He says he was a man of science. Like my dad,” I said. “Maybe he’s right, Ruby.”
“Ruth, after everything that’s happened, don’t tell me now you don’t believe in the curse,” said Ruby. “You’ve had the visions. You’ve seen how they’ve all died. Moira and Martha—some kind of brain fever he said. Like Meg and Molly.”
“But maybe he was right about that. Maybe it was a condition they were born with, that they both had because they were twins. Maybe that’s why they died.”
“The fire wasn’t because Fiona and Fenella were twins. The shipwreck wasn’t because Eva and Eileen are twins. They all died because they were cursed. It’s just crazy to say there’s no such thing when we’ve seen what it can do. What about the flood in Slippers Cove—that killed Michael too!”
“Hang on, Ruby,” said Eldred. “Just hang on. I think Michael had a point. He said that because people believe they are cursed, bad things happen. It’s the power of the mind he’s talking about.”
“But just believing in something can’t make it real,” persisted Ruby. “I can believe in Santa, but that doesn’t mean he comes down the chimney every Christmas Eve.”
“Ah, but when you were little,” said Eldred, “as far as you were concerned he did come down the chimney, didn’t he? In your mind, he was as real as this table we’re sitting at.”
“Yes, but—”
“Are you saying that there’s no such thing as the curse, Eldred Toope?” said the witch.
He shook his head. “No. I’m saying what I think Michael was saying, that the curse is real as long as people believe in it.”
“So if we stop believing in it, we won’t die?” My voice came out a lot more shaky than I wanted it to.
“We’re all going to die,” said Eldred. “Sometime. But I think there’s a bit more to this curse than that. Like the man said, the Barretts kept it going. All these years, they hated the Finns, and they helped keep it alive.”
“You kept it alive,” said Ruby viciously to her Nan. “You did.”
Eldred put his hand on her arm. “Not just your Nan,” he said. “She was taught by her mother to hate the Finns, and her mother before. But the Finns had their part in it too. All that guilt and shame came down from one generation to another. You can’t blame Mildred for all of that, Ruby.”
“For my part,” said the witch slowly, “I want it all to end. It’s cast a long shadow over my life and over my son’s life, and I want it to end. I want it to end now and I’m willing to do anything to end it—” She stopped. “But I don’t know how,” she finished.
I felt waves of sorrow coming from her, and I suddenly could see it as if I were inside her head. All that hatred and fear, ingrained in her when she was a child, that she could never get away from. And then the feeling that she was losing her son, and would never be close to her granddaughters, and all the while the hatred eating her up inside.
“You’ve been cursed too,” I said. “Haven’t you, Nan?”
She turned to me and said simply, “Yes, I have. And my mother before me.”
“But how do we stop it?” wailed Ruby. “How can we ever make it stop? We can’t help it if we believe in it.”
There was a silence.
“Well,” said Eldred finally. “You must believe that you can break it. If you believe that, you can.”
His words hung in the air. They were all l
ooking at me for some reason. The witch had a ravaged look, like all the emotion and the exhaustion of the last day had taken a deadly toll on her. Eldred looked sad and a little withdrawn, as if he were watching a play. Ruby’s face was the picture of despair, tears brimming in her eyes again.
“It’s no use, Ruthie,” she said. “I can’t stop believing in it. The curse caught up with all the rest of them. It will catch up with us.”
I felt the weight of the curse, and the past, descend slowly into the room, almost as if it was a giant rock being lowered, crushing us. I still held the letter in my hands, its brittle paper connecting us to the past. To the beginning.
And then the whispering began. Very softly at first. A shiver started at the back of my neck and trickled down my spine. I didn’t want to hear that horrible voice again. It came from the four corners of the kitchen, rising and falling, circling us.
“Ruth, what’s wrong?” said Ruby.
“Can’t you hear it?”
She shook her head. But Nan was staring at me, a look of horror in her eyes.
“Hold hands,” she said. “Make a circle. Quick!”
Ruby and I grabbed hands, and Nan and Eldred did the same, then we joined across the table.
Eldred closed his eyes.
Ruby stared at me. “What’s happening, Ruth? Why is everyone acting so weird?”
“Be quiet!” ordered Nan. The whispering grew louder, until it was swirling around us. I wanted to get out of there, run away from it, but I couldn’t move.
Somebody laughed. A man’s laugh.
And once again, the words came clearly through the room, spoken by that cracked, hate-filled voice.
“By fire. By water. By sudden death. I curse you! I curse your children. I curse your unborn children. I curse the ground you walk on. I curse you! I curse you!”
The room began to rock and sway. The whispering grew into a swirling kind of wind that wrapped itself around us and drew us into a whirlpool of insistent sound. It pulled us in, deeper and deeper, until it felt like we were drowning.
Then I realized there were more people there: Eva and Eileen on the sloping deck of the ship as it crashed against the rocks; Fiona and Fenella in the nursery, smothered by smoke from the fire; and all the others, all of the twins, caught in this vortex of hatred. Dying. They were all dying. We were all dying. There was no way out.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SIX
THE STORYTELLER
And then the wind and the whispering stopped, and a deep silence fell. Slowly I realized we were no longer spinning. Ruby and Nan were on either side of me, still gripping my hands. Then the darkness seemed to lift, and I could see that we were still sitting around the table, but the kitchen had changed. We were in that dark little cottage in Ireland. Ruby’s eyes were closed. A man was sitting opposite us, with the faint glow of fire in the hearth behind him.
And then someone sighed, so loudly I thought it might be the wind. Then a door opened on the right, and someone came in, carrying a flickering candle in a candleholder.
It was Meg. My mother. The way I had seen her that first night in Buckle, dressed in a long white nightgown, her blond hair falling down to her shoulders. She looked over at me and smiled, then put the candle down on the table in front of the man.
The yellow light from the candle flame lit up his face. It was Eldred. He was sitting quite still, with his eyes closed, just the way he had been when I last saw him sitting at Nan’s kitchen table.
Behind him, stretched out on the floor, lay the dead body of Robert Barrett.
Meg stood for a moment looking down at Robert’s body. Then she turned back to us and stood there silently, watching us.
Nan stiffened.
“Meg,” she said, her voice broken and raw, “Meg, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
And then my mother smiled at her with so much love that it seemed she was lit up from within, and she was the candle flame, and warmth spread out from her.
“It’s over now, Mildred. Don’t worry about it anymore,” she said. Then she turned to me.
“You and Ruby need to tell a new story,” she said. “Eldred will help.”
She walked over and laid a gentle hand on Ruby’s head.
“I love you both,” she said. “I always will.” And then she turned and stood over the body of Robert Barrett, looking down on him once more.
“Rest in peace,” she said, and dropped something that floated in the air over him for a moment, then drifted slowly to rest on his chest. It was a flower. A yellow lady slipper, on a long green stem.
I was watching the flower as it fell, and when I looked back at Meg, she was gone.
Eldred opened his eyes. He had that dreamy, not-quite-there look. He turned around and looked at the man on the floor behind him. Then he began to speak in a calm, quiet voice, just as if he was telling Ruby and me a story in the barn.
“Robert Barrett had a murderous rage that hurt everyone around him, but hurt himself the worst of all. It killed him. But it was so big and so ugly and so powerful, this rage and this hatred, that it lived on after his death, in the people who knew him. Through fear and hatred it was kept alive through seven generations of Finns and Barretts, until they decided together to put an end to it. The two families joined together in love, and there was no more room for hate, and Robert Barrett and his curse faded away in the bright sunshine and had no more power over any of them.”
As he spoke, in that slightly singsong, storytelling voice, the dark little cottage kitchen, the body on the floor, the fire on the hearth—all of them faded away. And by the end of it we were back in Nan’s kitchen, sitting at the table, with Nan and Ruby and me still holding hands. Eldred sat with a half-smile on his face and a dreamy expression in his eyes, half-focused on the plate of cinnamon buns and the teacups on the table.
Ruby opened her eyes. She was smiling.
“That was a good story, Eldred,” she said. Then she looked at Nan and me. “What happened? Why do you look so weird? Did I miss something?”
Nan and Eldred and I just sat there, looking at each other.
“That’s the end of it,” said Eldred slowly. “You can count on that.”
Nan pulled a handkerchief out of her sleeve and blew her nose. Then she reached out to lay a hand on the teapot.
“Tea’s cold,” she said. “I’ll put the kettle on and make another pot.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
SUNSHINE
Over a hot cup of tea, I told Ruby what had happened. Then we left Eldred and Nan together and headed home, taking a tin of cinnamon buns for Aunt Doll and Uncle George. The sun was shining, and there was a warm, gentle breeze blowing down from the hills, bringing all kinds of sweet growing smells. Buckle looked a lot more cheerful in the sunshine. The deep blue sea stretched out until it met the bright blue sky at the horizon, with no clouds in sight.
We walked for a while in silence. I felt washed out inside, tired and happy.
“So, do you really think it’s over?” said Ruby finally, looking at me sideways.
I sighed. “Yes. I really do. Don’t you?”
“Yes, I guess so. I mean, it feels like it’s over, doesn’t it, deep inside?”
I knew exactly what she meant.
“Yes. But there’s still something we need to do,” I said.
“Tell Aunt Doll,” we said at the same time.
“Jinx!” I said, and we laughed.
“And Uncle George,” I went on.
“And your dad,” said Ruby.
“Yes. We need to bring it into the light, all of it. Like Meg said.”
“Even the secret room?” said Ruby wistfully.
“I think so. It won’t be secret anymore, but maybe we can get the round window opened up and could bring the light in and use it for…I don’t know. A playroom?”
“We’re too big for a playroom,” said Ruby. “What about a study? We could get bookshelves and bring up a lot of books from downstairs, and a couple of comfortable chair
s…”
“And maybe put a desk by the window, where I could draw my flowers,” I added.
“Yes,” said Ruby. “Aunt Doll will be so surprised when we tell her about it.”
“Do you think so?” I said. “I think Aunt Doll knows a lot more than she lets on. I think she tries to keep it all in a secret compartment in her head, like the secret room, and not think about it, but now she’s going to have to open it all up to the light.” We walked a little farther. The sun sparkled off the water.
“What about your father?” said Ruby. “How are you going to tell him?”
I sighed. “I think I should ask Aunt Doll to get him and Gwen to come here on their way home, at the end of the summer. I think we should tell him in person. There’s a lot I don’t understand. When he married my mother, he must have adopted me. I don’t think he ever knew who my real father was. But why did he never tell me? He’s always made such a big deal about how I took after him, with my interest in flowers and science and—”
“I guess he wanted to persuade himself as much as you that he was your real father. He must really love you a lot,” said Ruby.
“Yes. I know he does, really. But I felt like he was replacing me with Gwen, like there wasn’t room for me anymore.”
“I know. It’s the same with my dad and Wendy and the boys. It’s like there’s only this little space left for me.”
“And now you’ll have to share him with me,” I said.
She laughed and gave me a push. “I think I can handle that. Boy, is he going to be surprised when we tell him. Meg and Molly sure pulled the wool over his eyes.”
“Actually, Ruby, I think he knows already.”
“What do you mean, he knows?”
“He knows about us being twins. About me being his daughter. I could feel it, when they found us in the root cellar. He must have guessed when he first met me in the kitchen at Aunt Doll’s. He acted pretty weird. As soon as he saw us together, he knew that we were twins. Like Eldred did. Aunt Doll must have known too, except she didn’t want to know, so she blocked it out.”
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