“But that’s pagan,” John said.
“Exactly so,” Mike said. “And when the Romans came to Ireland, they put an end to the druids and their ways of worshipping the natural world.”
“What kinds of ways?” John asked.
“Oh, well. Sacrificial offerings, to be sure.”
“Human?”
“Upon occasion. In the fall, when Samhain takes place, it’s a time of death, ya ken? There’s no more harvest and winter’s coming. It’s time to kill the animals you’ll need to survive until spring. Or the animals you don’t have enough fodder to keep.”
John nodded thoughtfully. “But why would the druid priests kill people, too?”
Mike let out a long sigh and Sarah realized he was tired. She squeezed his hand.
“Well, it was a long time ago, John lad,” he said. “But sacrifices are almost always made in order to please some deity or to get something. And for most of Ireland’s history I’d say that came down to survival. What do I have to do, who do I have to kill, to keep myself and my family alive? Sure, it’s no different when America was just beginning and life was hard?”
“Yeah, maybe,” John said, glancing over the bonfire to the towering trees of the forest that surrounded the compound. “I just don’t see our founding fathers tying a goat to a rock and waiting for a tiger to show up.”
“I should say not,” Mike said, standing and pulling Sarah to her feet. “Ready for bed, darlin’?”
Sarah leaned over and kissed John on the forehead. “Don’t be up too late,” she said. “That’s when the goblins come out.”
She and Mike left the circle to the sound of laughter to make their way back to their cottage. Sarah was to remember this evening later with warmth but also terrible pain. The sounds of the young people laughing, the smell of the bonfire as it ate the wild cherrywood. The next morning, a stark gray dawn showed a world so radically changed that nothing would ever be the same again.
CHAPTER THREE
Fiona stood in the dawn’s light, stirring the eggs with the corn meal, four and baking powder. She blessed Sarah and her gift of the convoy last year—blessed her every time she reached for the baking powder or vanilla extract or a thousand other things she’d counted on in her previous life and then had to adjust to living without. She heard little Ciara calling to her but she knew Declan would settle the toddler back down. Fiona smiled at the thought of her husband’s way with their daughter.
Declan’s gypsy blood made him a veritable pied piper to all children so it was with amused delight that Fiona witnessed the man’s fascination with his own child. Ciara owned his heart and had done so from the moment she was born.
She turned to find Declan coming into the kitchen with the little girl asleep on his shoulder.
“A cup of tea, love?” he whispered to Fiona.
She went to the stove and lifted the heavy brown teapot from the warmer and filled a large mug. Declan took it black but preferred it sweetened with sugar. Again thanks to Sarah, they had sugar.
“I thought she’d settle back down,” Fiona said handing him his tea.
“Sure, the lass is an early-riser like her da,” Declan said.
“Except she hasn’t risen,” Fiona pointed out to him with a grin. She turned back to her muffin batter and spooned the mixture into the cast iron molds on the stove.
“We’ll see snow before Christmas this year,” Declan said. Fiona turned to look at him. He was staring out the window. Before he had married Fiona Declan had never lived in a house. Most of his life had been spent with his family, camping out under overpasses or living in trailers. After the bomb dropped, he lived in the woods—like the elves and sprites, she thought with a faint smile. Her Gypsy King.
“How did you manage in the snow when you didn’t live in a house all those years?” she asked as she slid the pan of muffins in the oven. They had generators to fire up the gas stoves but Mike preferred them to use wood stoves to preserve the limited fuel.
Declan finished his tea. “I can’t even remember now,” he said. His mother, sister and cousins lived in the camp in tents that lined the interior perimeter. Fiona always felt a little safer because they stood between her and the outside world. They were fierce fighters and loyal—as she had reason to know. But she often wondered how Declan felt living even these few yards separated from them.
Ciara yawned and lifted her head from her father’s shoulder. “Tea, Mummy,” she said as she reached for Declan’s long hair and entwined her fingers. “Tea, please.”
“Yes, lamb,” Fiona said giving the child a kiss on the cheek before preparing her tea with cow’s milk and sugar. “Wouldn’t it be lovely to give Ciara a little brother?” she said with her back to Declan.
“Fi,” he said softly.
“Put her in her chair, Dec so she doesn’t spill it.” He put the toddler in the highchair—another improbable but extremely useful gift from Sarah and her US shopping spree—and Fiona set the mug on the tray. He didn’t need to say more. She knew, as much as he adored Ciara, he wanted no more.
For Declan, the exquisite love that bound him to the baby also weakened him and filled him with anxiety. Fiona knew what it felt like to love something so much that you were in constant fear of losing it.
“The world’s a dangerous place,” Declan said absently, still looking out the window, his own tea untasted in his hand. Fiona didn’t answer. She wasn’t sure he was talking to her anyway.
“Something’s happened,” Declan said.
“What?” Fiona could not see what he was seeing out the window.
“The lads are coming back at a run.” He strode to the door. “They’ve found something.”
*****
Mike emerged from the stables in time to see John and Gavin jog toward him with faces flushed, their rifles slung carelessly over their shoulders. It wasn’t the boys running that concerned him; that was an every day occurrence. No, it was the twin expressions on their faces that worried Mike.
“Da!” Gavin called, taking the lead. Declan came up behind them as they stopped at the stable door.
There’d been something off about Declan these last few weeks. He looked ill, truth be told. Fiona had bristled at Mike’s observation as though she considered her husband’s anxiety level—which looked near exploding—a matter of personal pride.
Clearly the boys had found something. Over their heads, Mike frowned as he saw that a few men had stepped out on their porches and begun walking toward the stables. Fear didn’t take long to spread. A young woman held the hand of a small boy and watched nervously as the men began to gather at the stables.
Mike held up a hand to keep Gavin from blurting out whatever he had a mind to say. He couldn’t stop the few men who’d followed the boys from hearing, but he might be able to prevent it being taken out of context or distorted.
Whatever it was.
“Alright, lads, take a breath.” He nodded to Declan in greeting and turned and raised his hands to the men who’d followed them. Mickey Quinn, Barney Murdoch, Regan’s father, and the London-born, lazy and ever-curious O’Malley brothers, Kevin and Davey.
“We just want to know what’s happened,” Barney said, his voice wheedling and high.
“You will,” Mike said, forcing away the thought that this man might some day be related to him by marriage. “But I’ll be asking you not to spread gossip or make whatever it is worse than it is.” And I’ll be having a private word with these two nitwits of mine about approaching me quietly next time they discover something.
Hoping his face was transmitting that message to Gavin and John, Mike crossed his arms.
“Let’s have it,” he said. “And no exaggerating, mind.”
“We found three of the dog pack,” Gavin said. He looked at the crowd of men and straightened his shoulders. “They’d had their throats slit.”
“The ones that’s been barking all night long and snapping at the women when they go to the creek?” Mike said. “Surpri
sed it hadn’t happened before now. Where?”
“Past Seamus’s old place,” John said. “In the woods near his north pasture.”
“Their throats slit, you say?” Declan said, stepping forward. Mike hated to see the expression on his face. What was with the man? His own gypsy kin were as likely to have done the job. Was he worried Mike gave a shite about a bunch of mangy dogs?
“That’s right, Uncle Dec,” John said.
“Anything else?” Declan asked.
John and Gavin looked at each other and hesitated.
“It’s alright,” Mike said. “Go on.”
“They were laid out on a stack of stones, like,” Gavin said. “Someone had built a stone table so’s their…their blood ran down the rocks to the ground.”
“A stone table,” Mike said.
“He means an altar,” Declan said, his jaw clenched.
“Eh? What’s that?” Mickey pushed past Declan. “The dogs were killed on an altar, you say?”
“They didn’t say it,” Mike said, glaring at Declan, “so don’t be jumping ahead. Ask your lot, Declan, if they did it. Mind you let them know nobody cares, we just want an answer to the mystery. Aye?”
Declan hesitated and then nodded before turning away.
“Is that it then, boys?” Mike asked. He watched John step on Gavin’s boot.
“It is, sir,” John said. “Sorry to have freaked everyone out.”
“Too right,” Mike said, his eyes narrowing. “Now then, everyone back to work or wherever you came from. John and Gavin, come with me. You’ve been off playing in the woods all day and there’s still chores to be done.”
The men turned and wandered back to their porches. Mickey was slower about it. He scratched his head but eventually wandered away too, as Mike hustled the boys into the stables. Once he was sure they were alone, he faced them, his hands on his hips.
“All right then,” he said. “Out with it.”
“There were human bones, too,” John said. “Small ones.”
Mike’s lips pressed together in a tight, white line. He hesitated and then held his arms out. Both boys came to him and he draped an arm around each of them.
“You did well, lads,” he said in a low voice, “not to tell that part in front of the others. Well done.”
Mike stood with his arms around both boys for a moment and was struck by how young they really were. If the bomb hadn’t dropped four years earlier, Gavin would be off at university and not thinking about anything more serious than the next party he was going to and which lass he was going to shag that weekend. Young John would still be in middle school back home in the States. Sometimes it was hard to remember how young they both really were.
“You two now,” he said, “clean your rifles and put them away. Did you find anything worth shooting?”
“We saw some rabbits,” John said. “But we were in a hurry so we didn’t stop. We can go back and try to find them.”
“Nay, finish your chores then get cleaned up for dinner.”
“What about the bones, Da?” Gavin asked.
“In the morning, you’ll take me to them.”
*****
Later that day as Sarah brought in the wash from the line she watched a group of young women sitting around making butter and cream. She imagined that four years ago they’d have been at the mall or immersed in their smart phones. But today they were gossiping and being silly while they made enough butter and cream for the entire compound.
Not really a skill set to put on a resume, Sarah thought with a smile, but one that made each of these women feel useful and necessary to the group.
Gavin’s girlfriend Regan was one of the women. Dressed in snug-fitting jeans with a low-cut velour top, she held a five-gallon stoneware jar between her knees as she talked. The jar was half filled with milk that somebody else, probably her mother, had gotten from the compound’s cows. New Dublin only had six cows but with the seven goats they easily provided enough milk and butter for the entire compound.
Regan sat near the cookfire warming up that side of the pot and would turn the crock from time to time to warm it evenly. She worked effortlessly and without concentration as she chatted with her friends.
Watching her, Sarah marveled that four years ago, the young woman wouldn’t have had a clue as to how to make butter. Who would imagine that going back in time two hundred years would actually ensure that we all ate better than we ever had before? Real butter, thick and rich, was available every morning on home-made slabs of toast to go with scrambled eggs that were laid mere moments before.
It often occurred to Sarah that their lives now—devoid of electronics and other conveniences—were on the whole much richer and more pleasurable. As she turned to bring the wash into the house her eye caught sight of one of the sentries on the catwalk that patrolled the compound.
As long as nobody tries to take it all from us.
That evening Sarah pulled a pan of muffins from the oven and set them on the counter. Baby Ciara played on the floor in the living room next to Siobhan, who was watching the baby while rocking in a chair and knitting. Sarah tried to give Fiona and Declan at least one evening a week to themselves and Siobhan loved watching the child.
The door flung open and John and Gavin burst into the cottage.
“Where’s Da?” John said, going immediately to where the baby sat on the floor and tweaking her cheek. Ciara squealed with delight and grabbed for his jacket sleeve.
“Wash your hands for dinner, John. You, too, Gavin. A visitor showed up at the front gate,” Sarah said, wiping her hands on a tea towel. “So Da is at the O’Malley’s.”
The standard policy when someone came to the compound was to offer food and lodging for one night in return for any news of the outside world. Usually Mike and Sarah hosted all visitors but occasionally other families volunteered, as they had tonight. In that event, Mike made it a point to dine with the hosting family in order to speak with the traveler.
They didn’t always turn out to be who they said they were.
Sarah made chicken and rice for supper. Although Mike had rolled his eyes when Sarah showed up last year with a half ton of dried rice, he’d had to admit it made a nice change from potatoes every night. Besides, Sarah was from Georgia. She could live without many things in a post-apocalyptic world but chicken and rice wasn’t one of them. Bad enough she’d probably never taste collard greens again.
“And they eat these things where you come from, darlin’?” Siobhan asked, holding up a cornbread muffin.
“They do, Siobhan,” Sarah said. “Drizzled with honey or sopped in bacon grease.”
“Lord save us.” Siobhan turned to John seated next to her at the dinner table. “I heard you lads had some excitement today.”
“I guess the whole compound’s heard by now,” Gavin said, his mouth full of chicken and rice and holding a cornbread roll in one hand. He and John exchanged a quick look.
Now I wonder what that’s all about? Clearly the truth and what the compound heard are not the same thing.
“Elbows off the table, John,” Sarah said. “That must have been upsetting for you boys.”
John shrugged. “Not really.”
“Da thinks it’s just bored kids making mischief,” Gavin said.
“The altar and the dogs maybe,” John said, “but what about the human bones?”
Gavin glanced at Siobhan and Sarah. Mike had already filled Sarah in and she was sure very little was going to shock or surprise Siobhan at this point.
“You heard him,” Gavin said. “Someone probably lost a kid, tried to bury ‘im, and the badgers and foxes dug ‘im up.”
“Tosh. Your father knows better than that,” Siobhan said.
Gavin and John turned to her.
“What do you think it means, Auntie?” Gavin asked.
“Everyone knows what it means,” she said. “It’s Samhain.”
“Mike said Samhain is just the first Halloween, or something,” Joh
n said.
“Did he, now?” Siobhan said. “Sure, you lads know the fairies dance with the dead, aye? I’ve heard them singing of a morning, many a time, early before anyone else is up and about.”
“Okaaaay.” John said, and exchanged a smirk with Gavin.
“Boys,” Sarah warned. “Be respectful.”
“Now that the world has ended,” Siobhan continued unperturbed, “it is the true stories—the ones that were always there hidden beneath every day life—that can be seen again.”
“What do you mean true stories, Aunt Siobhan?” John asked.
“The only stories that matter, of course.”
“And they are?”
“Why, surely you know, John, even as young as you are?” Siobhan looked at Sarah and then back at John and Gavin. “The battle of good against evil,” she said.
Sarah stood up and began stacking plates. She felt a chill in the air and wished Mike would be home soon.
“Nobody believes the old stories, Auntie,” Gavin says. “They’re just fairytales from the old country.” He sniggered and glanced at John.
“A country a sight older than you, Gavin Donovan. Are you saying you can’t believe what you haven’t seen?”
“That’s a trick question.”
“Nay, answer it, ye scamp. Will you be telling Father Ryan there’s no fact to what our Lord did because yourself never saw it?”
“No, Auntie,” Gavin said dutifully.
“Mind I put it to you lads a different way. Do you think you have to believe something to experience it?”
“Sure. That only makes sense.”
Siobhan shifted the baby in her lap and smiled as if the boys had walked neatly into her trap.
“Fine. Let me tell you a story then,” she said. “A true one, I’ve a mind, but you be the judge, the two of you being so clever for all you’re only but ten years between you. There once was this young girl living over by Kilkenny who had no da. She wished something fierce that she did but there you are. Her mother explained to her that her father had died, tragically, under the wheels of a trolly car in Dublin. Are you with me, so far, lads?”
Irish End Games, Books 4-5-6 Page 3