Ellen looked out across the Maamtrasna Valley. Everywhere fires roared in the night, ringing the lakeside in a circle of flame, framing the wild gesticulations of the revellers, transforming them into grotesque spectres of shadow and light, more spirit than human. Further back towards Tourmakeady, the great pagan celebration lit up the sky, lifting a downtrodden people into risen people for this night. Ellen knew that Pakenham would see the flames and understand that they were a symbol of a culture as old as the bogwood, waiting its turn to be ignited – to crackle and hiss and flame and spark into glorious life again.
Just as the old black wood was liberated by fire, so too this night of celebration freed the people of the valley. A people not yet suffocated by hundreds of years of an alien culture seeking to dominate, to drive out the old ways of this land. A people not yet made joyless by the starched, imposed strictures of the Catholic Church.
‘Fire is life.’
Ellen looked for the bright stars that formed the handle of the Plough and smiled, knowing the Máistir was there, wise as ever.
She felt a tug at her elbow. It was Mary, all bright and rosy from the heat of the bonfire.
‘Come on, a Mhamaí, give me your hand and we’ll do the circle round the fire.’
Ellen, surprised by Mary’s initiative – normally Katie was the one doing all the pulling and tugging – bent down and gave her quiet child a hug. Perhaps Mary was at last, getting out of being so backward about coming forward, as Michael put it. It wasn’t easy to be the outgoing one, when you had a twin sister who ran at life, day after day, fit for anything – and everything.
‘Of course, a stóirín,’ she whispered.
Mary grabbed her mother’s hand and pulled her towards the ring of people forming around the fire. Someone took Ellen’s other hand as it trailed behind her, but she took little notice of this in the general melee.
Ellen spotted Katie on the far side of the bonfire, pulling Michael into the ring as Mary had done with her. She could imagine her twins plotting and scheming, the whispered argument: ‘I’ll get Mammy and you get Daddy.’ ‘No, I’ll get Mammy and you get Daddy.’
Slowly, the ring of fire-dancers, their hands joined, began to move to the right around the fire. Ellen, feeling a cold grip on her left hand, turned to see who it was. With a start she saw Sheela-na-Sheeoga grinning at her, flickers of light darting across her face, giving it a wild look.
‘Dance easy round the fire, Ellen Rua. Dance easy tonight.’ The old woman’s voice rattled out to her through the crackling sound of the bonfire. ‘For it’s no harm you want to be bringing on yourself this night when the evil ones fly in the air.’
Ellen hoped that Sheela would not notice the unsettling effect her presence was having. Why had the old one to be always on her shoulder, appearing out of nowhere with some ominous-sounding message? It was as if Sheela had appointed herself both midwife and guardian for this child. Ellen rued the day she had gone over the mountain to see the old cailleach.
‘Everything is fine, Sheela,’ she heard herself saying.
Sheela-na-Sheeoga’s eyes glinted back at her, the flickering of the fire adding a demonic intensity to them.
‘Let you pick up the burning ember and pass it round yourself to purify your body. Let the fire protect you from the evil ones.’
This advice seemed to Ellen to bring a chilling dimension to the old custom of casting the embers. Glad of the excuse to break off physical contact with the woman, she grasped an ember. Contrary to the old one’s admonitions, she did not pass it around her body, but slowly and deliberately made a fiery sign of the cross before casting the ember high into the Halloween night. It turned and twisted as it rose, sizzling and crackling as it cut a path through the air. Starwards it climbed, hanging in the heavens, until at its zenith it flared brightly. Then, like a fallen soul, it dropped. Only a dark, dull redness remained, in stark contrast to its previous showering, sparking glory. Now, thought Ellen, it will burn out alone, hidden in the blackness beyond the Crucán, dying in its own ashes as they returned to the earth.
‘Ellen, are you all right?’ Michael appeared at her side looking worried. He had noticed that she seemed preoccupied of late, as if she had drifted into a place that was beyond his reach. At such times she seemed to him like a spirit-woman. Her body was there – you could touch it, feel it, taste it – but her elusive spirit slipped between your fingers.
‘Ah, I’m fine, Michael. It’s just the night that’s in it, and thinking of those who are gone. Nothing ails me. Sure, isn’t it the same with everyone else here?’
Katie rushed over to them, her face all alight.
‘Did you see that?’ she burst out. ‘I hit one of them – I hit an evil spirit.’
‘Ah! Hush that talk now, Katie,’ said Patrick, a little unnerved by the Halloween ceremonies.
‘No, but I did – I swear! I threw my lighted stick up in the air, and it went up above the smoke, and then I saw it hit this black thing in the sky, and I heard a sound like a screech. I did! I did! I’m telling you!’ Katie stamped her foot in exasperation.
‘I believe you, Katie.’ Mary’s quiet voice penetrated the commotion.
‘See!’ said Katie, throwing her arms around her sister.
‘Twins know these things because they’re special. They just know!’
The big bonfire died down, its timbers, weakened by the flames, crumbling and sliding into the pit of glowing ash-whitened wood. Eddies of wind swept in, picking up the ash and floating it into the hills and the valleys in busy flurries of fire-snow. The demons that lurked in the flames continued hissing and spitting, inviting the onlooker in even after their long, ever-beckoning fingers of flame had departed, quenched for another year.
Around the valley, the fires which had roared into the night were now just a row of red, angry eyes dotted along the hillsides. Eyes which by morning would be closed.
The O’Malleys returned to their cabin. Michael took his knife and scooped out a turnip that Roberteen had got somewhere, then carved eyes, a nose and a mouth to make a púca. Finally, he took a small piece of lighted turf from the fire and placed it inside the turnip. Patrick, who had been clamouring to be allowed to help, positioned the turnip in the window opening. The Halloween púca sent out an eerie yellow glow. Its gashed face smiled evilly, the burning innards sending out a sickly wet smell.
The next night – the eve of All Souls – the O’Malleys’ cabin was filled with a strange mixture of fear and excitement. The prayers took longer than usual as the family recited the Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary, offering up a decade each for the Máistir, Cáit, Michael’s mother and father, and all dead relatives. The dead of the village and all the souls in purgatory, waiting to be released through the prayers of the faithful on earth, were also included.
The Rosary finished without any of the usual ‘trimmings’, except for the prayer to Mary: ‘… to thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve, to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping’ – or ‘morning and evening’ as Katie put it, referring to all the praying that took place at this time of year.
Next came the Litany of the Blessed Virgin, which Ellen gave out in a toneless chant, and the others answered:
‘Pray for us!’
‘Have mercy on us!’
‘Pray for us!’
‘Have mercy on us!’
The continuous chanted responses induced a trance-like state in the younger members of the group, providing much-needed release from the pain of kneeling at prolonged prayer.
Afterwards, as the children settled down to sleep, Ellen laid out five settings for food, although they themselves had already eaten. Katie and Mary watched with great interest, but Patrick, showing his disdain for pisreoga – superstitions – had turned his face away and gone to sleep. As she set each place, Ellen whispered an explanation to the twins: ‘This place is for the Máistir.’ They nodded their assent, agog with the mystery of it all. ‘And this one is for my mother, Cá
it. And this for your other grandfather, Stephen, and beside him Sarah.’
Before Ellen could explain further, Mary, in hushed tones, half-afraid the spirits of the dead would not come if they heard the noise of children, asked: ‘And who is the last place for, a Mhamaí?’
‘Well, a stóirín,’ Ellen whispered back, ‘that place is for any poor wandering soul who has no home to go to, and who would be left beyond on the mountainside, wailing bitterly in the wind and the cold.’
This captured the imagination of the twins, and for a moment there was silence. Then it was Mary again who spoke: ‘A Mhamaí, I’m glad we’ve set the extra place. It’s a kind thing to do for a poor, lonely soul who has no one to welcome it in.’
Now that the place-setting had finished, the twins switched their attention to Michael. Having gathered up some of the almost burnt-out wood from last night’s bonfire, he was building a fine welcoming fire in the hearth. Their little minds were alive with hordes of wandering souls filling the night sky over the valley, picking out the welcoming cabins below. Cabins like their own, with glowing fires, doors left unlatched and tables set for the midnight feast.
Finally, Katie and Mary fell into sleep, comforted by the image of the unknown soul slipping in quietly to take its place among their grandparents; having a family, for this night at least.
Ellen lay on her back watching the flames of the fire shadow-dance along the walls and up towards the ceiling. They darted in and out of the loft, burnishing the gold-coloured straw which held their food supply for the year to come. Now and again, the shadow of a flame would seem to pick out the lumpers stored there, casting up grotesque images of stunted men, no arms and legs, only small squat heads set on larger squat bodies.
Ellen wondered whether their little loft would be groaning under the weight of lumpers in the Samhain of the following year. She couldn’t quite harness all the feelings of impending catastrophe which seemed to be pressing on her recently – her baby and Sheela-na-Sheeoga; the potato disease; Pakenham singling her out at the céilí; Halloween and her thoughts on the stars of the dead. Something was happening. Some force was putting her at the centre of things. But why her?
When, eventually, she did succumb to sleep, her dreams were filled with dark and troubling visitations.
She was hurrying down a long, winding road. On every side were people weeping and wailing – calling out to her. She had the children with her – all three of them – and she was carrying a baby.
Way off in the distance, at the end of the road, was a … ship. That’s where she was running to. She had to reach that ship. She had to get there fast, before the evil following behind caught up with her.
Mary could not keep up. Ellen ran back and grabbed her. She was losing time – the ship, the tall ship, it would leave without them. She didn’t seem to be making any ground at all. The road twisted on, and on, and on, lined with poor, piteous souls calling out to her. She couldn’t stop. Their skeleton-like fingers clawed the air, trying to hold her back, to smother her and the children.
Now she couldn’t see the ship. Had it sailed already? She hadn’t seen it leave. Ahead was a gaping darkness, waiting to swallow them. The thing that had pursued them was now in front of them, blocking their escape. The blackness seemed to be moving towards them. If they did not move, it would crush them. But the child in her arms was crying; it was heavy, too heavy for her to be carrying.
‘Mary, keep up, for God’s sake!’ She yanked the child’s arm, pulling her along.
Then the whole countryside shook as a tremendous booming noise resounded from the road ahead. The vibrations travelled from the ground into her feet, and then up through her whole body, until the sound rang inside her head: boom! boom! boom! The faster she ran the louder it grew. Terrified, she realized she was running towards the booming.
And still no ship to be seen, only a black, black void. The noise was coming from immediately in front of her, advancing on her. She could hardly keep her feet, it shook the ground so.
‘Patrick, Katie, not too far ahead now! Wait for us!’ she screamed, but the children seemed not to hear her, seemed not to hear the noise of the anvil of hell, booming, threatening, welcoming them into what dark abyss she knew not.
Now heat – gusts of hot steam – enveloped them, drenching them, suffocating them with its stench. The putrid stench of decay that seemed somehow familiar.
And still the white hands clawed at her, shredding her garments. When they reached her skin she knew she would be ripped to pieces. And then who would save the children? She looked for Michael, but he was nowhere to be seen.
Ahead, Katie and Patrick had stopped – their hands thrown up in front of them. They were backing away from something. She tried to close the distance between herself and them. The wailing from the skeletons grew louder, reaching a fearsome crescendo against the booming which was now threatening to explode inside her head. And all the while the vile steam surrounded them, sticking to them, melting their skin.
Without warning, out of the belly of the abyss, a giant horse came charging. A beast so black it shone in the darkness of the pit. Forelegs rippling, it towered over them, pawing the night above their heads. From its nostrils – two great cauldrons – the vapour came beating down on them. From over its fipple there oozed a white froth, threatening to envelop them.
Ellen’s eyes followed the run of the reins, trying to identify the rider of this mount from hell. It must be the devil himself, she thought, as she looked up at the hollow red rims of his eyes. He was laughing at her, the laughter burning into her heart. It was Pakenham! But he was not alone. In the air above him floated Sheela-na-Sheeoga, pointing at her, singling her out. ‘Ellen … Ellen Rua, deliver the child to me,’ she wailed.
Ellen clutched the baby to her. ‘Michael!’ she screamed. ‘Michael! Michael! Where are you?’
‘Ellen Rua! Ellen Rua!’ Sheela-na-Sheeoga mock-echoed Ellen’s cry for Michael. ‘Hand me back the child I gave you.’
Ellen felt the claws of the multitude grab her, lacerating her skin, drawing blood. She watched, paralysed with fear, as the old woman’s arm distended and reached out for her baby. Ellen tried in vain to wrench herself free of the soulless ones, but they pinned her on every side while the arm of the wraith prised the baby from her terrified embrace. ‘No! No!’ she cried, watching helplessly as her baby was taken back through the veil of steam, back to the evil womb of Sheela-na-Sheeoga.
Ellen bolted upright, panic-stricken, her heart pounding in her brain. She was drenched in perspiration. Frantically she reached out in the dark for Michael, exhaling with relief when her hand found his arm. Michael was there, he was all right – sleeping contentedly. She withdrew her shaking hand for fear of waking him.
And Katie – Mary – Patrick? All safe. All asleep. All here.
She blessed herself thrice and felt for the baby with both hands – gingerly, tenderly, afraid. She felt the inner pulse stroking and caressing this unknown life within her. Finally, she covered her wildly beating heart with both hands, willing them to calm it.
And then she cried. She cried for Michael. She cried for her children. The tears flooded down her face, over the brave, quivering lips, rolling down on to her breasts and over the womb which held her unborn baby. Down along her thighs, it flowed, into the straw of her simple bed, cleansing her body, washing away her fear, releasing her from it.
‘Mother of Sorrows, have mercy on me.’ Ellen breathed the Litany of Our Lady through her tears. And still the tears came as she sat alone, her knees drawn up, her arms binding them to her, gently rocking herself while all around her slept.
When her tears had subsided, Ellen sat drained, looking into the dying embers of the fire. She dared not risk sleep lest the nightmare, still vivid in her mind, should return. So she stoked the fire and threw on a few more sods of the black mountain turf. Gradually the heat dried her damp body and restored her. And the smell of the burning turf – the safe world she knew relaxed her.<
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She recognized the elements of her dream as grotesque enlargements of her own thoughts and fears. What bothered her most was Michael’s absence. Everybody else was there with her: Patrick, Katie, Mary, even the new baby. But where was Michael?
The dream had taken its toll on Ellen. Despite her best efforts to remain awake, exhaustion combined with the warmth of the fire to send her into a fitful slumber.
Once again, nightmarish images began to fill her mind. But before the dream could take hold, Ellen was startled into wakefulness by a high-pitched wailing.
But the wailing did not stop with the dream. This time the keening was real – she was sure of it. She listened, alert, by the fire. There it was again: a single, solitary voice. For a moment she thought it was the high-pitched cry of the fox, but this was longer, more drawn out. The sound had come from down towards the lake. She moved stealthily to the window and removed the burnt-out shell of the plica.
The night of All Souls was bright, with a waxing moon riding high across the clouds, seeking openings through which to aim its beams down onto the waters of the Mask. There, they would splash out across the lake’s surface – ripples of pale yellow, reflecting back up to the moon its own watery light.
As she listened, Ellen could hear the sounds of the valley, the ever-yelping dogs of Derrypark, the lap of the lake-water. And between these sounds she heard the stillnesses of the night, those silken moments she loved, woven with silence, snatched out of wonder.
For a moment, the moon lost its hide-and-seek game with the clouds, and the lake, deprived of its light, was lost to Ellen’s view. But when the Samhain moon reappeared, the sight which met Ellen’s eyes chilled her to the very core of her being.
There, hovering over the lake, two or three feet above it, was the outline of a woman, all in white, moving slowly towards her. The woman was not walking, nor was she in flight, nor borne up by anything visible. Instead she glided slowly over the water through the veil of the moonlight, her long white hair tinged by the moon’s yellow hue.
The Whitest Flower Page 8