Lake of Sorrows ng-2

by Erin Hart

  Nora read aloud:

  “The weather being exceptionally fine this morning, and Mrs. Haddington being in rare excellent form, we decided to traverse the countryside to take the view. We climbed the gravel ridge that lies just beside the Castlelyons gatehouse, and proceeded to walk along its back, across the moorland that lies along the southwest boundary of the castle demesne. If the weather is good, and one is properly attired, the bog can be a very pleasant place to take the air, especially for persons interested in botany (as I am), and it is a rare excursion that does not raise at least a few hares and pheasants. However, we had not ventured but a few minutes on our course when we heard the alarm raised among some workmen who were toiling in the bog. It is the practice of the country people here to venture out into the bogs to cut ‘turf’ as they call it, which, once dried, can be burned in place of wood in their hearths. When Mrs. Haddington stopped to ask the cause of their consternation, they shewed her what they had found, a man buried and quite marvelously preserved in the peat.”

  Nora’s stomach tightened with excitement. Nowhere in her previous research had she seen any reference to this body or this location. She was looking at a new paper body—the name given to bog remains that survived only in written accounts. She tore through the succeeding paragraphs in which the extremely observant Miss Bolton described the man’s glossy brown skin and the twisted withy made of sally rods around his throat, not to mention his shocking nakedness, from which the workmen had quite properly shielded her and Mrs. Haddington. She also described in detail the leather armband around the dead man’s upper arm, and the astonishing preservation of his face and feet. Of his disposition in the bog, Miss Bolton had written:

  Mrs. Haddington has sent for the vicar, so that this unfortunate soul may be re-interred at the paupers’ cemetery outside the village. This discovery presents a most intriguing puzzle: how the peat and bog water could preserve both flesh and bone. Perhaps the cold may have some part in it, or perhaps there is some other reason. I have often heard the natives of this place tell that the bog water of this locality, and indeed the peat itself, is an excellent treatment for wounds and afflictions of the skin, and wonder if there is not something in it that may contribute to this most astounding suspension of decay.

  Nora raised her eyes from the book, feeling an electric shock of recognition and a surge of affection for Miss Bolton. Only then did she realize she’d been reading silently since the first paragraph, ignoring the two men who were waiting expectantly for some more visible reaction.

  “I’m sorry, it’s just—this is huge,” she said. “I’m fairly sure it’s a new paper body, one that nobody has in the records. To have this, and such a detailed description—what a gift.”

  “It gives me great pleasure to share it with the one person best able to appreciate its true significance.”

  “I wonder if I might borrow this book—just for a short while, I promise.”

  “You may have it. I’ve read Miss Bolton right through to the end, and there are several other passages you might find interesting as well. She struck me as extremely curious and well-read. What do you think of her theory about the bog water?”

  “Amazingly accurate. You don’t happen to have a map, so I could see the exact point she’s talking about?”

  “I do. Cormac, you know where the maps are—in the cabinet there.” Scully was looking a bit drawn, and Nora knew they ought to go soon, but she felt an urgent need to find out how this new body fit in. Cormac brought out a flat map book, like his own, and opened it on the table before them.

  “These are the maps O’Donovan was working on, originally drawn in 1838, and updated in 1914. Here’s Castlelyons demesne,” Scully said. “And here’s the gravel ridge Miss Bolton mentioned. It was left behind by the last glaciers, and the ancients called it the Eiscir Riada, ‘the Great Road.’ People used it for centuries as the main east-west highway across Ireland. There are a few breaks, but for the most part it was a useful roadway. It stood above the rest of the landscape, you see—especially useful in this ‘county of bogs and morasses,’ as O’Donovan once called it. If the ladies were walking toward the bog from the house, they must have been right about here when they encountered the workmen.”

  Nora had seen the ruined shell of an eighteenth-century manor house near the crossroads she passed every day on the way to the excavation site. She tried to get her bearings from the map in front of her, looking for familiar names or features.

  “Here’s where we are right now,” Cormac said, indicating a long, irregularly shaped land mass that seemed to be in the middle of a bog.

  “So we’re actually on an island?”

  “Yes; there was a bridge built across the bog a hundred and fifty years ago,” Scully said. “It looks like a peninsula now, but it was originally a dryland island. There were hundreds of islands like it, all across the bog. You often hear mention of such islands in the old place-names.”

  “Where’s the excavation site?” Cormac pointed to an area only an inch away on the map, and the pieces began to fall into place. There was the place where the workshop was now, the tracts of bog that were all drained and measured on Nora’s own map.

  “The Dowris hoard was found just over here,” Scully said. The Dowris treasure, one of the most famous Iron Age discoveries in Ireland, made up of hundreds of mysterious horns, crotals, and other votive objects, had been deposited in a bog about fifteen miles away.

  “And where was the Loughnabrone hoard found?”

  Scully’s thin finger pointed to the spot only about a quarter-mile distant.

  Nora said, “So we have a couple of major Iron Age hoards and two possible sacrifices that follow the pattern of the triple death—all this from the same small spot.” She turned to Scully. “You haven’t by any chance heard that another body was found on Loughnabrone Bog the other day? Not ancient remains—much more recent.”

  “No, but I miss a lot now that I can’t get into town as often as I used to. Have they identified the body?”

  “Not officially, but everyone thinks it’s someone from around here—a guy named Danny Brazil, who supposedly emigrated twenty-five years ago and was never seen again. A strange name, isn’t it—Brazil? Is it Irish?”

  “Yes,” Scully said, “from the Irish O Breasail. Historical sources say they were mainly found in Waterford, but there’s long been a pocket of Brazils in Offaly as well.”

  “Did you happen to know Danny Brazil?” Nora asked.

  “The family are our nearest neighbors. Danny used to keep bees over the hill here behind the house. Was it an accidental death, or—”

  “The police don’t think so. They’re calling it a murder. I can’t really say any more than that.”

  “Well, I’m stunned. Who would want to kill Danny Brazil? He was a hero, a champion in these parts, a splendid hurler. And his injury came at the worst possible time for the Offaly team. They were in with a chance that year, but when he dropped out—well, their chance dried up, vanished straightaway. An awful shame.”

  “You don’t think his death had anything to do with that?” Nora asked.

  “With dropping off the hurling team in the middle of the championship? Ah, no; he was very seriously hurt. I saw it happen myself, along with thousands of other people. No one thought he was feigning the injury—and why would he do a thing like that? He wanted them to win as desperately as we all did; they just couldn’t pull it off without him.”

  Nora’s brain began to simmer with unanswered questions. From what was known about the few triple deaths, it seemed as though the victims had been killed during periods of great social stress, especially when food supplies were scarce. What if there were other kinds of social stress—adversity or bad luck—that some people still believed could only be lifted through blood sacrifice? She cast the thought aside. There had to be another, more logical reason that Danny Brazil had been killed in such a mysterious, ritualistic way.

  Cormac had been silent for some t
ime. Now he asked, “Michael, do you happen to remember reading anything in O’Donovan’s work, or in any of the older manuscripts, anything that mentions this area being known as a place of votive deposits or sacrifices?”

  “Nothing that I can recall, not specifically. The medieval writers might not have known about such things, or might have chosen to suppress them if they did know. But it certainly fits with the ancient name of this place,” Scully said. “According to O’Donovan, the patch of ground we’re standing on is called Illaunafulla—’Island of Blood.’ O’Donovan had no explanation for it; he just noted that that was the name he’d found in the annals.”

  Nora felt as though someone had run a cold finger down her spine. “And what about Loughnabrone?” she asked. “I meant to ask Cormac what it means. I know lough means ‘lake,’ but what’s the rest of it?”

  “It’s quite a grand poetic name. Shares the same root as my daughter’s name—bron,” Michael Scully said. “Loughnabrone means ‘Lake of Sorrows.’”

  9

  It was Midsummer’s eve, the longest part of the year, and felt like it, Nora thought. Another eight hours on the bog today, and not even another fingernail. She looked with envy at Ursula’s team, who were making great progress with their bog road, and sighed. They were finishing up for the day, gathering up their tools, tossing trowels and kneepads into their buckets, spades and rakes into the wheelbarrows for the trek back to the trailer. Some of the crew were spreading black plastic tarps over the cuttings.

  Nora packed up her own tools, wished her fellow crew members a good evening, and started back to her car, passing Ursula’s team on the way.

  Rachel Briscoe seemed agitated as she searched through one of the buckets. “Where are they?” she demanded of the first person she saw, a young woman clearing away debris nearby.

  “Where are who?” the other girl asked, irritated. “What are you on about?”

  “My binoculars. I put them right on top of this bucket.”

  “Look, Rachel, how should I know? I never went near them.”

  Another of the archaeologists, a young man, approached Rachel from behind. “Here they are,” he said. “I was just having a look at some wildlife—”

  “Give them to me,” Rachel said. She reached to take the field glasses from his hand, but he stepped aside and moved them just out of her reach, teasing. Rachel gave him a look of pure hatred and formed her words slowly: “I said, give them to me.”

  “Off to do a little bird-watching again tonight, are you?”

  Neither of them noticed Ursula striding toward them. “Oh, for God’s sake, grow up, will you?” Her voice cut through the air as she snatched the binoculars from the young man’s grasp. She held them out to Rachel, who stared at her for a long moment before taking them and stalking off without a word. Nora was close enough to read Rachel’s expression, and what she saw was a violent churning beneath the pale surface.

  Nora had only been here a couple of days, but it was obvious to her that Rachel Briscoe stuck out among the archaeology crew. She thought it must be awkward for Rachel, effectively ostracized by her colleagues yet having to work and live and eat with them, day in and day out for weeks. No doubt this was like every other human endeavor; alliances and divisions were formed through no one person’s conscious effort, under nobody’s control. A group of people was something like a primitive organism, affected by mood and atmosphere and even weather, resistant to change, with each member playing a specific role. Leaders, followers, scourges, clowns—every group had them, and people slipped into their parts as easily as actors taking on familiar stock roles.

  The boy had mocked Rachel for bird-watching, or was it for bird-watching at night? The bog was a great place for birders, Nora knew, but why should such an innocent interest provoke such an extreme reaction? Perhaps it wasn’t innocent; perhaps there was some subtext, some implication she was missing. It wouldn’t be the first time.

  The Bord na Mona minivan pulled up beside the hut and the crew began to pile in for the ride home. Nora saw Rachel hang back, perhaps reluctant to face her tormentor. The minivan driver shouted, “Are you coming, then?” The girl shook her head, and the driver backed out of the gravel parking area and stepped on the gas. Rachel set out walking.

  When she had packed up her things, Nora pulled the car alongside Rachel and let the window down.

  “Can I give you a lift?”

  The girl seemed annoyed that Nora was bothering her. She marched stoically onward. “I’ll walk. It’s only a couple of miles.”

  “You shouldn’t really walk alone out here. Please, Rachel, I insist.” At the use of her name, the girl hesitated momentarily, and Nora thought she might run. But there was nowhere to go, only black bog for acres and acres to the horizon. She finally climbed in, hefting her heavy rucksack onto her lap. She sat quite still, and her beetlelike posture spoke volumes about defensiveness and mistrust. Nora wondered what was inside the bag, besides her precious binoculars.

  Nora said, “The friend I’m staying with is part of the archaeology department at UCD—you didn’t happen to study there?”

  “No,” Rachel said curtly. She obviously hadn’t accepted the lift because she was starved for conversation.

  “You’ll have to tell me where I’m going. I’m not sure.” Rachel gave her the route, then was silent again. “Do you all share the same house?” A wordless nod. “What is there for people your age to do out here all summer? Sorry, I don’t mean to interrogate you; I’m just curious. Ten weeks out here must seem like an eternity—”

  “I don’t know what the others do. I don’t spend time with them when we’re not working. They mostly go home at the weekends.” Implying that she didn’t. Rachel Briscoe seemed particularly young at that moment, vulnerable and alone. Nora didn’t know what else to say.

  They turned near the McCrossans’ cottage, then navigated a few sharp turns on narrow little roads before arriving at an old two-story white farmhouse. The minivan was just leaving; Nora had to stop beside the gate to let it pass. When she pulled into the drive, Rachel opened the door and slid out quickly.

  “Thanks for the lift, but I’ll be all right on my own from now on.” It was a final dismissal, as if Rachel had realized she shouldn’t have let anyone get this close. Why not? She shut the door and marched stolidly toward the house. Nora could hear thumping music already coming from its open windows, and felt again what it was like to be somehow apart from all those around you. She had some firsthand experience of not fitting in, but she had early on taken refuge in books and music, in the elegant, abstract beauty of the biological world. She had spent many hours in school peering through a lens at microscopic bacterial colonies, oblivious of the corresponding macroscopic social activity around her. Perhaps it had been just as well. Solitary bird-watching might be Rachel Briscoe’s escape. Making yourself an outcast was one way to avoid the pain of having it done to you.

  It wasn’t until she pulled into the driveway behind the McCrossans’ cottage that she noticed a folded paper down beside the passenger seat. Unfolding it, she found a brief, polite form letter requesting the return of several books borrowed from the Pembroke Library in Ballsbridge, Dublin. It must have fallen from Rachel’s pocket as she climbed out of the car. Scanning it again, Nora noticed that the letter was addressed not to Rachel Briscoe, but to someone named Rachel Power. Was the girl using a false name here? Unless Power was the false name. Kids knew enough to use fake identities on the Internet; maybe they did it elsewhere as well. She might have a very good reason for going by two different names. Nora left the letter folded on the passenger seat—she could return it in the morning.

  She must have seen Cormac’s yellow waterproof jacket and trousers hanging outside the back door before, but this evening something in the way the garments were draped over the peg made her do a double-take. With the wellingtons standing at attention below, they looked almost like a person pressed flat against the wall. Nora pushed at the yellow rubber and
felt it collapse beneath her hand.

  She heard music as she approached the door, so she opened it silently and stepped into the entryway to listen. It was not a recording, as she’d first thought, but Cormac playing the flute as she’d never heard him play—flat-out, ferociously, full of joy and pain and exultation, the attack of air, breathing the fullness of experience into the notes, so that life became music, and music became life, in all its frustrating, overwhelming glory. The movement from slow air to reel left percussive notes ringing in the air, and the reel’s whirling pagan flow felt unstoppable. She closed her eyes, leaned back against the wall, and let the music lift her in its vortex. She didn’t know the name of the tune, but she had heard him play it before, although never with this kind of intensity. There was something inspired in him today; he was on fire, stoked by the passion in the notes.

  Finally the flow of music slowed, eddied, and died away. Nora pushed away from the wall and touched Cormac from behind, sliding her arms down his chest. He wasn’t surprised; on the contrary, he seemed to be expecting her, and turned toward her to accept the hungry, searching kiss she offered. He set the flute down on the table and guided her onto his lap as they continued tasting each other, drowning in sensation, as if this were the first and not the thousandth time their lips had met. A fragment of a song came into Nora’s mind, something about ivy twined around an oak. Which was need, and which was love? The question slipped away unanswered, replaced by a ferocious abandon, desire so strong she might have given up anything at that moment to see it fulfilled.

  And then it shattered, dropping in shards and splinters around her feet. The change was so sudden and frightening that she jerked her head away and gasped, causing Cormac to catch her shoulders in alarm. She stood and staggered backward, marking the fear in his expression and knowing there was no way she could explain what had just happened.