by Jodi McIsaac
“A Catholic order? But isn’t the cathedral Church of Ireland?”
“It is now, but that hasn’t always been the case. The church you see now was built in the thirteenth century, but it rests on the site of the church Saint Brigid herself had built in the fifth century. Before that, it was a site of worship to the pagan goddess Brigid. So I count it a privilege to volunteer at the cathedral as part of my devotion to the saint.”
“Makes sense.” They had walked to the base of the round tower, which was surrounded by gravestones.
“But it may surprise you that a few months ago, several of us experienced the same vision while praying at Saint Brigid’s Well. Have you been there?” Nora shook her head. “It’s down on Tully Road. It was here that Brigid herself appeared to us. She told us a young woman would come looking for a man with gray hair called Thomas Heaney. And that she wished to bestow upon this young woman a very special gift.” Mary’s face shone with excitement as she leaned toward Nora.
Nora stopped walking. “Are you saying Saint Brigid appeared to you and told you I would be coming? I didn’t even know I would be coming until this morning.”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. And it wasn’t just me. My Sisters all had the same vision. Many of us work or volunteer in some capacity at the cathedral. She must have wanted to ensure one of us was there to greet you when you finally came looking. I’m just so glad I overheard your conversation with Suzanne. She’s not a Brigidine Sister, you see.”
Nora chewed the inside of her lip. She was Catholic, sure, but the idea of saints actually appearing to people wasn’t something she’d considered before. It had certainly never happened to anyone she knew. The logical side of her rebelled. “And you all had the same vision?”
“I know how it sounds,” Mary said. “But you yourself said you’ve seen visions of the past, have you not? And dreamed of a man who is long dead?”
“Yes, but . . .”
“It’s hard to fathom, I won’t deny it. If Brigid hadn’t told me herself, if I hadn’t seen her with my own eyes, I’d not believe it.”
“Right, so, you said she wanted to give me a gift. What is it? And who’s this Thomas Heaney? You’ll forgive me for not understanding what this is all about.”
“Think with your heart, not with your head,” Mary said. “When you had this dream of Thomas, how did you feel?”
Longing. But she couldn’t say that out loud. She hardly wanted to admit it to herself. “Like I wanted to help him. More than anything. He begged me.”
“And these visions? Do you believe they were real?”
What if she did? Would it mean she was going mad? “I don’t know. They felt real.”
“Then they were. It doesn’t matter if it was just inside your head, or if you were seeing something that was really there. What matters is that Brigid was trying to speak with you.”
“Yes, but why?”
“I don’t know why she chose you. Or how exactly you’re supposed to help this young man. Or why she even wants you to help him. But she has made it possible.”
“How? He’s been dead for eighty years.”
“For this, we must go back to the church.”
Nora bit her tongue and followed Mary into the cathedral. Suzanne popped her head around the corner as they entered. “Everything all right?” she asked.
“Grand, thank you,” Mary answered. “We’re just going to have a peek at the records downstairs.” She led Nora down a narrow stone staircase into the basement of the church. They passed walls lined with bookshelves and stacks of boxes labeled in minute handwriting. Then they entered another small room, which was empty save for a dark fireplace set into the wall. Mary turned so quickly Nora almost ran into her. “You must swear to never reveal this to anyone.”
“Reveal what?” Nora was beginning to think this was some elaborate hoax . . . or a cult. She eyed the door nervously.
“What I’m about to show you is one of the greatest kept secrets of the church. Brigid, in her wisdom, has chosen to share it with you. You’ll be the first outside our society to have this knowledge.”
Nora narrowed her eyes. “What kind of society is this?”
Mary gave an apologetic shrug. “The complicated kind. To the outside world, we are the Brigidine Sisters, an order committed to service and harmony in the spirit of Saint Brigid. We were nearly destroyed during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. We survived, underground, until we revealed ourselves in the eighteen hundreds. All of that is true, but we’ve also kept this sacred knowledge secret and protected for centuries. And if you do not do the same . . .” She let her threat hang in the empty air, but Nora was not so easily cowed.
“Right, I’m beginning to think this is all a joke. Someone’s acting the maggot with me, so they are. Forget it.” She turned to leave.
“Wait!” Mary called. “I’m sorry. It’s just . . . It’s precious to us. We’ve guarded it for so many years.”
“What it is, then?”
Mary counted the stones around the fireplace. Then she pressed hard against one with the heel of her hand. On the other side, a stone popped out about an inch. Mary pulled at it until it loosened, then reached inside the hole. When she withdrew her hand, it held a small red box with gilt edging. Nora stepped closer. “What is it?” she asked.
“’Tis the only true relic of our precious Saint Brigid,” Mary said, holding the box as though it might trickle through her fingers if she looked away for a moment. “A church in Portugal claims to have the blessed saint’s skull, and they’ve sent fragments to Killester and Kilcurry, but we Sisters know that this is the only true relic.”
“Why don’t you display it? Why keep it secret?”
“Because it has power,” Mary said, still speaking in a hushed, reverent tone. She gently opened the decorated lid and handed it to Nora. “Do not touch it. Not yet.”
Nora looked into the box. It was, as she had expected, a bone. Only an inch long, it was polished white and smooth, nestled on a ruby-red cushion.
“It was from her finger,” Mary explained.
“Is this the gift? What am I supposed to do with it?” Nora asked, closing the lid.
“No, my child, that is not the gift. But the power of Brigid’s relic will bestow on you the gift she wishes you to have: the ability to travel through time.”
Chapter Eight
“Is there something wrong with you?” Nora said angrily. “All I asked was for you to help me identify this man, and now you’re messing me around with talk of time travel? I’m not an eejit.”
Mary closed her eyes. “I feared you might react this way. What sane person wouldn’t? But then I thought perhaps Brigid had appeared to you as well.”
“No. It wasn’t Brigid who told me to come here; it was Thomas, whoever the hell he is. I can guarantee you no saint has ever communicated with me, no matter how faithful I’ve been.”
“I can’t make you believe. But everything I’ve told you is true, no matter how it sounds. Just . . . try doing what she asks. If it doesn’t work, you can leave. But we’re all here for a reason, Nora. This was mine: to pass on this message to you. Don’t you want to find out what your reason is?”
Nora held Mary’s gaze for a heartbeat, then looked down at the relic in her hand. What was her reason for being in this world? For a while she’d thought it was to avenge her brother and help free Northern Ireland. And then she’d believed it was to relieve the suffering of others. But could there be something else?
“Fine, I’ll humor you. How does it work, then?” she asked.
“I don’t know exactly how it works, only that Brigid has power beyond our understanding. Her message was simple. Take the relic, which will give you the ability to travel back in time. Then you must find one of the Brigidine Sisters. You are to tell them that Brigid sent you and you are the bane of Aengus Óg.”
“The bane of Aengus Óg? What the hell does that mean?” She wanted answers, but there were only more riddle
s.
Mary shook her head. “I’m only the messenger. Aengus Óg was one of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the old gods of Ireland. Perhaps Brigid sends you to triumph over paganism.”
“I doubt it. I’m not that holy,” Nora muttered.
“She knew you would be reluctant. There aren’t many people who are willing to risk themselves to help a complete stranger.”
“I’ve spent the last several years of my life helping complete strangers,” Nora pointed out.
“She also said that if you succeed in helping Thomas, you might be able to help others who are close to you.”
Nora took a step back, her eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Who?”
“I don’t know. Are any of your friends or relatives in trouble? Anyone close to you who needs help?”
There’s no one close to me at all.
And that sealed it. What did she have to lose? If it worked—she couldn’t believe she was even considering this as a possibility—no one would miss her. No one would even know she was gone. Besides, she already had so many regrets in life. If she didn’t even try, perhaps she would regret this, too. I couldn’t help Eamon. Maybe I can do something for this Thomas.
“Brigid has chosen you,” Mary continued when Nora didn’t answer. “You only need to put your trust in her. She offers you a great gift.”
“This is mad.” Nora took a deep breath and stared at the box in her hand. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Hold the relic in your palm. Think hard about Thomas. Ask Brigid to guide you to him. And have faith.”
Fingers shaking slightly, Nora picked up the bone and closed her eyes. Christ, have mercy. She pictured Thomas as clearly as she could—not the man frozen in the picture but the man from her dream, sitting on the stone wall, speaking with her in his soft voice, pleading for her to come find him. I’m trying. Where are you?
Then she felt an overwhelming dizziness. She was falling, but when she tried to open her eyes, she couldn’t quite remember how. She threw out her arms to break the fall, and then there was darkness.
Nora opened her eyes. Her head was pounding, and she was lying on a cold floor. The room was dark. Why am I here? Have I been shot? Am I in hospital? She felt as if she had been beaten. Every muscle ached, and her skin was painfully tender.
Slowly, the events that had brought her here came back. “Mary?” she groaned. She crawled into a sitting position, her body protesting at the movement. She was still in the basement of the cathedral, but it seemed empty and dark. “Mary?” she called out a little louder, getting to her feet. Then she remembered the relic. She’d been clutching it when she fell, but it was no longer in her hands. It was impossible to see in the shadows, so she got back to her hands and knees and felt around. Why had Mary left her here alone—and in the dark, no less? Perhaps she’d gone to get help . . .
Nora felt her way to the doorway of the room and moved into the hallway lined with bookshelves. But instead of the smooth wooden shelves she remembered, she felt only cold, rough stone beneath her fingertips. Finally, she located the stairs, and the light grew brighter as she gingerly crept up them, approaching the top of the stairway. She pushed on the wooden door at the top and entered into the main sanctuary of the cathedral.
“Mary!” she called out again. Still no response. There was something different about this space, but she couldn’t put her finger on it. The wooden pews looked the same, the stone tombs still stood in silent vigil, and the stained-glass windows loomed over the empty space. But one of them was broken.
The tourist information was gone, too—the cases of displays, the placards and signs on the walls, the box requesting a suggested donation to help continue the conservation work. Strange that they would take it all down at the end of each day . . .
Unless.
No.
Nora burst out of the front door of the cathedral, wincing at the pain in her joints and muscles. The silver car was no longer in the gravel driveway. The day’s light was beginning to wane. The churchyard appeared the same; the round tower stood sentry as before. But then her eyes flew to the Fire Temple, where she’d seen the vision of flames surrounded by hooded figures. The smooth low wall was gone; in its place was a broken crumble of stone on only one side of the rectangle. On the other sides, there was nothing, just the odd stone and a few tufts of grass.
“What the hell?” Nora muttered. She flipped open her cell phone. No signal. She ran toward the iron gate, her whole body aching, then stopped short. The street before her, while still recognizable, was utterly transformed. Instead of black pavement beneath her feet, there was only dirt. The wagon that had been selling icons of Saint Brigid was gone. There was no Tikka Palace restaurant next to the cathedral. Instead, the white lettering in the shop window read, “MacMahon’s Irish Lace.” A man sitting outside the shop stopped smoking his pipe to gawk at her. He was wearing a white shirt, suspenders, and a pageboy cap.
“Do you need help, er, miss?” he asked, his wide eyes fixed on her jeans and leather jacket.
“What happened to the tourist stand here?” she asked.
“The what?”
“And this was an Indian restaurant. I walked by it this morning.” Nora turned slowly in a circle as the truth hammered away at her reason.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, to be sure. No Indians in this town that I know of.”
She stared at him, unblinking. “Are you an actor? Is there a historic festival going on?”
“An actor!” the man cried. “Now that’s a good one. I’ll have to tell the lads.”
“Could you tell me,” she asked in a voice barely above a whisper, “what year is it?”
“The year? Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Just tell me the damn year!”
He scowled at her. “You’ll be from Ulster then, judging by your accent and your manners. It’s the year of our Lord 1923, if you didn’t know. Don’t they teach you how to keep track of time up there?”
1923. It had worked. Her mind wrestled with the impossibility of it, with the chance that it could be some kind of mistake or practical joke. But if it was a joke, it was the most elaborate joke she’d ever heard of. And to what end? No, though her mind and reason rebelled against the idea, her senses—and her gut—were telling her that Mary had spoken the truth. For some unknown reason, by some unknown means, she had gone back in time over eighty years.
She quickly rifled through her purse. The tourist brochures were all there, along with the map of Kildare and—most importantly—the picture of Thomas.
“Do you know this man?” she said, thrusting the photograph in the smoking man’s face.
“Jesus Christ, woman! Are you drunk?” he said, flinching away from her. She didn’t move, so he took the photo and bent over it. “No, never seen him.” Before Nora could stop him, he flipped the photo over and read the inscription on the back. “Well, it says right here that he’s dead.”
“I know. But I need to find him.”
“Well, the graveyard is that way,” the man said with a jerk of his thumb. “But if he was one of them Irregulars, then I say good riddance. We finally got rid of the British, only for them to start tearing the country apart.”
Nora snatched her photo back, but she felt the man’s gaze on her as she walked down the street. She felt dazed, as if she were back in one of her own dreams. But this was more real than any dream. A fine drizzle dampened her face. She walked slowly, cautiously, as though on a tightrope of sanity. Had she gone mad? She felt perfectly rational, with the glaring exception that she seemed to be in the wrong century. Many of the buildings were the same, only shabbier—the windows darker, the trim not as freshly painted. There were fewer trees and no cars parked along the streets. She recognized the whitewashed walls, stone upper floor, and domed windows of the tourism office . . . only it was run-down, the paint chipped and a large pipe running up the side of the building. A placard beside the front door read “Market every Thursday.”
She peered inside the windows, but there was no one inside, only barrels and wooden crates.
“Excuse me, miss,” someone said, and she stepped aside to let a man pass. He lifted a long pole up to the nearest streetlight, and with a flick, a flame flared in the glass lantern. Nora whipped her head around—electrical wires were strung between some of the buildings, but there were nowhere near as many as there would be in a modern town. The streetlights were still lit with gas. She looked farther down the main street. Where were the cars?
If this was a hoax, it was one for the history books.
The gaslighter was starting to stare, so she continued her dazed walk down the street. A door opened ahead of her, and warm light and the sound of voices spilled out onto the sidewalk. A pub. If there’s anything I need right now, it’s a drink.
The conversation died down when she stepped inside. She lowered her head and went straight to the bar. The barman did a double take but then said, “What can I get ye?”
“A whiskey, please,” she said, her eyes on the bar. She could feel the gaze of everyone in the pub but refused to turn around. The barman poured her drink slowly, then walked over and set it down in front of her.
“You new in town, then?”
“Just visiting.”
“Where from?”
“America,” she said. He nodded, as though that explained her strange clothing.
“America, you say. I’ve a cousin who emigrated there last month. What is it like?”
“Oh, it’s grand,” she said. “Loads of jobs. People everywhere.”
“Then what brought you back here, I wonder?”
Good God, is this a pub or an interrogation room? She met his eye and said, “Family,” in a tone that meant the conversation was closed.
“I see,” he said. “Holler if you want another.”
She sipped her whiskey and listened to the conversations around her pick up. A long mirror stretched in front of her, providing her with the opportunity to take in her environment without turning around. The pub itself seemed like any other small-town Irish pub. But the people . . . the men wore old-fashioned caps, like fedoras and bowlers and trilbies. A few sported suits with waistcoats, but most wore trousers and shirts in various states of disrepair. And several tables had been pushed together at the back to accommodate about a dozen soldiers. They wore dark green uniforms with gold buttons, complemented by polished black boots that came up almost to their knees. Several of them had rifles leaning against their chairs. Nora’s stomach tightened and her mind raced. Were they British soldiers? No, this was 1923; the British had left in ’21. These would be Free Staters, soldiers of the fledgling Irish government created after the signing of the Anglo-Irish Treaty. She was the only woman in the room.