Crooked Branch (9781101615072)

by Cummins, Jeanine

  “How old was she?”

  “I don’t know. Eleven? Twelve? She was young.”

  “And how many other children were there?” the professor asks. “How many brothers and sisters?”

  “When I was born, there were four. One had died when he was a baby, before I was born. That was Thomas. And then I had an older brother, Michael, who died around the same time I was born, or shortly after.”

  “Did he die of the hunger?”

  “Typhus.” Raymond clears his throat again, coughs out a smoky rasp. “And there were two other little girls besides Maire. One of them died on the passage over—Maggie, she was called. I don’t remember her. So there was only three of us left by the time we got to New York: myself, Maire, and Poppy. My poor mother, she lost three out of six of us. And our father.”

  The professor makes a sympathetic sort of a noise, and I imagine him shaking his head. There is a whacking noise then. Perhaps Raymond is smacking the table. He is sitting up, beside the microphone. He is grieving for his broken mother.

  “Would you tell me more about her?” the professor prompts. “Your mother? You said she saved your life more times than you could count.”

  “She did.”

  “Tell me some of those stories.”

  Raymond pauses. There is a clicking noise. I can nearly hear my own heartbeat in the earphones.

  “How about I just tell you the big one?” he says. “How she got us the hell out of the famine.”

  Chapter Twenty

  IRELAND, JULY 1847

  “I will pay you for him,” Mrs. Spring said again, her voice wild and strained. There was something feral about her, in that moment.

  She loosened her grip on Ginny’s arm and grabbed on to Raymond’s blanket instead. Ginny backed away from Mrs. Spring, who let go, but stamped her feet beneath her billowing purple gown like a spooked stallion. The feather flapped windily from her hat.

  Behind Ginny, Maire came back into the yard carrying the blue Wedgwood china pie plate.

  “You forgot this, Mrs. Spring,” Maire said, stepping toward her mother and the visitor.

  Neither of them answered Maire. Instead, they stared at each other. Maire looked from her mother’s face to Mrs. Spring’s and back again. She asked nothing; she didn’t say a word, but she went to Ginny, and she took Raymond from her mother’s arms. Ginny’s hands were shaking, and when Poppy peeked out into the yard, Maire told her to go back inside and close the door.

  Ginny didn’t turn, but she heard the cottage door squeak and then slam. Raymond started to fuss, so Maire tucked the china plate beneath her armpit so she could rock him up on her shoulder. She shushed him and patted his back, but her eyes stayed locked on the two women in front of her. Finally Mrs. Spring broke the edgy silence.

  “Think of your girls, Ginny,” she said. “Look at your fine daughter there.”

  “I have a name,” her clear voice rang out. “It’s Maire.”

  Alice Spring turned her faulty smile on Ginny’s daughter, but Maire’s face was as grim as the blight.

  “Maire,” Mrs. Spring said. “Perhaps you should let the grown-ups chat, dear.”

  Ginny stepped forward, between them. “My daughter is more grown than you’ll ever be,” she said.

  Mrs. Spring’s face betrayed shock, but she wasn’t ready to kill decorum. She still had hope in her wild scheme, so she let Ginny’s insolence go.

  “I didn’t mean to insinuate . . . ,” she said. “I only thought perhaps it would be better for us to discuss the matter in private. To come to an arrangement.”

  “There’s nothing to discuss,” Ginny said. “There will be no arrangement.”

  Ginny looked at Maire, who was staring intently at her mother, and bouncing her brother softly in her arms.

  “At least hear me out!” Mrs. Spring pleaded, her voice rising again. “Don’t be so hasty. I’m not asking you to abandon him. The very contrary, dear! I’m offering you an opportunity. Think of it. Look, look!”

  Mrs. Spring pulled back her cloak again, and revealed a thick silver chain that was looped across her shoulder and through a hidden belt inside the cloak. She drew on the chain until a large mesh purse appeared from behind her back. It was bulging, heavy, filled mostly with gold coins. She opened the clasp and pulled out all the notes at the top of the purse. She held them out to Ginny.

  “Take it!” She stepped forward. “It’s money. Take it, I’ll send more!”

  Raymond was beginning to cry loudly. He needed a feed. There was that awful stink in the air. Alice Spring stepped forward again and grabbed Ginny’s arm. She pressed the folded bills into Ginny’s hand and forced her fingers to curl around them.

  “There is fever here,” Alice Spring reasoned. “You’ve lost one child to the fever already. Will you risk this one as well, when you have a chance to save him? You can get him out of this misery.”

  Maire’s eyes widened as she watched. She looked younger, suddenly, than Ginny had seen her look since her father left. Alice Spring was still talking.

  “You have blight here, even the little one said it. What will you feed your children when your crop is gone again? How will you feed little Raymond, if you can’t nourish yourself?”

  Ginny could feel her breast rising and falling erratically. She was shaking her head, shaking her head. She tried to shake all the reason and outrageous logic loose from her ears. Instead, she would hold only to the sound of her baby’s cries. His hungry voice.

  “And how would you propose to feed him?” Ginny said, but her words were deficient of the bitterness she felt. She could see a glimmer of triumph in Alice Spring’s eye. “He’s hungry now.” Ginny’s voice was defeated.

  “I’ll get a wet nurse.”

  “No, no!” Ginny said, finding her strength again. “I am his mother!” She beat her fist against her chest, but then fell silent. She was so worn down by fear and anguish. She was so wholly exhausted. “If you want him, you will have to bring all of us,” she said resolutely. “I will nurse him.”

  “Hah!” Alice Spring huffed, her face incredulous. “Don’t be preposterous. I can’t show up in New York with an entire ragtag family of Irish beggars at my heels.”

  Maire’s face pinkened, but she held her tongue. Ginny stepped forward and opened her fingers, threw the matted wad of bills back in Alice Spring’s face. They rained down around her like summer snowflakes. Her eyes and mouth popped open in shock. She was still holding her purse in one hand. She had locked the clasp over the weight of gold coins inside, and now her fingertips yellowed beneath her furious grip.

  “You fool!” Alice Spring screamed, and she swung the purse wildly, hitting Ginny hard in the side of the head. The weight of gold made a sickening clunk against the side of Ginny’s head, and she half buckled, but then recovered herself. She could hear nothing of Mrs. Spring’s continued rant, only a loud ringing in her right ear. She clutched the side of her face, and turned to Maire, who was backing away now from Alice Spring. Maire was shielding the baby boy in her arms. Ginny lurched for them, but she was dizzy from the blow, and she collapsed down on one knee. Alice Spring was bulging with rage. Everything felt slow and contorted. Ginny couldn’t hear past the ringing. And then there was a sound like air being sucked from a balloon, and Ginny could hear Alice Spring again, shrieking like a madman.

  “Damn you, I will have him!” she was screaming. “He belongs with me!”

  Ginny staggered to her feet and listed forward, but she couldn’t get to them in time. Maire clung tightly to Raymond. She kept one hand over his head, and pitched her own head low to cover him. Alice Spring was pulling at his blanket, wrenching Maire’s arms. The Wedgwood pie plate came loose in the struggle and Alice Spring bobbled it, then caught it secure in her fingers. Ginny could see the veins throbbing in Alice Spring’s hands as she lifted the pie plate overhead. Maire cowered beneath
the lunatic, shielding Raymond. And then Ginny’s own voice flew from her like a woeful, animal thing—a curlew.

  Ginny saw the Wedgwood bludgeon coming down slow over her children, a violent streak of blue against the morning sky. Her voice flew out around them and her body hurtled forward, but she was too late, too late. There was a crack and smash as the plate shattered down over her daughter’s head, and Maire dropped to her knees, but she never let go of Raymond.

  “My God!” Ginny was shrieking now, too, though there was nothing of God in her heart at that moment. Her daughter was on her knees. Maire crumpled into her mother, and Ginny caught her. Alice Spring caught Raymond. She lifted him triumphantly into her arms.

  “Maire.” Ginny was on her knees now, too, down beside her daughter. Maire’s eyes were open and she latched them on to her mother. Her mouth was slack and her cheeks were pale, but there was a bright red ribbon of blood running down from a wicked gash in her hairline. She was moving her lips. Ginny held her daughter’s face and kissed her. She kissed her.

  “I’m all right,” Maire said, but her voice had a terrible windy quiver. She was garbled. “I’m grand, Mammy. Mammy, Raymond. Get Raymond.”

  She pointed to Alice Spring, who was stood looking down at them. She had baby Raymond in her arms, and a demented tiny half smile on her face. Ginny’s soft confusion snapped and diffused. Maire sat up, and Ginny stood to face Alice Spring, who lifted her chin.

  “It didn’t have to be like this,” Mrs. Spring said, and there was a crazy brilliance in her eyes.

  Raymond was crying, and she was squeezing him, too tight. She would wind him.

  “Give me my baby,” Ginny said to her.

  “He’s coming with me. He needs to come with me.”

  “He’s going nowhere with you.” Ginny bent quickly, and lifted Raymond’s hurley bat from beside Maggie’s cairn. She held it loose by her side, and stood above her daughter. “Give me my son,” she said again.

  “Look. Look,” Mrs. Spring cried, and real tears came quick to her eyes. Her voice warbled, and she shook her head urgently. “Don’t make me hurt him. Let me take him with me, let him go. God, I love him so dearly, don’t make me hurt him. I will.” She was trembling. She had the fingers of one hand splayed awkwardly across his tiny head. She held him slippy in one arm and his head was lolling back. She could snap his neck. She could hurl him at the ground. She was capable of anything. She was barking mad altogether. She backed away from Ginny slowly. “Don’t make me hurt him,” she cried again softly.

  “Mammy!” Maire’s voice was in a panic. “Mammy!” she screamed.

  Ginny was so quick then. She didn’t falter. She didn’t think. She lifted the hurley bat behind her with the fast certainty of a god, and she heaved it without conscience. With all the might in her spent body, she hurtled forward and brought that cudgel down. A bloodcurdling crack split Alice Spring’s waiting skull.

  And she dropped.

  It was so slow, the way Raymond came loose from Alice Spring’s arms, sickening slow. Ginny reached out for her baby when Alice Spring fell, and she saw him tumbling, the tuck of his blanket unrolling, unraveling. He came free from the blanket, and he flew, his ten little fingers splayed out in terror. Ginny sprang, she leapt. Her fingertips grasped his in the naked air, his arm wrenched.

  She caught him. By one dangling arm, she caught him.

  And then the wind and the blood and the blight were all coursing through her, ferrying remorse and relief both all through her blood, as she folded Raymond’s tiny, twisting body into her arms, and stepped through the scattered blue shards of china. They crunched like bones beneath her feet. The purple hat had come loose from Alice Spring’s head, and it skittered across the yard now like a frightened bird, its sole feather waving manically. The loosened money, too, flapped along the breezy ground. A few bills caught in Maggie’s cairn, and more clustered around Alice Spring’s fluttering skirts. Her blue eyes were open to the sky. The bloodiest horror of the head wound was hidden beneath the soft golden loops of her hair. My God. What had Ginny done? She put her hands over her baby’s face and closed her own eyes.

  “God forgive me,” she whispered.

  Raymond howled and cried, from the shock, Ginny hoped, but his little arm was hanging at a queer angle. Maire was crying softly behind them. Her voice was windy. She called out, “Mammy.” Ginny turned to look at her daughter, at the blood beginning to clot and dry in her hair. Ginny took two crunching steps to where her daughter sat trembling, still pointing at Alice Spring.

  “Mammy,” she said again.

  “Here, we’ll get you inside,” Ginny said, and she stooped to lift her daughter.

  Maire put an arm around her mother’s neck and struggled to her feet. At the door, Maire turned back to look at the body, but Ginny stood in her way so she couldn’t see.

  “Mammy, the money,” she said.

  “Don’t worry, Maire. I’ll take care of it.”

  Inside, Maggie and Poppy were all round eyes and mouths. They were all silent astonishment.

  “What happened to Maire, Mammy?” Poppy whispered.

  “I’m grand, Poppy,” Maire said, but her voice was still shaking. “I just fell and hit my head.”

  “Oh.” Her little sister nodded reverently.

  “And I’m going to clean it up for her,” Ginny said.

  “That’s good because it looks disgusting,” Poppy said.

  “How do you feel?” Ginny said, settling Maire onto the stool. “Are you dizzy?”

  “No.”

  “Maire.”

  “A little,” she admitted.

  “Listen, I’m going to clean you up, but I have to take care of some things outside first, right?”

  Maire tucked in her lips.

  “Maggie, come here and hold your brother.”

  “Why does Maggie get to hold him?” Poppy whinged.

  “Because you have to hold me,” Maire said.

  “But you’re too big for me to hold.”

  “You have to hold my hand,” she explained.

  “Oh,” Poppy said. “That’s all right.” And she stood in beside the stool, lifted Maire’s hand, and gave it a squeeze. “How’s that?”

  “Perfect.”

  “Don’t get up,” Ginny said to Maire. “If you’re dizzy, I don’t want you falling again.”

  “All right, Mam.”

  “I mean it. Promise?”

  “I promise,” Maire said.

  “Why is he crying like that, Mammy?” Maggie asked then. Raymond’s little cry was frantic, his lungs squealing out all the volume he could manage.

  “He’s all right, Maggie,” Ginny said. “Babies just cry like that sometimes. It’s nothing to worry about.”

  But Maggie didn’t look convinced.

  “I think he hurt his little arm,” Ginny said, bending over the baby to inspect him. “You just hold on to him tight there and make him cozy. I’ll be back in just a few minutes to feed him.”

  Maggie nodded, but her face was still creased with worry.

  “It’s no worry if he cries, love,” Ginny said. “It’s good for him. Just keep this door closed until I get back.”

  “Why?” Maggie asked.

  “Because there’s a monster outside,” Maire said. Poppy’s eyes widened. “Don’t worry, it can’t get in as long as we keep the door closed.”

  “But what about Mammy?” Poppy asked, tears threatening.

  “Oh, it’s not a grown-up monster,” Maire said. “It’s a baby monster. It only eats babies and little children. Mammy will be fine.”

  Ginny closed the door behind her and leaned against it. There was blood in the yard. Maire’s bright red blood, all scattered through the china. And then Alice Spring’s blood, pooling dark and mortal beneath the twisted wreckage of her body, her legs akimbo beneath
her splendid gown. Ginny clapped her hands across her face, and wept at the sight of Alice Spring, the damnation of her soul.

  • • •

  When Ginny was able, she ran. She reeled up to the ridge, and down the other side, all the way down the lane through the bottom field and over to the gate in the rock wall. She pawed frantically at the latch on the gate. It loosened and the gate swung in. Mrs. Spring’s carriage was parked in the road beyond. The two horses stood still and quiet, and behind them, Seán sat up with his feet propped high on the footboard and his arms crossed in front of him. His chin was dropped to his chest, and he was snoring lightly.

  Ginny walked to him directly, and took hold of his boot. She shook him.

  “Seán, wake up.”

  He snorted and sat up. “Hah? Oh, I wasn’t sleeping. Just resting a . . .” He stopped short, lifted his hat to scratch beneath. “What are you . . . Where’s Mrs. Spring?”

  Ginny stood back from the carriage and looked down the road. She looked back up at him then, and tried to form words into a sentence that she could say to him out loud. She couldn’t do it. He hopped down from the carriage and leaned in to her face.

  “Jesus, Ginny,” he said. “What happened? Are you bleeding?”

  She looked down at the sleeve of her shirtwaist, the shoulder. It was smeared with the brightness of Maire’s blood, where she had leaned against her.

  “No,” she said. “No, it wasn’t me. It was Maire.”

  “Oh God.”

  “No, she’s grand, I think she’ll be all right. I may need to give her an old stitch-up.”

  “What happened?” he asked again.

  Ginny shook her head. “She went mad.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Maire.”

  “No, Mrs. Spring,” Ginny said. “She tried to buy Raymond.”

  “She what?”