by Erin Hart
She felt an impulse to rush forward and fold Elizabeth in her arms. And yet for some reason she could not do it. Something in the child’s questioning, wounded gaze stopped her. They stared at each other for a long moment, each wondering what to say, what to do next, how to bridge the chasm of the last five years.
Nora crossed to the far end of the window seat, keeping a space between them. “You wanted to see me,” she said. “Here I am.”
Elizabeth closed her book and began playing with the laces on her shoes, pulling the bows taut, winding herself tighter and tighter—waiting and wishing, Nora knew, for that bad feeling in the pit of her stomach to go away. Only it would not go away, not ever, not completely. It would seem to diminish for a while, and then, for no apparent reason, would blossom anew, reviving itself like a living thing.
Nora put out a hand to still the fidgeting fingers. “I’ve missed you, Lizzabet—”
Her head lifted. “Nobody calls me that—not anymore.” The child was an injured animal, snapping at any hand that came near, even those offering aid. Although Elizabeth’s instincts told her to resist, Nora was more than ready. She had been anticipating this moment; dreaming it and dreading it every day for five years. At last, she pulled Elizabeth close, wrapping her arms around the thin shoulders, feeling the force of the silent howl caught inside. Words were not enough. All she could offer right now was fierce steadfastness, a promise never to let go. There were no tears, from either of them. Plenty of time for those, Nora told herself. They would come. She stroked Elizabeth’s hair, wondering how on earth they were going to get through this. There were practical decisions to be made, plans to be laid, as if their lives depended on it. Perhaps they did. She would not allow anyone to harm this child. And if that meant breaking the law, if it meant not seeing people she loved for a very long time, then she would do it.
But Sean Meehan was right. They had to go somewhere remote, a place no one would think to look. Then she remembered the way Cormac had described his father’s house. A very remote spot, he had said. I didn’t know places like this still existed.
She had resisted heaping her troubles on him; it didn’t seem fair. And yet what choice did she have, when there was so much at stake? She tipped Elizabeth’s head up and looked into her eyes. “Listen to me, Lizzabet. I think I know a place we can go.”
2
Frank Cordova slid over the threshold of consciousness. A few random ghosts seemed to lurk at the edges of his perception: there was the sweep of a leaf fan, the oppressive heat and dust, and that odd, sudden, thick-thin sensation he had felt as a kid, and had never been able to explain. The room was dark, and for some reason he felt exhausted, even though he was just waking up. He opened his eyes, vaguely aware that he was gripping a woman’s arm, but he couldn’t seem to feel his fingers. His legs were heavy, and there was a continual, low-pitched buzz in the back of his head. His mouth felt chalky. “What’s happening?”
“You’re in Regions Hospital. You’ve been sedated for a bit. I’ll call the doctor and let him know you’re feeling better.”
He raised his head slightly to look down at his legs. No cast. No bullet holes. So what was he doing in the hospital? He said to the nurse: “How long have I been here?”
She smiled. “You were admitted Thursday night—well, Friday morning, I guess, technically speaking. And today is Saturday—”
“Saturday? I have to get out of here.”
“I really think you need to speak to the doctor first—”
He tried to sit up. “You don’t understand. I’m working a case, and I haven’t got time—” He stopped speaking as fragments of memory began to stir again: Veronica’s teary face, the sound of ragged breathing, that horrible disinfectant smell, and an almost noiseless scuffle against a hard, cold floor. He knew then what he’d put off knowing in long hours of shadowy sleep. A spasm of anguish gripped him, and he knew that the strange dreams he’d been having were not dreams at all.
Chago.
There was nothing he could do to protect his brother. Not anymore. The room began to spin, and he lay back down on the bed, hot tears trickling into his ears. Santa María, Madre de Díos, ruega por nosotros pecadores, ahora y en la hora de nuestra muerte—Now and at the hour of our death.
“Rest for a while.” The nurse began tucking the blanket around him again. “Sometimes it helps if you just try to concentrate on breathing.”
He nodded, but as soon as she left the room, he tore the tape off his IV and removed the needle, applying pressure to stop any bleeding. He found his clothes in the cupboard, but his wallet, badge, gun, and cell phone were all gone—as were his car keys. He distinctly remembered driving to the ER after Veronica’s call. Picking up the room phone, he dialed his partner, and cut straight to the chase. “Karin, I need a lift.”
Her response was wary: “I take it you’re feeling better?”
“Yeah.” He couldn’t tell from her voice whether she knew about everything that had happened—although it was probably safe to say she knew a lot more than he did. That thought made him uncomfortable. “I’m at Regions. I need you to pick me up, right away.”
“Do you think that’s wise, Frank?”
“I don’t care if it’s wise. If you won’t pick me up, I’ll take a cab.”
“All right, all right—I’m down at the shop. See you in ten at the main entrance.”
He slipped down the nearest stairwell and made his way to the ground floor. Karin was already waiting for him.
“You sure you’re all right, Frank?” She was looking at his hand, still bearing the IV tape. “I had patrol bring your car back to headquarters the other night, but I can drive you straight home, if you’d rather—”
“I’ll be okay.” He turned to Karin. “It’s Saturday. What are you doing at the shop?”
“With you out, we were a little shorthanded, and we got a couple of new cases. Your friend Dr. Gavin drove her car off a bluff down at Hidden Falls Thursday night.”
Frank felt a sudden stab of fear. “Is she okay?”
“A little banged up—nothing serious. But she claimed it wasn’t an accident—she says somebody jammed her brakes.”
“And you don’t believe her?”
“Hard to say. We’ve got the car up in the garage right now. It looks like a water bottle just got loose and rolled under her brake pedal. No prints on the bottle but hers. We can’t prove a thing.”
Frank took in this new information. Peter Hallett might as well have left a signature. Jigger the brakes so it looks like Nora might have done it herself. Then she looks extra crazy, trying to pin it on him. “What’s the other case?”
“Hit-and-run yesterday. Homeless guy, maybe you knew him—Harry Shaughnessy?”
3
Nora drove northward and westward toward Donegal. She wasn’t used to thinking like a fugitive—never spent time thinking about how to avoid being noticed, how to communicate without being tracked. She had told no one where she and Elizabeth were headed from Skerries, not even Sean Meehan or the Donovans, whose car she’d managed to cadge. Even so, she knew they were far from safe. The authorities were no doubt searching for Elizabeth, but she didn’t dare turn on the news to find out. Peter would be just as adept at manipulating official opinion here as he had been at home. Donegal was at least far away from Dublin, but nowhere on the island felt secure.
She drove through the pastures of Meath and Cavan, sticking to secondary roads, winding through villages fluttering with county flags to support whatever team was headed to the next regional championship. As they wound around the small hills of Leitrim, carefully skirting the border—no need to invite official scrutiny by crossing into the North—the rain poured down, obscuring the view.
Elizabeth remained silent, eyes trained out the window. The child would have a terrible crick in her neck by the time they stopped. Occasionally, she would wipe the moisture from the glass, but the vapor from their breath only beaded up again.
What ha
ppened? Nora wanted to ask. Did you remember something? Did you just figure it out on your own?She tried to reconstruct her own consciousness at age six, about the time she and Tríona and her parents had come to America. When did a person begin to emerge from that fantastical sea of childhood onto the dry land of adult existence? Elizabeth, now at eleven, was standing at the edge of that ocean, heels still in the water, already missing the pull of the surf. It was easy to feel clumsy and ungainly in the new world of adulthood; breathable air must feel thin and insubstantial compared to childhood’s all-enveloping sea.
Norea turned to her niece. “Shall we have some music?”
No response. Nora switched the radio on anyway, speeding past the stations blasting bright commercial patter, finally landing on some traditional music, Raidió na Gaeltachta, the Irish-language station. Just what she was looking for. Not a word of English. No chance that they’d hear urgent updates about a nationwide search for a missing child. At least not in any language Elizabeth would understand. The tune ended, and the presenter began chatting away about the selection they’d just heard. Elizabeth’s head snapped around. She listened intently for a few seconds. “What is that?”
“It’s Irish. The language people speak here.”
Elizabeth considered for a moment. “I thought people here spoke English.”
“Well, yes—they do. But some people speak mostly Irish, especially in places like where we’re going.”
Elizabeth listened to the radio presenter again. “It sounds”—she spent a few seconds trying to dredge up the right word—“soft.”
Nora had to agree. Irish had always struck her as such an expressive, musical language, and she regretted not knowing more of it.
After four hours on the road, they were coming up on the outskirts of Donegal town. They stopped at a station shop and bought some anemic-looking sandwiches and crisps, apples and bananas, bottled water, and a few biscuits. Past Donegal town, the road wound down along the coast, and cut inland at Mountcharles. Elizabeth kept her face to the window. At Bruckless, it was time to take a break from driving. Nora turned off the main road, and headed down a quiet, wooded lane that led to a rocky beach. She parked the car at the edge of the wood.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s take our sandwiches down to the shore.”
Elizabeth looked skeptical, but followed her out onto a rocky peninsula that trailed out into Bruckless Bay. They sat on a pair of flat boulders and set out the sandwiches and drinks. The briny smell of seaweed filled the air—not the strong, rotting odor that sometimes came at low tide, but a cleaner, lighter scent. It was a mystery why some coasts were more malodorous than others. Nora pointed across the water to a house high up on the side of the hill. “See that house? It’s very like a place we stayed one summer when I was your age. Your mama would have been about six or seven.”
In fact, the more Nora studied the surrounding hills, the more she became convinced that this was the very place where the seal had rescued Tríona from drowning. It must have rained sometime during those summer weeks, yet Nora couldn’t recall even a single cloudy day. She and Tríona had spent hours climbing among the rocks, searching for sea glass and other treasure. That shard of blue-and-white delft in her treasure box had come from somewhere along this coast. Visiting the grandparents in Clare every summer was never a holiday in the usual sense. There were eggs to be gathered, cows to be milked, garden patches to be weeded, honey to be collected from hives. Here in Donegal, there had been no responsibilities, only endless days of exploring and make-believe. She had dreamt of shipwrecks all summer long.
“Look!” Elizabeth’s voice had an excited edge.
Nora shielded her eyes against the strong afternoon sun, and peered out over the water to see a dark head bobbing just above the calm surface. “I see it.”
The seal swam closer, evidently curious about the pale creatures stretched out on the rocks. As it drew near, Nora could see that the left side of the animal’s face was damaged. It regarded them with a single dark and glassy eye.
Elizabeth jumped to her feet and ventured as far out on the spit as she could go, feeling her way over the rocks, never taking her eyes from the sleek head in the water. Girl and seal studied each other with intense interest. The creature’s nose and whiskers twitched as it huffed the air for clues about the human child, and Elizabeth’s hand remained half-raised in a gesture of greeting. Then the seal began to spin, rising up out of the water in a joyful dance.
Nora watched, fascinated, thinking of all the instinctive, animal ways of knowing that humans had begun to forget as soon as they had words. After a few moments of silent communication, the seal’s head slid beneath the surface and disappeared from view, leaving only a circling eddy where it had been. Elizabeth stood searching the water for a few more minutes before she turned around. Nora studied her face as she trudged back up to the flat rocks.
“Were you saying something to that seal?”
“No!” Elizabeth’s newly exposed ears glowed bright red.
“It’s all right, Lizzabet. Your mother used to talk to them. She said they didn’t understand when she spoke English, but they seemed to have a bit of Irish.” Elizabeth looked up, as if she had just confirmed something that had lurked in the murky realm of suspicion for a long time.
That was exactly what Tríona had said. Nora had completely forgotten until the words came out of her mouth. Strange, how revisiting a place could bring back memories in that way. The smell of the seaweed, the texture of the stone underfoot, the way the light hit the water at a certain angle—if she closed her eyes, she could see pale limbs underwater, hair floating upward, a pair of coal-black eyes looming close.
Back in the car, the radio sprang to life with the engine. As they reached Carrick, a tune began flowing from the speakers, and Nora knew she had heard it somewhere before. The fiddler slid his bow along the strings, expertly teasing great feeling from the notes, starting low and rising up in exhilarating waves.
It was the same tune Cormac had sent her in his e-mail the other night, she was certain.
When the music ended, the presenter began chatting in Irish, from which she could only pick out a few words—go hailainn, wonderful; an fhidil, the fiddle. The tune’s title went by in a flash. Something i Meiriceá—in America. He had promised her the name of the tune the next time they met. It wouldn’t be long now.
Outside Carrick, they hurtled by a handmade banner fluttering from a pair of stakes at the roadside. Nora registered what it said only after they’d gone past: FÁILTE FIDLEIRI!—WELCOME FIDDLERS! FIDDLE WEEK IN THE GLEN.
When they reached Glencolumbkille, the post office was closed, but the publican at the óstan, the inn next door, knew the Maguire place.
“It’s about three miles outside The Glen, just beyond a little place called Port na Rón,” the man said. “The village itself mightn’t be on your map. There’s no one living in it for years now. But head out this road, anyway, until you come to a fork. Keep to the left there, and the Maguire place will be on your left as you go down that lane, kind of up under a hill. You can’t miss it. And if you get all the way to Maghera, you’ll know you’ve missed the turn entirely.”
“Do you know Joseph Maguire?”
“Sure, wasn’t I in school with him? Josie, we used to call him, in them days. His auntie Julia was our schoolteacher. She’s the one left the house to him there about three years ago. We heard he was off in Bolivia or somewhere. Never thought he’d come back. But that’s the thing about Donegal people, you see. They’ll go off, for years sometimes. To America, Australia, Scotland, all sorts of foreign shores. But they always come back. Something about this place that draws them—something in the blood. You know, it’s amazing. Maguire’s after having a fierce rake of visitors lately. I was terrible sorry to hear about his trouble, taking ill like that—he’s still in hospital beyond in Killybegs. I’m surprised you didn’t know, being a friend of the family, like.”
Nora saw the gossip h
unger in the eyes that peered over the glasses at her, and she scrambled to make up a credible lie. “I have to confess—I don’t actually know him. He’s a third cousin to my husband, something like that. My daughter and I are up for the Fiddle Week—my husband is joining us at the weekend. We’re staying with friends up in Ardara, but I was supposed to call in, if we were passing this way. Still in hospital, though—that’s a pity.”
“I’m sure he’ll be up for visitors soon. But aren’t you lucky to have friends in these parts? When you came in, I was afraid you might ask if we’d any rooms left. I would have hated to turn away such a lovely wee woman as yourself.”
Down the road where the barman had directed them, the car climbed up past the church and out of the Glen. Houses were few and far between beyond the village, surrounded on all sides by treeless, mountainy bog. They passed shallow black cuttings, clamps of turf walled in by pallets held together with rope and netting to foil thieves, and thatched with rushes to fend off unforgiving wind and rain. Stone and wire fences hiked up over the hills, marking narrow fields for grazing sheep. The place looked barren, but Nora knew that—at least culturally speaking—nothing could be further from the truth. From the poorest places came the richest music—it had always been that way.
Suddenly she felt so tired that it was difficult to keep her hands on the steering wheel. She looked over at Elizabeth in the passenger seat. Was she doing the right thing, coming here, landing on Cormac without a word of warning? “Hang in there,” she said to Elizabeth. “We’re almost there.”
As she spoke, Nora felt a wave of exhaustion verging on dizziness. She reached up and touched the bandage on her forehead. More than anything in the world, she longed to sleep, but a host of worries pressed down on her. Around the next curve, they came to a Y-junction. Turning to the left, Nora coaxed the car along a rough patch of road. There it was, ahead on the left, a hill with a house tucked under it, just as the barman had said. Nora had never been so glad to arrive anywhere. The long dusk was beginning to settle. There were two cars parked outside, and she could see a light through the windows. Cormac was home, then. She pulled in behind his Jeep and turned to Elizabeth.