“Think, Orla. Who is the other female from my line?”
“I suppose Bobby and Caroline’s daughter, Kathy. But she’s a baby.”
“Yes. And she didn’t inherit the Devlin powers to protect herself, she only inherited Slanaitheoir’s attentions. She’s vulnerable. You know she is.”
“No. That can’t be true.”
“It is. And it is up to you to stop Him.”
“You’ve had a hundred and fifty years to stop Him. What makes you think I can do it now?”
“Because you’re not hobbled by Him. You have the power.”
“I have nothing but a headache. I’ve my own family. My own life. I won’t end up in the Feale with the rest of you.”
“I’m not giving up, Orla. I’m not leaving. I’ll haunt you every night if I have to.”
I reached over to the bed stand table and grabbed one of my mother’s many pill bottles. The tablets the doctors gave her to stop her seeing visions and hearing voices. I popped a pill in my mouth. Within minutes, Roisin’s mouth moved but nothing came out. Soon she became transparent and eventually faded from view.
“Goodnight, Granny.”
Chapter 2
The funeral was about what I expected. Reams of strangers filled the church, more gathered outside on the steps. I stood with my mother’s brothers and their families. Caroline and her two children sat with the Griffins, her new family now. Baby Kathy, nestled in her mother’s arms, slept through the Mass. Almost involuntarily, my eyes were drawn to the child. Her lips were little rosebuds, her hair black and curly. She was an exceptionally pretty child. Like a china doll. A fragile china doll.
My mother, who in life was a lonely, solitary woman, isolated on her mountaintop by her innate shyness and her madness, was now celebrated by throngs. Strange. The whole thing was strange. But later, when they lowered her coffin into the Devlin family plot, next to her mother, Roisin, and countless other Devlin women whose bodies were now no more than dust, the tears that had so far eluded me flowed. Caroline, annoying Caroline, enveloped me in her arms and stroked my hair like a child. And I let her.
After the two days of raucous waking, the village and the remnants of the original five Mountain families were spent. The village was quiet as I drove through its crooked streets, and the Mountain even more so. On the Devlin side of the Mountain, all was still. The cattle and sheep that usually dotted the fields seemed to have scattered and the sole animal I saw was the pucan. Alone and sitting under the gnarled hawthorn tree, its eyes, like black saucers, seemed wet. As if it, too, were crying.
After a restorative cup of tea and a slice of one of the many apple tarts brought by the villagers, I felt better and ready to tackle my mother’s closet. I sorted everything in three piles: save, donate and burn. I’d promised the new tenants, the Griffin’s oldest daughter who was moving back to Ireland from Birmingham with her young family, they could have the cottage by next week.
Originally, I’d wanted to get rid of the place. Sell the cottage and its acres of surrounding land. With land prices the way they were thanks to the recent Celtic Tiger, even a remote place like this should’ve fetched a good price. But when I brought the deed to the local solicitor, a distant cousin, he explained to me the land could not be sold. That what I’d inherited was a life estate, whatever that was. To break the trust would take time and money, neither of which I had in abundance. I needed to get back to my three lads in Dublin. So the easiest solution was to let out the cottage and lease the fields, for a nominal fee, to John Griffin, a local farmer and another distant cousin, who lived on the other side of the Mountain.
Save, donate, burn. The last pile was by far the largest. And even those things I wanted to keep seemed hardly worth saving. Mostly old pictures of people I didn’t recognize. But, much as I loathed the Devlin side of my family, even I couldn’t burn old pictures.
Most of my mother’s wardrobe fell into the burn category. White silk sheaths and red woolen robes, at least ten of each. Where the hell had she worn these? I probably didn’t want to know.
I’d cleared through most of her closet when I found a large leather-bound book. On its cover was a raised crown of thorns. I threw the book in the burn pile.
I went into the kitchen and made myself another cup of tea. I’d made great progress, and hopefully could leave in the next day or two. After my tea, I attacked the kitchen cabinets and boxed and labeled the old dishes and bits of pottery. They weren’t much, but a women’s shelter back in Dublin could probably use them.
By ten o’clock I was shattered, both emotionally and physically. Prepared to crawl into bed, I was surprised and annoyed to find my piles had been tampered with. Three red robes along with three white sheaths and the book had been shifted to the save pile.
“I don’t want these, Roisin. I’m not bringing this rubbish into my house.”
Roisin appeared beside me. “You will need them, love.”
“No. I won’t.”
“Take them with you. Sure, what harm could it do?”
“You may not believe this, dear grandmother, but unlike the rest of you heathens, I am a Catholic. And I’m raising my boys as Catholics. I don’t know what you were all up to on this Mountain and I don’t want to know. But I do know I don’t want this in my house.”
Her cold hands lightly touched my cheek, numbing my skin. “You will need them. To help Kathy.”
“I’m not helping anyone. I told you. Besides, Caroline and Conor Griffin are moving to New York. They’re leaving next week, to live off my brother’s insurance money no doubt. She should be safe enough from whatever this thing is.”
“Maybe. She might be safe. For a while. But what if He can travel? We don’t know if He can travel.”
“Well, why don’t you ask someone on your side and leave me out of it?”
“The time will come when you will need to face Him. To fight Him.”
“I am going back to my boring life in Dublin. Boring and ordinary and just the way I like it. I’m never setting foot on this Mountain again, do you hear me? Slanaitheoir or the faeries or the devil, or whoever else you think is wandering around, is welcome to it.”
“Ah, love, it is not only the Mountain He wants. He wants His children as well.”
“I’ve heard enough.” I walked over to the nightstand and lifted up my mother’s tablets.
Roisin grabbed the pill bottle out of my hand. “No, Orla, it is not good for you to take these. It will only weaken your mind. And your power. I will leave you now. But I will be with you, watching, and whenever you need me, call for me and I will come.”
“I won’t be calling you.”
“Maybe. But I am here if you need me.”
For some reason I laughed. “You’re ‘here for me’ then. Just like Caroline. Fantastic.”
Her cold hand touched my cheek again, stealing away my laughter. “Know this, Orla. Whether you like it or not, you will be a powerful witch, a powerful Devlin witch. And with power comes responsibility. And danger. You will need this book and the sacred garments. To protect yourself and those you love.”
I held up the pill bottle. “Goodnight, Roisin.”
She looked sad then. “Goodnight, granddaughter.”
Chapter 3
Two years later
“I told you. I’m not leaving this house!”
A mug flew off the table, missing Declan’s head by only inches. Its handle lodged in the plaster wall.
“Dammit, Orla. Not again.”
“You know I can’t control it.”
Dec pried the mug from the wall. “Well, there are enough holes I’ll have to patch before we let this place out.”
“I’m not letting strangers live in my house and I’m not moving to America!”
Declan put his arms around me but I was still so angry, the glasses in the cupboard rattled. “Calm down, love, calm down.”
I swear, whenever he told me to calm down lately, it had the opposite effect. The sugar bowl slid off the table, cra
shing to the floor.
Declan took me by the shoulders and shook me, hard. “Snap out of it, Orla. Stop it!”
As I stared into his pale blue eyes my heart rate slowed. The glasses in the cupboard ceased rattling.
“Orla, can we not have a normal conversation anymore without you smashing half the dishes?”
Soon after my mother’s funeral, my “gifts” emerged. Flying cutlery, breaking glass. Initially they freaked both of us out. Now we saw them as an annoyance as much as anything else.
I stepped away from him. “You know better than to get me so upset.”
“We have to go. I’ve passed up two promotions already. If I pass up this one, I’m through.”
“Why can’t you find a job in Dublin?”
“Because it’s an international company and the headquarters are in New York. All the big bosses have spent time in New York.”
“I don’t want to go,” I said, sounding as petulant as a teenager.
He smiled, pulled me to him and kissed me on the lips. “I know. But it will be two years, max. And then we can come home.”
“Two years?”
“Come on, Orla. We’ll come home for holidays, if you like.”
He looked up at me, his face pale and earnest. He’d been so good to me since the day we met. And especially since my mother died. Declan’s never asked a thing of me. Why was I such a bitch? Why could I not give in, just this once? I’m a housewife. I could take care of the boys and clean the house wherever I went.
“I’m afraid,” I whispered. “I’m afraid to leave.”
“Why, love?”
“I don’t know. I swear, Dec, I don’t know. I just know that if we leave, something bad will happen. Something terrible.”
A shadow crossed his face. “Is it because of Bobby?” My brother Bobby, who Dec loved like his own brother, had worked as an investment banker in the World Trade Center and died on 9-11.
“No. It has nothing to do with Bobby. I don’t know. It’s a feeling I have.”
“Questronics isn’t even located in Manhattan. It’s on Long Island. Near the beach. It’s perfectly safe there. I promise, love.”
“I don’t know.”
“A change will do you good. It will do all of us good. You’ll see.”
I looked into his kind broad face and noticed that these past two years had taken a toll on him. There were wrinkles around his eyes that hadn’t been there before and he looked tired, older than his thirty-eight years. Living with the Devlin witch couldn’t have been easy. I owed him. I owed him his chance.
I stroked his thinning ginger hair. “Fine, Dec. We’ll go. But only for two years.”
He smiled then, like a child on Christmas. “Only two years, I promise. You won’t be sorry. It’ll be fun. An adventure for the boys.”
“Sure,” I said, forcing a smile.
An adventure. That was the last thing I wanted.
* * * *
“I’m asking you for the last time. Please move your seat up.”
The bitch Yank wife of the Irish fella sitting in front of us had pushed her seat all the way back for the last hour, and the floral scent of her hair spray was almost choking the life out of me.
“And I told you, I have a bad back,” she said. “I’m entitled to put my seat back.”
“You’ll have more than a bad back by the time I’m done with ye,” I muttered.
Dec placed his hand on my arm. “Do you want to switch seats with me?”
If the seat with Her Highness pushing her seat back was tight for me, it would crush poor Dec and his long legs. “No, love,” I said. “I’m fine.”
He shot me a wary look. “Be good.”
I forced a smile. “Aren’t I always?”
I was near suffocating for the next hour but I held my tongue. The air wenches served us the usual slop. Chicken or beef? Why not be honest and say “inedible” and “more inedible”? But I choked the beef concoction down, as did my three lads. They’d eat anything that didn’t moo back. Dec, the only fussy eater in the house, ate an apple he’d packed himself.
Once the spray-tan orange air hostess took my tray, I slammed the tray table back into the bitch in front of me.
“Ow! My back.” She turned to me and snarled, “Why did you slam the seat so hard?”
“Sorry, but I’m entitled to put my tray back up.”
“Orla,” Declan said.
“I didn’t do anything to her. Honest.”
Declan chose to believe me and said nothing more. And I smiled with satisfaction as that bitch hobbled to the bathroom. She’d be hobbling for quite some time.
There are some advantages to being the Devlin witch.
* * * *
Three weeks in and the sun hadn’t stopped shining. “Not like home, is it?” Declan must have announced at least one hundred times a day. If he said it one more time I would drown him in the Great South Bay.
My sons took to Long Island beach living like ducks to water. Dec fitted them with new American-style swimming trunks and boogie boards, which I managed to trip over every time I walked into the garage. Drizzly Dublin was a distant memory for the Cahill boys.
But not for me.
Still, I wasn’t about to rain on Dec’s parade, so I tried to put a good face on it and I didn’t complain too loudly when the lads tracked sand onto my clean kitchen floor. I packed sandwiches, drinks, sand toys, umbrellas, sun cream and tried to be a good sport when Dec dragged us, again, to the local beach.
Jesus, I never thought I’d say it, but the winter couldn’t come fast enough for me. Surely then the blasted sun would stop shining.
I had to admit it, though, Dec found the perfect spot for us. I’d resigned myself to living in a faceless suburb in some enormous box of a house, like we’d seen in the cinemas. But Sayville was a historic town, old at least by American standards. The house he found for us was a vintage Victorian on a tree lined street. Restored to perfection, it was all anyone could wish for.
So then why, after three weeks, could I still not settle? Why did I miss our cramped three-bedroom semi-detached in Rathfarnham?
I didn’t know. But I knew enough that I was being unreasonable, so I smiled and for the most part, didn’t complain. Not too much, anyway.
Summer finally ended and we enrolled the boys in the admittedly good local school. Dec settled into his new role as head engineer for the software company. Everyone was happy.
But besides shepherding the lads back and forth to school, I hadn’t much to do. The estate agent had suggested a cleaner. Dec insisted we hire her, so I didn’t even have cleaning to keep me occupied. There was no neighborly chat over the garden gate in posh Sayville. No weekend ladies rugby team to join. Nothing but the goddamn unending sun.
Since my mother died, I’d lost close to thirty pounds, not as a result of diet or extra exercise. I’d always been into sports–not that most people could tell, given the stubborn extra pounds that had plagued me up until two years ago. But after my mother died, my appearance gradually changed. Neither Dec nor I noticed the changes until one day when I was shopping for new jeans, I looked in the mirror and instead of my usual fat spotty face staring back at me was a beauty with clear fair skin, high cheekbones and blue, almost aquamarine eyes. My hair, my lank dishwater blond hair, shone like gold and framed my new heart-shaped face in soft curls. I was startled by my new appearance in the dressing room, but not shocked. I had changed in more substantial, and frankly frightening, ways since my mother’s death, so a complete physical transformation didn’t shock me as much as it should have.
And now, in my enormous American master suite, staring at my impossibly small, pert bottom encased in Lycra running shorts, I could barely remember the shapeless tracksuits that had been my uniform in Dublin. I pulled the long blond hair I now took for granted into a tight ponytail and popped the plastic white buds of my smartphone into my ears. I had hours to kill before school let out, so I figured I might as well enjoy all the wo
nderful American sunshine Declan insisted on admiring every fucking morning.
Besides, since my Devlin “gifts” had appeared, exercise was the only thing that quietened the buzzing in my head and the tingling in my extremities, almost as if my body were an overcharged battery that needed to be drained by exercise. Without my daily run, my powers were even more uncontrollable. As it was, in the past three weeks Declan replaced two windows and about ten burst lightbulbs.
Late September and the air was still hot, still balmy, tinged with salt from the nearby shore. My oldest, Brendan, informed me this morning we were in the midst of an Indian summer, whatever the hell that was. Brendan, like his father, now reveled in all things American. Indian summer. Well, whatever it was, the endless humidity made me yearn for a cold Irish mist.
But I mustn’t be negative. This morning I’d endured yet another lecture from Declan about how my bad attitude would affect the boys. Sayville was a wonderful place, a paradise really, Declan said. And besides, we were stuck here for another two years so I might as well “suck it up,” yet another Americanism Declan picked up at the office. What he left unsaid was that after the last two years, I owed him.
So with classic rock blasting in my ears, I ran through the quiet streets of Sayville, my new shapely legs tearing past the luxury sedans and manicured lawns, racing past my elegant exile.
An hour later, my legs like jelly, I walked into the Sayville Coffee Shop on Main Street and ordered an iced frappachino. I do have to give it to the Yanks, they make nice coffee. As I waited for my coffee, I noticed a flyer by the cash register. Sayville Yoga Center, it said.
I picked it up and read the class schedule. Yoga classes. Probably full of manicured mammies killing time while the cleaning ladies did all the housework. God, what a nightmare. Was this really my life?
I was putting the flyer back, when a woman behind me said, “You should check it out. The first class is free.”
“Ah, no. Not for me.”
The woman, a tall willowy blonde, mid-thirties I’d say, smiled, a Madonna-like beatific smile. She touched my arm, and a slight buzz of electricity emanated from her hand. “I think it would be good for you. It’s very calming, comforting. My next class is in a half hour. Please join me, the studio is only down the street.”
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