The Pirate Princess: Return to the Emerald Isle

by Matthew Morris

  Meg crossed her heart and continued packing, her sad dog at her feet.

  10

  First Flight

  Aunt Molly showed up at the house just as they finished packing. She helped Meg get her bags downstairs. “How exciting! You get your first airplane ride and trip out of the country at the same time.”

  “I know! I still can’t believe it,” replied Meg.

  It was true. Meg’s family had never taken her on an airplane before because they rarely took long vacations. The surprise Christmas trip she just found out about would have been their first. According to her father, living on the water was a vacation all year long. Whenever they did go somewhere, it was always just short trips. And, Meg’s parents could never leave their businesses for a long trip, because they both operated their fishing boats by themselves and worked all of the time.

  This never bothered the Murphy kids because they really did live a great life. During the summer Meg was constantly swimming and snorkeling around the island or reading on the dock. When she got bored with that, she could always spend the day sailing with her mom, reading on the Muirín while Shay dove. She had fun on the water and in the sun every day. Meg’s tan never went away, even in the winter. Eileen, as far as Meg knew, never had a problem with not going away either. She was so into her sports and dancing that she was usually out of the house before Meg got up in the morning. Meg loved her family and her home, and didn’t know anything else, so vacations were not something to miss.

  Eileen was dropped off from practice as everyone was outside loading up the car. She ran up to them and gave her mother a big hug. She said to Meg, “I sure am jealous. Mom and Dad have never taken me anywhere on a plane.” Meg’s eyes twinkled remembering the secret she now shared with her mother, that they would have been taking a trip if this funeral had not come up.

  Shay looked down at Meg to make sure she was silent on the now-canceled Christmas trip and said to Eileen, “I promise you that we will take a vacation to someplace far away very soon. Right, Mark?” Their father put his arm around Eileen’s shoulder, gave her a squeeze, and nodded an affirmative, “Yup.”

  Shay grabbed little Sean who was already squirming to get out of Aunt Molly’s arms. She gave him a big hug and kiss. He didn’t know what was going on, but said, “Bye, bye, Momma,” and ran off towards the house with Molly in tow. Mark, Shay, and Meg got in the car for the two and a half hour drive to New York City. They waved goodbye to Eileen and Finn who were standing on the porch as they pulled away.

  A few years back, the Murphy family had sailed down Long Island Sound and spent the night in New York on one of their short family trips. Meg thought it was the most amazing place she had ever seen. They walked around the city under the massive buildings and bright lights. Everything was huge and buzzing, like a hive of bees. She was awed by the amount of people constantly walking the streets, seemingly at all hours. While she was in the midst of it all, Meg wondered how the people who lived in New York City could put up with the constant noise and being separated from nature. Sure, they had Central Park and trees lined some of the streets, but everything around the city was encased in concrete and stone.

  At home, Meg woke up to the sounds of the shoreline, with birds and frogs and bugs singing all day and night. The honking, yelling, and din of the city were alien to her, and she had spent the one night they stayed in New York looking out the hotel window and not being able to sleep a wink. Thankfully, the next day they got back on their boat and sailed around the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, returning to the water where she felt most at home.

  Remembering that trip, Meg started to think about what it must have been like for Nanny Sullivan to leave her family at such a young age. She pictured her on the bow of a ship entering New York Harbor and seeing Lady Liberty for the first time. She envisioned that the sight would have brought tears to Nanny’s eyes.

  It was unthinkable to Meg that someone could leave their family forever. At the same time, though, she could not fully grasp the idea of death; nobody in her family had died in her lifetime, other than a couple of goldfish. Meg didn’t even know about those until later on, when her sister told her that their parents would just switch out the dead ones for new ones before she realized it. The thought of losing her sister or brother was unimaginable, and her parents, even worse, but it had to take something that tragic to send a young woman from Ireland to never see her family again.

  It was hard on Meg to learn that she had a great grandfather one day, only to find out that he was gone the next. The thought of Nanny possibly dying someday was just too much for her to even ponder. Yet, here she was, sitting in a car heading towards an airport to be with her mom for the funeral of her great grandfather. Just then, she realized that she didn’t even know his name. His last name was O’-something, but she hadn’t learned his first name.

  “Mom, what’s my great grandfather’s name?”

  “Owen…Owen O’Flaherty.”

  Owen O’Flaherty. She didn’t know any Owens, at least not personally, but there was that cute movie star with the crooked nose.

  ‘Mac and O’, something, something Irish they be’ What was that rhyme her mom always said? Meg then realized it didn’t matter, as she was from Irish royalty and had a banshee following her every move. At least it wasn’t one of those creepy leprechauns.

  Every St. Patrick’s Day since she was little, Meg would pour milk into her glass in the morning and it would magically turn green. Her parents said it was the sneaky Leprechaun playing tricks on her family as usual on March 17, Ireland’s Patron Saint’s holiday. They would search around the house and try to find the little spirit but they were never able to find him. At least the green milk didn’t taste bad.

  Meg looked out the car window. She saw they were only at New Haven. Still quite a while to go.

  She grabbed her backpack that held her school work for the week and the compendium. Carefully, she pulled the compendium out and unwrapped it to look at it again. It was just so beautiful.

  As Meg fingered the compendium, she observed it was oblong, but not egg-shaped, and about four inches long on the widest side, about the size of her palm. It was nearly an inch thick, with an interlacing Celtic knotwork band around the perimeter. The lines of the knot wove over and under themselves in a never-ending sequence.

  Celtic knotwork art, her mom had told her, was used by monks in Ireland to adorn the manuscripts they transcribed. The most beautiful example of this is the famous Book of Kells held at Trinity College in Dublin. The geometric designs were influenced by the Middle Eastern art of the time, but they came to have a life of their own in the hands of the Irish monks who created ever larger and more complex knots that could be traced from beginning to end as one never-ending line. It has been said that the knots represent the eternity of life, love, or nature, but no one is really sure if they had a deeper meaning or were only decorative. Meg always had fun following them from any point on the knot, all around the twists and turns, over and under, back to where she started—it was almost meditative.

  The front of the compendium, as Meg’s mom had explained at her birthday dinner, had a Gaelic script letter G, which looked nothing like the way she read or wrote the letter. Grace… In the back of her mind, Meg heard Nanny saying her middle name like she did when they left her yesterday. Looking at the letter closely, Meg traced it with her finger and she heard it again. Grace. The more she looked at it, the more she liked the way the letter G looked in Gaelic script. It was surrounded by animals and beasts all interwoven together just like the knotwork on the side of the instrument.

  The other side of the compendium had a woman’s face with flowing, curly hair that radiated from her head like the rays of the sun. Unlike the decoration on the front side, which was etched on the surface, the reverse was like the face on a coin, almost three-dimensional. The woman’s face was emotionless and her eyes stared straight ahead.

  Meg let the long chain slide through her fingers. I
t was attached to the compendium by a clasp that was etched with scrolls. At the top edge of the compendium was a small, round ball that, when snapped into a small hole in the clasp, held the compendium closed. There was a hinge on the bottom of the compendium that allowed each instrument to fold open freely while still remaining attached.

  Meg pushed the latch back and opened the compendium. The first instrument she saw was a magnetic directional compass in the center surrounded by an engraving of a square. Engraved along the edges of the square were the numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12. These numbers were repeated two times per side, on all four sides of the square. An engraved circle of boxes and tick marks surrounded the square. The tick marks were numbered in increments of ten, and went from 10 to 360, which Meg knew were the degrees of a circle. Attached to the compass in the center were two arms that had little fobs at each end that folded up. One of the fobs had a hole and the other had a point. From sailing, Meg knew that you looked through the hole to the point and compared your direction with the direction of the compass needle that always pointed north to figure out the course you were traveling.

  The second instrument was a round, hand-held sundial that folded out on its own hinges. The edges of the sundial were also engraved with tick marks and numbers, and a quadrant was attached in the middle of it.

  The third instrument was not an instrument at all, but more like a page in metal. The page contained a list of words in Gaelic, and after each word there were two numbers. The reverse side of this page had more inscribed words, but these were lined up in columns. The words were so small that Meg was unable to make anything out on top of everything being in another language.

  The last instrument was comprised of a series of thin, overlapping discs with all sorts of geometrical markings. Each disc could be turned in a circle like a dial. There was a hole offset in the center disc that Meg realized showed the phases of the moon when she turned it. She also recognized the symbols of the twelve zodiac signs aligned around the disc, along with more numbers and tick marks. One of the discs was a frame of arcs and points that revealed etched outlines and dots below it. Meg turned this disc and saw that the lines beneath sometimes matched up with the points of the arcs, although she did not know what this represented.

  The back plate of the compendium had another movable arm attached to the center with fobs that folded out and numerical tick marks all around the perimeter.

  The compendium was as complicated as it was beautiful. The engravings and inscriptions were starkly black from rubbed-in dirt, while the bronze was smooth and shiny. Meg’s mom had taught her basic navigation with a compass and charts, but she had no idea how this piece of art could help her sail a ship. Looking at the different instruments with their complex markings, Meg was intrigued. She couldn’t wait to learn how to use them.

  She studied her gift a while longer, folding out the leaves and turning the dials and gizmos first one way then the other, then finally closed it. To think that several generations of her family had held this tool in their hands and used it to sail the seas sent chills up Meg’s spine. She then shuddered at the thought that the compendium was also held by the now-dead Owen O’Flaherty, the man she was about to fly over the Atlantic Ocean to see for the first time, at his funeral! She wrapped her treasure back up in the tee shirt and replaced it securely in her bag, vowing she would never let it out of her sight.

  The drive went by more quickly than she had expected and they were soon pulling their car into John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. After unloading at the curb in front of the terminal, Meg said goodbye to her father. It was weird leaving her dad behind. Meg had never spent a significant amount of time alone with just one parent. Days spent with her mom on the sailboat were always balanced with snuggle time with her dad at night. As Mark pulled away and they walked into the terminal, Meg already missed him more than she ever thought possible.

  After Meg and Shay got their tickets, they had some dinner in an airport restaurant that was jam-packed with people. Most were happy and looking forward to their trips, but Meg also noticed the business travelers who were unimpressed with air travel, sitting with straight faces as they typed away at computers or looked at their cell phones.

  Meg was excited to be traveling … sort of. But she was also a bit scared to go on an airplane. The idea of floating on air in what looked like a big, long metal can was not natural to her. Boats on water made sense, and besides, the air was for birds. They walked around the terminal, amid all of the air travelers. Meg started to get anxious about getting on the plane. Her mother must have noticed Meg’s apprehension and was extra comforting and even hugged her a few times which was very unlike Shay. Meg told her mom she was a little scared of flying. Shay told her she had nothing to worry about, and hugged her tightly again. They bought some magazines to read while they were waiting and found a space on a bench near the door to their plane. A short time later, they handed the flight attendant their tickets and walked down an enclosed ramp to the long metal can with wings.

  When the flight attendant pulled the door closed, Meg grabbed Shay’s hand and squeezed it tight.

  “I’m scared, Mommy.”

  Shay looked down at Meg and kissed her on the top of her head. “You have nothing to worry about, honey. Remember, our family is protected by the fairies and they won’t let anything happen to us, especially since we’re traveling back home to Ireland.” The look in her mother’s eyes reassured her and the thought of magical protection was comforting, but Meg found herself looking out the window for the banshee just in case. Meg did not see it anywhere and the plane took off without a hitch.

  Soon they were flying over the water that Meg had spent her whole life on. For as long as she could, she watched from her window as they flew up the east coast of America. Below, the yellow lights of the towns and cities shining in the night were pretty, and Meg’s nerves were calmed by the monotonous droning of the jet engines. She had no interest in watching the in-flight movie, and fell asleep when the dark ocean was all she could see out of the small airplane window.

  11

  The Auld Sod

  Meg’s first flight lasted a total of six hours and fifteen minutes. The sudden movement of the plane approaching Shannon Airport woke her. It was morning, and a vast, motionless white ocean stretched out as far as she could see. It was a beautiful and peaceful sight. The plane made another turn and she was looking straight down on the fluffy white clouds that looked as though they would be the most comfortable bed in the world. Meg felt the downward motion of the plane in her stomach but the fear and anxiety of the previous day were gone.

  The airplane descended and all Meg could see out the window was bright, white light. Her mother was paying close attention to a Welcome-to-Ireland video playing on the screen above them. Meg was more fascinated with flying through the clouds. The sinking feeling in her stomach let her know that they were getting closer to landing. The misty white beyond the wings opened up for just a moment to reveal green fields below Again and again the blank white was replaced with living green, but only for a short period of time before fading into the mist again. When the airplane was finally flying below the cloud cover Meg saw field after field of grass, each separated by grey stone walls. Everything was so green. Meg had heard that Ireland was forty shades of green, but until she saw it for herself she had no idea what that meant.

  After the airplane touched down, everyone onboard applauded. Meg was not sure if they were clapping for a good landing or just the fact that they were finally in Ireland. It didn’t matter. Her first airplane ride was uneventful and it didn’t even feel that long because she had slept through most of it.

  The door of the aircraft was opened to a cloudy day. A light rain was landing softly on the tarmac. Stepping out into the Irish air Meg sensed that she was home—not home in Connecticut, but really, truly home, that place where you know you belong. It was a strange feeling, but one she felt down deep in her being. Meg walked with her mothe
r up the ramp to the terminal and soon enough they passed through customs, received a stamp in their passports, and walked out and set foot on the land their family had come from.

  Because it was early morning, other than the passengers from their flight, there were not many people milling about. Shay had obtained all the transportation information they needed on the internet before they left Connecticut, including maps and schedules, and she led Meg right to a bus stop outside of the terminal. The plan for the day was to take a bus to Galway City. There, they would pick up their charter boat and sail up the coast to Inishbofin Island which, according to her mom, was not far from Galway.

  While they were waiting for the bus to arrive, Shay looked down to Meg and said, “Isn’t this amazing, Meg? Isn’t it just so beautiful?”

  Meg looked around and took a deep breath. The air was damp but not heavy. To her, it had the smell of living. That was the only way Meg could describe it: living, green. “As soon as the door opened it felt like home.”

  “I felt the same way the first time I came here,” replied Shay.

  The first time, Meg thought, but before she could ask her mom to clarify the statement, a bus pulled up from the opposite direction she was expecting surprising her. It was on the wrong side of the street! But that was not the only difference. The bus itself was backwards as far as she was concerned, the driver was on the right side, and the door they entered was on the left. As they loaded up their bags Meg made a mental note to look the other way when crossing the street. The bus left the airport and was soon whizzing past the green fields of Ireland.

  “I’m glad we’re on a bus, Meg. I definitely would’ve had a hard time getting used to driving on the left!” Shay said as they made their way towards Galway.

  Meg nodded in agreement. Her mother was an amazing boat captain but when it came to driving things with wheels it was a different story.