Finn:
Gone to find the swans.
Be back by morning.
—Darcy
My arms prickled with goose bumps. I felt light-headed, but managed to spit out, “No.”
The policeman nodded, scribbled something on his clipboard, then said, “I’m sorry for your loss,” as if she were certainly dead.
The world spun, colors smashed into colors, blurring into sickly browns and greens. The image of the drowning girl and the swan floated through my mind. Somewhere far away, I heard Nuala say, “C’mon,” and she led me through the crowd and up the stone staircase.
Da’s little blue punch buggy was parked at the top of the cliff, but Da wasn’t inside. We clambered in and drove away. I didn’t feel the summer-sunned leather burning my skin. I didn’t hear the radio music Nuala played. I didn’t see the willows flying by outside the window. Gray was the world without Darcy, and it was my fault. My fault, my fault, my fault. I wished I’d never told her that stupid story. I wished I’d never even heard it.
When we pulled into the drive, the cottage door swung open. In the threshold stood a man, jaw clenched and fists tight. His face was scarlet and his hair fluffed up in a mess as if he’d been running his fingers through it all week. Fear shivered through me, but then I realized … it was Da. Just Da.
Not once had I seen him so furious. I cracked open the car door and tiptoed out, shielding my eyes with a strand of hair. But when I peeked out from the white-blond, Da was stomping toward me. “How dare you,” he spat.
I felt myself shrinking away against the blue Volkswagen as Da fired, “I trusted you, Finn. I trusted you to be responsible, spend the night at Darcy’s, and come trotting right on home. I guess I don’t know you well as I thought I did.”
That last part cut me like a knife made of ice. I could deal with Da being angry with me. I could deal with him feeling disappointed or frustrated. But there was something about those words that made me afraid Da might disappear. I don’t know you well as I thought I did. Like we were on the edge of becoming strangers.
“Lorcan—” tried Nuala, but Da wouldn’t listen.
“So how does this make me look, Finn?” he continued. “Stupid! That’s how.”
“Lorcan, please—”
“I can’t even look at you right now. Go to your room.”
For the first time that day, tears spilled from my eyes. I knew I had betrayed Nuala, but not once had I considered I was betraying Da too. So I went. I ran into the house and up to my room, and I cried into Nuala’s quilt until my nose stuffed up and my eyes went dry.
And by the time I came back down, the dishes were done and the floor was swept and the house mouse was nibbling the sweet-and-sour lemon drops from the bag. Da’s suitcase was gone and so was his punch buggy. He’d left the door half open and two mice scurried in to join the third. By the time I turned for the stairs, the lemon drops were gone too.
Chapter 14
“I WANT TO GET YOUR LUNGS checked by a doctor.”
Breakfast had been silent up until that point. Neither me nor Nuala had mentioned Da or Darcy since the previous day.
I chased a sausage around my plate with my fork. “I’m fine, Nuala,” I said. “I haven’t been to a doctor in—”
“You don’t spend six minutes underwater and not get checked by a doctor, Finn. I’ve already phoned Mrs. Flanagan and told her you won’t be in school today. Besides that, the hospital’s got your appointment all set up.”
“Right, fine,” I muttered. I stood to grab my sweater, but then turned back. “The hospital? Why don’t I just see Dr. Clarke?”
“Dr. Clarke is sick with a bout of bronchitis today,” explained Nuala.
“The doctor is sick?”
Nuala nodded. “It happens, lass, and the hospital was kind enough to set you up with an expert pulmonologist.”
“A pulmonologist?”
“Now, it’s a two-hour trip into Belfast, so I suggest you bring something to occupy yourself.”
“Fine,” I said again, but I didn’t like it one bit. I didn’t like this business-as-usual thing, not when two of the people I cared most about were gone. But I didn’t have the energy for an argument, so I stood, grabbed my sweater and sneakers, and headed out the door.
I SLEPT MOST OF THE TAXI ride to Belfast, but when I woke, I knew we had arrived by the greyman. The greyman was a faery of sly tricks and stealth. He brought the fog and the rain and the smoke, and he brought the sad and the loss too. He pushed down strangers’ heads, so all they did was stare at the sidewalk on their way to work. He slunk ’round children’s ankles, grayed out their vision, so they got lost on their way to school. He snuck those just one more cigarettes into soldiers’ pockets and dragged eyelids down, breathing tired down unsuspecting necks.
Today, the greyman was out in full force, blanketing the tops of buildings. When I stepped out of the cab, he sent a chill down my spine. I covered my nose; the air reeked of burning rubber and gunpowder.
Nuala and I exchanged glances as the taxi sped off into the fog. Nuala tried to smile, but I could tell the greyman was working on her too. She managed to contort her mouth into a half grin and breathed, “Why—why, what a surprise; Niall’s is open again. Perhaps we’ll share an ice cream after the appointment, what d’you think, Finn?”
But as we strode past Niall’s Country Creamery, I saw that the lights in the window Nuala had seen were not real lights at all. They were reflections of a fire licking at a pile of old car tires on the side of the street. The ice cream shop was already covered in graffiti, though it had been open just three months ago. The green paint read:
Ready to Fight.
—IRA
That was the army Da fought for—the Irish Republican Army.
The streets were filled with noise, but no one seemed to talk. Cars honked, sirens blared. British soldiers lined the streets, half of them standing post at buildings, never looking anyone in the eye. The other half leaned slack against crumbling walls and smoked cigarettes. Many of them were just boys, hardly older than me. I knew I wasn’t supposed to like them, and I didn’t, but I couldn’t bring myself to hate them the way Da did.
“Two more blocks, lass, keep up,” said Nuala, and I realized I had been staring at one soldier slouched against a soot-stained bakery.
“Nuala?”
“What, lass?” She looped her arm through mine and held on tight.
“Why don’t we like ’em?”
“Who?”
“The soldiers.”
“The British ones?”
I nodded.
“’Cause they’re takin’ our land, that’s why.”
“But you always say land belongs to no one ’cept the faery.”
Nuala’s lips blanched. “You’ll understand when you’re older.”
“But—”
“Don’t talk of things you know nothing about, Finn.”
I stopped in my tracks and glared up at Nuala. “Why do you do that?”
“Do what, Finn?” she huffed, glancing furtively to a soldier brushing past us.
“Act like I’m not old ’nough for anythin’. Like I can’t think for myself or—or make my own decisions—”
Nuala ran her fingers through her hair and muttered, “I should’ve called the doctor in Dublin.”
A couple shouts echoed from around the corner, so I raised my voice. “I en’t a little girl anymore!”
“Well, you certainly act like it, running off to find those swans, good Lord. We wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for your foolishness. You simply don’t listen to me.”
The shouts grew louder, so Nuala and I backed under a tattered awning, as if that would block out the noise.
“Foolishness? Ha! You know what? I know you made up that story ’bout your da being a fisherman and going out in storms in his memory. I know you went out to see the swans. I know you wanted to see ’em just as much as I did. If there’s anyone foolish here, it’s you—you
went out for no reason at all, other than to see the swans like some tourist watchin’ the solstice at Newgrange. But me? Those swans mean something to me. They mean everything to me, and there en’t nothin’ foolish about what I want. There en’t nothin’ childish about it neither.”
Nuala’s lips pursed. She knew I was right but was just too stubborn to say so. “What do you want, Finn?” she finally said. Her voice then lowered. “I know you’re lonely. But there are other ways to fill a hole in your heart.”
“I want a family, Nuala!” I burst. “A real family.”
Nuala’s eyes fell.
“I—I didn’t mean that.” I stumbled back.
There was something off about Nuala’s face: Her wrinkles were sparkling. I considered for a moment that it was faery dust sprinkled by the greyman perhaps, but no. Those were tears. Slender, shimmery tears trickling down the valleys of her face. It occurred to me that I had never seen Nuala cry. I didn’t like it. I didn’t like it one bit.
I tore my gaze from Nuala’s face and took off into the streets. I had to get away, away, away. Away from Nuala and away from Da and away from Darcy. Away from Belfast and away from Donegal and away, away, away from that Inis Eala. I hardly noticed the hollering growing louder around me, faster, harsher, colder—
But then the gunshot came.
Chapter 15
THE FIRST SHOT silenced the shouts.
The second started them up again. Only this time, the shouts mingled with a scream of agony and a dozen screams of terror.
I stood frozen. Fire blazed. Street children scattered. A beggar dropped his can of coins and fled. Three soldiers barreled past me. My heart beat hummingbird fast.
Someone called my name.
Someone called my name.
Someone called my name.
I turned. Nuala was racing toward me, arm outstretched. Grab her hand, my head shouted, but my arm didn’t get the message.
Nuala’s voice rang out: “Finn! Finn, get back h—”
A third shot.
I crouched to the ground, clamped my hands over my ears. My mouth tasted like ash.
A body tumbled down on me. Something wet trickled through my hair. I crawled out from under the body and squinted through the fog. A splotch of red bloomed like a rose on the body’s patchwork sweater. Rubble dusted her silver hair, gripped like stickers to the tears still glistening in her wrinkles.
“No,” I breathed. But then my heart tugged my vocal cords like a bellman before church, and I screamed louder than any gunshot. “Nuala? Nuala, what’s going on? Tell me what’s wrong. Tell me what’s wrong.” I lunged for her, scraping my knees along the ground, and began to shake her.
And then my heart stopped for a moment. “No … she’s not dead. SHE’S NOT DEAD!” I grabbed her head, heavy as Connemara marble, and I held Nuala against my chest, feeling her mouth for hot breath. None came.
A man with a gun—British or Irish, I couldn’t tell—turned to me and shouted, “Get out of here, kid! Someone get that kid out!”
A pair of hands seized my armpits and began to drag me away from Nuala.
“STOP!” I screeched as her head slipped from my fingers. “Get off me! That’s my grandmother!”
I scraped at the asphalt with my fingernails, but the hands did not let loose. They dropped me by a dump truck three blocks away, then wiped off the blood on my jeans. The hands’ owner whispered something in my ear, and though I could tell he spoke English, his words sounded a different language. He stood after that and flew off down the street. I watched him disappear into the mouth of the greyman, and then I watched the greyman descend on me. His lips opened wide and dark, and he swallowed me too, hungry as war’s dear friend, death.
SOMETHING WAS BEEPING. And blinking. Feet shuffled, whispers fluttered. “She’s waking up!”
“No, she en’t.”
“Look at the monitor.”
“Just family for now, please.”
More shuffling. The click of a door closing.
My eyes flickered open, and I suddenly felt as if someone were continuously dropping bricks on my head. A white room blurred into view, and a woman dressed in white fiddled with a tube stuck in my arm. A man leaned over me, eyes swollen and nose red, scar above his lip.
“Da?” My voice crackled on the word. Over his shoulder I saw three faces peeping through the door’s window—Mrs. Flanagan, Miss Hurley, and Mr. McCann. “Where—”
Da nodded and took my hand in his, calloused and warm. “Shh. It’s me, baby girl.”
I tried to prop myself up on the pillows behind me, but Da pushed me back down. “Where’s Nuala?”
Da’s mouth twitched. “She’s …” The veins in his neck clenched tight.
He didn’t need to finish. Everything came flooding back: the shouts, the crowds, the gunshots, the fall … I lunged for Da’s neck, pulling him into a hug. “I’m sorry,” I said. And I said it again and again and again until my throat grew scratchy, all the while Da cooing, “It en’t your fault, Finn.” But he didn’t know a thing. It was my fault. It was my fault because Nuala was right about everything—I’d been stupid to go to the isle. If I hadn’t gone, I wouldn’t have had to come to Belfast. And if we hadn’t come to Belfast, Nuala wouldn’t be …
I wept on Da’s shoulder while he cautiously stroked my back as if he’d forgotten how to comfort. Maybe he’d never learned in the first place; it didn’t matter. Nuala was gone. Gone, gone, gone. That was all that mattered, and the word pulsed in my mind like a story I didn’t want to hear. Gone, gone, gone. Except for her stories. I had never wanted so much for her stories not to belong to me.
THE HOSPITAL LET ME GO later that day, and Da carried me out to the little blue punch buggy. “You’re gettin’ big for this,” he said as he heaved me onto the back seat under one of Nuala’s patchwork blankets. “Not such a baby girl anymore, I s’pose.”
I supposed not. Maybe yesterday or the day before, but not today. Today I felt a hundred years old.
Da drove so fast out of Belfast, you’d think the place was burning—I supposed it was. He stopped once in Derry to pick up a black dress at a secondhand store, then drove on. The whole drive, the only words we exchanged were these:
“Awfully quiet back there.”
“Yes.”
A hollowness took hold of my stomach, ripping from it every happy memory of Nuala and me, dyeing them the color sadness.
Another hour, and we pulled up to the drive of the little cottage half-in-half-out of the willow glades. It was just as we left it. The sheep were grazing in the garden. The jeans were hanging on the line. The doormat was flipped up at the corner.
I undid my seat belt and reached for the door handle, but before I could turn it, Da piped, “Finn—” Da’s voice cracked on my name. “You’re leaving tomorrow. I’m sorry, baby girl.”
I felt light-headed, so I leaned back into the seat. “Wh-what d’you mean?”
Da craned his neck over the front seat and looked me sadly in the eye. “You’re gonna go to America for a while, Finn. You’ll pack your things tonight. Flight leaves in the mornin’.”
“America?” I breathed. “What are you talking about? I can’t go to America!”
Da nodded. “Just for a little while. Two, three weeks tops, until I figure out a plan.”
“But—but—where will I live—who—America? I’ve got to look for Darcy if they haven’t found her yet. And … America? Why can’t I just live with you in Belfast? And Nuala—what about her funeral? What’s the dress for if I haven’t got a funeral to wear it to?”
Da curled back to his seat so I couldn’t see his face. “The police are doing everything they can to find Darcy. And you can’t live in Belfast with me because, well, because it clearly en’t safe. ’Sides, you, Finn? You in Belfast? You need the mountains and the trees and the lakes and the sea. You’re a ramblin’ girl. The city en’t meant for ramblin’ girls.”
He spoke as if it were about me, but I knew the trut
h. It was about him, how he was too busy to care for me. I wanted to tell him that he was a rambler too, that he came and left and hopped around from home to Belfast to Dublin to Cork and back to Belfast. Wherever the army put him, he went. And then I wanted to tell him that we didn’t have to be ramblers, that we could settle down together. I could live without the mountains, and he could live without the city lights, perhaps find a happy medium somewhere. I would even live in Belfast if it meant being with Da. But no, he wouldn’t have that. I was too much a bother.
“And about Nuala,” continued Da. “She will be cremated, and we’ll have a ceremony for her when you return.”
“When I return? No, it’s got to be now.”
Da ignored me. “While in America, you’ll live with your mother in Starlight Valley, Virginia.”
My stomach dropped. “My mother?”
“Yes, your mother—”
“But—but Ma’s in a grave. I’ve seen it with my own two eyes: Aobh Róisín O’Dálaigh-Sé, May She Rest in Peace, is what it says. And wait, Starlight Valley—that’s where Nuala lived when she was a girl!”
Da sighed. “One thing at a time, Finn. First thing’s first …” He sighed again as if the words clung to his throat like molasses. “Aobh, she en’t your ma. She would’ve loved you if she’d known you, baby girl, but she en’t your ma.”
“You’re telling me I have a mother—a live one, I mean.” My body didn’t seem to know what to do with itself—the hair on my arms stood up and my stomach flopped and my feet prickled with pins and needles.
“Her name is Aoife.”
When I was little, I would search for traces of Ma in the attic. There weren’t pictures of her. Da said she wasn’t sentimental. But he did have her voice. Just a scrap of it. A record he played for me called Aobh and Me, Christmas 1945. I never figured out who me was, because the second voice in it was female, so it sure couldn’t have been Da, and it sounded nothing like Nuala. Sometimes, when Da was home long enough, I’d hear him playing the tape in his room, over and over again. And I’d lean in close and listen too. But now I knew that hadn’t really been my mother. That woman hadn’t even known me.
The Serendipity of Flightless Things Page 7