by Hannah Kent
Nance remembered the cripple Peter had spoken of. ‘Not a sick child, then.’
‘Sure, he’s got no health about him, but it seems to be more than that. Brigid says the boy is a wee raw thing, all bones and no sense in his head. Not like any child she’s seen before.’
‘Have you seen him yourself?’
‘Me? I’ve not seen him, no. But I’m thinking that perhaps . . . Perhaps if that boy has been touched by the Good People, then they’re after touching others. Or maybe he has the evil eye and he blinked Martin Leahy, and now he’s after blinking my wife.’ Daniel pressed his thumbs to his temples. ‘Holy Jesus, I don’t know, Nance.’
Nance nodded. ‘I think it best to keep this to yourself, Daniel. People here have enough troubles without finding cause for fear in things they do not understand.’
‘Would explain it if the boy was changeling, though. The more I think of it, the more I wonder whether the Good People are abroad, and if they’re after sweeping folk for themselves. Only, you hear the stories, about the women who are carrying. About them disappearing into ringforts.’ He leant closer. ‘I remember the stories. The old folk still tell them. The Good People have a need of women who are carrying, to take the human child for their own, and keep the woman to feed theirs . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘Begod, I know there’s plenty that laugh at those who believe every wind they meet with is a sigh-gaoithe. But I thought you might know, Nance. People say you go with Them. That they gave you knowledge and the eye to see Them.’
Nance dragged more furze onto the fire and the flames leapt up, casting wild light across their faces. ‘How was your Brigid when she woke?’
‘Her face was all white and washy when she saw where she was. She had no memory of walking out the cabin, nor down the lane.’
‘And has she walked in her sleep before?’
‘She hasn’t. Well, not that she can remember, and not since she’s been my wife.’
Nance cast him a sharp look. ‘And is all well between ye? Are you great with each other? There’s no reason for your wife to be wanting to go with the fairies, now?’
‘Not on my life.’
‘Naught to flee from, then. Well now, Daniel. Sure, ’tis a dangerous time for a woman when she’s carrying. ’Tis a time of interference. Your wife is on a threshold and can be pulled back and forth. Either into the world we know, or the one that we don’t. And ’tis true, what you say about the Good People. They are much given to taking young women. I’ve never known a woman to be swept into the fairy ráth by here, but ’tis not to say they won’t or haven’t.’
‘They say ’twas the fate of Johanna Leahy by Macroom. That ’twas not to God she went, but to the fairy fort by there. That when she saw they’d changed her own son for fairy, she let them sweep her to be with her boy.’
Nance leant closer, her face growing flushed in the rising heat of the fire. ‘The Good People are cunning when they are not merry. They do what pleases them because they serve neither God nor Devil, and no one can assure them of a place in Heaven or Hell. Not good enough to be saved, and not bad enough to be lost.’
‘Are you saying that the Good People are abroad, then?’
‘They have always been here. They are as old as the sea.’
Daniel had grown ashen. His blue eyes stared at hers in the firelight.
‘Have you ever gone walking at the changing hours by the woods or in the lonesome places and felt Them watching you? Not so wicked as a man waiting to beat you, but not so gentle as a mother watching her children sleep.’
Daniel swallowed. ‘I believe it. I do. I am not such a fool to say that there is no more to this world than what I can see with my own two eyes.’
Nance nodded approvingly. ‘The Good People watch us with a kind of knowing that can undo a man. Make him want to turn heel. Sometimes they wish to reward him, and he finds he has fairy skill with the pipe, or that his sick cow is well again, and there’s no accounting for it. But sometimes they punish those who speak ill against them. Sometimes they repay good with good. Bad with bad. Sometimes ’tis all unreason and no knowing why things are as they are, except to say ’tis the fairies behind it and they have their own intentions.’
‘And so why are they after taking Brigid? What has she done to the Good People that they might like to steal her away?’ He paused for a moment. ‘Do you think ’tis something I have done?’
‘Daniel, your Brigid is a dear one. There’s no use in you believing she has some hand in this, or that she’s astray. There’s no fault on her. When They are here, watching us, they know the human of us and an envy comes upon them and there are some who will have of our kin, of our blood. I have seen them sweep a woman in front of my eyes.’
‘Sweet Christ. ’Tis as folk are saying. There’s some awful mischief about and ’tis the Good People behind it.’ Daniel’s face was pale. ‘What must I do?’
‘Is your Brigid changed at all? Does she eat? Is she injured in any way?’
‘She eats. She was frightened to wake and see that she was sleeping in the cillín and her feet were bloodied from hard walking, but she is not changed.’
Nance leant back, satisfied. ‘She was not abducted, then. She is still your wife.’
‘Begod, what is happening in this valley, Nance? Moves my bones to powder. The priest said ’tis no reason for the cows and hens and Martin but the will of God, and all will be well, but he’s a man from town.’
Nance spat on the ground. ‘Perhaps someone has offended Them.’
‘There is talk that one of Them is amongst us.’
‘Aye, that boy your Brigid speaks of. With Nóra Leahy.’
Daniel looked at the floor. ‘Or another,’ he mumbled.
Nance gave Daniel a hard look. ‘Do you know something? Has that Seán Lynch been swinging his axe at whitethorns again?’
‘He has not. He’ll have no talk of the Good People, and he spends his nights on ramble driving us all to tears with his talk of Father Healy and Daniel O’Connell. The priest has been in his ear about the Catholic Association. A penny a month and O’Connell will have us all emancipated, so says Seán. We all think he’s on the drink and bouncing the boot off his wife again, but he has not been interfering with the fairy trees.’
‘That one has trouble coming to him,’ Nance said. ‘Cheating the Devil in the dark, so he is.’
Daniel picked up his tea and drank it, avoiding her gaze. ‘He has the hard word against you, Nance.’
‘Oh. There’s plenty that have the hard word against me. But I know what I know.’ She lifted her hands in front of Daniel’s face and he flinched, leaning away from the reach of her fingers. ‘What do you see?’
He gaped at her.
‘My thumbs. Do you see how they’re turned?’ She showed him her swollen knuckles, the crooked angle of her joints.
‘I do.’
‘’Tis Their mark on me. ’Tis how you may know that whatever Seán Lynch and Father Healy say about me, I have the knowledge of Them and there is no lie in it. Whatever lies they tell about me, there is no lie in this.’ She fixed him with a kindly look. ‘Do you trust me?’
‘Aye, Nance. I believe you.’
‘Then let me tell you that all will be well if you do as I say. Your wife must rest until her time comes. She is to get what sleep she can and she’s not to walk at all. Is she still up and about the house?’
‘She is.’
‘No more. You must do all the chores, Daniel. Churn the butter. Feed her hens. Cook your praties. No fire must be taken out of the house when she’s in it. Not even the flare of your pipe. Not even a spark. Do you understand?’
‘I do.’
‘Not a single flame nor ember, Daniel, or you’ll be taking the luck out of the house. You’d be breaking all that which serves to protect her and keep her in the world. And give her these.’ Nance shuffl
ed to the corner of her cabin and fetched a parcel of cloth tightly bound with straw. She unknotted the ties and shook some dried berries into Daniel’s palm.
He peered at them nervously. ‘What are these?’
‘Bittersweet. They will urge her into a deeper sleep. So deep she will not have the strength or wherewithal to rise at night. Let her take them in the evening and I will hold the charm for her in my mind, and I will think on protection for her.’ She patted his arm. ‘All will be well, Daniel.’
‘I thank you, Nance.’
‘God bless you, and may you have a fine, long family. Come back if she keeps at her walking. Wait . . .’ Nance put a hand on Daniel’s arm. ‘There is something else you may do. If ’tis the Good People that are luring her out of doors, let you make a cross from birch twigs and nail it over your sleeping place. Birch will guard her.’
He hesitated by the door. ‘You’re a good woman, Nance. I know Father Healy preached against you, but I think he’s a blind-hearted man.’
‘Do you feel better, Daniel?’
‘I do.’
Nance watched Daniel begin the slow walk home, holding the berries safe between his hands like a man in prayer. The sky soared with late-afternoon light, hemming the clouds with bright bloodiness. Just before he disappeared from view, Daniel turned around and stared at her, crossing himself.
The first snow arrived in the valley. Staggered winds blew white upon the fields until, from the height of Nóra’s cabin, the stone walls dividing them looked like the whorls of a fingerprint. Men planted themselves by the fire, coughing up the season, and the women carded wool and kept company with their spinning wheels, as though compelled to wrap themselves and their families in more layers of homespun. It was a quiet, waiting time of year.
Nóra woke in the grey throat of morning and blinked in the feeble light. She longed to sleep. The nights were shattered with the boy’s screaming, and it was all she could do to hang on to the balm of sleep’s senselessness. How lonely waking in an empty bed had become.
Her head throbbed from the poitín bottle. Lying on her back, Nóra stared up into the thatch and listened for some sign that Mary was awake. Most mornings she waited until she heard the scuff of the girl’s footsteps as she readied the fire and set water to boil, or her voice murmuring to the child as she bathed the piss from his legs. Then, Nóra would close her eyes and imagine that it was not Mary but Martin moving about the room, unlatching the door and letting the hens out to scrounge along the wall of the byre amidst the frost and dirty straw. She could picture him perfectly. His lips as he whistled the old songs, his nail pulling away the skins of his morning potatoes, and the careless way he threw them aside. She could hear his usual wry complaint that her hens were tearing into the thatch, and remembered the crinkle of his eyes when she, flustered, defended them. She allowed herself this lie, even when the disappointment on seeing not Martin but the long-limbed maid, puffy-eyed, by the fire was almost too painful to bear.
Nóra could hear nothing. Tying her shawl tightly around her, she went out and saw that the fire had been lit, although there was no sign of Mary. The settle was unfolded and Micheál lay in its corner. Not wanting to rouse his attention, Nóra crept slowly to the side of the bed before peering at him. The boy was listless, his hair sticking to his head with sweat. Nóra watched his mouth slowly undulate, his lips pert and softly wet. Who is he talking to? she wondered.
‘Micheál.’
He ignored her, raising his eyebrows and grimacing at the wall.
‘Micheál,’ Nóra repeated. The boy’s arms were stiff and turned inwards, like the broken wings of a bird pitched from the nest. She called his name for the third time and he finally fixed her with an unblinking stare. His lip curled and she could see the glisten of his teeth. For a moment he seemed to bare them at her.
Micheál had begun to scare her. Everything he did – his quick, unpredictable movements, his calls and shrieks at things she could not see – reminded her of Mary’s words.
He is a changeling. And everyone knows it but you.
‘What are you?’ Nóra whispered.
Micheál looked up to the rafters and blinked. His chin was flaked with a tidemark of dried saliva. He was snot-nosed, his eyes fringed with pale lashes, slick with moisture. Nóra placed a firm hand on his forehead. She could see his jaw grind under his skin.
‘Are you child or changeling?’ Nóra whispered. She felt her throat jump with the pulse of her panicked heart.
Micheál closed his eyes and let out a pealing, wet shriek, bucking his spine against the straw bedding. Before Nóra could snatch her hand away, Micheál reached up and grabbed a fistful of her loose hair. She tried to uncurl his fingers but he jerked his arm backwards and the pain came, hot and searing.
‘Micheál!’
Nóra winced and tried to twist herself free, but the boy’s small, sticky fingers were knotted in her hair. He pulled harder. Tears sprang to her eyes.
‘Let me go. Let me go, you bold cratur!’ Hair ripped from her skin, and in the sudden glare of pain she lashed out and tried to slap Micheál across the face. The angle was awkward and she missed him, cuffing the top of his head instead. In her anger she released his fingers and, holding his jaw firmly with one hand, slapped him again with the other, hitting his cheek. Her palm stung.
‘The badness in you!’ she shouted, slapping him again. His face was pink, his mouth wide and bawling. Nóra wanted to stuff it shut. Wanted to push his soiled linen in his mouth to stop up his screams. ‘You wicked thing,’ she hissed, holding her smarting scalp.
‘He can’t help himself.’
Nóra turned and saw Mary standing by the door, the milk bucket resting on her hip.
‘He was pulling the hair out of my skull!’
Mary closed the door against the white brilliance of snow. ‘Are you alright?’
‘I can’t sleep for him! He screams all night.’ Nóra could hear the hysteria in her voice.
The maid nodded. ‘I think ’tis the cold. And he has a rash on his back. From the way he soils himself.’
Nóra sat by the fire, her hand against her throbbing skin. ‘You could wash him, you know.’
‘I do,’ Mary protested, and her voice was so thin that Nóra felt ashamed.
‘Well. How is Brownie milking?’
‘’Tis not a lot, missus. You said she’s a good milker, but . . . I’ve been singing to her because I know they like the singing. But she’s going to the dry.’
Nóra closed her eyes. ‘The way we’re going, we’ll be short for rent.’
‘Shall I churn today?’
‘Is there enough?’
Mary lifted a corner of the cloth covering the crock of settled milk on the table. ‘Sure, well. There might be just enough to churn. Just enough. Should I give Micheál the buttermilk? It might soothe him. I don’t know whether ’tis the bitter cold or perhaps he’s dreaming things that wake him so and lead him to screaming. I can’t sleep for his screaming either.’
‘Well, the road to Annamore is where you left it.’
‘I don’t mean that,’ Mary said, anxious. ‘Not that I want to go home, like. Only there seems to be a change coming over him and I don’t know how to keep the peace in him. He’s suffering, I think.’
‘Have they been telling you this at the well?’
‘They’ve not, no,’ Mary protested. ‘The women there have not been talking to me at all. I go and fetch the water and come back again, and I don’t stop to gossip or talk about you or Micheál. I promise you.’
Nóra realised that the maid was near tears.
‘One of the women sees me coming down the road and takes three steps backwards. On account of my red hair. Kate. Kate Lynch.’
‘She’s got an awful fear of the evil eye. Don’t you mind her. She’ll cross herself when meeting with anything in the road. Hare,
weasel, magpie.’
‘She spits on the ground and says, “The Cross of Christ between me and harm!”’
Nóra rolled her eyes. ‘Kate’ll be crossing herself at me soon, in fear of a widow’s curse.’
Micheál took a shuddering breath and began to scream louder. ‘Look at the legs of him,’ Mary said, pointing. ‘He’s hardly kicking. Do you not think they look broken? Like he’s no feeling in them at all.’ She bent down to the crying boy and lifted his dress to show Nóra. ‘Look.’
Micheál’s legs were as thin as the winter-bare striplings outside. His skin clung to the bone, streaked with marks. Nóra felt sick at the sight.
Mary chewed her lip. ‘He’s being smoked up by some kind of sickness. I know he’s not had the walking in them for some time, but now he has hardly the twitch in his toes.’
Nóra hastily pulled the cloth back over Micheál’s thighs. ‘I wonder, Mary,’ she murmured. ‘How much suffering can a person bear without something turning in them?’
The girl was silent.
Nóra combed her tangled hair with her fingers and stared at Micheál. When she slapped him she had felt on the brink of something dark, something she knew she would not be able to come back from. There was no knowing what she might have done had Mary not come inside at that moment, and it frightened her.
What has happened to me?
Nóra had always believed herself to be a good woman. A kind woman. But perhaps, she thought, we are good only when life makes it easy for us to be so. Maybe the heart hardens when good fortune is not there to soften it.