by Hannah Kent
Nóra picked her teeth with a nail. ‘You’ve a right to come with me to Nance. I don’t pay you to go dancing.’
Mary glanced at the boy. ‘Are the Good People abroad, do you think?’
‘’Tis as Nance said. Just as day is joined to night, so does the year have its seams.’ She got up and opened the half-door, peering across the valley. ‘And that is when They come. That is when They change their abode. Through the stitching of the year. Which way do you think this wind is blowing?’
The light was fading. Beyond the swathes of fast-falling snow, the glow of a fire could be seen on the hill. A dark plume rose from it, tracing the air with the heady smell of wood smoke.
Mary joined Nóra by the door, Micheál on her hip, his head resting on her shoulder. He was oddly quiet. ‘I think ’tis coming from the west. Are we in for a storm?’
Nóra brushed her shoulders of snowmelt and shut the door fast again, sliding a wooden bolt against the wickerwork. ‘They say there’s portent in the direction of a new year’s wind.’
‘What does a wind from the west bring?’
‘Please God, a better year than last.’
Nance sat in the dark of her cabin and, through her open door, watched the dying year surrender to snow. The night was falling holy, as though the glory of God was in the changing of the light. Sitting in her ragged shawls, she felt the silence ring in her ears as loudly as a monastic bell.
It would begin that night. The cures. The mysterious pleading. The unpicking of old magic.
Nance felt the sly pricking of dread.
The boy was not the first child she had seen who had the mark of the Good People. Back when she was new to the valley, after years of cold begging, long after Maggie and the woman who was not her mother had gone, a woman had come to her door, dragging a small, scrunched child behind her. The girl, five years old, had not smiled since the summer before, and while at first she had whispered to her brothers and sisters, she now refused to utter a word. Her mother had wrung her hands, picked at the chapped skin between her fingers.
‘She does not answer to her name. She has no interest in playing. In going anywhere. In helping me about the house. And our house is full of strange strife over it.’
Nance had regarded the mute carefully. She was a tiny, folded bird of a child, knees grey with dust from the road. She sat watching them without expression, shoulders cowed.
‘When did this begin? Did something happen to her?’
The woman shook her head. ‘I blame myself. I left her to the care of her older sisters. I had to go haying . . . She is changed. Deep in my heart I feel that she is not my daughter. She will not respond to her name.’
The woman said that she had left the girl at the crossroads to recover her own daughter from the custody of the fairies. She did not have the heart, she said, to hold her over the fire, for she resembled her own child. The mother had tied her to the post but she had somehow escaped and wandered home. Put herself to bed in her daughter’s place. The woman’s husband was saying they must now beat the changeling and brand it on the forehead with the sign of the cross. He said they must anger the fairies and force Them to come collect Their own.
Nance had asked the woman to return to her seven times with the changeling. If the power in fire might not be used, they would use the Good People’s own plants against Them.
Seven mornings of lus mór, the great herb. Nance had collected the foxglove at dawn, and given the changeling three drops of juice from the leaves on the tongue, three in the ear. When the fairy child’s pulse dropped and she knew that the plant had gripped the blood, she and the mother had swung it in and out of the door with the words she had heard Maggie use, all those years ago.
‘If you’re a fairy, away with you.’
Seven days she plied the mute imp with foxglove. Seven days the heart of the changeling slowed. Seven days her skin broke in cold sweat.
‘Does she suffer?’ the mother asked.
‘She resists her return to her own people.’
The day after the seventh treatment, the woman had returned alone, her face shining. ‘She speaks! She speaks!’
Two fat roosters and a noggin of butter. But as soon as the mother had left, Nance curled up on the rushes of her floor and wept until she thought she would be sick. She could not tell if she was relieved, or terrified.
It was proof of her ability beyond the herbs. It was proof in her knowledge, proof that there was power in the soil, in the raving. All that Maggie had said was true. She was different. She straddled the river and its sorcered current. She left footprints on both banks.
Too late for her mother.
In the weeks after, her thumbs turned. Nance woke and saw the knotting of her knuckles, and saw that They had marked her. Gifted her, and ransomed her.
I have done it once, so I will be able to do it again, Nance thought.
She got up to close the door to preserve the warmth of her fire. She could see flames on the hilltops through the silent drifts, and shadows of dancing bodies flickering. She thought she could hear the beating of a drum.
A good night for ritual, she thought, and saw, then, two dark figures making their way down the path to her cabin.
‘Nóra Leahy. Mary Clifford.’
The women were breathing hard, the maid gripping Micheál to her chest, slipping a little under his weight.
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘They are all atop the mountain.’
‘Good. Come in from the cold. ’Tis turning bitter.’ Nance led them into the cabin, pointing to a bucket of warmed water. ‘Wash your feet there, so.’
Mary hesitated. ‘I have Micheál – I mean, I have the . . . Where should I set him down?’
‘Is he sleeping?’
Mary pulled away the blanket that swaddled the boy to her chest and shook her head. ‘His eyes are open. He squalled to be taken outside, but I think the fresh air has settled him.’
Nance noticed that Nóra lingered by the doorway, shaking the ice from her cloak. ‘Come in and bless you, Nóra. ’Tis right you are here. Sit down and take the cold off you.’
The widow pinched her lips and took a tentative step inside, glancing around the room. She started as a rustle came from the dark corner.
‘’Tis just Mora. My blessed goat. Did you bring the mint with you?’
Mary gently placed the child down by the fire and rummaged within the shawl crossed against her chest. She pulled out the mint and offered it to Nance.
‘’Tis nine sprigs you have?’
Mary nodded. ‘They’re a little wilted.’
‘You need to chew them.’
Nóra looked confused. ‘You’re making her eat them?’
‘Not eat. Chew. Chew the leaves into a pap. We will be needing the juice.’ Nance opened her mouth and pointed to her dark gums. ‘I’d do it myself, but . . .’
‘Go on then, Mary.’ Nóra was impatient.
The girl hesitated, studying the mint in her palm. ‘I don’t want to.’
‘’Tis only mint. Don’t keep us waiting all night.’
Nance smiled. ‘’Tis nothing I’m asking you to do that I wouldn’t be doing myself. Musha, ’tis only the mint you picked yourself.’
Mary reluctantly tugged the leaves from a stalk and slipped them into her mouth.
‘Don’t swallow the juice of them,’ Nance warned. She fetched a wooden bowl and held it under Mary’s chin. The girl, face stricken, spat the green pap into it and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘All the leaves from the nine sprigs,’ Nance said, nodding to the remaining stalks. She glanced sideways at the widow and saw that Nóra was staring at Mary, brow furrowed.
Mary crammed her mouth with the remaining mint and chewed it into a paste, her eyes averted. When she finally spat the wet mush into the bow
l, her tongue and teeth were stained green.
Nance peered into the slaver, swirling it, then poured it into an old handkerchief to strain the liquid. Mary picked remnants of chewed mint from her lips.
‘What is all this for, Nance?’
Nance gave the bowl to Nóra and shuffled to the corner of the room. She returned gripping a thimble.
‘There is wisdom in beginning with small charms.’ She motioned to the boy. ‘Sit down on that stool there, Mary, and hold the child still for me. Aye, that’s it. Now, hold his head.’ She turned to Nóra. ‘You don’t want to hold him over the fire? Well, we’ve a right to be seeing if the cratur isn’t struck with an illness of the plain kind.’ She thrust the thimble in her face. ‘Juice of mint in each ear, and we’ll soon know if he’s fairy or if the fairies have only made him deaf.’
Mary held Micheál across her lap and turned the fragile round of the boy’s skull in her hands to expose the curl of his ear.
Nance dipped the hollow of bone into the bowl and spooned its fill into the boy’s canal.
‘And now the other?’ Mary asked, grimacing as Micheál struggled under her grip, moaning. She turned her hands, exposing the other ear for Nance.
The air was fragrant with the herb. They watched as the liquid spilt into the boy’s copper hair.
‘What now?’
‘Now you wait until morning to see if he has been cured, if he listens to your voices. Perhaps tries to speak. Or if he is unchanged.’
‘Is that all?’
Nance shook her head. ‘’Tis a powerful dark night out there. The hours are more powerful for the changing in them.’ She wiped a little of the mint from the rim of the boy’s ear, then stooped and drew a cloth off a basket by the fire. ‘Selfheal.’
Nóra peered inside. ‘For sore throats?’
‘And for the fairy blast. For the sudden stroke.’ She knelt on the floor and, uncovering the boy’s feet, kneaded the leaves of selfheal into his soles. Mary and Nóra’s eyes bore into her as she smeared the herb into his skin. Nance thought she could feel the glower of Nóra’s desperation, the tussle of her hope and her fear.
The child lay still, spumed with mint, blinking into sleep.
‘’Tis enough, now. Enough for tonight.’
Mary sniffed the bruised selfheal, nostrils flaring.
‘When will we know if it has worked?’ Nóra plucked the leaves from Mary’s hands and cast them on the floor.
‘By morning,’ Nance murmured. ‘You may wake and find your grandson, or you may not. There are other charms, other rituals . . .’ Her voice dropped away. ‘You will see. All will be well.’
‘Do you believe so, Nance?’
‘I do, Nóra. In time, all will be well.’
The fires on the hills smouldered orange as the women left, pockets charged with ashes to guard them from the night. Watching them fade into the grey fall of snow, Nance thought she could hear Maggie’s voice. A whisper in the dark.
If you don’t know the way, walk slowly.
She had chewed the mint herself that night. That first night of the many nights spent in trying to send the changeling woman away and force her mother back. Her father had gone on cuaird, and it was just Nance and Maggie, sitting on stools next to where the woman who was not Mary Roche lay. The cratur had not even stirred when they poured the herb into her ears.
‘I don’t think she will come back,’ Nance had said miserably. They were sitting by the fire, staring at the embers, waiting for her father to return.
Maggie was pensive. ‘I promised your father I’d do what I could for him.’ She hesitated. ‘But ’tis not often one who is swept is returned.’
‘Why won’t the Good People return her?’
‘’Tis hard to give up what is precious.’
‘Maggie?’
‘Yes, Nance.’
‘How do you know all the things that you know?’
‘Some folk are forced to the edges by their difference.’ Maggie brought an unthinking hand up to her scar. ‘But ’tis at the edges that they find their power.’
That night Nóra dreamt she was by the Flesk, washing Martin’s clothes with the heat of the sun on her back. It was summer. The banks of the river were thick with grass and the wide high stretch of fern. She dreamt she held the wooden beetle in her hand, bringing it down again and again in a rocky pool to pound the dirt from the sopping laundry. As she thumped the beetle for the last time, a bloodstain erupted in the cloth. Curious, she beat at the clothes again, and the blood circled wider, creeping through the weave.
Dread searched her.
Nóra put down the beetle. Something moved under the shirt. Skin prickling, she ripped the wet clothes away.
It was Micheál, his skull stoved in. Drowning in the pinking water of her laundry.
Nóra woke in sweat. First light crept under the cabin door. Uneasy, she padded out to the settle bed where Mary lay snoring. The boy was beside her, a blanket over his head.
Nóra felt her heart stumble over its beats. She reached out and pulled the blanket from the child’s face.
He was alive, blinking at her with gummed eyes.
Relieved, Nóra unwrapped the boy from his swaddling and examined his stained feet, the green crust in his ears.
‘Are you Johanna’s son?’ Nóra asked. ‘Are you Micheál Kelliher?’
The boy lifted his hands and clawed at her hair, and in mouth-thick gibber he made his answer.
CHAPTER
TEN
Hogweed
‘Nóra Leahy sent me. She says to tell you that the cratur is unchanged and still spitting and screaming and the cretin he was when we came to you.’
Nance looked up from where she sat in her doorway, skinning a hare. Her hands ran bloody. ‘Is that so, Mary Clifford?’
‘’Tis. There was no cure to be had in the leaves. In the herbs.’ The girl hesitated, standing with arms folded and her shawl tightly gathered around her head. ‘But in case you’re thinking ’twas me that sent the charm out of the mint . . . I promise. I pulled it in the name of the Trinity. And the dew was on it. I did all as you said.’
Nance wiped her hands on her skirt and held the hare out to Mary. ‘Take this for me now.’
Mary took it. Nance noticed the girl examine the raw stretch and sinew of the skinned animal.
‘Don’t you have a fear of eating this?’
‘Why is that?’ Nance picked up the swimming bowl of guts beside her.
‘All the magic that does be in it.’
Nance motioned for Mary to follow her inside the cabin and shut the door. ‘I don’t have a fear of eating anything that makes a mouthful. Hares, rabbits, eels.’
Mary pulled a face. ‘My brother says an eel can travel the county in a day. Says it takes its tail in its mouth and rolls like a hoop.’ She shuddered. ‘I don’t like anything as cunning as that.’
‘I like them well enough if I can catch them.’
Mary sat down by the fire and pointed to the hare skin laid out on the floor. ‘Will you be selling that? I’ve seen boys with caps of hare. The ears still on.’
Nance took the skinned hare from Mary and set it in the empty crock. ‘I sell what I can. Dyes mostly, but also skins and besoms. Peck soap.’
‘I like the black there,’ Mary said, pointing to a loose ball of wool in a basket.
‘Alder catkin. Or the roots of spurge. I make them from crottle lichen, bogwater. Sell them. Even heather can wring out a dye. Oh, there’s colour to be had from even the humblest of what grows in God’s soil.’
‘You know a lot.’
‘I’ve lived a long time.’
Mary regarded Nance in the gloomy light. ‘’Tis not the years in a person that gives them knowledge, is it? ’Tis Them that belong to the wilds. They say you speak with Them. You know where the
fairies do be, and you speak with Them, and that is how you know these things.’ She lifted her chin to the dried plants hanging from the ceiling. ‘Is that true? That you learnt it from the fairies and that is why you will return the widow’s grandson to her? Because you know Their ways and tricks.’
Nance washed her hands, greasy from handling the hare innards. There was more than youthful curiosity in Mary’s voice. There was suspicion there. A sharp-shouldered wariness.
There was a sudden thump of boots outside and Mary stood up quickly, knocking her head against a bunch of St John’s wort and sending dried flowers scattering to the ground.
‘Here! Here!’ It was a man’s voice. ‘She’s here. There’s smoke, there’s a fire lit. Come on with you, David.’
There was a scuffle outside and three heavy knocks on the cabin wall. Silt fell from the ceiling. ‘Nance Roche!’
‘Open the door for me, Mary.’
The girl got up and pulled the wicker door ajar.
‘May God and Mary and Patrick bless you, Nance Roche, for you must come with me.’ It was Daniel Lynch, his face shiny with sweat, chest falling heavy in laboured breathing. He entered and another man, a stoop-shouldered youth that looked much like him, followed, clearly embarrassed by their intrusion.
‘Daniel. God save you. What’s wrong?’
‘We have need of you. The little woman is in the straw. Brigid. My wife.’
‘What hour did it begin?’ Nance asked.
‘Dawn. Her face is all chalk and the pain is on her. I told her I’d come for you.’
Nance turned to Mary, who was gawking at Daniel, slack-jawed. ‘Mary, run home to Nóra. Tell her to bring women with her to the Lynches’ cabin. Brigid’s cousins, her aunts, if she has any other kin. Ask them to bring what clean cloth they have. Milk, butter. Bless yourself as you set out, and bless them before they step inside the Lynches’ cabin. I will be there, waiting for them.’
The girl nodded furiously, then pelted out of the door, long legs running, shawl slipping off her head. The brothers watched her flee up the path, mud flicking from her bare feet.