by Hannah Kent
A shiver went down Nóra’s back. She thought of what Peter O’Connor had said the night of Martin’s wake.
I saw a glowing by that whitethorn. You mark my words, there’ll be another death in this family before long.
Then, just as suddenly as the lights had appeared, they vanished.
‘Missus?’
Mary was watching her, the iron poker in her hand, the flames quickening in the hearth.
‘What?’
‘The cold is coming in, and you said you were feeling it, so.’
Shaken, Nóra shut the half-door and returned to her place by the fire. Wrapping Martin’s greatcoat firmly about her, she felt a hard bump in her side and, sliding her hand into the coat’s pocket, pulled out an irregular jag of charcoal. It sat in her palm, light and crumbling.
Mary placed a scraw on the fire. When Nóra remained silent, she glanced up.
‘What’s that?’
‘’Twas in Martin’s coat.’
Mary peered at it more closely. ‘Ashes?’
Nóra shook her head. ‘A dead ember.’
‘Protection.’
‘Protection against the púca.’
‘Did Nance give it to you, then?’
‘She did not, no. ’Twas here, in Martin’s coat.’
The girl nodded absently and tucked the blanket in more firmly around the boy’s shoulders. ‘His hair is growing long.’
Nóra stared at the ember in her hand. Martin had never mentioned it, had never gone to Nance for anything other than the cold swelling in his hand. It was to the blacksmith’s for the teeth that troubled him, the broken rib all those years back when he fell from a horse. Never Nance.
‘And his nails too,’ Mary was saying. ‘Missus?’
Nóra turned the ember in her fingers. Had he gone in secret? Had he gone for something to protect the boy? Or had he gone for protection against him?
‘Missus?’
‘What?’ Nóra snapped, shoving the ember back into the coat pocket.
‘Micheál’s nails. They’re too long. He might scratch himself with them.’
‘’Tis not Micheál!’ Nóra reached for her shawl and began to wrap it around her head.
‘The . . . boy. I meant –’
‘I’ll milk the cow this morning.’
‘Shall I cut his nails?’
‘Do what you like with it.’
Nóra slammed the door behind her and paused in the yard, letting the damp of the morning cool the burning of her cheeks. She gripped the handle of the milk pail until it pinched hard against her skin, swung it against her leg until she could feel the lip bruising her thigh.
Nóra looked down towards the Piper’s Grave where the whitethorn was emerging in the gathering light. She would have burnt it down, stuffed their clothes full of ashes had they been able to help against the fairies and their slow malevolence.
Let it tremble, she thought. Let the foxglove shake the fairy out of my house, and give me back my daughter’s son. Please, God, rid the fairy.
‘Nance Roche, are you in there?’
It was a man’s voice, coloured with impatience. Nance paused and put the eel she was skinning back in its bucket of river water.
‘Are you of the living or the dead?’ she asked.
‘Mercy woman, ’tis not one of your patients come to be tricked. ’Tis Father Healy. I’ve come to speak with you.’
Nance rose and went to the door. The priest was standing outside with his feet apart, his coat flapping in the wind.
‘Father. What a pleasure.’
‘And how are you keeping, Nance?’
‘Still alive.’
‘You didn’t hear the Mass on the holy days?’
Nance smiled. ‘Ara, ’tis a long way for an old woman.’
‘But you got your meal and turf?’
Nance paused, wiping her bloody hands on her apron. ‘That was you, was it?’
‘Did you think ’twas a gift for the quackery?’ Father Healy peered past her. ‘Are you alone in there?’
‘Not if you count the company of goats.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Come in to the warm, so. Let me make you welcome in thanks for the meal. Sure, ’twas kind of you to be thinking of an old woman like me, alone on the day of our Lord.’
The priest shook his head. ‘No, thank you, I’ll not be coming in.’
‘Have it your way then, Father.’
‘I will.’
Nance waited for the priest to speak. The eel blood had started to dry to a rusty stain on her skin. ‘Well now, Father. Say what you’ve come to say. Constant company wears out its welcome.’
He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. ‘You should know, Nance, ’tis with a heavy heart I come to you today.’ He shifted his weight. ‘’Tis a serious matter I’ve come about.’
‘Best say it and be done with the saying of it, then, Father.’
Father Healy swallowed. ‘I’ve had good word that it was by your hand that Brigid Lynch lost her baby. There is an accusation against you. Some folk came to me saying you sought to poison Brigid Lynch.’
Nance looked at the priest. ‘That is quite an accusation.’
‘Did you or did you not give her berries of bittersweet?’
‘Bittersweet is no poison. Not when taken as it should.’
‘I’m told ’tis nightshade.’
‘Her man came to me looking for a cure. She was walking in her sleep and he was afraid for her. I am no murderer, Father. The herbs I pull are taken with prayer. In the name of the Lord.’
Father Healy shook his head. ‘Well, I can tell you now, Nance Roche, that herb-pulling like that . . . ’Tis an abuse of God’s holy ordinance. I can’t stand for it. There’s people here in this parish who have had enough of you bringing misfortune down on them with your pagan, unmeaning practices.’
‘Say what you will about my practices, Father, but they are full of meaning.’
‘They’ve had enough of your bawling.’
‘Aye, you’re against the keening, so you said.’
Father Healy fixed her with a grim look. ‘No, Nance. No. This has gone beyond keening. This is about nostrums and piseógs.’
Nance’s body ached and she fought a sudden desire to lie down on the grass and turn her face up to the sky. Piseógs and curses. That was what it was about. Piseógs and the dark things people did to one another when their hearts blacked with anger and the edges of their souls curled in bitterness. Piseógs. Muttered supplication to the Devil before the sun rises on a feast day. Curses wrought out of the wellbeing of another. The shifting, secret trade of vengeance and ill intent.
‘Aye. Piseógs. And ’tis not just Brigid Lynch I’ve come about. Seán Lynch found a wreath of mountain ash on his gate,’ Father Healy continued.
‘Did he now?’
‘And he is saying ’tis a piseóg.’
‘Now, Father, I know a few things about this world we’re in, and a wreath of ash is no piseóg. A good, clean fire, a hurley and a fence – that is what the quicken tree is for. ’Tis not useful for any kind of piseóg.’
Father Healy’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, you know what is good for a piseóg, do you, Nance?’
‘I have no part in piseógs. I don’t lay curses. I have no hand in that.’
‘Then would you tell me, Nance, why there are plenty coming to me now saying ’tis your custom? They’re saying ’tis how you survive here, Nance. Taking people’s money for wickedness. Stealing the butter profit from the milk. Cursing churns. Setting neighbour against neighbour and cursing those that would not let you steal from them.’
‘Is it stealing the butter, I am?’ Nance gestured to her bothán. ‘Rolling in riches, am I?’
‘Nance, whether ’tis people thinking you’re s
tealing with curses, or whether you’re stealing by plugging the necks of beasts . . .’ He paused as if to note her reaction. ‘I can’t be standing for thievery. I’ll be fetching the police for that. Sure, the constable will take you in if that is what you’re after doing.’
Nance lifted her stained hands to the priest. ‘’Tis eels that fill my belly, not stolen butter.’
‘Look at you, red-handed as the Devil.’
‘You know as well as I that no one is bothered by a bit of eel catching.’
‘Nance, go on and catch as many eels as you like. You’re right, ’tis no bother to anyone who knows. But don’t be stealing the blood out of beasts, and don’t be putting the fear on the valley with your piseógs!’
Nance laughed in exasperation.
‘’Tis not a thing to be laughing at!’ The priest took a step towards her. ‘Nance, I tell you, my patience is mighty thin with you. If keening is unholy, then laying mountain ash and giving herbs to women in a delicate state to earn your place here is devilry.’
‘Father –’
‘Nance! I warned you to be a handy woman to those who need and no more.’ His face softened. ‘If bittersweet be a cure, and the death of Brigid Lynch’s baby the work of God, then no more about it. But . . .’ He pointed a finger of warning at her chest. ‘Don’t be laying curses.’
Nance threw her hands up in the air. ‘Father, I have no hand in piseógs! I have no hand in curses.’
‘Just a hand in with Them that does be in it. I know ’tis your mouth that’s been spreading the word about fairies.’ Father Healy turned his palms upwards in ecclesiastic habit. ‘Nóra Leahy came to me begging magic, gabbling superstition. Saying the poor boy she has in her care is the talk of the valley, that he’s fairy. That wouldn’t be your worm in her ear, would it, Nance? Sure, folk will pay handsome when they’re desperate. No harm in claiming cures when they bring food and turf to the door.’
Nance felt anger rise in her. ‘That boy is not natural.’
‘And you are doctor to the unnatural?’
‘I am.’
‘And you plan to cure him.’
‘I plan to banish the fairy and bring Nóra Leahy back her grandson.’
Father Healy gave her a look of weary frustration. ‘’Twould be a kindness for you to tell Nóra Leahy that she has a right to care for the cretin, and to expect nothing more.’
‘There’s no kindness in helplessness, Father.’
‘But there is in false hope?’ The priest sighed and looked out to the valley. ‘People are suffering, Nance.’
‘Yes, Father.’
‘They’re worried about the butter. About being forced on the road. About having no money to pay the rent with. About neighbours turning on them, wishing them ill. Wishing sickness and death on them.’
‘Yes, Father.’
He looked back at her, his brow furrowed. ‘If I find out that you do have a hand in it, I’ll not be as kind as I have been, Nance. I will see you out on the road. I will see you out of the valley.’
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
Devil's-bit scabious
St Brigid’s Eve came to the valley and with it the assurance of spring. Winter-weary, the eve of the holy day lured people out of their stuffy cabins down to where the field rushes grew and tremored in the wind.
Mary thought she could almost feel the swelling of the earth beneath her feet as she escaped the confines of the widow’s cabin and ran down the mountainside to the grassy stretch of moor. It was cold, but the sun was bright, and she felt that the waterlogged fields carried the promise of growth. Even in the gloom of dipped soil, where old snow lay patterned with the midnight flight of rabbits, early daffodils had emerged. She watched the robins, blood-smocked against the sky, and imagined they were leading her to the rushes, that they were pleased to know that warmth would return to the light.
It was a relief to be in the open air. A relief to leave Nóra and her constant crouching over the boy, watching him like a cat staring at a dying bird. A relief to leave the sight of the child fitting and moaning like the Devil was inside him, fighting for purchase. The very air of the cabin seemed leaden to Mary. She suffocated in the weight of the widow’s expectation.
As Mary walked towards the clumps of rushes, she took deep breaths to clear the dust from her lungs, to take in the smells of the trembling fields. Wet grass, cow shit, turf smoke and clay. Golden discs of coltsfoot and the raggy flowers of groundsel clustered against the dun and green. The day was fresh, slapped with cold, and Mary’s eyes watered in the light.
She had left the child in Nóra’s care, so eager had she been for a minute to herself outside without the twitching weight of the boy against her hip. She had suggested to Nóra that she take Micheál into the yard. Wrap him against the cold and let the sun fall on his pallid skin, while she went for the rushes and made the St Brigid’s cross for the house. But the widow, eyes red-rimmed, had said that she would be keeping it out of sight, and for Mary to hurry and not dawdle but come straight back to the cabin.
Mary’s brothers had always made the St Brigid’s crosses at home. They would walk miles of bog to find the best rushes, pluck out the tangled grasses and wipe them clean of mud, before returning to sit and twist the plants while Mary and the younger children watched.
‘See, ’tis important to pull them, not cut them with a knife. That’s how you keep the holy in the reed. Sure, you fashion the cross with the sun.’
Mary pictured David sitting in the yard, the green rods over his knees, tongue inching from his mouth in concentration as he folded the rushes around each other.
‘What happens if you make the cross against the sun?’
David had frowned. ‘What would you be doing that for now? That’s some contrariness there, Mary. Faith, ’tis with the sun you do be making it, to keep the power in the charm.’
They would watch his quick fingers work the tapered stems until they could see the green pattern take shape. A four-legged cross made in the name of the saint, to bless and hang above the door in protection against evil, fire and hunger. It would keep them safe even as the shine of the green rush dried to straw, and the smoke from the fire blacked it with soot.
Mary wanted a cross to hang in the widow’s house. She wanted to know that she was guarded anew by a nailed blessing. The sight of the boy under the power of the foxglove filled her with a horror so deep and unsettling that she felt calcified with it. There was something evil in his fitting, she knew. Something that made her stomach drop every morning on waking, knowing that she would have to hold the child while his body shook with the supernatural.
Nóra was hunched over her knitting when Mary returned, her hand gripping the bunch of bright rushes. But the boy was no longer in his place by the fire. Mary stood in the doorway, her eyes flitting around the cabin.
She has done something to him, she thought suddenly. She has set him on the mountain, or buried him, or left him at the crossroads. Her stomach knotted with dread.
‘Where’s Micheál?’ she asked.
The widow sniffed and inclined her head to the corner of the room. Mary saw then that the boy lay on the heather Nóra kept for kindling, on his back, unmoving. Her relief, on rushing to him and finding him alive, finding his little bracket of bones still lifting and falling in breath, was overwhelming.
She wedged the rushes under her arm and used her free hands to lift him onto her hip.
‘I’m taking him out for the air,’ she said to Nóra, snatching at the blanket hanging over the settle bed. ‘I’ll watch him while I make the cross.’
Nóra’s eyes followed her as she left. ‘You see anyone coming, you bring it right back inside.’
With the sunlight on his face and the breeze stirring his hair, Micheál seemed to rouse from the limp half-sleep he had lain in since the bath of foxglove. Mary settled him down o
n the blanket by her feet and, as she perched on a stool and began to weave the rushes, she noticed that his eyes widened, their blue reflecting the sky above him.
‘’Tis a fair day to be out in,’ she murmured, and he blinked, as though he heard her and agreed. She paused to watch him, smiling at the tiny flare of his nostrils, the pink slip of his tongue. He wants to taste the air, she thought.
For all the years’ growing in him, Micheál seemed newborn lying in the daylight. The foxglove had left him pale, as though his skin had never seen the sky. Lying in the light, the sun caught the fragile cartilage of his ears and Mary saw how they grew pink, how they blushed transparent. She noticed the fine blond hairs on the side of his face.
‘’Tis St Brigid’s Day tomorrow,’ she said. ‘Spring is here.’ And she set the rushes down by her feet and walked to where a dandelion grew, its fluffy head of seed nodding in the breeze.
‘See?’ Mary held the downy globe on its stalk above the boy and he looked up at it, his mouth opening. She blew at the clock of seeds and they scattered on the air. Micheál shrieked, his hands suddenly aloft, clutching at the sailing down.
‘There was no cure in that foxglove.’
Mary turned. Nóra stood in the doorway, staring at them.
‘Look at it! As it was before. All the trembling is all gone out of it. The struggle is all gone.’
‘He does seem better.’
‘Better!’ Nóra ran a hand over her face. ‘It screamed in the night again.’
‘I know.’
‘’Tis not better if ’tis back to screaming. ’Tis not better if the changeling has fought the foxglove and won! ’Tis not better if the fitting and the sickening is all out of it, after we’ve spent the time with Nance, after the way we thought ’twas working.’