by Hannah Kent
‘Were you born with it?’
Plumes of blue smoke in the evening air. The whirring of a summer night.
‘I was swept. Once. Just like your mam. They brought me back to myself with a poker reddened in the fire.’
‘They burnt you?’
‘I was away. The fire brought me round to myself.’
‘You never said.’
‘’Twas when I was away that I got the knowledge.’
‘Maggie, you never said. All these years you’ve been living here with us and you never told me you were swept.’
Her aunt shrugged and absently touched the mark on her face.
‘Does Da know?’
Her aunt nodded.
‘We should do that to Mam.’
Maggie drew on her pipe and let out a shuddering breath. ‘Never on my life.’
‘But it worked!’
‘Nance, we’ll not be putting the fairy out of her with fire.’
Silence between them then. Corncrakes rasping their pattern outside.
‘Did it hurt?’
But Maggie never answered. There was a knock on the door, and there stood the boatmen of the lough, holding the body of her father aloft. Drowned, they said. Under before they could fish him out. Terrible accident. Terrible misfortune for the family. For Nance. Her mam gone soft in the head, and how would she and her aunt keep up with rent? How to stop the crowbars breaking down the door and pulling the thatch apart? They would do what they could but they had families of their own. Terrible misfortune. God be with them.
In her cabin Nance closed her eyes and rested her head on her knees. All this time past, the years lived through, but the sight of Maggie kneeling over her da and the howling between them that night, a cry taken up by the fairy woman in the bed, her mother’s shadow, all ringing in her ears as though she were in that room again with her father’s lungs filled with water. That sound, the mourning of three women all touched by the fairies, all unmoored.
There was no one Maggie turned away afterwards, no matter the sickness upon them or the badness they were after. Her aunt never said, but Nance knew. When the ones with the glower on them came, asking for the tides of luck to be turned, Maggie began to send Nance on errands.
‘Let them in.’ Maggie’s voice would rise from the gloom of the cabin. ‘It may be that I can help them after all. And won’t you go and pick the Devil’s-bit? ’Tis all a-flower and I have need of it.’
Her aunt must have known that it could not last. That whatever wickedness was being worked for their praties and scraws, the canker would return upon them in time.
Piseógs are fires that flare in the face of those who set them.
Three months later and Nance had come home to a dead hearth, no fairy woman in the bed, no Maggie by her side. The cabin cold and empty. She had kindled the fire and waited for their return. Wound the hours with worry.
It was only when she noticed that Maggie’s things were missing – her pipe, her stores of herbs and ointments, the poitín – that she knew she had gone. Nance had sat on the rushes and cried herself to sleep.
Returned to the fairies, they said later. And taken Mary Roche with her. Both of them as mad as the other, gone back to the Good People and no sight of them since. And that poor Nance, all alone and a young woman too. Not two coins to rub together and no kin neither. She’ll be on the roads with nothing but herbs to her name.
Nance’s stomach creased in hunger. All the years past, but this was how it would be for her again if they did not come for cures, if she did not banish the changeling. Hunger and hollow and cramping. She would be back to waiting in ditches and shadows to calm animals that had been turned out to pasture. Nicking their veins to tap their blood, plugging the wounds with fat and the blessed untoothed leaves of devil’s-bit scabious. Picking turf from where it had tumbled off piles, only coming close to those houses where the families were still asleep, where the smoke was not yet rising. Retreating to the rough footing of hills when the stir of morning began and the milking girls emerged puffy-eyed, and the men began the long walk to cut turf or tend their animals and crops.
Nance remembered that life on the road. Gathering blackberries and fraocháin, and untangling stray wool from thorny thickets of furze, and cutting watercress and coltsfoot, three-cornered garlic and bogbean. Nights spent sleeping beneath the flowering blackthorn, the pale blossoms against the dark branches like faces in the night. Turning her knife to Mary’s fern for bedding. She had cut the bracken and found the initials of God whorled within the inner working of the stem.
Maggie had taught her how to survive in the face of misfortune. Before she had vanished, she had told Nance how a hungry woman might gather a little blood to boil with grain. How she might best beg milk off a farmer’s wife. How to trap and skin an eel, or catch a hare, or take a little turf where it would not be missed. How to scrape a scythe through a cow pat and summon the goodness of the butter to yourself, muttering, ‘All for me. All for me. All for me.’
But she had never taught her how to sleep on the road when there was nothing left, and you had only yourself. Nance had learnt that alone.
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
Hart's tongue
‘God’s blessing on this place.’
Mary and Nóra looked out the open door of the cabin and saw Peg O’Shea making her way towards them, leaning on her blackthorn stick.
‘Ah, the devils are into your thatch.’ She paused and raised her crook at the birds that were wheeling about Nóra’s roof. ‘Stolen straw makes cosy nests.’
‘Are you well, Peg?’
‘I am. I’ve come to see how you’re all getting on. My, Nóra, you look a grievance.’
Nóra stepped forward to help Peg into the house. ‘’Tis the changeling. Oh, Peg. ’Tis back to bawling and shrieking the whole night through. Not natural, the lungs on it. Begod, Peg, I don’t get a wink, nor the maid either. We’re beside ourselves with lack of sleep.’
Peg eased herself down by the fire and looked at the child lying in Mary’s lap, arms juddering, mouth querulous. ‘The poor lad. An empty vessel makes most noise.’
Nóra sat down beside her. ‘Do you see any change in it? I thought I could, but . . .’
‘Nance is curing him?’
Nóra nodded. ‘Just concoctions of herbs so far.’ She lowered her voice. ‘You should have seen it a week ago, Peg. Like something going through. A shaking.’
Peg frowned. ‘A shaking? Nance was shaking the fairy out of him? Shaking him back and forth, was she?’
‘Not a shaking like that,’ said Nóra. ‘’Twas a herb she gave it and a shaking rose up in the body, like. Froth in the mouth and all.’
They watched Mary as she spat on a corner of her apron and wiped the boy’s chin.
‘I never heard of such a thing.’
‘’Twas lus mór,’ said Mary.
Peg looked apprehensive. ‘Foxglove? Oh, that’s some powerful plant.’
‘’Twas awful,’ Mary said, her eyes not leaving Micheál. ‘There was a bath of it, and then we set the juice of it on his tongue, and he was fitting like a mad dog with it all. Like he was dying.’
‘Good God. The poor wretch.’ Peg looked at the child, concerned. There was a damp, pinched look about his face.
‘Only, the shaking and trembling’s gone out of him now,’ added Mary. ‘He’s not so sick with it, God be praised.’
‘It hasn’t worked,’ Nóra said abruptly. She gripped Peg’s shoulder. ‘Peg, ’twas as though we came close to having the fairy gone out of it, and then . . . nothing. I’m in pieces over it.’
‘Oh, Nóra,’ Peg murmured. ‘’Tis no easy thing. As Nance was telling ye, sometimes ’tis better to care for the changeling in your grandson’s place if you can’t be getting rid of it.’
Nóra shook her head veh
emently. ‘I’ll be getting rid of it. I could never forgive myself if I did not try to find my grandson, Peg. For Martin’s sake. For my daughter’s. I’m going to get Micheál back. I’m after other ways.’
‘And what ways might they be?’ Peg asked, her tone careful. ‘You’re not after nettling him again, are you, Nóra Leahy? I tell you, ’tis best you follow the advice of Nance, although . . .’ She stopped and sucked her teeth. ‘There’s a lot of talk about that one going round.’
‘About Nance?’
‘Surely you’ve heard. There’s talk she’s got some darkness working against Father Healy and those that would have her out. Seán Lynch. Kate Lynch. Éilís and her man. Aye, that woman has the word against her. And Brigid, all that talk of the berries spread by Kate. And now Seán has been fighting over her.’
‘What’s that now?’
‘Well, I say fighting over her, though there’s more to it than that. Seán Lynch was making trouble at the blacksmith’s today. The son-in-law told me. There was some quarrel over a horse between Seán and Peter O’Connor, and Nance was mentioned.’
Mary picked the boy up and moved him to the unfolded settle bed.
‘Seán’s fault?’ asked Nóra. ‘Had he drink taken?’
‘As like as not. The daughter’s man was up with me now, and he says there was some scuffle in O’Donoghue’s yard.’
‘What happened?’
Peg raised an eyebrow. ‘Seán had taken his share of Peter’s horse to make up the team. That’s how it began.’
Nóra grimaced. ‘Martin always said Seán was a stingy sort when it came to horses. Keep his too long and he’ll be calling you lazy. Bring his mare back sharp and he’s in a fit and saying she’s been worked like a devil. He takes care of his own, does Seán.’
‘And by his own you mean he takes care of himself,’ Peg snorted. ‘As I heard it, Seán was feeding Peter’s horse hay with the seed slapped out of it, and his own the better oats. So when Peter saw Seán at the smith’s he asked him to give the horse the same feed as his own, and Seán . . . well. Gave him a look that would wither grass and told him he did as he saw fit, and there was no strength in the horse at all, and did he want to be robbing a neighbour with no money coming in? And Peter said the dry was on the whole valley and ’twas not his fault. And then . . .’ Peg paused, licking her lips. ‘Then your boy was mentioned.’
Nóra blanched. ‘The changeling? What was said, Peg?’
‘Seán said Kate’s turned over in her mind about the changeling in Nóra Leahy’s house, and he knows there’s some malice being worked on the place by Nance. He said that’s the true cause of the dry. Said Kate thinks the boy is one of Them summoned by Nance to blink us all in anger at Father Healy. Oh, and Seán was spitting and fitting over it, the lad was telling me. Spitting on the ground like he was putting out a fire. Says he’s after finding what looks to be piseógs on his land. Says someone’s working to curse him. The horses were getting nervous with his racket, and Peter put out an arm to calm them, like, to keep them from the panic, but Seán thought he was after him and grabbed Peter’s shirt. Brought him eye to eye. “I know you walk to her den of an afternoon,” says he. “I know you’re awful great with that cailleach.” Then he said . . .’ Peg took a deep breath, shaking her head in disgust. ‘He said, “Sure, ’tis a sad state of affairs when a man who can’t get a wife will go after the Devil for his.”
‘Well. You know Peter, quiet as a church mouse on a holy day, would soon as fight a man as a priest. You wouldn’t believe it. Didn’t the red come down over him, and didn’t he grab Seán’s own collar and say he had no right to be calling a poor honest woman such a thing when he’s a devil himself.’
‘A man’s mouth often broke his nose.’
‘But Peter O’Connor! Nóra, have you ever heard such a thing? Peter O’Connor giving Seán a hearing! He said to him: “You’re a devil. Pissing on Nance and starving every man’s horse but your own!” Then Peter started on about Kate. “And we all know you’re beating the dust out of your woman again. Wonderful hard man to go after them that can’t be fighting back.” He was saying, “You’re some man, Seán Lynch! Some hard man!”’
‘And then what happened?’
‘Seán knocked the feathers out of Peter. Punched him everywhere except the roof of his mouth and the soles of his feet, as I heard it. Brought him down into the mud and stomped the face of him so that, once the men had dragged Seán off – swinging all the while – the bellows boy was out in the yard, picking teeth like flowers.’
‘Sweet Jesus. How is the face on Peter?’
‘John and Áine took him in and patched him up as best they could, but if the man was a bachelor before, they say he’ll be an ugly one his whole life long now, more’s the pity. Mouth like a broken window. Nose broke. They’ll be chalking his jacket for a laugh this shrove, you mark my words.’
‘He’s right,’ Nóra said, rubbing her chin in thought. ‘Seán Lynch is a devil.’
‘My bet is that Peter will be straight for Nance’s tonight. He’ll have need of her.’
Nóra hesitated. ‘I wanted to go and talk to Nance myself this day. About another cure for the changeling. How we might banish it for good.’
Peg gave the boy a long look. ‘If it can wait until tomorrow, I’d not go, Nóra. Let Peter have his word with Nance. If Seán or one of them see you and the child together with Peter and the bean feasa, that’ll get the tongues wagging faster than the tail of a butcher’s dog. I don’t like to be talking ill of others, but sure, there’s trouble coming, and you don’t want Kate Lynch or Seán up here and asking to see the changeling, or saying you’re against them. You’ve no man now, Nóra. If you don’t have your reputation, what will protect you?’
Nance walked the river’s length, dragging a broken branch behind her. It was a rare day of February sunlight, and she could see that spring had sent its first flush through the world. Despite the cold, she could smell the change in season.
The trees would soon be tipping with green. In a month or two bluebells would rise to make hallow the forest floor. Bare branches were brimming with life, and there was a haze over the fields. Alder buds swelled, and the men had begun to prepare the ground for crops. Soon there would be movement in the soil, pollen in the water.
Nance staked out the waking earth and pulled the tender shoots of herbs before the dew dried. They were gifted to her. She knew the smell of their sap like a mother knows her children. She could have found them in the dark.
As she walked Nance thought of the changeling, remembering the long purple mark on Maggie’s face. Would it be enough to wave the hot iron close to the skin? Would it be enough to tell the fairy child what they planned to do if he did not leave for good? Maggie had told her the other ways they might try to force the return of her abducted mother if the foxglove did not work. St John’s wort. Measured doses of henbane. Boundary water.
But never the blistering poker. ‘Not on my life,’ Maggie had said. Even though it had brought her back from the fairies. Nance closed her eyes and pictured the scar tissue, the puckered skin tight against the cheek. She imagined the iron against it, the hiss and steam and the sticking burn at the touch of the red poker and shuddered.
A strange noise interrupted Nance’s thoughts. A hard, ragged breathing repeating itself on the breeze. Putting down her makeshift sled she crept between the trees until she could see the smoke of her cabin. There was a figure making its way down the path. A man, coughing, almost running to her door. His arms were wrapped about his ribs as he jumped over exposed roots and fallen branches.
Peter O’Connor.
Nance stepped out from behind the alder and oak and into the clearing. Sensing movement, Peter turned and slowed to a walk.
‘Nance,’ he called throatily.
‘What is it, Peter? What has happened to you?’
The man retched lou
dly, dropped to his knees and threw up. Hunched over on all fours, he vomited again, then wiped a long strand of saliva from his mouth and sat back on his heels.
Nance placed a gentle hand on his back. ‘There now,’ she said. ‘Take it easy. Take a breath, now, Peter. Take a breath.’
Peter looked up at her, wiping his lips. One eye was purpled, swollen, the lashes squeezed between the puffed, bruised lids. His nostrils were crusted with blood, and he wore an expression of such abject anger that Nance crossed herself.
‘Peter. Come inside.’
He nodded, unable to speak. She helped him rise and directed him towards her cabin. After glancing around to see if anyone was about, she shut the door and tied it fast with straw rope.
Peter stood, his head and arms hanging from his body like a man condemned.
‘Sit down.’ Nance tugged his arm and pointed to her pile of heather. ‘Better yet, lie down. Let me get us a drink.’ She fetched a bottle.
Peter’s hand trembled as he pulled out the stopper and brought the lip to his mouth.
‘And another. Now, when you can, tell me what has happened.’
‘Seán Lynch,’ Peter spat. He rummaged in his coat and pulled out his pipe and tobacco. Nance waited as he stuffed the bowl with a shaking thumb and kindled the dry leaf. ‘He turned on me. He had the lend of a horse. Treated her ill. And when I went to have words with him about it, he nodded his fist at me.’ He sucked deeply on his pipe, wincing as the stem brushed against his split lip. ‘Sure, Seán is no easy man to get along with, but you should have seen him. He was in one. He would have killed me.’
‘Is there no other grievance he has against you?’
Peter blew out a heavy lungful of smoke, shrugging. ‘I mentioned his woman, Kate. That fired him up some.’
‘They’re not great with one another.’
He shook his head. ‘She looks like a kicked dog these days.’
‘He’ll get what’s coming to him.’
‘Will he?’ Peter squinted at Nance through the smoke. ‘I’m worried for you, Nance. Seán is after telling Father Healy that you’re against God. ’Tis a hard start to the year, Nance. Tomas O’Connor had a cow down and for no good reason. Found her dead and swollen by the river, and no knowing how she wandered there. Took five of us to haul the body out the water, and she in calf too. Daniel Lynch’s woman. Brigid. The wee mite dead. I’ve no mind for hen talk, but didn’t Old Hanna find all her chickens dead and laid out without their heads. Some say foxes, but to just take the head? The bleedin’ women are in pieces over their churns. I was on rambling to O’Donoghue’s, and there’s a pack of them there, fussing John for nails and ironwork and charms to bring the profit back to the milk. There’s a woman up the mountain, says she cracked one of her eggs the other day. ’Twas no yolk to be had in it. ’Twas filled with blood! Some say ’tis our Good Neighbours at mischief. Some say ’tis the Leahy boy.’ He offered Nance the draw of his pipe. ‘Some say ’tis you.’