by Hannah Kent
‘Dear one, you’re safe now. You’re with friends. Tell us, Mary, what has happened to you?’
‘I want to go home.’ Her voice was notched with fear. ‘I want to go home.’
‘And so you will. But tell us first, Mary. Please, it vexes us to see you so.’
‘They will hang me.’
Peg’s family glanced at each other.
‘Hang you?’ asked Peg.
‘She done him in,’ the maid sobbed. ‘He’s dead.’
‘Who?’
‘Micheál!’
‘Breathe easy, Mary. There you are, take a breath and talk to me now. Are you saying Micheál is dead?’
The girl fought her arms out of the blanket and grabbed at her hair, pulling it over her face. She rocked back and forth on the floor of Peg’s cabin. ‘Mam,’ she whispered. ‘I want Mam.’
‘What did you see, Mary?’
‘I want to go home,’ the girl wept. ‘I don’t want to die. They’ll hang me for it. They’ll hang me for it.’
‘Don’t be thinking of hanging. Shhh. Tell me, Mary, what did you see? What has happened?’
Mary took a shuddering breath. ‘’Twas Nance,’ she stammered. ‘She drowned him and now he’s dead.’
Peg found Nóra sitting alone by her hearth, gazing into the dead ashes. The widow was sitting very still, the greatcoat bulging around her, hands folded around a poitín bottle in her lap.
‘Nóra? ’Tis Peg come to see you.’
The widow turned, her face blank. Peg saw that she had been crying: her eyes were red-rimmed and her nose wet.
‘He’s not here . . .’ She gave a little shake, then quickly uncorked the bottle and drank, spluttering, wiping her mouth.
‘Nóra. In God’s name, what has happened?’
‘I’ve looked for him, but . . .’ She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered. ‘I came straight back, so I did. I ran here, Peg. I ran. I thought he might be frightened to be here alone.’
‘Are you talking about the boy, Nóra?’
‘He’s not here,’ she said in disbelief. ‘I came back because I thought . . .’
Peg eased herself down onto a stool. ‘You’re soaked through. Your clothes are wet and dirtied.’
Nóra looked down, as if surprised to see her damp skirts covered in leaf litter and soil. Bramble thorns clung to her apron. ‘I was in the river.’
‘What were you doing in the river?’
‘And then I came here. To see if Johanna’s –’
‘Nóra. Mary says that the change-child is dead. She’s beside herself and saying that he was drowned in the river. Is that true?’
Nóra’s expression darkened. ‘Have you seen him?’ She clutched at Peg’s shoulders, bringing her face close. ‘Mary. What did she say?’
‘Nóra, you’re frightening me.’
The widow’s breath was sour with whiskey. ‘Tell me what she said. Tell me what she said!’
Peg gently pushed Nóra away from her. ‘Mary Clifford tells me that Micheál is dead. She is saying he is drowned.’
Nóra was silent, jaw clenched. ‘No, Peg. Not Micheál.’
‘She’s saying she saw Nance drown the boy. Nóra, is that what happened? Did Nance drown the wee stricken child?’
‘’Twas fairy,’ Nóra bleated.
‘And did Nance drown the fairy?’
‘Mary ran. We turned and saw her running away.’
‘We? ’Twas you and Nance?’
‘I thought Micheál would be here,’ Nóra said. ‘I thought he would be returned to me.’
Peg took a deep breath. ‘Nóra. Is the wee cretin drowned?’
There was a knock and both women jumped. Father Healy stood in the open doorway, Peg’s son-in-law standing behind him. The priest’s face was grave, pouched with concern.
‘Nóra Leahy? What have you done?’
Nóra shook her head, unable to speak.
‘Your servant maid has just told me she witnessed the drowning of your grandson this morning.’
‘No.’
‘Nóra, is this the same lad you came to tell me about? The cripple boy? Have you gone and drowned him?’
‘He was fairy.’
The priest stood over her, aghast. ‘God forgive you. Where’s the boy? What have you done with him?’
‘He is not here.’
‘Nóra, have you gone and murdered that child? Tell me the truth now, or . . . I tell you, God will condemn you for what you have done.’
Nóra pressed her lips together and remained silent.
The priest had turned white. ‘Good God! Is she out of her mind?’
‘She’s had a shock,’ Peg muttered. ‘She’s not herself.’
Father Healy put a hand over his mouth. ‘You listen to me now. I’ve sent a man to the barracks. He is coming back with policemen. Do you understand me? Widow Leahy, listen to me. There are men coming to take an information from you. A sworn information. Do you hear me? Widow Leahy?’ His eyes dropped to the poitín in her lap. ‘Don’t be telling me she’s drunk. I’d not be taking any more of that, now.’ He nodded to Peg, who eased the bottle out of Nóra’s fingers.
‘I . . .’
The priest bent down to Nóra. ‘What’s that? What are you saying?’
‘I . . . I don’t want to be leaving this place.’
‘They’ll be sending a constable to speak with you. And it might be that they will take you with them.’
‘I won’t be going. I can’t be going.’
‘Nóra, ’twill only be for a small while,’ Peg cajoled. ‘I’ll look after your cow. Your hens.’
Nóra shook her head. ‘No, I’ll need to be staying. It might be that Micheál will be coming. If he’s not come today, perhaps he’ll be returned tomorrow. I’ll need to be waiting for him.’
Father Healy’s voice rose in exasperation. ‘If your servant maid is saying he is dead, he’ll not be coming back. Do you know where your grandson is? His body?’
‘Micheál is with the Good People, but now he will be coming back. Now he will be returned to me. Nance said ’twill be so.’
The priest said nothing. He walked towards the open door, then paused and looked back at Nóra with a mixture of disgust and pity. ‘If I were you, Nóra Leahy, I’d be praying.’ He gestured to Peg. ‘Make sure she doesn’t leave this place until the constable arrives.’
By the time Nance had returned to her cabin, she was shivering helplessly with cold. The river water had flooded her to the bone and she ached with it. The hunger she had felt so keenly over the past days had faded to nausea, and now that it was done, she wanted nothing more than sleep. Crawling to her bed of heather, Nance covered herself with her blanket and shut her eyes.
She dreamt then. She dreamt she was young and walking down the high street of Killarney, the mud of the road hardened by the heat of an early summer.
Suddenly, she was surrounded. Young women. Faces browned from their work outside. Baskets of fish on their backs, oozing scales. They called her name, mouths wide on the shape of it.
‘Nance!’
‘Nance, stop walking! We’ve a mind to talk to you.’
Her feet stopped. The ground warm on her soles.
The women crowded her.
‘We thought we saw you May Eve. Up in the fields.’
‘Aye, you were so. Walking alone, and in disguise.’
‘I didn’t do a thing like it.’
‘But you were seen, Nance Roche.’
‘Aye.’
‘Aye, you were seen scrabbling through a briar.’
‘I never.’
‘But you were seen so. And the person who said he seen you swore it God’s own truth.’
‘Who says it?’
‘He said you undressed and crawled through the bramble, and a
fter he heard you saying some queer things too.’
‘Tell me who said these lies.’
‘I don’t dare, Nance. You might curse him.’
‘I never did such a thing.’
‘’Tis an awful sin, sure, Nance.’
‘Is it true you’ve been away with the Good People?’
‘’Tis not. Never in my life.’
‘We all know your mam’s been swept.’
‘Aye, and your aunt is Mad Maggie. She’s in with Them. She’s a grand one for curse work now.’
‘They’re all mad. Her mam too. ’Tis madness in the blood.’
‘Aye, that’s why your da drowned himself.’
‘’Twas an accident.’
‘You’re a liar, Nance. The madness turned him to it.’
‘Or were it the fairies?’
‘You’ll be on the road soon. That’s what happens to those who lay curses. Who do be in it.’
‘Sure, there won’t be any living for you in the cabin with your da gone.’
Anger swept through her until she felt that surely she was on fire. The women stood around her, and yet there she was, standing in the street, burning.
‘You’re mighty cruel,’ she whispered.
And when they laughed, Nance dreamt she reached out and touched each of them on the heart with her finger, burning like a wick. ‘I curse you,’ she said, and they screamed. ‘May the grass grow high at your door, may you die without a priest in a town with no clergy, and may the crows have your carcass! Imeacht gan teacht ort! May you leave and never return!’
And they screamed. They screamed and they screamed, until the noise woke her and she sat up, panting.
Her cabin was gloomy with the low light of an overcast afternoon. She could hear footsteps and low conversation outside. There was the smell of crushed grass.
’Tis the Good People, Nance thought. They are coming to take me away.
For one long moment she could do nothing but stare at the smoking hearth and the streaks of soot on the whitewash, the rushes on the floor.
They are coming for me, she thought. As They came for Mam. As They came for Maggie.
‘Nance Roche. Open the door.’
‘Are you of the living or the dead?’
‘Open the door.’
There was no time left to protect herself. No time to guard her life and soul with herbs or charms. Only the dead embers of her fire.
When the constable and his men shouldered in the wicker door, they found Nance on her hands and knees, stuffing her pockets with soot.
The arrival of two policemen from the Killarney barracks stirred the valley into speculation. People gathered on the road and watched the men on horseback as they rode to the small chapel, and then, with the priest in their company, along the slope, past the blacksmith’s, past the well and its huddle of gaping women, to the foot of the hill beneath the cabins of Leahy and O’Shea. The crowd followed behind, staring as the police handed their reins to the priest and made their way up the pass on foot. One went into the O’Sheas’ cabin, the other into Nóra Leahy’s.
When they emerged several minutes later, holding the bewildered widow and her sobbing maid between them, an excited whispering broke out. They watched the men lead the women away up the road, back towards the chapel, before rushing up the hill to speak with the O’Sheas and learn of what had happened. Had the maid been caught stealing? Had the widow some hand in the death of her husband? When they spotted the police returning for Nance, they wondered whether all three had been in league with the fairies, blinking the valley and thinning the butter in the churns, killing animals for devilment. Setting piseógs against the priest.
It did not take long. By sunfall the valley was humming. An accusation had been brought against Nóra Leahy, Mary Clifford and Nance Roche. The fairy cretin Nóra had hidden from sight had been drowned in the river, and they were calling it murder.
CHAPTER
EIGHTEEN
Whitethorn
The police inspector was sweating, his neck pink against the dark green tunic of his uniform.
‘’Tis important you tell the truth to me now. Did you employ this woman –’ he glanced down at a piece of paper in front of him ‘– Anne Roche, to kill your grandson?’
‘Nance,’ Nóra murmured.
The policeman looked down at the paper again. ‘I have Anne.’
‘She goes as Nance. Nance Roche.’
He looked up at her from under bushed eyebrows. His nostrils flared. ‘’Tis a simple question. Did you pay this woman money to have her kill your grandson, Micheál Kelliher?’
Nóra stared at the man’s Adam’s apple, bobbing above his tight collar. She brought a trembling hand to her own throat. ‘I didn’t pay her a thing.’
‘Was it a favour then? Did you ask her to kill Micheál?’
Nóra shook her head. ‘I did not. ’Twas nothing like that. She was going to cure it. To banish the fairy.’
The constable raised an eyebrow. ‘The fairy?’
Nóra looked around the barracks room. It smelt of sweat and boot polish and bacon fat. Her stomach groaned. They had given her only one bowl of watery porridge each day since they’d brought her here from the valley. Four nights of hard sleeping on a damp straw mattress, locked in a room of stone. Four bowls of gruel delivered in silence. None of the men who brought her the food had answered her questions. No one would tell her if a small boy had been found in the valley. He would be looking for her, she’d told the officers who handed her the bowls. He has red hair. He is four years old.
‘I need an answer from you, Mrs Leahy. Was that fairy you said?’
Nóra watched a fly drop from the chimney. It hovered over the dead grate, then smacked itself against the small, dirty window.
‘Mrs Leahy?’
Nóra jumped.
‘Your servant maid, Mary Clifford, is saying that this Anne Roche wanted to put your grandson in the river, on account of his being a cretin. Not her words. She called him “rickety”.’ He leant closer, his voice lowered. ‘Sure, no easy thing to have a child like that in the home. Was it a kind of mercy you were after, Mrs Leahy?’
When Nóra didn’t respond, he sat back and rolled a cigarette, licking the paper and eyeing her. ‘I have a dog, you know. Every year that bitch has a litter. Eight pups, every year. I sell what I can, but sometimes, you know, Mrs Leahy, there’s a runt.’ He pushed back his chair with a squeak and fished in his pocket for some matches. ‘Nobody wants a runt.’
Nóra watched as he lit the smoke, waved the match in the air until it expired.
He pointed the cigarette at her. ‘So what do I do every year with the runts I can’t sell? Do you know, Mrs Leahy?’
‘I don’t.’
He took a drag and blew the smoke into the air above him, his eyes still fixed on Nóra. ‘I drown them. I take them down to the river, and I drown the wee things before they know any different. But Mrs Leahy . . .’ He took another puff on his smoke, the dry paper catching on his lip. ‘Mrs Leahy, a pup is no child.’ He shook his head, his eyes never leaving hers. ‘I don’t care if that boy was no more than a runt to you. If you drowned him intentional you’ll hang for it, so you will.’
Nóra closed her eyes and saw again the wan flicker of the changeling under the tan of river water. The dappled sprawl of first light on the bank. The branches filled with the witness of birds.
‘’Twas no boy.’
‘How old was the child, Mrs Leahy?’
‘It . . . He was four years old.’
‘“It” you say again.’ He wrote something down on the paper. ‘And for how long was he in your care?’
‘Ever since my daughter passed, God rest her soul.’
Nóra wished she could understand what the policeman was writing down. She wondered how a pattern of suc
h slender markings could come from a hand so rough-fingered and calloused.
‘And how long was that, Mrs Leahy?’
Nóra paused, eyelids fluttering. ‘Since last harvest. August last.’
‘Can you describe the state of Micheál?’
‘The state?’
‘His health, Mrs Leahy.’
‘Can I please have some water?’
‘Just answer the question.’
‘It . . . He couldn’t walk. Couldn’t talk. Astray . . .’
‘Pardon? You’ll need to speak up.’
‘Astray in his mind.’
The constable gave her a hard look, then slowly ground out his cigarette. He picked up the piece of paper. ‘Mary Clifford has given us a sworn information. She –’
‘Where is Mary? Where’s Nance?’
The constable ran a hand around his collar, tugging at the starched cloth. ‘For the present, the same charges have been brought against the three of you, Mrs Leahy. Arrested for wilful murder. It has been found that . . .’ He hesitated and picked up another document from the table, examining the cursive. ‘You have all been charged on the verdict of the coroner. “We find that the deceased, Michael Kelliher, came by his death in consequence of drowning in the river Flesk, on Monday, the sixth of March, 1826, by Anne Roche, and that Honora Leahy, the child’s grandmother, and Mary Clifford were accessory to the same.”’
Nóra sat up in confusion, aware of the sudden weighted knocking of her heart. ‘Micheál? Did they find him? Did he come to the cabin?’
‘Given the grave nature of these charges, Mrs Leahy, the case will be forwarded to the Summer Assizes in Tralee. You will be taken to Ballymullen gaol and tried with judge and jury. And unless the charges are dropped against them, so Mary and Anne will stand trial too.’
‘Did you find Micheál?’
‘Do you understand me now? Mrs Leahy?’
‘Did you find my grandson? I was asking –’
‘Your grandson’s body was found at a location very near the residence of Anne Roche. The “Piper’s Grave”, as it is known locally.’
‘The Piper’s Grave?’
Nóra pictured the whitethorn in the deep blue of new morning, the dance of light about its branches.