Nory Ryan's Song

by Patricia Reilly Giff

  “If she sees the potato basket,” Celia said, “that diabhal will eat them in a gulp.”

  “She might take your leg as well,” I told her. “But she’d be poisoned straightaway.”

  Granda coughed, his hands over his mouth. I knew he wanted to laugh too, but he wouldn’t look at me. He didn’t want to tell me what I knew. We could never feed the dog.

  “Wait till Maggie sees …,” Celia began.

  “Where is Maggie?” I asked.

  Celia frowned. “Out and down the road with Francey. He came not two minutes ago and wanted to tell her something.”

  I nodded. About the Neelys, I was sure. I thought about feeding their poor dog.

  “Where is the fishing net?” I looked at the rafters. “The one for fresh water.”

  Celia shoved the knitting into a basket. Her voice was softer now. “Not Lord Cunningham’s stream, is it? You’ll find enough trouble without poaching there.”

  “Poaching?” Granda raised his hand to rake his fingers through his white hair. “That is our land, Irish land. Our stream and our fish. Cunningham, a man who comes once a year, has it all by the terrible might of the English.” He turned back to the fire, muttering. “We are paying rent on land that truly belongs to us.”

  I put my hand on his shoulder and patted his thin back. Then I reached for the net that was looped around a hook. “I won’t get caught. Sean Red will be there too,” I said. “He always is.” I flicked my finger at Celia. “I will feed the dog without taking anything away from the rest of you.”

  I waved to them from the door, watching Celia’s face change as she looked at Maeve. “She’s a lovely dog.” Her voice floated after me. “Oh, Nory, I will help feed her.”

  I leaned back in and twitched my nose for a little Thank you, then crossed the yard and climbed over the rocky wall. Next to me, Maeve scaled it easily.

  “We’re going to Cunningham’s stream,” I told her, feeling a jump in my throat, picturing Cunningham’s face, red and mottled from too much mutton. He’d send Devlin his agent to put us out of our house in a breath if he wished, just the way he had the Neelys.

  Once I had been hiding, crouched down in the reeds along the stream. I had watched Lord Cunningham talking to Devlin as he fished. He waved his hand at the fields and the cliffs above. “I’d like to get rid of all of them. Filthy hovels, filthy people. I would tear down the houses and let sheep roam among the rocks.”

  I had wondered where the filthy hovels were. I had wondered about the filthy people. And then I knew. I was one of the filthy people who lived in a filthy hovel. I thought about our house. It was warm and cozy. When the door was closed, the fire lighted the pictures Maggie had drawn on the walls and made wonderful shapes that reached up and up, following the smoke out of the roof, finding their way up to the cliffs.

  I saw Cunningham’s big house now, with its huge stone wall, and farther down was Devlin’s. Even that was larger than any in Maidin Bay.

  “Not a sound.” I put my hand on the dog’s soft head.

  Small bushes hung on to the sides of the stream in front of us. It was a ribbon of water, dotted with rocks like black turtles raising their backs to the sun.

  Sean Red was there somewhere, waiting to surprise the fish. Even I wouldn’t be able to spot him unless I caught a glimpse of the flame of his hair.

  I slid down the bank and landed in the mud at the edge. Lord Cunningham was probably at his dinner, thinking of the fish that had been cooked for him instead of the ones Sean and I would take.

  And then Sean was next to me, pointing along the rocks under the water where he had strung his net. I tucked up my petticoat and waded into the icy water.

  “Don’t splash,” he said as I wound my net a few feet away from his.

  “Don’t you splash.” I flicked a few drops at him.

  He laughed. He was never cold and I was always shivering.

  “Where did you get him?” Sean asked, thumb pointing at Maeve.

  “Her?” I bit my lip. “I found her.”

  Sean was satisfied. I would have been asking question after question, but he was looking down into the stream, waiting for his fish.

  We stood there for a long time. My toes were numb and my ankles. Sean stood stone-still, almost carved into the river, waiting.

  A small, silvery school of fish came, veering away from Sean’s net, around the rocks, and caught by mine. We slapped at them, tossing them up on the bank. I was soaking wet, freezing. My face burned, my eyes teared. Maeve dashed after the flapping fish.

  The water swirled as a larger fish broke the surface, chasing the school of fish ahead of it. Now it was caught. It swam along the net, trying to escape.

  We dived for it together. I flung myself across the rocks on top of it, Sean yelling, both of us breathless. “A beauty,” I said.

  “It’s huge,” Sean said.

  Then suddenly a man on a horse splashed down the shallow thread of water toward us. Lord Cunningham! He shouted as he rode, the tails at his coat flapping against his boots, his riding crop in his hand.

  I tried to scramble up, but my petticoat was heavy with mud and water, and the rocks were slippery under my bare feet.

  Sean held the big fish under one arm. At the same time he put his hand on my back, trying to push me up the bank.

  At last I heaved myself over the top and reached back to help him. But Cunningham leaned over the side of the horse. “Give that fish back,” he shouted, his face red. He lashed out with the crop, catching Sean on the shoulder, tearing his shirt.

  Still Sean tried to hold the fish, tried to crawl out of the horse’s way. “Rith leat,” he called to me. “Run.”

  Above the horse’s hooves we heard a deep growl. Maeve, teeth bared, tore into the water.

  In that instant I saw the bailiff coming, saw us out of our house. I saw Celia’s face.

  “Stay, Maeve,” I called to her, terrified. “Stay.”

  The dog stopped, that good dog, stood as still in the water as Sean had done. Then a miracle! Something else caught Cunningham’s attention. A man on a horse was riding toward the big house. We scrambled away as Cunningham turned his horse and splashed through the water, riding back the way he had come.

  Maeve shook the water off herself, panting, and nosed into my hand. “A fish for you, two fish,” I said when I caught my breath. I looked at Sean. “Do you think Cunningham knew who we were?”

  “He mixes all of us together.” Sean rubbed his shoulder. “We’re safe, I think.”

  “One thing,” I said slowly. “He will not forget Maeve.”

  CHAPTER

  4

  I pushed open the door of our house, my share of the catch held up in my skirt. But as soon as I ducked inside, I knew something was wrong. Maggie stood at the hearth, the glow from the peat fire lighting the tears in her eyes. Granda sat on the three-legged stool, his head in his hands. And Patch was burrowed under the straw of his bed, his scrap of blanket tucked under his chin. Even Biddy, our hen, and her two sisters were clucking as they dashed back and forth on the earthen floor.

  Celia didn’t look at me. She banged down the potato pot, then rooted through the basket in the corner, tossing out an old coat of Granda’s and Da’s boot without a sole.

  “What is it?” I said. “Tell me.”

  Maggie came toward me. “I’m going.” Her mouth was unsteady. “Leaving for America.”

  I raised my hands, the fish sliding out of my skirt and onto the floor.

  “Going across the sea,” said Granda, biting his lip.

  Brooklyn, New York. Milk in cans. Maggie without us.

  Maggie reached out with her big arms and held me so tight I could hardly breathe. “It’s the Neelys,” she said.

  “Out of their house,” I said. And then I knew: the anger on Francey’s face, his eyes flashing. He had seen it all.

  “He will not stay,” Maggie said. “Not one more month. Not in this land with the English so cruel.”

&
nbsp; “But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be,” I said. “We are all to go. Someday. A long time from now.”

  Maggie shook her head. “There’s never enough to eat. When I’m gone there will be that little bit extra.”

  I hardly listened. “We’ll go when Patch is grown, when there’s money.”

  “Francey has enough money for the passage.” Maggie held on to my shoulders. “We need our own place, our own family. We want it to be in Brooklyn, America. Free.”

  Just then Celia crashed the potato pot into the wall. “Ah, here, underneath.” She held up the comb. It was missing four teeth, but the tiny pink stones along the top glowed whenever I held it up to the sun.

  “I will take it with me when I go,” Celia said.

  “It’s my comb,” I said. “From Mam.”

  “Go where?” Maggie asked.

  Granda and Patch stared at Celia.

  “I am going to America myself. Straightaway.” She began to run the comb through her hair.

  “My comb,” I said. “Da said it was mine.”

  Celia held it high over her head. I jumped for it, and between us, the comb snapped in two. I looked at the piece in my hand, shocked. Mam’s comb.

  “How are you going to America?” Granda asked Celia.

  “I will get the money for passage somehow,” Celia said. “I will walk to Galway.”

  “You can’t even manage the walk to Ballilee.” I held my piece of the comb tightly in my hand. “Who’ll take care of Patch?” A poor wee mess he was with a sore on his mouth and a scratch on his cheek from chasing Biddy the hen. “Who will watch him?”

  “He loves you best, Nory,” Maggie whispered.

  Celia looked at Patch in the bed, then closed her eyes. After a moment she said, “I will take care of him. I have decided. I will go to America when Da gets home.”

  Who will take care of me? I rushed outside, sliding over the fish on the floor.

  Maggie called after me but I heard Granda say, “Let her go.”

  Go where? I asked myself.

  Head down, I walked along the Mallons’ path. Sean’s brother Long Liam was lugging rocks around the side of the house. They were piled as high as his waist. “I will build a shed for meself,” Liam had told me. “I’ll put me feet on one wall at night and me head on the other without having to curl over like a snail in the house with three brothers.”

  I didn’t want him to see me with my red face and teary eyes so I kept walking, the mud coming up between my toes. I climbed the stile to the cemetery and started across. First was St. Erna’s shrine. The statue was old and chipped so Da had built a stone roof over the saint’s head and a wall around his back. “It’ll keep the old monk out of the rain for another hundred years or so,” he had said.

  Next I stopped at Mam’s grave and said a quick “May the angels lead thee into Paradise.” I remembered Mam tossing hay in our field with Da one fall day. Dust and bits of straw had swirled around us, and Mam had asked what we’d like to name the baby that was coming.

  I had looked up at the well. “If it’s a boy, it should be Patrick.”

  Mam clapped her hands. “That’s what we’ll do, Nory.”

  I had danced around the field with Da, singing, “We’ll call him Patch.”

  And now Mam was under the grass and Maggie would be off to America. What would Da say when he came up the road from Galway and Maggie wasn’t at the top of the hill waiting for him?

  I saw Sean coming, looking for me. He must have heard the news. I stood up quickly, wiping my eyes, and in my hurry ripped my toenail on a stone. I sank down again and rocked back and forth, holding my toe. And by then, Sean was there, sitting next to me, neither of us saying a word, until I dusted myself off. “It’s time to go back,” I said.

  I looked toward Anna Donnelly’s house. I’d have to go there, but not until after the wedding. I promised myself that. And something else. I told myself I’d never let Maggie know how terrible I felt. I could do that, couldn’t I? Sing and pretend to be happy until she took the road to Galway.

  Could I?

  CHAPTER

  5

  And so I didn’t cry, not when I saw the bag Maggie had made to take with her, and not when I hung our good dresses outside to air on a rope. I tried to listen as Maggie taught me how to smoor the night fire. “Here, Nory, see. The fire has never gone out. Not once in a hundred years. Cover it over with ash, but leave one piece of turf burning so you can blow it into life in the morning.”

  Then, at last, it was Maggie’s wedding day. We opened the door early to see the sun and the good luck it would bring. It was there coming up over the hill, even though ragged bits of mist still hovered over the fields, and the cliffs were hidden under a cover of gray.

  Father Harte said the blessing, and afterward, Paddy Mulligan’s bow flew over the fiddle strings as Long Liam’s fingers pounded the skin of his drum.

  That night flames shot up from the bonfire in front of the house, and Maggie danced with Francey, danced in Mam’s red dress, her hair streaming out in back of her. We clapped for them, all of us, the Mallons, the cousins who had come from Ballilee, and even Anna Donnelly, leaning against the wall, her pipe in her mouth. I sang until my voice was hoarse, and in between, Sean Red pulled me up to dance around the doorstep with my green dress, the wrinkles mostly out now, swirling around me.

  “You look like Queen Maeve herself,” Sean said, smiling at me.

  When the hills in back of us began to brighten, Francey took up one of my hands and Maggie the other. We circled the house to the music and had one last dance together, Granda and Celia, and Patch half asleep, all of us laughing and crying as we held each other.

  It seemed we’d hardly slept when it was day, the day I dreaded. They’d leave this morning to walk the road to Galway to board the Emma Pearl. They’d never come back to Maidin Bay. A long road, it was. Da had told us it wound around the coast like a ball of yarn let loose, but if you stayed on it, you’d reach the port and the ships.

  I turned now and the straw of my bed crackled beneath me. Maggie stood in the open door. As quietly as I could, I crawled over Patch, and then Celia, and rolled out of the bed. I wanted to say goodbye to Maggie by myself.

  Outside, Francey slept against the wall with his brothers, and Paddy the fiddler was snoring with his head on his case.

  “Shhh.” Maggie motioned to me to follow, and when I caught up, pulled me along the cliff road. “It’s my last chance to talk to you,” she said.

  A pair of gannets flew high over us, going toward the sea.

  “I’ll miss them,” Maggie said. “I’ll miss you.”

  My voice didn’t sound like my own. “I will be in Brooklyn, New York, myself, one day with you.”

  Maggie turned to me. I could see the flecks of gray in her blue eyes and count every one of her freckles, we were that close. “You are the heart of this family,” she said, “with your songs.”

  I shook my head a little. I couldn’t speak.

  “You will take care of Patcheen and the others.” She stopped.

  It was hard to swallow. “Celia is older.”

  She smiled. “Celia is loyal and true, and between the two of you, you’ll see, Da will find his home and warm hearth the way he left them.”

  At the top of the cliff a thin mist came from Patrick’s Well; beyond that the sea was a shimmer of silver. “Da’s out there,” I said.

  Maggie nodded, her eyes wet. “When you see him, tell him we’ll be together again someday.” She took a piece of my hair between her fingers. “I want to tell you, you who are always in a hurry …”

  “I don’t see the currachs out on the water today,” I said, to make her think of something else.

  “Everyone is sleeping after the wedding. They’re too tired to fish.” She gave my hair a bit of a pull. “Think of me when you’re not sure of something, Nory.” Her face was serious, her big eyes holding me. “Know that I’ll be there on the other side of the water. Th
ink of what I’d say, what I’d do.”

  If only I could tell her about the coin and Anna Donnelly. But what would she say? What would she think?

  Maggie touched my face. “I don’t even know why I tell you that. You will know what to do yourself. You are a great girl, a stór.”

  A great girl. I loved the sound of it. And then we heard the trill of music. “Paddy Mulligan with his fiddle out again,” I said.

  “He’s playing for Granda,” Maggie said, “for Granda’s war.”

  “The War of 1798,” I said.

  We stood there thinking about the story we had heard so many times, Granda with his friends, young and fighting with the French, hoping we’d be like the Americans and have our freedom from the English. “They had a new country out there in the States,” Granda always said. “They had freed themselves of the English just twenty years earlier. Why not us? Why not?”

  I hummed an old war song about the Irish and their courage, and Maggie finished with me.

  But all their courage hadn’t been enough. The English had an army, and souls of vinegar, and they had killed and killed, and we were still not free.

  Maggie and I went back together, and Patch ran to tell us Francey had gone to the Mallon house for his things. Maggie rolled up Mam’s wedding dress and tucked it back in the straw basket. “For you both someday,” she told Celia and me.

  I raised my head. “We will bring it when we come to Brooklyn.”

  Celia nodded, her little nose as pink as Mallons’ goat, her eyes swollen.

  Maggie was ready to go. The Mallons, all of them, waited outside. For a long moment Maggie hugged us, Granda and Celia, Patch and me. Granda put the sign of the cross on her forehead with his thumb. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of blue cloth. “Inside,” he said, “is a wee bit of salt. Take it against the sídhe.”

  “Oh, Granda.” She rubbed the bag between her palms. “I will keep it always to remember you.”

  We walked with them, even old Granny Mallon tottering along. We passed the church so Father Harte could say a last prayer. Then we started up the hill. Paddy played the fiddle and Sean said, “Sing, Nory.”