All the Murmuring Bones

by A. G. Slatter

  Yri is standing limp and useless. I tell her to bring me the big crimson box from the library desk where I left it this morning. She goes with relief. I wonder if she’s ever seen death before; so soon to join a household, a fresh start, to be faced with this.

  I draw up a chair to sit beside Aoife. I hold her hand and contemplate how I feel, how I should feel, how I do feel. Grief-stricken, sad, but still so angry – I can’t deny that. Angry at Aoife and my mother, at Maura and Malachi and Óisín who all knew Isolde had left me behind. That she lived still. My grandparents were pillars of my existence. Pillars are strong, if cold and hard, they are at least a support. I had Maura for kindness and affection; Malachi for gruff gentleness. While it would have been nice to find strength and love in my grandmother, at least they weren’t entirely missing from my upbringing. I look at her hand lying in my own: long fingers, pale skin, blue veins, only one or two liver spots, neat nails. I remember her holding me as a child; I remember her carrying me to the cliffs and showing me the sea, telling me to listen to its song, that we belonged to it, and it to us. Then I remember her taking me to the rocks below and throwing me in. She was willing to sell me to regain a fortune. But I loved her because children always seek something to love, and I’ll miss her nonetheless.

  I look at her face and it’s strange to see her without that avid want she always wore, without her eyes bright as they sought opportunities, weaknesses to exploit in no matter whom or which situation. Her lashes are long, like feathers on her cheek. I’ll not see those dark eyes opened again.

  Then I notice her neck.

  The marks, that weren’t there ten minutes ago when we undressed her, are now clear as day beneath the ship’s bell necklace she wears that mirrors my own. In and around the delicate dip in her throat I can see oval bruises, as if thumbs were pressed there; around the sides, are lines, like fingers applied too hard to gain leverage. And the shape of a bell, too, quite distinct where the pendant was pushed hard against her. They get darker and darker, those marks, as I watch until they’re the purple of a blood blister. I’m reaching out to touch them when the hand in mine convulses and grabs at me and Aoife’s neat nails dig into my skin.

  I throw myself backwards with a shriek, tumble from the chair and across the floor until I fetch up against the legs of her dressing table. A gasp comes from the door, and there’s Yri, clutching the big red box in front of her, mouth and eyes wide.

  ‘Did you see?’ I shout, trying to expel all the fear from my chest along with the air in my lungs. ‘Did you see her move?’

  The girl nods.

  I roll onto my hands and knees, then use the table to haul myself up. When I think my legs will bear me, I move towards Aoife and Yri takes tiny steps from the doorway until we meet at the bedside. Even as we watch, the bruises on my grandmother’s neck are fading, fading, fading. Her eyes remain closed, the hand that grasped at me is hanging over the side of the mattress with that lack of tension only the dead can achieve.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I ask and she nods again, but I must be sure. ‘The marks on her throat – them. Did you see them?’

  ‘Yes, Miss,’ she replies in a trembling voice. ‘Yes, I did. And saw them go too. What does it mean, Miss?’

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t know. I don’t know.’

  I’ve heard tell how a murdered corpse will bleed if the killer comes close by, but Aoife’s bloodless; I’ve heard of bodies turning to wights before their funeral and running away lest they be put in the earth; I’ve heard, even, of those buried when they appeared lifeless, yet sounds were heard from their graves days or weeks later. When at last someone gathered the courage to investigate, to dig them up, they found folk who’d woken from whatever deathly slumber they’d fallen into in a box that couldn’t be opened for love nor money nor with any amount of prayer. And they were always dead by the time they were reached, even those rich enough to be buried in an aboveground crypt, for the shock of it was enough to carry them off.

  But this?

  This thing I – we – have just witnessed?

  Oh, no. I’ve never heard of its like before.

  Yri’s shaking so much I can hear the box rattling. I take her arm gently though it is an effort: instinctively I want to panic, I want to squeeze hard to feel something human, solid, living. To wipe away the sense on my palm of having touched something unnatural, something I’ll never be able to wash away. It didn’t matter when Aoife was just expired... but...

  ‘Yri, you cannot tell anyone about this. I don’t know what it means, but... you cannot tell anyone. Whatever was done to her... someone thinks they can get away with it. If anyone knows what we saw, neither of us will be safe,’ I say. ‘Do you understand?’

  Her eyes double in size then I wonder if she thinks I had something to do with Aoife’s death. Who heard us arguing this morning? Anyone?

  Yri nods slowly. ‘Will you tell Mr Fitzpatrick?’

  ‘Of course. Send... no, it’s too late in the day, I don’t want anyone being caught near the salt marshes in the darkness. As soon as dawn breaks tomorrow, we’ll send one of the footmen. But for now... help me with her, Yri.’

  She trembles even more as I take the box from her, and shake out the mermaid-tailed wedding dress. It’s mean, I know, but there’s some small satisfaction in this act. Yri has such tremors in her fingers she’s barely any use at all as I dress Aoife in the gown she intended for my sale. A wise woman, perhaps, would not be doing this, not after what she’d already experienced, with the threat of her grandmother becoming a heavy ghost. But if I were wise, I’d have fled when I had the chance. I’d have run away from Breakwater early that morning before the merfolk tried to drown me; I’d not have returned to the townhouse and foolishly believed my grandmother had my best interests at heart. I’d have stuffed my pockets with the shiny new jewellery and I’d have run before anyone thought to look for me. But now… now she’s dead and I’m free. The bargain she made with Aidan is broken.

  When Aoife is properly attired – the dress is a little tight but it hardly matters, she’s not in a position to complain and soon enough there’ll be less of her – I brush her hair until it lies like an argent stream over one shoulder, reaching down past her waist.

  ‘Will... will... will...’ Yri tries to get the sentence to form.

  ‘I’ll stay with her, I won’t make you. You’ve seen enough. But go and get Malachi for me.’

  When she’s gone I lean over Aoife, smoothing the bodice, stroking the sleeves, and I whisper meanly, ‘It was to be your wedding anyway. This suits you best.’

  * * *

  The grandfather clock in the corner chimes eight, and Malachi sits on the other side of the bed from me, puffing on the red-gold meerschaum pipe that used to be Óisín’s.

  I thought he’d be nodding by now – we’ve been sitting for hours – but he’s alert, just very still. He blinks every so often, breathing surprisingly quiet. His hair is the same iron-grey as Maura’s and you can see her in the cast of his face; there’s granite-coloured stubble on his cheeks and chin, but he’s clean-shaven every morning. He rises early and is asleep mostly before seven rings at night. He told me, once, that’s what happens when you’re old: your bones want to sleep but your mind won’t have any of it except at the most inconvenient times because it knows you’re just pacing out your days unto death.

  Malachi was married when he was younger, but Caitlin died in childbirth along with their daughter. Maura says he was never the same (and that’s when he moved into the big room above the stables), but that’s what people say, I think, when they get tired of another’s grief. Maura’s been impatient with him for as long as I’ve known them, and he’s been the way he is all my life; I’ve nothing to compare it to so I cannot tell if she’s exaggerating or not.

  ‘Did you know my mother?’ I ask, which is a stupid question because of course he did, living his life at Hob’s Hallow man and boy. What I mean is Did you know she was alive? But that’s equally st
upid because if Maura knew then so did he.

  He gives me a glance and gods know it’s one he might have learned from Aoife. ‘I know she’s not dead.’

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ And to my annoyance I sound like a wounded child.

  ‘Did you ever go against your grandmother? Not your little defiances. In any way that counted?’ His grey brows rise and he looks amused.

  I think of the wedding dress Aoife now wears like a dead bride; I think of my refusal to marry Aidan; I think of my stolen secret, the letters beneath my mattress once again; I think of my plans to run, so easily derailed.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Aye. No. If we’d told you we’d have been turned out of the home we’ve lived in since before you were born, missy.’ He nods. ‘She was afraid, I think, that if you knew you’d want to follow them. If you thought there was an escape.’

  ‘Did she know where they went?’

  He laughs. ‘If she did, do you think she wouldn’t have had your mother dragged back here and your father drowned in the nearest body of water? No, she didn’t know.’

  Isolde wrote to Óisín alone but she still didn’t tell him where she was.

  ‘Your mother... your grandmother had her plans and your mother had hers and they were never going to fit together. Isolde ran away then came back with that pretty boy in tow. He just followed her along like a pup couldn’t believe its luck.’

  I think about the last letter from Isolde, three years after she left me, so twelve years ago:

  Father,

  We are settled, we are established. The silver mine is seeded and working, and she is once again producing. The estate is called Blackwater, north of Bellsholm, more or less, and I think it would make you proud to see it. I wanted you to know that I am safe. I shall not write again.

  Isolde

  Óisín knew she yet lived but he told no one. My parents have money – had it then – yet she did not offer to send any relief; does not ask after me. Óisín didn’t write to beg aid – and how could he? She gives no address – but then it’s not as if she didn’t know the state of the O’Malleys when she fled. When she stole whatever she did and left me behind in place of a payment. If only she’d sent something, I wouldn’t have been sold to Aidan. Aoife would have had her fortune, she’d not have thought to match me with him. Or would she? She always had plans, and if she’d had money, she’d have been in a better position to negotiate with him.

  ‘She’d have done anything, wouldn’t she? Aoife?’ I ask and there’s a catch in my voice. I don’t know why I expected her to have loved me more than she did or at least more than her plots and plans. I touch my necklace, play with the bell, hear the gentle noise of its tongue against the body, dulled by my fingers.

  ‘Ah, missy. Your grandmother... Most people give back to the world the same treatment they received. Aoife was used as a bargaining chip by her parents and she wasn’t of a mind to deal with you or Isolde any differently.’

  ‘Her? What happened to her?’ I laugh, thinking I know everything about her.

  He pauses, hesitates so long I suspect he’s fallen back to his usual taciturnity. This is, in fairness, the longest conversation I can ever recall having with Malachi. Even when he taught me to ride horses, how to groom them, he was economical with his speech. Then he says, ‘They made her marry her brother.’

  ‘What?’ It’s like he’s slapped me. ‘What?!’

  ‘Óisín. He was her own brother. O’Malleys haven’t answered to anyone for the longest time, missy. Their parents thought there’d be another child, that there’d be a third and the pact could be honoured again. The mother was pregnant, and they sent Óisín off to a monastery near Lodellan to learn his craft, to be the tithe to the Church. I think they hoped he’d return as a bishop for Breakwater... but Saorla miscarried again and again and by the time Aoife was eighteen there was no longer any hope of another child, so... the parents sent for Óisín. They thought… they thought brother and sister would strengthen the bloodline.’

  I stare at Aoife’s calm face, willing her to wake, to answer all my questions, to hear an apology that’s not mine to make. But she’s gone and I know she won’t be back, there’ll be no more signs or wonders or horrors from my grandmother.

  ‘She was bought and sold. Her parents failed to lift the O’Malleys again, when there’d been so much hope. Any wonder she was obsessed with succeeding when her whole life had been consecrated to it and warped out of true? Who was to gainsay her? And Óisín, gentle boy raised by god-hounds? Who was he to defy such a sister? Some folk make a point of not visiting pain on others when it’s been done to them; most people, though, think it’s their due to inflict a little of their own agony. Aoife was no better than anyone else.’

  I look at him, and he continues.

  ‘Any wonder she was determined you’d be the instrument of salvation? Marry you off, take your children, dispose of them in the old way? Feed the sea its due, get your fortunes back? See the O’Malleys great again? What’s the cost of that against your little life, your happiness? Still and all, it’s hard to forgive a graceless heart.’

  The lads from Breakwater would have told him why they were there. Maura would have told him about the upcoming marriage. And I wonder at the fingermarks on Aoife’s neck. I wonder that Malachi was the one who kept the garden for her. That he would have known where she was. And I wonder how much he hated and loved her. I wonder if there’s still enough strength in his gnarled old hands to have made those marks and if her final success was the last straw.

  Then he leans forward as if he can hear my thoughts, ‘I’d never have hurt her, missy. For all she could be hard, when my wife and child died, she was kind. For a long while I drank a lot and wouldn’t allow anyone close. When your grandfather grew tired of me, Aoife was the one who intervened, told him that a life blown off course needed as much time as it needed to find its way again, but that I would. And I did.’ He sits back. ‘She could be awful as you know, she was as wilful as the storm, but she did have kindness in her and sometimes she let it out. Mostly, though, she was so concerned with rebuilding, saving what was slipping away because that was the burden her parents passed on. It marked her like a map and she couldn’t ever see beyond the lines of that landscape.’ He draws on the pipe, a cloud of blue smoke encircles his head. ‘Very few people are entirely good or bad, missy, but some ignore the calling of one or the other better than the rest of us.’

  I’m silent for a long moment. A tear creeps down my cheek, but my voice is steady when I say, ‘Thank you, Malachi.’

  Then he points the pipe at me; I rise and open one of the windows to let fresh air in. ‘There’s one more thing you need to know about your mother, missy. Everyone loved her, even Aoife. Loved her a great deal. She’s was your grandmother’s greatest hope.’

  ‘Did Aoife’s heart break when Isolde ran?’ I think of her rage whenever my mother was mentioned.

  He nods. ‘Perhaps, but more than anything your grandmother didn’t like being defied. I could tell you many things about your mother, but only one is of use to you: she was a witch. A proper one, one with magic running in her blood – nothing like Maura and her little rites, she’s not a true witch by any stretch. Proper witches need no props, just their will.’

  I sit back in my chair.

  ‘No one knew, not really. Not beyond us, the family. But Maura, damn her, saw it, taught the girl herbcraft and more and Isolde took to it. Maura just makes her tonics and tisanes for health; Isolde experimented. You don’t need much more than intent and ingredients to do small spells, but when a woman is born with magic in her veins? Then she can really make things happen. That was your mother. She could call storms, had a talent for making things big or small and that’s hard graft, she could enchant almost anyone she set her mind at, even Aoife wasn’t proof against her although she was the strongest. Charming can be a tricky thing, not everyone succumbs, and even those who do sometimes figure something’s not quite right… and
they get resentful, suspecting their will’s not their own. And Isolde, thank the gods, wasn’t mean-spirited, but she’d touch your hand and you’d be the happiest you ever were in your life, you’d swear devotion to her and it took some time for that to wear off. She was mostly sweet, mostly kind, she thought the magic was a plaything. But, missy, your mother was a witch and she could bend others to her will – and that will was as powerful as Aoife’s.’

  My mother was a witch and she left me behind, like a kitten in a barn; no better mother than a cat.

  12

  It’s early afternoon when Aidan arrives riding a fine black stallion. I sent the potato-faced footman with a message as soon as the sun rose. Behind him comes a cart containing an ebony wood coffin with gold fittings. A priest – the same one who mumbled over Óisín – sits beside the driver, looking miserable. Poor man, two visits to Hob’s Hallow in such quick succession! As if consecrating two O’Malleys will see him damned. Who knows, it just might.

  Aidan dismounts, throws the reins to one of the stableboys as if there’s no doubt they’ll be caught. The lad’s nervous and pale, but he manages, then leads the beast away. Aidan comes towards me and takes my hand, says, ’I’m so sorry for your loss, Miren.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So soon to be bereaved again.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, I do hope this is fine enough for her.’ He gestures to the death-bed, which is very fine indeed, so highly polished I can see my face in it. He’s sourced it very quickly, has Aidan, but then again for a man of his wealth I doubt there’s much waiting for anything. I’ve changed into another made-over hand-me-down mourning gown, so plain that even the jet buttons don’t stand out against the black fustian; I had to take it from Aoife’s closet. My hair’s pulled back in a tight bun and there’s no makeup on my face. I don’t look like a bride, at least not a joyful one. The ring on my finger still feels like a stone – I don’t really know why it remains there, only that somehow it felt like it needed to stay for a while at least, until I’m done with him forever.