He lets my fingers go, then, and I can’t suppress a shudder, thinking of the night at the theatre, his hand around my wrist, squeezing. He was drinking, his self-control was low and he showed his true self too readily. That the hurt was for his pleasure and also to punish me for whatever bargain Aoife had driven him to, whatever high price she managed to extract. She’d made him feel like a boy, a powerless boy, I’ve no doubt, and he was going to get his money’s worth of revenge on me in whatever shape he could. Well, without Aoife’s will and determination, there is no deal. Soon, this will all be over.
‘Come in,’ I say and turn around, do not check to see if he follows. As I take the steps I feel the weight of Óisín’s penknife in my pocket, tap-tap-tapping against my thigh.
* * *
The funeral is small and quick, and I think how annoyed Aoife would be to have so few witnesses. She’d have wanted us to wait, to recall all the mourners who came to see Óisín off. Yet there’s just Aidan and I, Maura and Malachi, Ciara and Yri, the stable lads, the cartman and the potato-faced footman. No one’s seen the green-eyed footman since... well, no one can recall, and I confess I’d not looked for him after I’d had my use of him. Aidan, the footman, the biggest of the lads and I carry Aoife a’down, though Malachi protests. I tell him that this is my duty, but truly I don’t trust him on the stone stairs in the gloom.
The priest goes ahead of us holding a lit torch and we follow him slowly. The coffin is heavy, but though there’s only four of us for this office Aoife’s so light she barely makes it worse. This is my first time here – where I thought my parents rested – and I find I’m holding my breath. There are niches cut into the walls not so far down but there’s nothing in them but wooden boxes: well-made to stay intact, to keep the dead beneath.
The flickering flame makes every bit of darkness come alive. The steps stop abruptly, or abruptly for me because I’m looking around like a child, trying to take in every detail. I’m not afraid, but didn’t I see my own grandmother rise from her death, however briefly? What could be worse? Again the walls are lined with niches. At the foot of the far wall is another set of steps, leading further down, down where Óisín was laid not so very long ago. In the centre of this first chamber is a bier made of stone with engravings along its sides. If you slid the lid off, there’d be another coffin in there, one of the first O’Malleys. Aidan tries to move forward, to head towards the next set of stairs, but my feet are planted.
‘No,’ I say and I don’t care if he thinks me hysterical and overcome with grief; my voice has certainly gone higher than its natural wont. I indicate the bier. ‘Here.’
Because I don’t want her lying beside Óisín. I don’t want her forced to lie unwillingly beside him for an eternity because wasn’t a lifetime long enough? Let Aoife rest up here, above the first of us, the last queen the O’Malleys will ever see.
Aidan chooses not to argue with me, not here in the almost dark, not in front of servants or witnesses. But his expression tells me he’s adding this to a list of things to be corrected; that he’ll have the crypt reopened when he’s here as lord and master and have the old woman moved to her proper place – the one he’s chosen for her. He nods to the others and we all give a little heave to get the death-bed onto the flat surface, then angle it into place so there’s minimal scraping and pushing. The lad struggles but does well and I pat his shoulder then shoo him up the stairs. He goes gladly, followed swiftly by the footman and Aidan.
I take a moment longer, looking around, aware of the priest’s gaze on me. I put my hand on the box and think Here is the thing I didn’t tell you: that I loved you no matter what.
‘She’ll burn, you know,’ the priest says. He’d not be saying that if Aidan were here, whether Aidan pretends to follow the god-hounds’ tenets or no. ‘Witch and whore, defiler of the laws of man and Church and God.’
‘Interesting, the order of your words,’ I say, then lean close so my breath reaches his face, and I hope it feels like a curse. ‘So will you, burn. I’ll see to it. I won’t even have to leave the comfort of my home. I’ll send a hex on the wings of a crow or in the belly of the next fish you eat. You’re well aware that witchcraft travels in the blood, fool priest.’ His face goes pale so it stands out in the dimness of the crypt like the moon against a night sky. I turn and walk up the stairs. His footsteps behind me are rapid as if he doesn’t want to remain below on his own, but not so fast that he will catch up with me.
Up in the air I signal Malachi to begin the closing of the tomb once again. The god-hound scampers out. I send the maids and Maura off to make a meal, and leave the lads and footman to help Malachi. I walk down the aisle with quick long steps. A hand closes around my upper arm and I shake it off before Aidan can get too good a grip.
He must notice something in my expression as I turn because he steps back; and I can see once again that calculating look, the mental jotting of things that must be fixed.
‘Miren, I realise you are distressed but I feel we must talk. There are matters to be discussed and settled.’
He saw Aoife’s body when we loaded her into the coffin, saw the white dress. Does he know it was meant to be my wedding gown? Perhaps not, but perhaps he guessed. Perhaps Brigid told him. Brigid. I have a matter to settle with her. I nod, slowly, as if considering.
‘Yes, Aidan. At dinner, if you please, I would like to rest a little before then. It has been a trying time, cousin.’ I’ll play the fragile female for a while if I must.
‘Of course. It will be pleasant to speak alone.’
No, it will not.
‘A suite has been prepared for you in the East Wing.’ I say. ‘Yri will show you. I shall see you at dinner.’
The ring on my finger burns cold.
* * *
In my own room, I take Brigid’s quilt from where I hid it in a cupboard.
I’ve borrowed Maura’s fabric shears, the big ones, and I slice away a large corner. I wear a pair of thin leather gloves, though it makes the going slow; having cut into the thing, its magic will likely spill or be easily rubbed off and I don’t want Brigid’s spite on my bare hands. I pull the stuffing from between the two halves, then slice the fabric again into the coarse likeness of a doll. I stitch it together roughly – Aoife would frown at my laxity – and soon there’s a flat thing. I gather the stuffing up and push it into the figure so it looks like a small dumpling of a girl. It doesn’t need clothes or features, just my intent and the materials to hand. I snip at another corner and pull it apart to find what I’m after: a lock of blonde hair. Brigid made this, it would have been enough to simply use the materials she’s touched, but this curl, so personal, so intimate? She used it to strengthen the spell; I’ll use it now to do the same as I stuff it inside the head. Neither of us needs the blood of a witch in our veins to do this, merely intent. I’m careful not to prick my own finger while I make the thing for it’ll do no good to risk an infection, but I’m equally careful to make sure I use the bits of the quilt with the most of Maura’s expectorated ichor on it; her fear and anger will be embedded there. I take the tiny blue vial Maura gave me earlier and upend it: a glittering grey fall tips into the doll’s head. When I was little and having nightmares, Maura taught me to put a full glass under my bed: in the morning, the water would be black, having absorbed the bad dreams. Maura then made the aqua nocturna into this, dust of dreams. Finally, I sew the last gap closed.
I hold the mean little thing and a tear drips onto it. I’d not realised I was crying. How had we come to this, my cousin and I? When we were twelve, there was a boy. Rian, the son of one of the tenants, the Widow O’Meara’s only child, and so handsome. Charming, too, and he liked me. And although nothing ever happened between us, it was sweet and exciting and secret – a secret of my own. Nothing but that one single kiss down on the shingle just that one day. Who would I share such a secret with but my cousin Brigid… and who but Brigid would run and tell my grandmother? There are marks on my skin that have never gone
away. Unlike Rian O’Meara who disappeared one morning, never to be found, soon after the night Aoife beat bloody furrows into my back.
I blink to clear the tears and assess my work. It’s an ugly little thing, lumpen and imprecise in its shape, but the magic is there and it will work. I carefully remove a glove, then take out Óisín’s pocketknife to prick the tip of my thumb. I press hard against it with my pointer finger so three droplets weep out and drip onto the doll’s head; I whisper an ill-wish for Brigid, then carefully bandage the cut on my finger. I wrap the dolly in a shawl and hide it in the blanket box at the foot of my bed.
Then I get ready to go down to dinner.
* * *
Aidan is already seated in the small dining room when I arrive. At the head of the table as though it’s his right. He smiles when I enter the room, but as I’ve not bothered to change into one of the pretty dresses Aoife bought and make myself presentable, the expression is hard for him to maintain. He gestures to the place laid opposite him. It’s a small table, this one, only meant for four, so the distance between us isn’t really enough for my liking. Yri serves our first course, but doesn’t meet my eye. She leaves as soon as she can.
‘We will need to get you a new wedding dress,’ is how Aidan begins as if we’re taking up a conversation only recently interrupted. ‘I know it is soon after so much bereavement, but your grandmother would have wanted us to go ahead. It will be a small wedding in Breakwater, the archbishop has agreed to preside as a personal favour.’
‘Aidan, our engagement was purely to please Aoife. She is gone.’
‘But you will want to marry. You will want position and money. You will want the house restored.’ He gestures to the faded curtains, the air of decay that still hangs in spite of Yri and Ciara’s cleaning efforts.
And I shake my head. I love this house but it’s not worth the cost of my freedom. It’s not worth the cost of marrying Aidan Fitzpatrick. Whatever soul I might have, O’Malley though I might be, it is mine and I’ll not sell it at any price.
‘Aidan, thank you for your kind offer, but I will remain here with Malachi and Maura. The house devolves to me as per my grandparents’ wills. I will live out my days at Hob’s Hallow and when the time comes, the O’Malleys will be gone.’
‘You are very anxious to throw your young life away, Miren,’ he says evenly. ‘Upon what do you propose to live? There will be no funds to cover your expenses even after the ships are sold – if they ever return to port. And you cannot fail to remember how much I have done for you. How much I have spent on you and your grandmother.’
I pull the giant pearl ring off my heart finger, where it never belonged, and I slide the thing across the shiny dining room table so it hits Aidan’s dinner plate with a ting.
He stares at it as if it had addressed him in perfectly formed sentences. Aidan reaches out and picks up the hefty thing, weighs it in the palm of his hand as if he doesn’t very well know its value.
‘Yri,’ he says, then clears his throat. ‘Yri told me what happened when you were watching Aoife.’
I freeze, think that I should simply have murdered the girl to stop her mouth rather than trusting her. She’s not here to work for me. She’ll answer to Aidan, who pays her way. Still, it smarts to have been so stupidly trusting. Aoife’s in my head, smugly smiling.
Aidan continues, ‘She told me about the marks on your grandmother’s throat and that you and Aoife had argued in the morning, rather violently.’
I swallow.
‘I would hate to think that I needed to report these matters to either the Church or the authorities. Not when you stand to inherit everything now Aoife is gone.’
There are no authorities anymore, I think, but I say, ‘There have been strangers in this house, Aidan. All the new staff. One of the footmen is missing...’
The thought is there suddenly like a dagger.
He raises an eyebrow curiously. ‘There was only ever one footman, Miren. Ugly chap, looks like a potato.’
I stare. I cannot tell if he’s lying or not. But then, who else would send the green-eyed man here? Why else would he have disappeared so thoroughly? Unless he too is dead, lying in some as yet undiscovered location around the estate, at the foot of the cliffs, in another garden, or in the well in the cellar? But why would he have gone down there?
I open my mouth to say ‘But Maura and Malachi saw him,’ then I stop. If Aidan’s behind this, I won’t put their necks in nooses. I swallow again, hard, but before I can answer he says, ‘I think, Miren, you will find your life more pleasant if you continue along the path your grandmother laid out for you. The O’Malleys will be saved. We will have children, they will serve their purpose. The sea will be paid its due and we will rule the oceans as this family once did.’
In his eyes is the same look Aoife used to get, all ambition untempered by sanity. All want untempered by sense. I look down at my plate, at the meal I’ve not touched. Roast chicken, mashed potatoes, withered greens. There’s a basket of fresh bread in the centre of the table, curls of butter beside it. I take up the cutlery and slice the meat. I eat. I eat because I haven’t eaten all day. I eat because I’m going to need my strength. I eat because it will make Aidan think me submissive and accepting of my fate.
‘I was thinking that, after we marry, we shall spend the first month in Breakwater while Hob’s Hallow is renovated.’
‘What will you have done here?’ I ask as if I am interested. Already I can feel my heart separating from the only home I’ve known. But still, the idea of him changing this place, putting his stamp on it and bending it to his will makes my skin crawl. Perhaps the whole house will fall into the sea with him in it. The thought makes me smile and he thinks it’s for him. It is only bricks and mortar, it is glass and plaster and stone. It is no longer safe.
‘Óisín’s study is very small. I will have men knock through into the next room, and perhaps the one after that to make a much bigger space.’
‘There is damp in one wall,’ I say conversationally. ‘The workers will need to be careful the whole next floor doesn’t come down on them.’ He grunts acknowledgement. I go on, ‘And I would like to move out of the East Wing.’
He nods. ‘Yes. New suites for both of us. I’ve thought of that.’
And he goes on to tell me how he will design the rooms himself: one large bedchamber for us to share, with individual sitting rooms on either side for privacy. I nod. I smile. I notice there is neither wine nor whiskey at the table and I’m grateful for that. He’s still trying to hide himself, if only for a little while, even if he’s blackmailed me into marriage, even if he’s made me suspect he had my grandmother murdered. For what reason? She was giving him what he wanted just as he was giving her her heart’s desire. I want to scream and shout. I want to demand he tell me the truth.
But how much truth will he bear me knowing? How much can I learn before he decides I can be got rid of? After children, obviously. I pass the title of Hob’s Hallow to him, I pass the O’Malley name, I give him heirs to do what must be done. And then? I’m as unnecessary as any girl who refuses to obey her husband; like those in one of Maura’s stories, who took the key he gave them and looked into the rooms he forbade them from entering.
‘This is pleasant, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Miren?’
‘Yes, Aidan. It is pleasant.’ And I smile like a doll, like a moppet, like a toy he might play with any way he wants.
When Yri brings in the dessert – a simple trifle – I smile at her too. No hard feelings. I thank her kindly for all her help with Aoife. I tell her that I cannot imagine being able to run the house without her even after such a short time. She blushes with pleasure and I think about sticking my dessert fork through her left eye. Instead, I finish the last mouthful.
‘Aidan, if you will forgive me, I would like to retire now. It has been, as you know, a very difficult few days and I am exhausted.’
‘Of course.’ He comes to my end of the table to pull my chair out. I rise
and he stands close to me and my heart feels like it’s trying to leave me through my throat. He touches my hair. ‘We will be happy, Miren, I believe this.’
I smile and he leans to kiss me. He doesn’t taste like the green-eyed man; he doesn’t feel like him either. When he’s hard against me I gently push him away.
‘Our wedding will be soon enough, Aidan.’ I lower my lashes. ‘It’s best if we wait.’
He’s still and awkward but he steps back. He grabs my hand, though, and pushes the ring on my finger once again; forceful and clumsy. I don’t grimace, but touch his face as if in tenderness. ‘It’s not so long to be patient, is it?’
Aidan manages a smile. He will drink on our wedding night. And I’ll wake bruised on the next morning in more places than I knew I had. I kiss him once more, quickly. ‘Good night, Aidan.’
Up in my room, I sit on my bed and wait. It doesn’t take long. I think, from the lightness of the footsteps, it’s either Yri or Ciara who comes. And I hear the door lock with a finality Aidan would surely find satisfying.
13
I kick away my shoes with the pretty little heels, then strip off my dress, making sure not to leave the pocketknife behind. From the wardrobe I drag a pair of dark trews, and a shirt, a knitted sweater and an old navy pea coat; they all used to belong to Óisín. I’ve worn the outfit before, when my grandfather used to take me out in a little rowboat to fish, but it’s not frequent attire – I actually do like dresses and skirts as long as they’ve got pockets. I dress quickly, but set the coat aside: it’s too bulky for what I’m about to do. I fold it tightly and tie it with a leather strap that can act as a spare belt should I need it.
All the Murmuring Bones Page 11