Miserere Page 3

  Caitríona was frightened now. Brónach reached over and took her cup and, muttering a few words in the Irish, an older form than Caitríona could understand, she threw the remaining liquid into the flames. Peering intently, she watched the shapes assumed by the steam and smoke as it rose. She then turned her attention to the sodden leaves remaining in the cup. Still muttering, she drank deeply from her own cup and looked at the wet leaves there as well.

  Caitríona was feeling strange. It seemed to her that the cottage was all in darkness, though it must surely still be day. The fire was the only light, and she found herself unable to look away from the flames. Brónach closed her eyes, swaying on her stool, and from her mouth issued a voice not her own.

  “Ill-fated shall your progeny be;

  From each generation after thee

  Only one girl child shall survive

  To carry on and keep alive

  The hope to right a grievous wrong,

  Until the one comes along

  Who may set the past to rights.

  None may help her in her quest, or

  Ease the burden laid by her ancestor

  On shoulders much too young to bear such sorrow.

  Not since barren fields stole all hope for tomorrow

  Has such a one been needed,

  When father sold daughter for land he was deeded,

  And plunged his soul into endless night.

  Hatred is poison, like blood on the fields,

  Father to daughter, a blackened soul yields

  Naught but mem’ries of what once was good.

  A child, ne’er soiled by hate or greed could

  Bring forgiveness and healing to those long gone.

  With the dead laid to rest, the living move on,

  Freed at last by a soul blessed with light.”

  Caitríona stared aghast at Brónach’s face, lit from one side by the fire as she slowly came out of her trance. Tears fell from the old woman’s eyes as she stared at Caitríona. “Gods be with you, lass.”

  CHAPTER 3

  “Can we help?”

  Abraham Lincoln Greene straightened his wiry six-foot-three frame and looked down at Conn and Will. He had the peculiar habit of turning his head to the left when speaking to people so that only the right side of his face could be seen. Only when viewed full on was his scar visible, a jagged white line in his smooth, dark skin, running from his left temple to his chin. It had tightened as it healed so that it pulled his features to the side, half closing his eyelid.

  “Well,” he responded, his deep soft voice an unexpected contrast to his appearance, “I suppose I could use a couple of assistants.”

  The week previous, Elizabeth had answered a knock on the back porch door to find Abraham already stepping back to get a better view of how high the ivy climbed up the chimney. He seemed unsure of how to respond when she came out to introduce herself, extending a hand to him. He shook it tentatively, and followed her into the kitchen where she showed him the original log portion of the house.

  “I want to convert this into a bathroom,” she said.

  After working out the details for what was to go where, he had started to work the very next day, roughing out the indoor portion of the plumbing and electrical wires. He had contacted a man who was putting in a septic system. Abraham was in the process of rebuilding the floor which had had to be raised to accommodate the new pipes.

  He led the children to a pair of sawhorses where he had marked several pieces of lumber for new floor joists. He picked up his old cross-cut saw and started the cuts for them, teaching them how to cut on the push stroke. With Will holding a joist steady by sitting on it, Conn began cutting, standing on an old upside-down apple crate. When she got tired, they switched. Abraham went back to nailing, calling out when he was ready for a new board.

  Elizabeth came out with three icy glasses of lemonade.

  “We’re helping Abraham!” Will bragged, his dark hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. “I mean, Mr. Greene,” he corrected at the stern look on his mother’s face.

  “I don’t mind if they call me Abraham,” he said as he accepted a frosty glass.

  “Thank you, Mr. Greene,” Elizabeth smiled, “but I would prefer the children address adults by their proper names.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he nodded, wiping the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve, a move both children immediately mimicked. “I should have floorboards down by Friday. And then we can get the tub hooked up for you.”

  “It’ll be heaven to be able to take a real bath,” said Elizabeth wistfully.

  “And use a real toilet,” Conn added. Both she and Will had been chased out of the outhouse by hornets which had territorially nested in the eaves.

  Slowly, the house was looking lived in. Abraham had shown Elizabeth how to operate the tractor and drag the mower through the grass. What the gang mower couldn’t reach, the children mowed with a push mower, its spiral blades whirring through the wispy strands. He showed Elizabeth how to fix the cords of the sash windows and replace the broken panes of glass. Once the bathroom was done, he planned to begin pulling the ivy off the chimney stones.

  They ate lunch outside in the shade where they could catch any hint of breeze there might be. It was only early May, but it was warm in the sunshine. Abraham initially ate by himself, reading a thick book he pulled out of his knapsack.

  He looked up one day at Elizabeth who was offering him a glass of iced tea. Puzzled, he said, “You are most unusual, Mrs. Mitchell.”

  Elizabeth smiled, noticing his book was a volume of Shakespeare. “You’re a bit unusual yourself, Mr. Greene. And I don’t mean to intrude if you would prefer to eat by yourself, but you are most welcome to join the children and me.”

  A few days later, he did just that. He peered over Conn’s shoulder as she lay on her stomach reading while eating her peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

  “Tom Sawyer, Connemara?” he asked in surprise. “That’s a pretty big book for someone your age.”

  “I reckon,” Conn said as she sat up. “May I see your book?” He handed it to her. She carefully turned the pages. “What are these?” she asked, indicating tiny penciled notes in the margins.

  “Those were my notes from my literature class,” he replied.

  “From when you were a student?” she squinted, trying to read the miniscule writing.

  “No.” He paused. “From when I taught.”

  “You taught English literature?” Elizabeth asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise. “Surely not around here.”

  “No, not around here. At a boys’ school up north.”

  Conn looked up. “If you were a teacher, how did you learn to fix houses?”

  Abraham chuckled. “This,” he said, holding up his hammer, “I got from my father. And this,” he held up his book, “I got from my mother.”

  “But… you got away,” Elizabeth said, puzzled. “And you came back here? To this? Why?” she asked in disbelief.

  Abraham’s gaze went to the farmhouse and back to Elizabeth. “Why did you come back?”

  Elizabeth’s eyes fell. “I didn’t plan to. I thought once I got out of here…” She sighed. “My husband is MIA,” she explained. “We came here to wait for him.”

  “I’m sorry,” Abraham said in his soft voice.

  Will tilted his head to one side. “If you both grew up here, did you go to the same school?”

  Abraham laughed, his scar pulling his mouth sideways. “No, William. Whites and coloreds went to separate schools, separate churches, separate everything.”

  “But that’s wrong,” Conn said, looking upset.

  “Yes, it is wrong,” Elizabeth agreed. “But it’s changing.” She glanced at Abraham. “Isn’t it?”

  He absent-mindedly traced a finger along his scar. “Some places, maybe. But there are still a lot of people who think all black folks should have stayed slaves.”

  “Your family came here as slaves?” Conn asked. “Ours, too.”


  Abraham frowned, puzzled. “You’ve got slave blood in your family?”

  “Yes,” Conn nodded. “My great-great-great grandmother. Right?” she asked her mother. Elizabeth nodded.

  “Came from Africa?” Abraham asked skeptically.

  “No, from Ireland,” Elizabeth replied. “She and her sister were sold by their father for five acres of land and sent to work on a plantation in America.”

  “Her name was Caitríona Ní Faolain,” Conn said.

  “How do you know so much about her?” Abraham asked curiously.

  “Mommy has been telling me about her since I was little,” Conn responded.

  Elizabeth smiled. “Her story has been passed down to each new generation,” she explained.

  “Every girl in our family has Faolain as a middle name so we don’t forget,” Conn said proudly.

  “Why didn’t I get Faolain, too?” Will asked, clearly feeling left out.

  Conn’s expression darkened as Elizabeth tousled his hair. “Because you’re the first boy on this side of the family and you’ll get to keep the name Mitchell. Conn’s name will change when she gets married.”

  “Oh, no it won’t,” Conn said resentfully. Will always got attention for being the only boy, for being the one who would carry on the family name, even though she was braver and stronger than he would ever be. “I’m not getting married. And I’m not changing my name for anybody.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Conn woke early and quietly dressed in shorts and t-shirt. Carrying her Keds, she tiptoed down the stairs. She opened the kitchen door silently and sat on the porch steps to put her shoes on. She’d been trying to talk Will into playing Huck Finn to her Tom Sawyer, but it was hard to have adventures with someone who was afraid of the dark and scared of climbing too high. She and her brother had explored much of the land around Nana’s house. Most of it was overgrown pastureland, but there were large tracts of undisturbed woodland, and a few streams nearby. And streams had fish.

  She ran to the barn, the cold dew on the grass tickling her bare ankles. She pushed against the door on the upper level and retrieved the pole she had hidden there, rigged with a long string and a safety pin for a hook. She remembered to grab the small coffee can she had stashed in the corner and stopped to dig up some worms. She made her way across a large, grassy pasture to one of the creeks they had discovered.

  Following it upstream, she searched for a spot that looked fishy, and came upon a deeper pool nestled at the base of a small waterfall where the stream tumbled over some boulders. Reaching into her can, she pulled out a worm and, grimacing only a little, put the worm on the safety pin. Squatting on a rock above the pool, she dropped her line in and watched the worm sink out of sight.

  She waited patiently, not sure what was supposed to happen. When she felt a tug on the line, she jerked the pole up so excitedly that the tiny fish on the safety pin flew in a wet arc over her head, landing on the grass behind her. She ran to scoop up her prize, admiring the blue and green and gold shimmers of the little fish’s scales. Quickly, she dumped the worms and dirt out of her coffee can and dipped it in the creek to fill it. Releasing the tiny fish into the water, she watched it swim round and round. Out of the corner of her eye, a movement caught her attention. She thought she saw a flash of blue denim and bare feet disappearing behind a boulder on the other side of the stream. She watched intently for a few seconds, but saw nothing else.

  Carefully, she made her way home, trying not to slosh the water out of the can. Her mother was in the kitchen by the time she got home. She had a fire lit in the stove and was adding more wood.

  “Where have you been?” Elizabeth asked, startled at Conn’s entrance into the kitchen. “I didn’t know you were up.”

  “Look!” Conn exclaimed proudly, holding the can out.

  Elizabeth peered into the can and jumped a little. “Where did that come from?” she asked.

  “I caught it!” Conn crowed.

  “What did you use for a pole?”

  Conn explained how she’d made one, and suddenly realized she’d left it lying by the creek.

  “Well, Jonah, set your whale out on the porch while you eat your breakfast, and then you can take it back and let it go,” Elizabeth smiled.

  Conn did as her mother asked and came back inside to wash her hands at the new faucet Abraham had installed in place of the kitchen pump.

  Will came into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes.

  “I caught a fish!” Conn announced.

  Will woke up properly at that and followed his sister out to the porch to see. They were soon lured back into the kitchen by the smell of bacon. Elizabeth, who was getting the hang of cooking on the ancient woodstove, fried up some eggs in the leftover bacon grease.

  The children hurried through their breakfasts and Will ran upstairs to get dressed.

  “Be careful, and be home by lunchtime,” Elizabeth called after them.

  Conn let Will carry the can back to the creek where they released the fish back into the water. She looked around for her fishing pole. It wasn’t where she’d left it. Will helped her look through the grass and bushes near the creek.

  “Lookin’ for somethin’?”

  Conn and Will both jumped at the sound of the voice. Perched high on the rocks overhanging the stream was a boy. He had blond, untidy hair and patched denim overalls which he wore shirtless. In his hands was Conn’s fishing pole.

  “That’s mine,” Conn said.

  “Prove it,” the boy challenged.

  Conn put her hands on her hips as she looked up at him. “It has a safety pin for a hook.”

  The boy seemed to consider this for a moment, then tossed the pole down. “Who wants it, anyway? It ain’t even a real pole,” he said disparagingly.

  “It was good enough to catch a fish,” Will declared. “Let’s see yours.”

  The boy shifted positions so he was sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of the rock. “Don’t wanna fish today,” he said.

  Conn laughed. “That means he doesn’t have a pole,” she said to Will.

  “Do so,” he countered. “I’m catchin’ crawdads today.”

  “Come on,” Conn said. “Just ignore him.” She led Will over to the small pile of dirt and worms she had dumped out of her can earlier. Picking a worm out, she speared it on the safety pin, trying not to make a face with the boy watching. She showed Will how to drop the worm into the pool, and they waited. When they saw a tug on the string, Conn and the boy yelled together, “Pull!”

  Will jerked up on the pole much as Conn had done, with another gleaming sunfish flopping at the end of the line.

  “Okay,” said Conn, “take it off the hook and let it go.”

  But Will was afraid to touch the fish. Every time he tried to hold it, it flopped and scared him.

  At last, Conn grasped the little fish and unhooked it.

  “You’re pretty brave, for a girl,” said the boy grudgingly as Conn dropped the fish back into the pool.

  “Gee, thanks,” said Conn sarcastically. “What’s your name anyway?”

  “Jed Pancake,” the boy replied.

  “Pancake?” Will laughed.

  “Yeah, Pancake,” Jed said defiantly. “I know who you are. You’re the folks lives in the haunted house, where old lady Cook died.”

  Will’s eyes got big. “It is not haunted,” he said, but he didn’t sound so sure.

  “He’s just saying that,” Conn reassured him.

  “Ain’t,” Jed insisted. “Everyone ‘round here knows it. There’s strange lights at night, in and outside the house. And folks’ve heard moanin’.”

  “Well, we haven’t seen any lights or heard any moaning,” Conn informed him. “Here’s a new worm,” she said, handing the pole back to Will.

  Will dropped his line back in the water.

  “Why ain’t you in school?” Jed asked.

  “Our school was almost done in New Mexico,” Conn told him. “Mom
says we’ll start next year. Why aren’t you?”

  Jed shrugged. “Don’t go ‘cept when I wanna.”

  Conn turned to Will who had another fish. Without asking, Will swung the pole toward his sister. Embarrassed, Conn snuck a look over her shoulder to see if Jed was laughing at them, but to her relief he was gone.

  “Huck would never ask Tom to unhook his fish for him,” she grumbled.

  §§§

  Orla and Caitríona trudged along behind the wagons, the sodden woolen blankets draped over their heads doing little to keep them dry, but at least keeping them warm. The wagons were loaded with trunks and crates carrying furniture, china and provisions. Besides the girls, there were two boys about Caitríona’s age who were to be stable hands, and a woman, Fiona O’Hearn, who would be cook. The wagons rattled along the rutted lanes leading them ever farther from home. The girls had quickly discovered that walking was easier than being tossed about, and the boys followed suit. The lead driver was a taciturn man who spoke only when barking orders. Fiona rode with the second driver, keeping a tight hold on the edge of her seat to keep from being bucked off. When they stopped for the night, the wagons offered some shelter from the rain, though the ground was soaking wet.

  For three days, they traveled thus.

  What had felt like a prison sentence to Caitríona after Lord Playfair’s visit now felt like a death sentence. Though she had heard the words of Brónach’s prophecy only once, they were burned into her memory forevermore.

  “What is it, daughter?” Eilish had asked as Caitríona isolated herself from the rest of the family those last few days before departing.

  Caitríona could only shake her head wordlessly and let her mother assume it was just her sadness at having to leave. She couldn’t express to her mother the hatred and loathing she felt – toward her father and toward herself. Her father was the cause of all this, but the curse indicated that she was somehow culpable as well.

  Niall had only been home a few times since that afternoon. When he was home, he bellowed angrily at all of them, swaying drunkenly until he collapsed into his chair by the fire. Caitríona had watched him warily, and had seen him leering at Orla with a drunken lust that sickened her. She began to feel almost glad that she and Orla would be getting away from him.