Bury the Living (Revolutionary #1) (19 page)

“I didn’t say it would be easy! It hasn’t been easy on Kate and Mary, has it? But it works. Nell Ryan, Maud Gonne, Kitty Costello, they all got released, didn’t they?”

“Yes, but think of how they suffered!” Lena said. “They had to carry them out on stretchers, and they were brought straight to hospital.”

“Nora, surely you agree with me,” Pidge said, her eyes pleading. “You’ll join me, won’t you?”

Nora hesitated. Would two more hunger strikers really be enough to turn the tide? “I don’t know, Pidge. It doesn’t seem . . .
enough
, somehow, if that makes any sense.”

“Not enough? What more could we do than lay down our very lives? You’re not afraid, are you?”

“I’m willing enough to die for Ireland, if that’s what you’re asking. But if what Jo says is right, and no one seems to care about what Kate and Mary are doing, what makes you think they’ll care about you? How d’you think it will change anything? The most you can hope for is release, and then what? You’ll be so weak and sick you won’t be of any use to the Republic. You’ll be free—but for what?” The thought of Pidge’s healthy figure wasting away, week after week, was horrible to imagine.
Look after Pidge
, Mrs. Gillies had written.

“It’s solidarity, that’s what it is,” Pidge said. Pink blotches were forming on her pale cheeks.

“Have you ever actually been hungry? For more than a few hours, that is?” She shut her eyes, trying to block out the memories. Emaciated men, women, children trickling into the refugee camps. People dropping dead by the side of the road, only to be carved apart by vultures. “I’ve
seen
people starve to death. It’s the worst way to die, Pidge. We know they’re thinking of executing one of us. What if they decide to let one of us die of hunger? Are you willing to take the chance, just for the sake of solidarity?”

“I’m surprised at you, Nora. For all your talk of being a revolutionary . . .” Pidge glowered at her feet.

Nora couldn’t blame her. Ten years ago, she’d have felt the same way. “If it would change things, then I’d be the first to do it. But you’re right: I don’t want to starve myself just to be released and sent to hospital for weeks. I want more than freedom from this jail. A hunger strike won’t achieve that.”

“Then what will, Nora?” Jo asked softly. Pidge was still avoiding her gaze.

Nora shook her head. “I wish I knew.”

Nora spent the rest of the day getting a feel for the routine of Kilmainham. She understood Pidge’s frustration—she felt it herself—but if the memory of the H Block prisoners in the Maze had taught her anything, it was that the British were more than happy for Republicans to starve themselves to death. It had never seemed a particularly effective tactic, considering the cost, but she could tell Pidge was still thinking about it. The younger girl spent most of the afternoon in her cell in the West Wing. Nora watched her chew her biscuit at lunch slowly, methodically, as though savoring every bite. They didn’t speak of it again, but something had changed between them. It made her feel strangely lonely. Her thoughts flitted from Thomas to Mrs. Gillies’s letter to the Brigidine Sisters . . . and finally to Eamon. He’d been a reluctant revolutionary if ever there was one. He would have scoffed at the idea of going on hunger strike, she was sure of it. He had been far too practical for such things.

She forced herself to join the others in the exercise yard for a game of rounders. No one seemed to mind that she didn’t know how to play; she blamed it on being a city girl. It was simple enough, much like the baseball games she’d seen on the telly. A bowler threw the ball to a batter, who tried to hit it with a wooden chair leg. Other women tried to catch it and tag the batter before she reached one of the posts around the yard. It felt good to do something active, and the camaraderie of the other women helped soothe her own bitter disappointment over the confiscated camera. She avoided the girls from Belfast, lest they ask too many questions, and instead stuck close to Jo and Lena and their friends from Cork. The competition in the game was heating up when Julia O’Neill sent the ball soaring over the wall and out onto the street. A collective groan rose from the players.

“That was our last ball!” one of the Cork girls cried.

“I’ll write for another one right away,” Julia said, her face turning pink.

“Ach, it was a good shot, so it was,” Nora said. “I think this means you won the game.”

After supper, some of the girls gathered in the corridor outside the hospital room to sing hymns. Nora stood a little way off, listening to their soft voices. She wanted to offer her support to the hunger strikers, but she didn’t want to intrude on this intimate moment between those who truly belonged here, in this time.
Let us carry your cross for Ireland, Lord
, they sang. Her chest ached. She missed going to Mass with her mother and Eamon. She’d say extra prayers for them tonight.

She followed the stone walls back to her own cell, letting the voices fade behind her.

She woke hours later to a knock on her cell door. She picked up her burning candle and, keeping a blanket around her shoulders, opened the door. It was Julia O’Neill.

“I saw you were next on the prayer schedule, so I thought I’d wake you. Shall I wake Pidge as well?”

“No, I’ll do it,” Nora said quickly. “So we just . . . pray by the altar? On the landing? This is my first shift.”

“Yes, second floor of the other wing. You’ll see it—Grace Plunkett painted a beautiful picture of Our Lady. Just try to stay awake. That’s why there are two of you. Monica Doyle fell asleep last week, and the OC was ragin’.”

“Ta,” Nora said. “Good night.” She watched Julia pad down the hallway, then grabbed her rosary beads. She’d let Pidge sleep for another hour, then wake her.

Julia’s sister Frances was still kneeling in front of the altar when Nora arrived. She cleared her throat softly.

Frances didn’t say anything—she just smiled and got to her feet, then walked past Nora and down the stairs.

Nora shivered. The tour guide in the future had told her Kilmainham was said to be haunted. Alone in front of this altar, surrounded by the cells of women who had been long dead on her first visit to this place, the idea of ghosts seemed all too possible. The entire jail seemed to be holding its breath. Were Kate O’Callaghan and Mary MacSwiney meant to die here? Was something else afoot?

The altar was simple enough, a small wooden table covered in a white cloth embroidered with fine blue and yellow flowers. A painting of two saints decorated the wall behind it, the Virgin Mary presiding above them. Nora picked up the lit candle from the altar and held it closer to the painting. The two figures were identified in small black letters at the bottom of the image: “Saint Colmcille” and “Saint Brigid.”

Well.
Perhaps this was the right place, after all.

Kneeling, Nora crossed herself and clutched her rosary beads. She prayed the Our Father and a couple of Hail Marys, feeling guilty that she’d let her devotion slip amid the chaos of the past few days. She stared at the painting of Saint Brigid as she recited another Hail Mary.

“If you have a plan, could you just tell it to me already?” she muttered.

The silence of the jail closed in on her.

“Or if you have any ideas, that would be grand as well.”

Nora stood and rubbed her knees. When she turned around, a guard was watching her from near the top of the staircase. She stiffened, then raised her chin and walked toward him, planning to tell him to leave her alone. But as she drew closer, those thoughts were pushed from her mind. His face was thin, with a long, straight nose and eyes just a little too close together. The same red hair as hers peeked out from under his cap. He looked young. Eighteen or nineteen, maybe.

“What are you looking at?” he asked.

“You’re . . . you’re Roger O’Reilly, aren’t you?”

“Aye. What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. You just . . . you look like my brother, is all. I’m an O’Reilly as well.”

“Oh, aye, you’re the one who caused all the trouble with your smuggled camera, are you not?”

“Just trying to tell the truth.” She kept her gaze steady. “You’re the one who got Miss Wilson fired.”

“’Twas her own doing, so it was.”

“Why do you work here, Roger? You come from a family of Republicans.”

His eyebrows twitched. “How do you—you don’t know what you’re on about.”

“Don’t I?”

“What, you think because we have the same surname you know my family?”

She regarded him silently, struck by the family resemblance. He looked away from her gaze—maybe he could see it, too. It was definitely the young man in the photograph she’d seen at Aunt Margaret’s, the one of her grandfather and his brother laughing, their arms slung around each other. “Is your brother here as well?” Her grandfather had died when she was a little girl, and she could scarcely remember him. The thought of meeting him here filled her with excitement. Might he believe that she was his granddaughter, come from the future?

“How d’you know about my brother?”

What was she supposed to say?
Mind yourself.

“I just thought maybe we were distant relations. Both of us being from Belfast and all. I can tell from your accent,” she added hurriedly.

“Aye, well, I’ve loads of relatives I’ve never met, so I suppose it’s possible. But that doesn’t mean you’ll be getting special treatment, y’hear?”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Nora was about to ask why Roger had come to Dublin, but then she remembered the date on the back of the photograph at Aunt Margaret’s, and her blood chilled. April 4, 1923. The date of Roger O’Reilly’s death.

“What’s the date, Roger?”

“April 1, I reckon. Or April 2, I suppose, seeing as it’s past midnight. Why d’ye ask?”

“Nothing. I just . . .” She couldn’t take her eyes off him. It was as though she were already seeing a ghost stalking the halls of Kilmainham. On an impulse, she reached out and laid her hand on his arm.

He jerked away. “Houl on! What are you playing at?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, drawing away. “I just . . . I’m sorry.” She ran back to the altar, pressing the rosary beads into her chest. Should she warn him? Would it even work? Or would he, like Mrs. Gillies and Mrs. Humphreys, suspect she was not as she seemed?
I don’t even know how he dies, let alone where. What if I tell him to stay inside all day, and his house catches on fire? What if I’m the one who causes his death?

She squeezed her hands together, the beads pressing into her palms. “Holy Father, Mary, Brigid, anyone who is listening, this isn’t what I signed up for. I don’t want this man’s death on my hands. What should I do? What should I do?”

She stayed at the altar until a voice softly said her name.

“You’ve gone and done the shift for both of us,” Pidge said, pulling a prison blanket tighter around her shoulders. “Why’d you not wake me?”

“I planned to, after an hour. I suppose I just got into it.” She checked over her shoulder. Roger was still at his post, watching them.

“Well, it’s Cis and Una’s turn now. They’re on their way up. C’mon.” They tiptoed together back to their cells, nodding at their replacements on the way. Nora’s knees ached, and she was shivering.

“Have time for a talk?” Pidge asked.

“Aye, o’course.” Pidge followed her into her cell. They sat close together on the mattress, both clutching their candles.

“I’ve decided I’m going to do it.” Pidge didn’t look at her but stared into the flame in her hands.

“Join the hunger strikers? Do you really think that will bring about Ireland’s freedom?”

“All I know for sure is that sitting here doing nothing certainly won’t.”

Good Lord, was she really willing to die out of sheer stubbornness? “If it’s your freedom we’re talking about, just sign the form, like Dorothy MacKinnon. You’ll be back with your family by nightfall.”

“And have everyone think I’m a traitor? I’d rather die.”

“That’s just the problem—you might. Think about your family, for Christ’s sake. Do you think your mother can stand to lose another child?”

Pidge stood up and crossed to the other side of the cell. She leaned her back against the wall and glared at Nora. “Why are you so against this?”

“I’m trying to save your life!”

“Did you even read what I wrote in your autograph book?”

Nora frowned. “No . . . I’ve not had a chance yet.”

Pidge went to the door. “Read it. It sums up everything. And if you still can’t understand why I’m doing this, then you’re not who I thought you were.” She opened the door and walked out. Nora heard the cell door on the other side of the corridor open and close.

Ballix.
She grabbed her autograph book and opened it to the first page, where Jo had written:

Now, Nora, my dear, always be of good cheer,

And don’t let the ‘Union’ oppress you,

There are great times ahead when the Slave State is dead,

And an Irish republic will bless you.

—
Jo O’Mullane, Kilmainham Gaol April 1923

She turned the page to see Lena’s signature.