Nory Ryan's Song (9 page)

C
HAPTER
17

W
hich was worse? Being alone in the dark house with Patch, or having nothing to eat but warm water with a few leaves floating around on top? No mussels were left, no limpets, no dulse. Strangers had come to the sea and taken everything, and now even they were gone.

I sat at the hearth that night, glad that Da had left us with enough turf to burn until he came back. I closed my eyes, missing him so much I had a pain in my chest. For a moment I saw him under the waves. I sat up straight. I couldn’t think about that. And then I saw it, poking out of a basket. My knitting. Better yet, Celia’s. Two shawls. Mine was
fuafar
, but the other was lovely. “Great girl,
a stór
, Celia,” I whispered.

Patch looked up from his wall of stones. “Are you saying your prayers, Nory?”

I smiled at him. “No, talking to my own self.” I patted the floor next to me and he scooted over, skinny as a strand of the wool.

“Do you remember potatoes?” He had the sound of an old man.

I gave him a hug. “I’ll knit these shawls as fast as I can, and we will take them to Ballilee straightaway and sell them.”

“For coins?” Patch asked dreamily.

“Yes,” I said, “and we will turn those coins into food. What do you think of that?”

I turned Celia’s shawl right side out, then wrong side out. I fiddled with the needles. Knit next? Purl? Do something about fringe? I sat there with the knitting in my lap, staring first at the wool, the color of oats, and then at the turf in the hearth, bits of glowing orange blocks. My legs were heavy and my arms weak. It was hard to think.

Patch shook me. “Don’t sleep, Nory.”

I jumped. The fire was low now, and outside it was dark. I sat absolutely still, trying to listen to the creakings that might mean footsteps. The
sídhe
. Or strangers looking for food, looking for turf, ready to take them from me.

On my lap was food, a shawl to be turned into coins, turned into a loaf of bread, if I could just think about how to do it. I took a breath. “We will go to Anna’s,” I said, “and show her the shawl and she’ll tell me how to finish it.”

“And she will give us milk,” Patch said.

I shook my head. “No. The cow is gone. Gone with Muc and Biddy to England. They will be English animals now, not Irish.”

I thought about leaving Patch there in the house alone. I wondered if he was too weak to walk across the double field to Anna’s. But I could see him falling asleep, leaning forward, and tumbling into the fire.

Not only that, I was afraid to go alone.

The wet grass squeaked under our feet. I closed the door carefully so no traveler would think it was empty, and took Patch’s hand in mine. I knew the
sídhe
searched for boys to drag down into their rings. But Patch’s skirt was long enough to dip along the ground, and his hair covered his ears. No one could guess he was a boy.

I stood in front of the closed door and peered across the yard and at the road. I looked everywhere to be sure no one was out there. “Come on now,” I said. “We are safe.”

The Mallons’ house was a black smudge in the fog, the stone walls sleeping, the worn path quiet as we tiptoed over it. We ran the last few feet, breathless. I raised my hand to knock at Anna’s door, but before I touched the wood, the door opened, and we rushed inside.

Anna looked pale and sick, but her voice was strong. “It is late for a visit,” she said.

I held up the knitting. “I don’t know how to finish this.”

She took the shawl from me and put it on the table. I was so glad to be there, so glad Patch and I weren’t alone, that I sank down on the floor in front of her hearth.

Anna swung the kettle over the fire, and when the water bubbled up she threw in a handful of dried herbs.

Patch was asleep in an instant, fallen across the straw in the corner. Anna covered him with a rusty black coat and came back to the fire to give me a cup of the water and to pour one for herself.

I sipped at the bitter drink, telling myself not to think about the trip back to my own dark house, or the mist outside, or the
sídhe
hiding in the hedges to grab at our feet.

Instead I watched Anna take the bundled-up knitting from the table. As I took the last sip, she moved closer to the fire and began to knit. She picked at the wool, patted it, dug the needles into it, and then her fingers were flying, the yarn moving up and over one needle and across to the other.

Patch’s breath was soft and even in his corner. I breathed with him, thinking of Maggie and Da, of Celia and Granda out on the road, and of Sean Red. Where was he sleeping? Was he lying on the side of the road near the bay, freezing this night, or had he made it back to his house? I shivered.

And then I thought of Anna’s son, Tague. If it had been daytime with the door open and the light coming in I would never have asked. But inside we were close together, and warm, with the fire throwing great shadows on the stone walls. The only sounds were the
click-click
of the needles and Patch’s breath, and I blurted out, “Tell me about Tague.”

The needles clicked for another moment. Then she began to talk. “He was always singing, never still. And after he was gone the whole world seemed quiet. I thought there’d never be another like him.”

I swallowed my tea.

“But then,” she said, “years later, I began to watch someone, a small child backed up against a wall, her mother dying, and there was nothing I could do.” She held out her hands. “Nothing I knew would save that young mother.”

I made a sound. Mam. Of course, she would have tried to save Mam. How could I have thought otherwise?

Anna nodded. “This child had such love in her, a laughing child, brave like my son. She sang. She climbed over walls. She left gates open. She danced through the cemetery and over the cliffs.”

Anna ran her old hands over the shawl in her lap. “And I loved her for that. Loved her always.”

Me. She was talking about me.

“But there was more,” Anna said. “I had spent a lifetime learning about plants and what they could do to heal.” She bent her head. “I had to teach all this to someone. I knew that the girl who sang, the little girl who could remember the words and the songs, would remember the herbs and the magic of them.”

She looked up and I could see the tears in those faded blue eyes. “But she was afraid,” Anna said. “Afraid of my magic, afraid of me.”

I pressed my knuckles against my mouth. “Oh, Anna,” I said.

She reached forward, grasping my hand. “My coin didn’t matter. I’m an old woman and it doesn’t make any difference if I die, as long as I pass that healing on to you.”

I wiped the tears that dripped down my own cheeks. I was bursting with love for her. I reached out to pull her close to me and leaned my head against her cap.

C
HAPTER
18

I
dreamed of an apple, a shiny green one. The sweetness of it was in my mouth and the juice ran down my chin. I opened my eyes. Patch and I lay in a tangle of old coats with bits of straw covering us. Anna stood next to the bed with an apple in her hand.

Still a dream
, I thought.

But this apple wasn’t shiny green; it was wrinkled and almost as gray as the cloth that was tucked up under my chin.

An apple.

“Where did you get that?” I leaned up on one elbow, but Patch reached across me. Anna was almost smiling. “I saved it.” She put it in his hand.

We sat on the edge of her bed, Patch and I, taking turns. I held it out to Anna once, and then a second time, but she shook her head and motioned for us to eat. We ate until it was finished, core gone, seeds gone, everything gone, even the stem. And Anna watched, nodding.

We lay back against the straw, wishing for something else to put into our mouths, wishing for another apple. Patch began to whimper. I put my hand on his arm to stop him from saying what I wanted to say myself.

He said it anyway. “Do you have another apple, Anna, please?”

She touched his soft hair. “I finished the shawl during the night,” she said. “The wool is good, and the stitches are fine and even.”

“Oh, Anna,” I said, and swung my legs out of the straw. “I will go to Ballilee with it to sell.” I sat on the edge for a moment. It was a long walk and I felt shaky even after the apple.

Patch struggled up out of the straw. “I will go with you, Nory.”

Anna grabbed my wrist. “Be careful,” she said sharply. “Don’t let strangers see you with any money. Spend it wisely. Buy only what’s necessary.” She looked angrier than I had ever seen her. But I knew it wasn’t anger. The lines and furrows in her face had to do with worry.

“I will be careful,” I said. “I will buy what we need and then come back. Will you …”

“… take care of the little one,” she said.

I nodded.

“No.” Patch began to cry. “We will buy a penny bun.”

I swooped down to give him a hug, but I didn’t stop to tell him he couldn’t go with me. I just went, listening to his crying.

It was a beautiful day, the sea laid out flat and gray, and in back of me the sun coming up over the cliffs. I walked slowly, the shawl hidden under my petticoat. But no one was on the path this morning. Scavengers were at the water’s edge where nothing would wash up. The land was bare as well. Even the grass was sparse because people had pulled up huge clumps to suck on. Nothing else grew, except the razor-sharp sea grass on the sand dunes near the water.

I kept walking, planning. How much would I get for the shawl? Whom would I sell it to? What was the most important thing to buy afterward? And I thought of the package in the post office.

I reached the main street at last. People filled the street, people with no money for a shawl, no money for food. They stood in front of the bakery, waiting, coughing, holding each other up. Others were at the hotel, hands out, swaying a little. Their eyes were huge in their bony faces. And even though the day was cold, some of them wore almost no clothing, just pieces of rags. One woman had only her petticoat.
They must have sold whatever they could
, I thought,
to buy a bit of food
.

I pushed through them to the door of the hotel, and I waited too, looking through the lobby window.

Inside, women were sitting in front of the hearth. One of them wore a ribboned hat that dipped and bobbed as she spoke. A woman with a brooch and rings sparkling as she moved. Lord Cunningham’s wife!

She was holding a thick piece of brack to her mouth. But a man guarded the doors; he was so big I’d never be able to pass him. I held up the shawl so the people around me couldn’t see it, but I hoped the woman in the hat did.

I stood there for a long time watching her take delicate bites of the brack, wondering how it must be to have so much food. At last she wiped her buttery fingers on a piece of cloth and turned toward me. She looked at the shawl, then motioned to the guard.

He opened the door just enough to take the shawl for her. The woman held it up, feeling the ribs of it, running one finger over the pattern. The hat bobbed once again. She reached into a small red purse and gave coins to the guard.

I saw him put one in his pocket before he opened the door, but he dropped three others into the palm of my hand.

I took the steps down from the hotel, pushing my way between two women with babies, and the children who were sitting in the street. I darted around the side of the hotel and sank down in a quiet spot. The coins were of different sizes; how much were they were worth?

I thought about bread, or a handful of oats. But most of all I thought about the package that lay on the shelf in the post office. If I could have it in my hands, it would be better than a loaf of bread. It would be like having Maggie back with us in Maidin Bay.

But Patch needed food more than a package that might be anything, or almost nothing. What would Maggie do?

I stood up at last, feeling dizzy, hungrier then I had ever been, and started up the street, walking around the groups of people. I had never seen so many before. Some of them lay against the walls of the shops, looking as if they’d never get up, their eyes sunken in their heads. They were almost like skeletons. And it was quiet now, so quiet. I pulled my shawl over my mouth and made my way around them to the post office.

The window was filthy. I peered through the dirt at the shelf with the box and its bits of colored paper, and the
R
for
Ryan
. But Patch’s face was in my mind, and Anna’s. Suppose there was no food in that box or nothing that could be turned into food? But there was something inside that Maggie thought we wanted or needed. What?

I leaned against a piece of glass in the window to stop the pounding in my head. It was cool and I hated to move. But I went through the alley to the back of the bakery with the coins tight in my hands.

At the doorway, I held out one of the coins the way I had held out the shawl, covering it so only the baker could see what I was holding. After a while he came to the door and reached for the coin with his dusty white hands. He came back with a knob of flour in a twist of paper and a handful of oats in a small bag.

What else could I buy? I hurried, head down, to the main street again with the package under my shawl. I had to find something that would last.

A man holding a can blocked my way. “It’s milk,” he said, “the last from my cow before they took her away.” He bit his lips, chapped as Celia’s and mine were, but there was something about him, his eyes almost hidden under straggly hair, that made me think of Devlin. I took a step away.

He followed me. “The whole can for a coin.”

My headache was worse; I was dizzy, trying to think of what to do.

Should I buy it?

Would I spill the milk on the way home?

It had a strange color after all, almost like one of Biddy’s eggs. I shook my head and took another step and another …

 … and backed into the doorway of the post office.

I was dizzy, thinking of Maggie’s face in front of me. She shook her head,
no
, and Celia said,
“You never think of what you’re doing.”

I should put this coin into Anna’s hand. Instead I put a coin on the counter. I couldn’t even speak. I just pointed up. Somehow I knew Anna wouldn’t mind.

The postman looked down at the coin. He shook his head, so I put down the last coin. And then the package was in front of me, and I was putting my
N
on a lined piece of paper. “To say that you received it, you know,” he said.

I went out the door, holding it, weighing it in my mind, not heavy, not light. I ran my fingers over the bits of color, red and green, and the writing. I could even pick out my own
N
, and Celia’s
C
, as well as the
R
for our
Ryan
. But I didn’t stop to open it. I took the narrow twisting road that circled Maidin Bay and led toward home. Through my dizziness I could still see us, the three of us, around Anna’s hearth. We’d have a dollop of stirabout each and enough flour for a tiny loaf of bread that would last us for days. And maybe by that time Celia and Granda would be back, and Da with coins in his pocket, and I would tell him, “Anna first.”

As I reached the top of the hill, I saw her house below. My head was full of my packages and how I would put them on the table and what Anna would say and what Patch would do. I hardly felt the rain as it pelted down on me, covering the road and the rock walls on each side. I hardly noticed the fog as it blotted out the cliffs.

By the time I heard the footsteps it was too late. I felt a hand on the back of my neck, felt the push. I threw my hands out to stop myself from falling, but it didn’t help. There was a sudden pain as I went down and a rock tore open my forehead.

I looked up to see the man running with my packages under his arm, his hair streaming out in back of him. His can of milk rolled down the hill, splashing milk as it went.

I closed my eyes. I didn’t want to see anything else. Celia was right.
I didn’t think
.

It seemed as if my eyes were closed for only a minute, even though it was dark when I opened them and I lay in the straw of Anna’s bed, shivering. Anna and Patch crouched on the floor next to me, both watching.

Anna held up my head and poured something into my mouth. Something bitter,
fuafar
. And even though I could hardly think, I knew the herb: comfrey.

“Nory is sick,” Patch said, but Anna shook her head. “Not sick, shocked. Something happened to her.”

The sound of a cloth being ripped, cool water on my head, the smell of comfrey. I was asleep, and then awake, listening to Patch ask for food, to Anna as she made a soup for him and tucked him in beside me, still listening as Patch’s breath slowed and thickened in sleep.

Anna’s hand was on my cheek. “It’s all right,” she kept saying. “It will be all right.”

I opened my eyes once, and then, at last, I really slept.