Tale of a Shadow

The Skib

An almost indiscernible twitch of the sacking gave him away as she crept slowly and quietly towards her friend, stooping low and holding her breath, hands clasped behind her back for fear that even the sound of them brushing against her dress would alert him. Wet grass made a gentle whooshing noise as it brushed against her heavy boots so she slowed her pace even more, moving silently like a cat closing in on its prey, then taking hold of one corner of the empty sack, she slowly lifted it, careful to make no sudden movements. The face staring up at her showed no regret, only pleasure at being found, and he didn’t run but stayed perfectly still in happy surrender in their game of hide and seek, his dark, round eyes shining out mischievously at her, his ears blushing pink like sea thrift giving away his obvious pleasure at their play. ‘Found you Faerie!’ she whispered triumphantly.

In a bright sliver of space between cold, damp earth and the heavy skies that hung above them, their tribe of two made its own special place in the world where there were no fights or shouting, no space given over to the cold slap of misery. Faerie never said cruel things to her, in fact he never said anything at all, instead always staying silent, listening intently to her like his life depended on it, hanging himself on the edge of every single word until the last before moving closer to her, eager for more sustenance. When she needed him to answer, give her what she needed, she would speak it for him. Poor Nancy, thems s’cruel t’you. Yer the prettiest girl in the whole o’ Kinlough. Yer da’s a duderal an’ yer ma’s a witch. Delighting in the other’s happiness and the small pleasures that came to them in this meagre life, they spent their days escaping to places where they were taller beings, adventurers, imagined themselves as a faerie king and queen in their fine clothes driving a chariot through the forest or on a ship tossed by the waves in Donegal Bay. They shared their dreams, understood each other’s place in things, accepted it.

‘Girl! Girl! Whar you at?’ The irritation in Michael Sullivan’s miserably thin voice was carried to her on the wind. She had been sent out to fetch water half an hour ago so where was she? Nancy raised her finger to her lips as a sign to her friend to stay quiet. ‘Next time A’ll hide an’ you come find me.’ Faerie stayed quiet but blinked his dark eyes slowly in his understanding of her instruction. Their game over, she turned back to the cottage picking up the half-filled bucket on the way, in her rushing unable to keep it steady, slopping and splashing its contents.

Her father was waiting at the door. ‘Get yerself inside, you anger yer mother an’ A get the brunt o’ it. You raise ructions in this house.’ He went to cuff her as she passed him but with such little conviction that she was able to dodge him easily like she usually did.

The air inside the cottage was thick and heavy, filled with the pungent fruity smell of the peat turves burning in the hearth and the suffocating string of claggy smoke that hovered just above her head. Crossing the floor towards her mother, she could feel the damp rising up through her boots from the flattened earth beneath her feet as the cold of it met the heat in the air. Kitty Sullivan was slumped over their large wooden table picking through a glutenous heap of dulse, almost a daily routine now with few variations and eaten so often that the fishy, salty taste would rise up in Nancy’s throat even at the thought of it. It was practically dulse or nothing now, with no meat or fish for over a month, even the cornmeal sack was almost empty. With little chance of replenishing any of their supplies unless her father found work, if their small potato plot did badly again, it would be a long difficult winter with no chance of any delicious lumpers to fill her belly.

Kitty turned towards her daughter with no kindness or warmth in her face. ‘How can it tek s’long t’bring one bucket o’ water? It’ll serve you right if you chew on grit, bring it here, A’m after washin’ this.’ Nancy passed her mother the bucket and watched transfixed as she doused the slippery dulse, lifting the shiny red tentacles up and down before finally dropping it into the cooking pot. ‘Bring me more water an’ be quicker ‘bout it this time. Then be after fetchin’ me some nettles. Gwan now.’ Nancy hated gathering nettles, grasping them did nothing to lessen the sting to her fingers, so she would have to gather the skirt of her dress and use it as a guard against their vicious toothed-hearts.

‘The chile hasn’t been s’well these last weeks Kitty. See how thin she be, thar’s little strength in her an’ the cold’s teken the rest.’

Kitty whipped around to look at her mother-in-law who sat in a chair by the hearth holding the sleeping Isaac in her arms, small and diminished herself from lack of food.

‘Thin? Right you be ‘bout that. Wur all thin auld woman.’

Frances Sullivan held her tongue but gave her granddaughter a guarded look that said stay quiet and she did.

Keeping her eyes lowered and her mouth firmly shut, Nancy took the bucket from her mother’s hand, on her way out of the cottage, looking up into the face of her father who still stood awkwardly on the threshold. Not much of a man really, he may have regarded his mother but he feared his wife’s wrath more, so chose to say nothing when the two women were at odds. He should take granny’s side in an argument, after all they lived in her cottage, but the young and innocent have no understanding of the dire consequences such misplaced, foolish loyalties can bring about.

He had no work again today, there had been little day-labour for the last two weeks so he cut peat or hunted corncrakes or even rats – no one laid claim to vermin - and once skinned, gutted and cut up with all their distinguishing characteristics removed, he could pass one off to his family as a riskily poached hare. Some days he would take Nancy with him believing that a hungry-looking child might earn him favour if he were ever to be caught when he was up to no good. Other times he would go off alone at night to try and spear salmon or eel in the lough or cast a line in the bay but his eyesight was poor and his reactions slowed from years of drinking so he often returned empty-handed. Still, dulse was always in plentiful supply.

The baby was sick, hungry and sick, and she had watched an inevitable quiet settle on him these past two days. He seemed to her asleep even when he was awake and when she pulled faces at him, his smile was distant and his eyes had no light in them. She would bring him a nettle bug if she could find one, put it in a jar and use a long blade of slanus grass to make it jump, that would make him laugh. Water first, bug later, and setting off towards the stream her spirits began to lift the further she got from the cottage. Just one room really, insulated by thick clay and stone walls with a solid timber and thatched roof, it mostly offered them an effective defence against the wind and rain. Its cold, earth floor gave way to a row of flat stones that formed the hearth, above it, a hole through the roof allowed a fire to be lit day and night. Just one small window, with all its panes intact, allowed in a welcome source of light when the door was closed which was most of the time, and a pretty yellow linen curtain, artfully hand embroidered by mamo, and the room’s only adornment, helped to keep out the draught that seeped in around its frame. The furniture was all made by her grandfather and built for practicality with little thought for comfort. Chairs were rigid and unyielding to the body; surfaces were rough and the curse of splinters was to be expected. It all kept bodies and food off the floor, nothing more. She could just remember a time when pretty cups and plates painted with dainty blue flowers and winding leaves lined the shelf by the window, all gone now, she didn’t know why mamo had put them away.

They had moved to Kinlough from Augharrow a year ago when, like so many small holders, her father could no longer produce sufficient food for them to live on let alone to settle their dues with the landlord. They had somehow managed to hang on during the long hunger years but with rents rising and any money they had wasted on her father’s drinking and gambling, like countless other families, eviction had come and they had been abandoned to their fate. Mamo had taken them in and saved her son from the humiliation of his family being sent to the workhouse in Ballyshannon, or having to live on a tenant farmer’s land to labour for nothing more than the scrapings of food and a bed, but Nancy could see there was no gratitude from her parents for it and the cottage very quickly seemed to become her mother’s domain with her granny pushed to the edges like an unwelcome guest in her own home.

The Sullivans kept to themselves, habits learned from the years of the great hunger when no one was to be trusted, when a desperate man would claim for himself things over which he had no right or business, besides Michael assumed a man would do unto him exactly what he would do unto them, so he stayed vigilant. As for Kitty, she didn’t see anything to be gained from friendships or getting to know other folk, they were an open door to meddling and gossip as far as she was concerned. The only regular visitor to the cottage was mamo’s beloved Annie. Their mothers had been friends and the two women had grown up close. Courting the two youngest Sullivan boys, marrying in the same church within a year of each other, inextricably bound together by the happiest and saddest of times. Annie worried for her friend, Michael showed no care for her and Kitty was selfish and looked out for her own needs first, so anything her growling stomach could manage without, she would bring to Frances and the child. But as age took a tighter hold on her, Annie made the walk to the cottage less often, so most weeks would come and go, Nancy seeing no one except her family and Faerie. If she were to meet a stranger, she was to run as fast as she could and, if followed, she should scream and her parents would come to find her. She didn’t know why, she would be glad to see another face, but every stranger was to be treated like the dreaded Pooka coming up in ever-changing shapes from the bog; if it was angry she might be taken away, lost never to be found.

Approaching the stream she spotted a fat nettle bug for Issy, she must have it and in an instant, the water was forgotten. She could wrap it in leaves and put it in her pocket but in her haste to catch it, she slipped on the muddy bank and slid into the cold water dropping the bucket which began to skip down the stream. Scrambling to her feet, the image of her mother’s angry face before her, she knew she must not lose it. ‘Faerie, Faerie, help me!’ She called out but a gust of wind whipped away her voice and he didn’t come. She ran as fast as she could along the bank to get ahead of the bucket which was gaining speed now until, with a loud clunk, it caught on a rock that blocked its journey downstream. Wading in up to her knees, the water was soaking her dress and pulling her down, the movement of the water rocking her on her feet. The wild kelpies must not get hold of her and carry her away under the water to be lost forever in a watery grave, so concentrating hard to steady herself, she reached down and caught hold of the bucket’s handle - closing her eyes so she would not see the black eyes and flowing manes of the kelpies and they would not see her - then heaved it backwards through the water until she and it were safely on the bank. Lying back on the grass, she lifted both her feet into the air to empty her water-logged boots then sitting up, picked up a twig from the ground beside her and threw it into the water, watching as it danced its way down the stream. Then two more twigs, setting them off together to see which would travel fastest, the longest twig won.

The nettles! She had already been gone too long; her mother’s anger would spill over and they would all pay the price. She would have to go a little further downstream to get them and the bug would have to wait but her hands were getting cold as the pressure of the hard handle turned her fingertips white, so stopping every few steps, she put down the bucket and rubbed them together to ease the dull ache that had taken hold. Eventually reaching a good, thick patch of nettles, she picked them quickly, her cold fingers in their numbness not even feeling their sting. Wrapping them in her skirt - hitched up to keep them from falling out - she picked up the bucket and began her slow progress home.

When she arrived back the cottage door was shut, so putting down the bucket and holding on to her skirt tightly, she reached up, lifted the latch and pushed it open. In years to come vivid nightmares would bring back the moment when three figures stood as silent shadows around the kitchen table. No one noticed her come in as they stared down at the contents of the skib on the table. Were there potatoes today? Not tall enough to see down into it, Nancy climbed up on the bench to get a better look but it was not the waxy skin of potatoes that filled the skib but the waxen face and limbs of her brother. No one spoke; there was no breath in the room. She leaned in and gently pinched her brother’s cheek but it was cold and no colour came to it. Then she tickled him behind his ear where the hair curled into its shadows but his blued lips didn’t move. ‘Will we fetch Issy some porridge?’ She looked up into mamo’s face. ‘He can’t ate chile, he’s left us.’ Kitty picked up some of the nettles that had spilled from Nancy’s skirt onto the table, and turning away, placed them in a pot ready to wet them for the tea. As her father stared at Kitty’s turned back, he seemed to sway on his feet, then slowly pulling the blanket up and over his son’s face he cleared away what was bubbling up in his throat before falling heavily into mamo’s chair by the fire and staring into the flames.

Nancy reached in under the blanket and took hold of one of Issy’s wrists lifting it and gently moving it backwards and forwards, his hand flapping like he was waving goodbye, like he used to when she would leave him. She thought he would join in, that his arm would come back to life, but it didn’t. ‘Come away chile.’ Mamo reached across the table and took Nancy’s other hand helping her to climb down off the bench as she let go of Issy for the last time. Still her parents didn’t speak.

Mamo pulled back the heavy curtain that separated the kitchen from where they slept and led Nancy to their bed, lightly tracing her fingers along the cover of her bible on the bedside table as she passed it. ‘Come an’ lie down wi’ me.’ Nancy didn’t understand what was happening - the strangeness of everything - but followed her grandmother as she almost fell onto the bed, a loud sob escaping her like the sound of a dog whipped. She pulled Nancy down onto the bed next to her and held her so close that she could smell the smoke in her grandmother’s hair and the sweet milky-ness of her brother who had been nestling at her breast. Pushing off her wet boots easily, she moved her feet to warm her icy toes against mamo’s skirt.

‘The gud Lord has teken yer brother.’

‘Teken him whar?’

‘T’heaven darlin’.’

‘When be he comin’ back?’

‘ Issy can’t come back darlin’.’

‘Why not?’

‘Please chile, ask n’more questions.’

Nancy considered her grandmother’s words. She knew of no journeys where you didn’t have to come back. If she went to the stream, she had to walk back. If she chased Faerie too far, she had to run back. If she went with her father to the bay, they would be sure to travel home before dark. She didn’t understand, you always had to come back from where you had gone. As she lay quietly in the dim light trying to make sense of where Issy was, mamo said nothing more but held on to her tightly, as the chill of her parents’ continuing silence crept in around the edges of the curtain.

Finally, her father spoke. ‘N’one need know ‘bout it.’ His voice was low and steady; it didn’t sound like him at all. ‘A’ll find a sef place t’lay him t’rest.’

Nancy heard her mother set the tea down on the table then she counted seven of mamo’s breaths before, at last, she spoke too. ‘Don’t be markin’ its place an’ be sure t’bury him deep, thar still be devilish flesh-aters in these parts an’ we don’t want them comin’ fer the boy.’

‘No flesh-aters have roamed this place fer years Kitty, if ever, yer wild imaginin' will do n’gud.’

‘Yer t’bury him deep A telly, A’m not havin’ him touched by man or beast.’

Her father did not reply but she heard his dragging footsteps, then the cottage door opening and closing quietly behind him as he went out. Loud, steady breathing told her that mamo had fallen asleep so she slid gently from under the weight of her arm careful not to wake her then, standing with her nose touching the dusty curtain, pulled back the edge and peered out to see what was on the other side. The skib that had cradled her precious brother was gone, in its place, a steaming plate of dulse.