This House Will Feed

Chapter 1

Ill fares the land, to hast’ning ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.

—Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village

The taste of my brother’s flesh still haunted me.

Eat it, my brother, Michael, had said. Live, Maggie.

For one of us had to. Extended in the last breath of impending death, his offer had smarted of desperation and the Devil himself, but God above bore witness that I fought to shake it away and bury it six feet under.

’Twas hard to forget what I’d done, when daily duty led me to the dining hall of the Ennis Workhouse, not a quarter hour past staff mealtime, air heavy with the taunt of stewed meat only the masters could enjoy.

But inmate number 1-3-4-0, of the Ennis Union, had work to do.

An icy draft toyed with the candle flame, shifting the shadows as I forced the brush back and forth over the cool stone floor.

The workhouse was my life now—the raw judder of numbed knees, sweat coating my brow as I scoured and scoured.

And yet it didn’t seem to matter how hard I worked, for the cold had a way of seeping into bones, freezing the very marrow that kindled with a sliver of hope.

Of tomorrow. Of the bright, burning dawn.

But hope was for the masters.

Leaning into the task, I winced and pushed the brush left, then right.

Left, right; left, right. The matron would have no call to chastise me, no reason to halve my rations or double my debt.

This was my penance, so I scrubbed and scrubbed.

Day in, day out. Left: I’m; right: so; left: very; right: sorry.

Until the task became part of me, as natural as the memories I’d buried away.

A fever dream of what if and should-have-could-have.

Except it was daylight, with no hope of waking from the nightmare beyond these bricks and mortar—like there was no hope of finishing this floor.

The supper hall of the workhouse stretched from wall to wall, a sea of black slate that bred exhaustion just looking at it. Sighing, I sat back on my heels and glanced up. Just a moment of respite. A fortifying breath to prepare myself.

Vaulted ceilings reached for the dark gray sky above; charcoal stone walls rose high before a trellis of curved beams slashed toward the ceiling, the clean-picked rib cage of a monstrous carcass.

Stained-glass windows stretched above what was probably once an altar, its elevated stage now used to seat the esteemed workhouse officials and supervisors.

Right now, ’twas silent, save for my brushing. Calm. Peaceful. Everything my mind was not. Lord, but I yearned for true quiet.

“Margaret O’Shaughnessy, 1-3-4-0?”

The loud address whipped through the silence, cracking along the damp stone floor like thunder. Pursing my lips, I tightened the threadbare, workhouse-issued cloak around my skeletal frame and slowly struggled to my bare feet.

At least I could stand. At least I could turn. I had been on death’s door when I was delivered through the gate by a rare Samaritan of the matron’s acquaintance.

“Maggie,” I corrected, my voice still rasped and torn from the constant thirst that came from starvation.

There was a little more meat between brittle bones and scaled skin than there had been when I’d arrived.

But when I’d risked a glance in the sliver of broken mirror another inmate had smuggled into the workhouse, I still saw a gaunt, sickly thing.

Skin, pallid with a greenish hue. Eyes, sunken in the darkened hollows of a waked corpse.

Cheekbones, sharp enough to cut fresh-baked bread.

At the thought of bread, my stomach groaned with want—as if unused to going without. Fickle organ. Worse than new-money businessmen peacocking their trinkets, better than their neighbors for the few shillings more.

“Maggie then,” came the tight-lipped response, and I forced my wary eyes to meet those of the matron.

God above, I was grateful—so grateful—to have a roof over my head and some food in my belly, but something about the matron sent chills down my spine.

Perhaps it was the cut of her steel-gray gown, a fashionable habit well-fitted above a corset pulled too tight.

Or maybe ’twas the shadowed angles of her face, the severe bun at the back of her head, the crooked nose, eyes set too close together, or the irises so dark they may as well have belonged to a raven, scavenging for scraps.

Perhaps all those things, but in that moment, as I glanced at her, bathed in shadow as the glow of a stained-glass window depicting the Sacred Heart illuminated her back, a sinister crimson nimbus lent a hellish quality to her presence. “You’ll be coming with me, inmate.”

Old Maggie would’ve raised a brow, asked question after question to ease the curiosity sure to get her in trouble.

But new Maggie—new me—had lost that passion somewhere between watching my entire family waste unto death and burying every last one of them.

Well, no. That’s a lie. A turn of phrase.

There came a point when weakness meant I could do naught but pull filth-stained cloaks over stiffening faces before whispering a prayer to the Blessed Virgin, hoping no starving dogs roamed the roadside that became their graves.

“Yes, maum,” I responded, bobbing a curtsy before scurrying to fetch my scrubbing brush and bucket.

“You won’t be needing that,” the matron snapped. “Run along to your mat and fetch anything sentimental. Leave the rest. I expect to find you in the hall beyond the office in five minutes.”

Surprise rippled across my skin until it puckered like a freshly plucked goose on Christmas Day.

“Am I being moved, maum?” I asked, fear creeping its way into my blood. Moved was better than the gallows, especially when the only real way out of here was with either bailiff or mortician.

“You’re to see the workhouse master, Maggie.” For a moment, something in her eyes softened, but the moment passed, and she barked, “As fast as you can. Now.”

My heart fluttered as I turned on my heel and hurried out of the supper hall. I’d never met the workhouse master. Seen him from afar, sure, with his nice clothes and round belly. The hunger didn’t touch the Anglos. Why would it?

My eyes widened as I reached the long mile—a dark, wood-paneled hallway with nary a candle to light the way.

What if the workhouse master knew of what had transpired on my journey here?

I hadn’t told a soul, hadn’t dared. But there was nothing else he could possibly want with the likes of me—a waif who’d traveled a great distance to give up all dignity and live in lifelong debt to a foreign crown.

A girl who shouldn’t have lived.

“Michael? What do I do?” I whispered the plea to my dead brother as a tremble rippled through my knees, up my legs, before settling into a knotted ball in my gut.

All that struggle only to hang. My lungs failed my heart for two breaths, but I forced them to work.

Forced myself to breathe. One step. Two.

Until I reached the end of the corridor and glanced out the window.

I clamped my jaw shut and looked out onto the rock-covered yard dotted with hundreds of waifs.

That was another thing to be grateful for—my appointment to floor duty.

It was a sign of favor, and few women were afforded the luxury.

It was better than the laundry or the yard.

Those in the yard chiseled, they carried, and worked so hard the food they earned wasn’t enough to keep death from calling.

The Toonagh quarry sent the rock each week, availing of the free labor.

I was certain I should’ve felt something as I watched.

Old me would’ve. At least a pang of guilt as a boy leaned against a massive boulder for a moment’s respite.

Or a lurch of fright as a man dropped the heavy stone he carried—too close to bare feet for comfort.

Thing was, they were naught but walking graves to me. Specters who clung to the scraps they were thrown, while the world beyond the walls perished and died.

And if the workhouse master had discovered my crime, I’d be worse off than those below. I couldn’t spare an ounce of pity. I had to save it and will it into strength for myself.

I turned away as a supervisor unleashed his whip on the body of a fallen child. If they weren’t already dead, they soon would be. I couldn’t muster pity for them either, because there’d be none for me.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep, shuddering breath before taking a right toward the female dormitories.

As my bare foot touched water, I scowled.

Another burst pipe, which meant our sleep mats were drenched.

At least ample moisture would keep the fleas at bay, though it would likely bring fever come morning.

Clucking my tongue, I splashed my way to my own mat.

The matron had said to gather my sentimental things. I had eleven, all carefully placed in the small burlap sack I’d carried from Kilrush to Ennis—safely hung from a flimsy rack alongside my blanket. Leaks happened more often than not.

I grabbed the sack and peered inside.

My mother’s wooden beads—worn and smooth from frantic decades of the rosary.

My father’s shoelaces—to remind me of the journey.

Pieces of my sisters’ filthy dresses, ripped from each as they died, one by one, on the road. Aoife. I breathed in. Síofra. And winced. Mary. Oh God. Martha. I squeezed my eyes shut. Nancy. I breathed out.

Michael’s handkerchief. Breathe. John’s cap. Breathe. A wooden toggle from Patrick’s shirt. Breathe.

And a lock of hair from baby Crofton—born soon after the first blight struck and named for our landlord in hopes he would show us mercy.

But he did not. And they were dead. They were all dead. And I was about to join them.

Hot tears stung my eyes as I reached for the iron door handle of my assigned dormitory.