Chapter Thirty #2
Granny was waiting when they reached the cottage. Instead of sitting in her favorite chair before the fire sewing or reading
as she was wont to do, she was pacing the floor when they entered, and she practically fell on their necks with relief at
the sight of them.
“Are you well? Are you safe?” she demanded in an unsteady voice when she let them go. She was as pale as flour as she peered
into each of their faces in turn.
“We’re safe,” Rynn assured her, looking hard at her grandmother. Granny was so rarely agitated that Rynn began to feel her
own bubbling of alarm.
“But how did you know about the Tans?” Glenna exclaimed. “No one could have told you. We’ve barely had time to get home ourselves.”
“The Tans?” Granny scoffed. “’Tis naught to do with those villains. My loves, oh my loves, I’ve seen the Black Pig.”
“What?” Rynn’s hand went to her heart. Her mouth went dry. Glenna sucked in a quick breath.
Both knew what that meant. Every Irish man, woman and child knew what it meant. The Black Pig was an apparition seen only
rarely over the centuries by those given the gift of seeing such things. It was said to portend a pending disaster. For the
one who saw it, or the area in which it was seen, or Ireland. Or all three.
Granny nodded. “I did. I saw it. A little bit ago I got uneasy in myself about you and I went to look down the road to see
if I could see you coming. I did not, so I turned away, and there it was. The Black Pig! Running through the field across
the road, snorting and tossing its head, a fearsome sight! It looked right at me, its eyes glowing yellow through the night,
then ran away and went straight through the stone wall at the end of the field—straight through it, mind, as if it had no
substance to it at all—and disappeared. I thought—I thought—I could only think of the two of you.”
Her voice trembled on that last.
“’Twas a dog or some such,” Glenna said. But now her voice was not quite steady, either.
Granny shook her head and looked at Rynn.
“Come sit down.” Ignoring her pounding heart, Rynn wrapped her arm around her grandmother, urging her toward the hearth and
her chair. Though the night was not cold—windy, yes, and damp, but not cold—the cottage suddenly was. Despite the fire, and
the heat it gave.
“I’ll get you some tea.” Glenna hurried toward the kitchen.
“You know.” Clutching Rynn’s hand, Granny looked up at her as Rynn settled her in her chair.
The firelight danced around them. The corners of the well-loved room were dim.
“You know, my dotey pet. Blessing or curse, count it as you may, deny it as you will, you have it, too. The Sight. ’Twas the Pig. Joseph,
Mary and all the saints, have pity on Ireland. Have pity on Bundoran. Have pity on us.”
It was a donkey. Everyone, friends, neighbors, all who heard and there were many, assured Granny that that was the answer.
A small gray donkey had escaped its pen and was running loose through the town that very same night, seen by many. And stones
were missing in the wall—see right there, Ben Dooley, who rented the land, was stacking up more to fix the gap. Ergo, the
donkey had gone through the gap in the wall and been lost to the darkness. That was what she’d seen, they all agreed with
great relief. Not an apparition at all, not the Black Pig at all, but a wayward donkey.
Granny remained adamant. Rynn believed her.
Because she’d seen it, too.
That apparition she’d spotted in the field, it was no dog, or calf, or donkey.
It was—had to have been—the Black Pig.
The near certainty and all that it meant—for herself and everyone and everything she loved—made her blood run cold.
But what was there to do?
Tell no one. The attention, the skepticism, the notoriety—everything that came with having the Sight—it was nothing she wanted. It was
more than she could bear.
“What do you think it means?” she asked Granny days later.
Having just escaped a contingent of neighbors who’d gathered on the street outside to stare and shake their heads at the field where the Black Pig had apparently been seen, they’d retreated to the cottage’s kitchen for a cup of tea.
Glenna had gone upstairs to change her dress—the three of them had just returned from Mass—so she and Granny had a minute alone.
“I don’t know.” Seated at the kitchen table, Granny sipped her tea meditatively. “That’s the curse of the Sight. I never know.”
Rynn didn’t say anything. Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead. But from the knowing way Granny was looking at her, she could tell that something had happened to open Rynn’s eyes.
Something that was forcing Rynn to accept that she had the Sight, too.
Then Glenna joined them, remarking on the happy news of a friend’s engagement. The conversation turned general, and, because
there was nothing she could do about any of it, Rynn did her best to put the Black Pig and everything it represented out of
her head.
With Mrs. Frampton, Cyril and Anna (Lynette had married over the holiday and would not be returning) back at Ballyshannon
Court, and she and Glenna now too old and set in their ways to share a bedroom indefinitely, Rynn moved back up to Ballyshannon
Court. Any danger that might have attached to helping the IRA soldiers she had treated had certainly dissipated over the past
weeks, she was sure.
She was, as would anyone of sense, starting to give some thought to her future now that the shock of Thomas’s death was fading.
She couldn’t, and didn’t want to, stay at Ballyshannon Court forever, and she didn’t want to spend her life within the limited confines of Bundoran, either, much as she loved it.
But she hadn’t yet decided what she did want.
There were Granny and Glenna to consider.
And other people, and other things, including the state of the world.
She was not yet ready to put aside her nursing skills, which she had worked hard to acquire.
As a trained nurse, and no longer married (because the profession, like many others, frowned on employing married women) her skills would be valued by any hospital.
And if the current violence was to escalate into full-scale war, they would be needed.
Here. In Ireland.
The thought of war—more war, more death and killing—sickened her.
But she was afraid war was rushing toward them like a freight train.
She was afraid that was what the appearance of the Black Pig meant.
Glenna reported that at recess the boys marched around in play drills, using sticks as rifles.
Groups of young men could be glimpsed training in the hills.
More men were wanted and on the run than weren’t, it seemed, while the Crown hunted them ruthlessly.
The IRA strategy seemed to be strike without warning and disappear. Newspapers were full of accounts of their ambushes, raids
on police barracks and sabotage of roads, dams and bridges. Whispers circulated about a squad of assassins recruited by Michael
Collins that some had dubbed the Twelve Apostles. The British were worse. Through their attack dogs the Tans, they burned
houses and even whole villages and looted and killed indiscriminately. As terrible as the Tans were, it wasn’t enough for
the Crown. They were being supplemented by another paramilitary force, the Auxiliaries, who were easy to spot in their distinctive
tam-o’-shanter caps, that was as bad or worse. The atrocities they visited on the civilian population were brutal.
Ireland seethed like a volcano building toward an eruption.
“Evil, conscienceless savages,” Cyril said with loathing after learning of another attack by the Tans. “And the Brits as bad,
paying them ten shillings a day for their dirty work. After the Great War, after we fought for them. The scum.”
“Not all of them.” Mrs. Frampton cast a quick, sideways glance at Rynn. “Not Lord Thomas, for one. He was a sweet, good man, to be sure.”
“It’s all right,” Rynn reassured her, knowing that she was worried about offending. They were all in the cellar, Anna included,
sorting through medical supplies with an eye toward donating them. Rynn just hadn’t made up her mind to whom, or to where.
“Lord Thomas was a sweet, good man, and he would agree with Cyril. And he would do what he could to stop it.”
The thought of Thomas brought a surge of tenderness with it. The pain was still there, but for the first time, the good memories
outweighed it. That was part of the process of letting him go, Rynn realized. He would have a place in her heart forever,
and she would smile whenever she thought of him. But life moved on, and so must she.
The question remained, to what?
It was only a few nights later that she was roused unexpectedly from sleep. Awakened by the sudden flare of light from the
lamp beside her bed, Rynn blinked in bemusement at the apparition that was Mrs. Frampton in her nightcap and robe leaning
over her.
“There’s a visitor for you in the kitchen. You should come at once,” Mrs. Frampton said when she saw Rynn’s eyes open.
“What? Who?” Sitting up, Rynn shook her head to clear it. The shadows in the room beyond the pool of lamplight made clear
that it was nowhere near dawn. “What time is it?”
“Coming up on one in the morning.” She handed Rynn her robe, which was laid out at the foot of the bed.
Standing, Rynn slid her arms into her robe. Tying the soft green garment around her waist, she thrust her feet into velvet
slippers. Her hair, confined in the braid she wore for sleep, was trapped inside the robe, and with a quick flip of her hand
she pulled it free.
“What has happened?” Her voice sharpened as she came fully awake.
“You must see for yourself.” Motioning to Rynn to follow, Mrs. Frampton turned off the bedside lamp and whisked herself out
of the room. It was only as Rynn stepped into the hall that she realized that the entire rest of the house, except for a slight
glow emanating from the kitchen, was as dark as her bedroom now was. Mrs. Frampton carried one of the electric torches kept
beside the kitchen door in case it was necessary to go outside at night. Held high, it shed just enough light so that they
both could see where they were putting their feet as they went down the stairs.
It was obvious that Mrs. Frampton thought it best not to light up the house to the point where the unaccustomed burst of middle-of-the-night
activity became apparent to anyone who might be passing by on the road or, say, watching from some vantage point outside.
At the realization, Rynn’s heart started knocking before she even reached the bottom of the stairs.