Chapter 3
On the roadside there were the humble traces of two or three cabins, whose little hearths had been extinguished, and whose walls were levelled to the earth.
The black fungus, the burdock, the nettle, and all those offensive weeds that follow in the train of oppression and ruin were here …
I could not help asking myself, if those who do these things ever think that there is a reckoning in after life, where power, insolence and wealth misapplied …
will be placed face to face with those humble beings, on whose rights and privileges of simple existence they have trampled with such a selfish and exterminating tread.
—William Carleton, The Black Prophet
My heart still thundered as we stepped onto the cobbled courtyard, the sun, obscured in swaths of heavy dark clouds, hanging so full and low one could almost touch their wisp-like webs.
Mist spat from their depths, the kind that kissed the skin and whispered against fabric afore night brought the bad lung.
My sister, Síofra, had suffered on days like these, and Mam always kept her indoors, a-stirring the food over the fire to keep the priest from our door.
The workhouse stood large and silent behind, and I dared not look back for fear the souls of those who went in, only to never leave, would reach as one through the huge wooden doors and yank me back.
My chest constricted as my palms went slick.
May God rest them and keep them. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes.
I did not know these people and could spare them no more than a parting prayer, for freedom ebbed on the breeze. My freedom.
“I’ve instructed your man to use the back gate, Your Ladyship. We’ve cleared it of vagrants so you may leave unmolested.”
The master bowed as Lady Catherine adjusted her gloves, a single brow arched as she glanced over her shoulder.
“Vagrants, Maggie. Aren’t we so very lucky to not have to run them over in my carriage?
Why, Mr. O’Brien, how very thoughtful of you to clear our path of the good and honest subjects of her majesty the queen, whose crime is naught but being Irish.
May you never know a day’s hardship, sir. ”
The hair at my nape stood to attention as I glanced between the master and Lady Catherine. If she expected a nod of agreement from me, she wouldn’t find it. Not until we were clear of this place. Instead, I fiddled with my burlap sack and focused on the carriage.
There was naught much special about it, though mayhap wider and taller than most I’d seen.
But the horses … they were a sight to behold.
Six of the finest beasts I’d ever laid eyes on.
Black as tar, and identical—crimped manes cascading over glistening withers, their fetlocks adorned with blue-black curls.
“Your Ladyship, we do our best with what we’re given, I assure you,” the master protested.
“I’m sure you do, Mr. O’Brien. Cormac? Can you help our guest?” she called, before turning to me. “Go on, get settled, and we can be on our way.”
I nodded, clutching the burlap sack to my chest, unwilling to relinquish it to the man who emerged from the opposite side of the carriage.
My brow rose. Odd. He didn’t wear livery of any kind.
Only what a farmer might—a swallowtail coat over a plain linen shirt, woolen knee-breeches, well-darned knee socks, sturdy shoes, and an old, misshapen felt hat atop his head.
Though travel-worn, he appeared clean enough, without a hint of shadow on his face.
“Miss,” he said, his voice a gentle lull as Lady Catherine continued her conversation with the master, “this way now.”
Puffing my cheeks, I strode forward, one foot in front of the other. The man—Cormac—opened the carriage door and pulled down the steps as I approached, pulse racing. Freedom. The carriage meant freedom.
“It’s a ways, Miss, so there are extra cushions for your use,” he said, offering his hand, as if I were a somebody.
As if I didn’t wear a filthy smock that reeked of damp and death.
The gesture stilled me to the bone, and I dared glance at him.
My eyes met his—a strange hue that reminded me of Colonel Moore-Vandeleur’s prized whiskey, but viewed through crystal.
Amber, perhaps, and … familiar, somehow.
Not yet thirty, I surmised. The sharp peaks of his cheekbones sloped into deep hollows below before curving outward to form a fine strong jaw.
Old Maggie might have admired him, for he was handsome.
But New Maggie knew better. Handsome faces tended to spew pretty lies, especially when those lies fueled interest and desire.
“Thank you, Mister …?”
His cheeks pinked. “Cormac will do, Miss. There’s a flask waiting for you within.” Nodding into the carriage, Cormac glanced at his extended hand. “’Tis a drop of vegetable stew. I wasn’t sure what ye might be needing.”
My stomach turned over from want. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d tasted stew. Maybe the summer before the first blight. God, when was that? 1846? No. 1845.
Right. I grasped his hand, and my cool, skeletal fingers were at once swallowed by his warm, sturdy grasp. There was strength in it. The kind that came from good health. I pressed my lips together. The famine hadn’t touched Cormac.
“You may call me Maggie,” I offered, stepping up and into the plush velvet interior.
“Nay, you’ll be ‘miss’ while in earshot,” he said, stepping up after me.
My eyes widened, and I glanced out at Lady Catherine as Cormac squatted next to my bench.
“Blankets, here.” Opening a door in the floor, he pulled out two heavy velvet blankets, followed by a cylindrical container. “You might want one over your shoulders. The cushions are there. And here.” He handed over the cylinder. “It’s likely cold, but I figured you wouldn’t mind one bit.”
He smiled then, and a dimple appeared in each cheek. It was so … carefree. So foreign and strange that I couldn’t bring myself to return the gesture.
“Thank you. Yes. I’m sure it’s perfect,” I said.
He nodded, then pulled a matchbook from his pocket and pointed toward an ornate metallic orb that hung from the roof, tucked against the window. “I hope ye don’t mind a bit of incense. Her ladyship is most fond of it.”
“Not at all,” I replied.
Without another word, Cormac lit the incense, stepped out of the carriage, and waited for Lady Catherine to take her leave of the master.
While I stared at the cylinder clutched between my hands, afeared to open it, lest it be the last drop of food I’d ever eat.
At some point, I fell asleep.
Lady Catherine was happy enough to let me sip at the stew and stare out the window as the town of Ennis fell away. But the lull of the horses’ clip, coupled with the rocking of the carriage, soon helped me drift.
Perhaps Cormac’s fine features—or the taste of a proper meal—prompted it, but I dreamt of him. Of Teddy. Of his sandy blond hair and eyes bluer than a summer sky. Of promises made. Of stolen kisses behind the summerhouse. It was always the same dream.
He brings a picnic and hand-feeds me bread, and cheese, and fruits I’d never known existed.
But soon the loving gesture turns dark, and he keeps feeding and feeding until my eyes bulge with terror, and I can’t breathe for want of swallowing.
That’s when he transforms into the Black Hound of lore and rips my spine out through my throat.
I woke with a start, my smock soaked through with fear-tinged sweat as my pulse flared. Gasping for breath, it took me a moment to realize where I was. My eyes darted.
Gray velvet benches and walls. Windows. Lady Catherine.
Her gentleman’s top hat lay discarded on the bench betwixt her sleeping form and the wide world beyond the carriage walls. It seemed the sandman had taken my strange benefactress into his cool embrace, and I wished her better dreams than those granted to me.
Breathing deep, I closed my eyes. Of all the spirits haunting my past, Theodore “Teddy” Moore-Vandeleur was the one I wished to be rid of most. I hadn’t dreamt of him in a while, but whenever I did, ’twas as if Teddy extended a hand through the miles between us, reaching into my mind to be sure I’d never forget everything he was. Everything we could have been.
The carriage lurched, bouncing as the wheels caught a divot in the road. I yelped, and Lady Catherine’s eyes snapped open.
“Jesus wept,” she muttered, snatching her cane from the carriage floor. In one fluid motion, she rapped on the roof before opening the window. “Cormac? What the Devil was that? I damn near flew off my perch!”
“Pothole, Your Ladyship,” Cormac yelled, his voice almost lost to the roar of wind.
“Where are we?” she called.
I glanced out the window and furrowed my brow. Where were we, indeed? I could curse myself for a fool that I’d never even asked where we were going. But I supposed it didn’t much matter so long as ’twas far from the workhouse.
As time lapsed, the scenery had shifted from a smooth patchwork of quilted green fields to one warped by high rolling hills.
Houses dotted the landscape. Well, structures that were once houses.
Even from the carriage, I noted the tumbled walls and the charred, roofless carcasses of what had once been some family’s pride and joy.
In the distance, I spied black smoke, the kind resulting from flame-charred thatch.
A family freshly turned out by their landlord, most likely.
If they were lucky, they could return beneath the cover of darkness and salvage a night or two more afore the constabulary found them and tossed them into the road.
We’d done the same, taking refuge in our scalpeen—the shell of our home—before Da dug a scalp for us, in the mud, when the bailiffs came to tumble the walls of our house.
“Coming up on Ennistymon!” Cormac responded.