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“Where are we going?”

“My place for a strong cuppa,” Fiona said a
little too brightly.

“Then why are we going left? Your place is…”
Suddenly Sarah saw why Fiona had tried to maneuver them onto a
different course. Aideen and Mike stood thirty yards away, directly
in their path. She saw Aideen rise up on her toes to kiss him, and
while his hands stayed on his hips and didn’t reach for her, the
image burned into Sarah’s brain as if he’d clasped the woman in a
passionate embrace and kissed her deeply.

Her stomach lurched painfully and she felt
her face flush hot. Mike turned his head and saw her. He spoke a
few words to Aideen and then moved toward Fi and Sarah, his face
serious, his eyes on hers.

“He’s coming,” Sarah said, her voice more of
a squeak than she’d like.

“Oh, shite. Don’t worry, Sarah, I won’t
abandon you.”

Mike intercepted them quickly and without a
word, reached out and plucked his sister’s arm from Sarah’s and
pulled her away. “Off you go, Fi,” he said, his eyes still on
Sarah. “Sarah and I need a moment.”

“No, we don’t,” Sarah said, reaching out for
Fiona again. “I’m done for the night and Fiona was just walking me
home.” But Fiona was already moving away, giving Sarah a contrite
look over Mike’s looming shoulder as Mike took Sarah’s arm and
turned her away from the camp.

“I don’t need or want an escort,” Sarah said
breathlessly. The recent image of Mike and Aideen—so intimate, so
much a couple—was working to trigger a riot in her stomach. She
needed to be alone so she could cry or scream into a pillow. It
wasn’t fair. He didn’t get to ask for her blessing this soon after
she’d been kicked in the gut!

“I want you to know that I had no idea that
Aideen was going to say what she did,” he said as he led Sarah away
from camp and away from the noise and the music and her
cottage.

“So, it’s not true?” Sarah hated herself for
the irrational surge of hope she felt when she said those words.
“You aren’t engaged to be married?”

A quick intake of breath stabbed to death
any further hope along those lines.

He’s trying to find a kind way to tell
me.

“Aideen and I have an understanding,” he
said carefully.

Sarah stopped and turned to face him. As in
control as he had acted up until this moment, it wasn’t until now
she realized he wasn’t comfortable or at all confident.

“Does this
understanding
involve
you and her getting married?”

He hesitated again.

“It’s a simple fucking question, Mike. Are
you engaged? Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

“Great. That wasn’t so hard, was it?
Congratulations.” She jerked her arm out of his grip.

“Sarah…” he said.

She could feel his helplessness, his despair
rolling off him in waves. And it was infectious. It was seeing how
unhappy he was that ignited the fuse in her brain, unfurling the
bud of fury that had been there all along just under the
surface.

And being pissed as hell felt a whole lot
better than wanting to curl up in a corner and die.

“So let me see if I have
things straight. You turned down my invitation for a last night
together to spare Aideen’s feelings, yet you let her
humiliate
me
in
front of the whole community?”

“I told you, I didn’t know she was going to
say anything tonight. Especially not in front of the whole fecking
camp.”

She watched his discomfort give way to a
defensive stance. His hands were on his hips now. He shifted on his
back foot, away from her as if ready to swivel on it and leave. In
fact, it occurred to Sarah that if Aideen could see the two of them
right now there was no way she would be jealous about anything they
might be saying.

If anything, she would be crowing.

Sarah’s anger
surged.
“You have made this so much easier
for me, Mike Donovan,” she said, trying to keep her voice down but
feeling the anger build in her chest like a churning thunderhead.
“Showing me this late in the game who you really were all along. I
want you to know that I’ll be happily remarried within the year to
someone who’s everything I thought
you
were. Whoever he is, I can
wait.”

Mike looked like he’d been punched, and for
a moment Sarah felt a needle of guilt at hitting her target so
accurately.

“Sure, no harm in waiting,” he said,
recovering, his eyes hooded and unrevealing. “Some of us do it all
the time.”

“I wish you every joy on your wonderful news
and please do not hesitate to clinch the deal on my account. I’ll
be gone before you have time to hang out the bedclothes.”

“Thank you for permission to sleep with my
own fiancée. It’ll mean so much more to me when I finally get her
under me that it was with your blessing.”

Before the words were completely out of his
mouth, her hand jerked out to slap him across the face, but he
caught her hand midair.

“You don’t get to be mad at me for finding
love when you’re leaving,” he said, his eyes flashing, his grip
tightening on her wrist. “If you wanted me to be yours, you know
you only needed to say the word.”

Fury pumped through her.
“How about if I tell your
intended
that she’s second place? How about if I tell her
she’s only with you because I’m not available?”

“She knows that.”

The energy drained out of Sarah and she let
her hand go limp where he held her.

“Shit.”

“I’m sorry, Sarah.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“There was no way you leaving was going to
be easy for anyone.”

“
Just leave me alone,
Mike.”

She turned from him, hoping he wouldn’t
touch her, praying he would. After a moment, she heard his
footsteps as he moved away back to camp.

The next morning, Mike sat on the porch of
his hut. Even with the harvest over, there was still plenty to do,
but Fi was right. It didn’t look good for him to totally ignore the
election. For reasons he couldn’t fathom most of the members of the
community were excited to cast their vote for who would lead the
camp. He watched them line up and approach the table that Fiona and
Declan had set up in front of the main cook fire at the center of
the camp.

Gavin jumped onto the porch next to him and
settled down on a step. Mike glanced at him. “So did you vote?”

“Aye. I mean, I know you always say this
isn’t a democracy, but here we are voting. Pretty cool, huh?”

Mike grunted. He scanned
the line of people waiting to cast their ballot and found himself
growing angry. Some of these people he had literally carried on his
back to get them to this place. And here they were, shrugging him
off for the first shiny new face that came along. These were his
friends, hell, his
family
. He glanced at Gavin again.
He had no doubt his own son had voted for that bogger,
Gilhooley.

He watched as Sarah walked up to the table
and handed Fiona a cup of tea. She had not been allowed to vote
since she was soon to be leaving the community. It hurt just to
look at her. To think that this is the way they would end, the way
they would say goodbye, after everything that’s happened just
turned his stomach sour. As he watched her lean over to whisper
something in Fiona’s ear and then turn and walk back to her
cottage, he never took his eyes off her, the way she moved, the
lines of her body as she moved away from him. Ever away.

“Oh, hey, Missus,” Gavin said, hopping up
from the porch, his hands suddenly awkward appendages he clearly
didn’t know what to do with. Mike turned to see Aideen appear from
the narrow alleyway between his hut and the one next to it.

She held out her hand to Gavin to prompt him
to pull her up onto the porch with him, which he did, but not
before stumbling and nearly landing both of them in the violet
patch at the base of the porch. Aideen laughed good-naturedly and
Mike found himself grateful for her uncomplicated, good humor. As
much as it killed him to give up one single night with Sarah, it
still felt like the right thing to do.

“Morning, Aideen,” he said, shifting over on
the bench to allow room for her. “I suppose you’ve voted this
morning?”

“I did,” Aideen said, settling down next to
Mike, her hip squeezing into his leg as she did. “But I’m afraid I
have bad news along that score.”

“Get a peek at the ballot box, did you?”

“I didn’t have to. I got a peek at your
sister’s face. She’s doing the counting.”

“Right.”

“I just didn’t want you to be shocked should
things not go your way, Mike.”

Mike laughed bitterly. “That’s not what
would shock me. I expect to lose.”

“Well, I think it’s rotten. After everything
you’ve done for them.”

“Dad? I’m heading out to check on the jail.
I told Dec I’d feed the prisoners while he’s handling the ballot
box.”

“Be careful, son. They don’t look dangerous,
I’ll grant you, but desperate people can do desperate things.”

Mike watched Gavin stride away.

“You’re talking about poor Ollie?” Aideen
said, slipping her hand under Mike’s and entwining her fingers in
his.

Mike grunted. He craned his neck as the line
to the voting table shortened. “Where is that sod, Gilhooley? I
thought he’d be waving flags and getting the band ready to play his
victory march.”

“He left last night.”

Mike turned to look at her. “What the hell
are you talking about?”

Aideen squeezed his hand. “I thought you
knew. He went to Dublin to bring his family back.”

Mike stared at her and then turned to look
at the last of the voting crowd. “The cheeky bugger. He didn’t even
wait around for the fecking votes to be counted. He’s that sure.” A
weight seemed to settle on his shoulders and he sagged where he
sat. “Shit. I’m that sure, too.”

An hour later, Declan stood in the center of
camp and announced that they had a new leader, one Brian Gilhooley.
Most of the camp gathered in front of him and applauded politely
when he made the announcement.

Mike hadn’t moved from his bench on his
porch. He watched Fiona as she stood behind her husband. She turned
to catch his eye a few times. He did not let that happen.

“As you know,” Declan said to the gathered
crowd, “Gilhooley’s in Dublin collecting his family. Mike Donovan
will continue as camp leader until Brian gets back. Brian wanted me
to thank everyone for your vote of confidence and announce that,
starting immediately, every family will begin receiving an extra
pound of flour and sugar.”

Mike snorted. “That means they’ll run out of
bread by Christmas.”

“I thought the camp had no sugar,” Aideen
said.

“We don’t. But everyone’ll receive an extra
pound of the nonexistent sugar. Listen to the idiots cheering.
Where do they think he’s going to get the damn stuff?” Mike shook
his head.

“I’m sorry, Mike.”

“Yeah, it doesn’t matter.”

Declan waved everyone to silence. “Now, the
first project of Brian Gilhooley’s tenure will be the building of a
proper detention hall…”

“What’s he talking about?” Aideen
whispered.

“A jail.”

“…
followed soon after by
the forming of a defensive army to protect us here. All able bodied
men over the age of fourteen are welcome to apply. And one more
thing...” Declan waited with his hands raised for the crowd to
quiet down.

Mike had to hand it to him. The gypsy knew
how to make the most of a dramatic presentation.

“From this day forward, the community will
have a new name.”

Mike heard the murmuring of the crowd grow
louder with anticipation.

“Our new name,” Declan
said, “will be Daoineville
.”

The cheers that followed Declan’s
proclamation were louder and more frenzied than Mike remembered
hearing at the last World Cup football playoffs.

***

Sarah dragged the Pullman out from under the
bed. She had bought it at an outlet store in Atlanta a few months
before she and David and John had left on vacation. In the
meantime, it had only been used once in a transatlantic flight, but
it had been pulled out of a fire and dragged by pony cart to three
different cottages. She smoothed a hand over the rough canvas. Both
David and John’s luggage had been destroyed in the fire at Cairn
Cottage within months of their arrival in Ireland.

For a moment, she had a flash of the
afternoon she bought this bag. She remembered the store, the hours
it took for her to select just the right bag, and the excitement
she felt in anticipation of the trip. She sighed and zipped up the
empty case. She had already decided not to bring any clothes with
her. The women in the camp could use whatever she didn’t take.
They’d put this bag to good use too.

“Mum?”

Sarah turned to see Papin standing in the
doorway. There was something about the expression on her face that
didn’t look right. Sarah frowned and turned away from the bag. “Are
you all right, Papin? You look sick.” She reached her hand out to
touch the girl’s forehead but Papin dodged her.

“I’m fine, only Auntie Fi’s asked me to tell
you John’s to bunk in with Da, and me with herself so’s Brian’s
family can have our place when they come. Can they do that? Just
bung us out in the street?”

Sarah looked over Papin’s shoulder to the
bustle of the camp outside. She sighed. “I thought your da was
giving this place to Aideen and Taffy?”

Papin shrugged. “I just know what Auntie Fi
told me. You’re to go to the Widow Murray’s. She says it’s just for
the night. Is that right? Are we leaving in the morning?”