Never Never

S
arah listened
to the low-grade thrumming of the airliner as it flew overhead. To hear that familiar noise again after so many years was a reassuring flashback of the way life used to be.

“Where do ye think it's headed?” Her sister-in-law Fiona walked up to where Sarah stood in the garden—a basket at her feet and her six-month old daughter in her arms.

“My guess?” Fiona said before Sarah could reply, “London or maybe Paris. Hard to believe life goes on in the world.”

Fiona reached for Sarah's baby and after a brief hesitation Sarah gave the child to her. With dark blonde hair and large blue eyes, Siobhan was an arrestingly beautiful child. Sarah's son John had been adorable as a baby, but Siobhan made people stop and stare.

“She didn't nap.
Again
,” Sarah said.

“I'm told the smart ones don't,” Fiona said.

“Bite your tongue.”

“Speaking of the smart ones, is John in Oxford yet, do ye think?”

Sarah looked back up at the sky. She anxiously rubbed the small of her back at the thought of him so far away.

“Hours ago, I imagine,” she said. “I'd give anything for just five minutes of a working Internet or a telephone. Just long enough to know he arrived safely.”

Fiona gave Sarah's arm a squeeze. “In the meantime, sure you have your hands full with this little one. And before you know it, it'll be December and the lad will be back.”

“I know,” Sarah said. “It's right that he's focused on his studies. I don't want him worrying about me. I'd hate that.”

“Of course you would.”

“I assume you're here to help me bring in the veggies,” Sarah said, reaching for the basket of tomatoes on the ground. “I'm counting on the truckload of mackerel Mike and Gavin promised they'd catch for dinner tonight.”

“Declan wanted to go with them,” Fiona said as she glanced back toward the convent. “But his headaches are bothering him again.”

“I'm sorry, Fi. I wish we had a better answer for what ails him. You've used all your homeopathic stuff?”

“Aye. I think whatever's wrong is bigger than herbs and spices can handle. Oh, there's Nuala!”

From across the small stone wall enclosing the garden, Sarah saw Nuala with her two month old daughter in her arms, waving to them from the door of the convent.

“Must be time to set the table and get the gang washed up,” Sarah said. She looked at the gate that led to the outside road.

The road was narrow and clogged with overhanging brush and alder trees and was only fit for horses or foot travel. Mike and Gavin had taken the Jeep they kept hidden by the main road, a good five miles walk from the convent.

Sarah knew the nunnery itself had almost no defensive features—not like the compound that they'd had to abandon in the spring—but because of its remote and concealed location, it was infinitely safer.

The monsters who'd discovered the convent earlier last spring didn't count because one of those monsters knew right where to go. For everybody else in Ireland—the convent was invisible.

“You coming then, Sarah?” Fiona called over her shoulder as she moved toward the front door with the baby.

Sarah shook herself out of her thoughts and bent to add a few more tomatoes to the basket.

“Be there in a sec,” she said. She turned to look at the wrought iron gate that led to the road, and a chill crept over her skin.

Mike and Gavin should have been back by now.

H
ours later Sarah
stood at the front door with a fussing Siobhan and looked out again into the evening. It got dark sooner every day now. Summer was definitely behind them. She strained to see in the darkness past the garden toward the gate and the road leading to the convent.

They had never been this late. And Mike knew how much she worried.

Something had happened.

Siobhan arched her back and threw her head back, smacking hard against Sarah's chin. She kicked her feet but Sarah only held her tighter.

“Siobhan, stop it,” Sarah said, tasting the blood in her mouth where her teeth had bitten the inside of her lip.

“The little one is weary,” a strong female voice said from behind Sarah. Mother Angelina stood with her arms outstretched for the baby. Sarah handed Siobhan over. Instantly the baby settled down and tucked her head against the Mother Superior's chest.

“I don't know what the matter is with her,” Sarah said, rubbing her chin.

“She's picking up on her mother's anxiety. That's all.”

“They should have been back hours ago.”

“They'll be back.”

“You really think so?”

“Or they won't.”

“Big comfort, Mother.”

“Waiting is always our hardest task.”

“I just can't believe they're this late. And on the very day John left.”

“You must try to relax, Sarah.”

Mother Angelina wore her solid black habit straight to the floor. Its starched wimple framed her face. Her eyes were kind as she watched Sarah.

“I can't,” Sarah said. “And Mike not coming home on time just proves that we need to stop leaving the convent so much. Who knows what they've run into?”

“I'm not sure it proves anything except that they're late. It's true there's much danger in the world. That's no reason not to live in the world.”

“That's where you're wrong. You should see what's out there now.
Animals
hoping to kill you and take what's yours. There's
every
reason not to be out there.”

“Is that what you think has happened to your husband? Someone has attempted to take what he has?”

Before Sarah could speak, she noticed that Siobhan had fallen asleep in the nun's arms. Siobhan had been pitching a fit not two minutes ago and now she was asleep.

“I don't know,” Sarah said, her voice thick with discouragement.

“Sometimes real safety comes only from taking risks.”

“That doesn't even make sense. I'm sorry, Mother. You're a wise woman and I have no idea how any of us would've survived without you. But safety comes from being some place where no one can find you. Trust me, I know a little something about that.”

Fiona and Gavin's wife Sophia came from the back of the house and joined them by the open door.

“The other children are mostly down for the night,” Fiona said. “Do you want me to take Siobhan?”

“No,” Sarah said, reaching for her child. “I'll take her in.” As soon as she collected the little bundle in her arms, Siobhan woke up and began to whimper.

“Any sign of them?” Sophia said. She smoothed her hand over her pregnant belly. She was due in a few weeks.

Siobhan turned toward Angelina and held out her arms to her.

“I'm happy to take her for you, Sarah,” Angelina said, reaching for the baby. “She's just tired.”

Sarah hesitated but Siobhan squirmed and fussed until she gave her up.

“Thanks, Mother,” Sarah said, her heart plummeting as she saw how quickly Siobhan settled down again in the nun's arms.

Speaking softly to the child, Mother Angelina went into the convent leaving the three women on the wide stone porch.

“Don't worry, Sarah,” Fiona said as she gave Sarah's shoulder a squeeze. “They'll be back.”

“Of course they will,” Sophia said. “They have to be.”

Sarah wondered how Sophia had survived the last five years with such impossible optimism. As her eyes dropped to the severed ring finger on the girl's left hand, she was reminded that Sophia knew treachery and betrayal only too well.

“I just can't imagine why they're not here,” Sarah said. The anxiety was growing in her chest like a living thing, threatening to overflow.

“There could be any number of perfectly good reasons,” Fiona said as she looked out into the darkness.

Sarah winced at the fact that Fiona— who had lived through hell last winter, lost a baby and gained a husband who couldn't remember who she was half the time—was giving
her
comfort. She took a long breath.

“I'm never letting that man out of my sight again,” Sarah said. The other two laughed.

“So young John will be back at Christmas, eh?” Fiona said. “I'm sorry I didn't go with you today to see him off. Declan was having one of his spells.”

Ever since Declan had been shot in the head and left for dead last winter, he'd had terrible headaches and long spates of confusion and memory loss. He was a proud man, an Irish traveler with a history of living rough. Sarah knew how he struggled with his new condition. And how Fiona struggled.

“He'll be back before Christmas,” Sarah said, watching the shadows in the woods past the garden gate and hoping to see one of them morph into the tall figure of her husband. “He was so excited to get back to Oxford that he
ran
to the helicopter.”

“He's a smart boy,” Sophia said. “If anybody should be in school, it's him.”

“Well, the truth is,” Fiona said, “it's a mother's lot to worry, so it is.” She turned to Sophia and smiled. “As you'll learn soon enough.”

Sophia laughed. “I can't wait,” she said, rubbing her large belly. “Gavin wants me to hurry and pop this one out so we can leave.”

Sarah let out a snort of frustration. “
Why
Gavin and Mike think we should leave the convent is beyond me! We're safe here. I don't understand it at all.”

“Mike's not convinced we're safe here,” Fiona said.

Sarah turned on her. “Are you on his side? Have you not had a big enough dose of what the outside world can dole out?”

Fiona narrowed her eyes. “Sure I have, Sarah Donovan,” she said testily. “But before you regale us with how safe this place is, may I remind you of the blood bath that occurred on nearly the very spot you're standing?”

“That's not fair,” Sarah said. “You know Mac and his gang would never have found us if not for the fact that Sinead Branigan lived here at one time.”

“Mac” MacClenny had attacked the convent last spring. Of the three surviving assailants, one had been allowed to leave after a brief period of incarceration and one was executed for crimes committed against the women in the camp. Mac himself had been pardoned and now lived at the convent.

“I ken that your idea of safety is being well hidden,” Fiona said. “But we need to be well
defended
.”

“That's impossible,” Sarah said. “Need I remind
you
, Fiona, about the time the Garda came to the compound and took everyone in it? There's no way we can defend ourselves against an army.”

“Not in a convent, anyway,” Sophia said meekly.

Sarah turned to her. “You, too?”

Sophia shrugged. “I trust Gavin. He says the convent is not our home forever.”

Sarah turned away. “He's been listening to Mike.”

“As a good son should.”

Just then Sarah noticed a movement in the distant darkness and her heart pounded with excitement.

A tall form appeared at the edge of the garden. Sarah recognized the sloping hat and stooped shoulders. It was only Mac doing his nightly perimeter check. He did it several times an evening before retiring to the shed at the north end of the garden. While she knew he carried a gun, she also knew it wouldn't be of much use against a serious attack.

She shook herself out of the thought. They were safe here. Nobody knew where the convent was. There was no easy way to get to the nunnery. It was
leaving
the convent that caused problems.

As evidenced by their vigil on the front porch tonight.

It was nine hours since Mike and Gavin had taken the Jeep to go fishing off the coast of Rosslare—just thirty minutes north of them. Even with the overgrown roads and the portion of the trail they had to travel on foot, nine hours was too long. Nine hours meant something had happened.

Something bad.