Reluctantly Charmed (33 page)

Reluctantly, I rose to my feet, smiling bashfully and wondering just how likely it was that I’d get away with not having to talk to the crowd. “Kate’s a bit of a celebrity in Dublin.”

He said the word
celebrity
slowly and clearly. You could tell he liked the way it sounded coming out of his mouth. I heard people shifting in their seats, edging closer to get a look at me.

“You may have heard of the Seven Steps.” He paused, waiting for a reaction. He didn’t get one. “Well, if you have the Internet at home, and Billy, I know you do, I’d advise you to take a look online and you’ll see what I’m talking about.”

“She’s like really famous, like really, really famous,” Nessa, the teenager with the pink stripes at the front of her hair, shouted from the back of the hall. She was sitting beside Dylan, whose hood was so far over his face he looked like E.T. “Those Steps are like the new bible or something. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is talking about them.”

“Thank you, Nessa.” Johnny looked uncomfortable with audience participation.

A deep voice piped up from behind a pillar. “So what are these Steps?”

“Well, there’s only been five of them so far, and they’re all kinds of everything. They’re quite nice really, mainly about appreciating nature. They’re just nice little messages, you know.” Johnny Logan’s smile overreached, exposing more gum than teeth.

“Who from? Does she write them?”

“Well, no, and this is where we come into play. Em . . . em . . . Well, the thing is, em . . .” He fumbled in his pocket and produced a packet of cigarettes, fingering the edges of the box nervously.

“The thing is, you see, the Steps are big news. And, you see, in the new Step, Knocknamee is mentioned.” A few hums and haws rippled around the hall.

“Why would we be mentioned? Have you been at the whiskey again, Johnny?”

The town hall erupted into laughter. Johnny’s shoulders dropped as he relaxed a little more.

“Would you be away with that, Sean. Sure, I’ll read it to you and then we can have a discussion.” He cleared his throat,
unfolded the piece of paper I’d given him earlier that day, and read out the sixth Step.

When he’d finished, his eyes darted nervously around, looking for a response.

“Are we to be famous because of these Steps talking about Knocknamee now, Johnny? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I think we might.”

“Well, Fidelma, you’d better clear a space. I’ll be looking for a haircut,” an elderly man with a head as shiny as a polished strap shouted.

Fidelma waved him away. “And God knows—sorry, Father . . .” she apologized.

A tall, skinny, white-haired man dressed in black with a priest’s collar was leaning against a wall away from the crowd, anxiously looking around the room. He nodded distractedly in acknowledgment.

Fidelma went on. “Someone needs to take a look at Jimmy’s beard. He’ll shame the village.”

The place erupted into one loud chuckle as Jimmy stood up, proudly fingering a mass of tangled whiskers. “If you come near me with the clippers, Fidelma,” he said, “I’ll take them to your husband’s regions.”

Wiping away tears of laughter, Fidelma stood tall. “If that’s the case, Jimmy, I’ll see to you this afternoon.” Good-naturedly, Fidelma’s husband stood to take a bow, and the crowd burst into applause.

Johnny held his arms out as wide as his smile, gently trying to hush the crowd.

“What is it, Johnny? What is it you want us to know? I don’t see how this has anything to do with us really.” Annie from O’Donahue’s sounded cross. “I’ve got a pub to run. I don’t have
time to be here laughing at the bald fellows. We do enough of that when the Guinness flows.”

“And she’s off, the auld party killer,” someone in the back whispered loud enough for everyone to hear.

“You’re right, Annie, you’re right. It’s a little more complicated than Knocknamee getting pinpointed. You see, the Steps, they don’t come from Kate here.” He pointed at me, and it felt like I’d been pierced with an arrow. “They, em, they were left to Kate by her great-great-great-grand-aunt, a Knocknamee resident.” Johnny fell silent, tightly gripping his pack of cigarettes.

“Well, she’s a local girl, now, I suppose. Isn’t that grand?” Martin piped up with pride.

Slowly Johnny shook his head. “Now, folks, this can’t go down wrong, and you have to remember it was all a long time ago, and aren’t we a modern world now, and we don’t believe in any of the nonsense . . .” He started to chew his bottom lip with a look of confusion on his face. “It turns out the Steps—well, the great-great-great-grand-aunt—well, it was the Red Hag, and she got them from the fairies.”

There was a hushed silence. A quietness that you could grab by the fistful. I stared straight ahead, studying the grain of the wooden floor, my nostrils suffocating in dust. I couldn’t look around me. What had I done? What was I doing to this village?

Annie, with her bolshie forthrightness, was the first to speak. “These Steps. Are they from her, then?”

“She got them from the fairies.” Johnny spoke so quietly, the creaking of ears straining to hear was more audible.

A number of people rose from their seats and, pulling on their jackets, hurried toward the exit, shaking their heads and muttering.

“Stop!” Johnny shouted. “You can’t leave. We have to deal with this as a community.”

Heads turned.

“This type of thing is best left be, Johnny. You know it as well as the rest of us.”

“Why would you bring this out now? Why?”

As if a Chinese firecracker had fizzled on my seat, I suddenly popped up. “It’s me. This is all my fault.”

People stopped in their tracks and turned to listen to the unfamiliar Dublin accent.

“You see, I inherited these, and I just thought it would be a bit of a laugh. I didn’t think anything of it. I didn’t think anyone would pay any attention to them. But the thing is, they have. People really like these Steps. They think they’re special.

“I don’t know who the Red Hag was. I know I’m related to her, but she lived over one hundred thirty years ago. I’m sure everyone here has a few skeletons in their closet—mine has just become public knowledge. I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, I didn’t mean, I don’t mean, for anyone to get upset by this, for this to damage your beautiful village or for any cross words to be spoken.”

“Well, why publish this at all?” Annie stepped out of the exit aisle and carefully sat down. She was followed by three of the others.

Johnny descended from the stage and signaled to me to take his place. “They’ll hear you better up there,” he whispered.

Cautiously, I stepped into position, gripping the sides of the polished mahogany stand. I took a deep breath. I would be fair and honest, as the village had been to me. “I originally published the Steps for an inheritance. When I publish all seven Steps, I inherit something—I don’t even know what. It seemed like a good idea at the time. It was just a bit of fun. But it has escalated. Now it’s out of my control, and, honestly, it’s not going to make any
difference if I publish this sixth Step or not. Knocknamee is going to be found. I can’t believe they’re not here yet, the followers of the Steps. Not many villages have a Red Hag in their history. They won’t have to do much digging to get here. At least . . .” I couldn’t help but sigh at my attempt to look on the bright side. “At least, this way, we can all be prepared.”

“So it’ll happen whether or not you publish this Step?” Annie asked.

“Yes, I believe it will.”

“What can we expect?” Johnny Logan shouted, with a glint in his eye.

“TV cameras, photographers, fanatics. They’ll all land here pretty soon after I post the Step online.” I clenched my jaw. “They’ll probably be looking for me. They think I’m, well . . .” I was struggling to get the words out. I stared over their heads, focusing on a blue-and-white statue of the Virgin Mary that was catching shadows in the sinking sunshine. “They think that I’ve inherited some type of powers, that I’m some type of spiritual person.” I took a deep breath and scanned the room, looking as many people in the eye as I could. “I’m just a normal girl from Dublin who got caught up in a big mess.” I hung my head.

Annie rested her hands heavily in front of her. “Well, if they’re coming, they’re coming. There’s not much we can do about it.” She nodded her head into her chest.

“That’s it.” Johnny punched the air excitedly and muscled me off the stage. “I don’t think anyone here in this town wants the Red Hag dug up. But do you know what I think? I think we use her to make money. To change the shape of Knocknamee forever.” He wiggled his fingertips.

“You and your money, Johnny. You never stop.” Annie sat back down.

“That’s right. And folks, they say there’s a recession coming. Shouldn’t we make hay now? Who knows what tomorrow will bring? And come on now, Annie, don’t tell me you wouldn’t say no to more business in O’Donahue’s.”

“I wouldn’t say no, I suppose.”

“And Miles? Think of all the customers you’ll get in the B and B. Martin, your place will be through the roof. You can double your prices. And Vinny, you could use your van to do tours of the town.” He balled his fists and held them high above his head. “The eyes of the world will be on Knocknamee. Let’s not disappoint.”

A clap slowly started, rising gently into applause, until eventually all hands were red raw from beating against each other. All except those of the priest, who remained silent, his face in his hands.

28

I
had a small audience when I visited the Internet café later that evening. A handful of villagers formed a C shape around me as I typed out the sixth Step and uploaded it to spacemonkeys.com. The villagers were looking at me differently now, considering my ancestry, but in a good way. I was one of them. I wasn’t one of the “Dublin visitors” anymore. I was a Knocknamee local.

“So now what happens?” Martin was bent over the back of my chair, peering at the screen.

“Well, it’s gone live. It’s out there.”

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Martin furrowed his eyebrows in concentration.

“How quickly will people know about it?” Mavis had forgotten her glasses, so hadn’t been able to read the screen and follow the action as closely as Martin.

I hit the Refresh button. “They already know. Look.” As I had predicted, messages were appearing immediately on the blog. Feeding in live.

“Amazing.” Martin pointed at the screen. “Who’s that?”

Greggius_08: knocknamee is in county clare, west of Ireland.

“I dunno. I don’t know who any of these people are.”

“Do they know you?”

“Some of them think they do, I suppose.”

Annie had agreed to open the pub for one hour later than usual that night. Only one hour, she’d stressed with all the authority of a school principal. Everyone had agreed that was all they’d stay for and wasn’t it awful good of her to leave the pints flowing for the extra sixty minutes. “And would a few of them be free, considering the gravity and trauma of the day?” Paddy, the postman, had asked, sticking his neck out with a mischievous glint in his eyes. Annie’s face had gone red and her cheeks had puffed out in anger. “Paddy, if you think I’m staying open for the good of my health, you’re sorely mistaken. It’s raising the prices I should be doing.”

And so, after the sixth Step was posted, we traipsed en masse into O’Donahue’s pub, with a great thirst on us.

All conversation and heads turned quickly to me after the first round was poured. I spoke as truthfully as I could, giving as much information as I had. I wasn’t keeping any secrets. There was a lot of wise nodding into pints. Sean Lalor stroked his beard pensively and Dermot Flynn, drunk again and in the same position he’d been in the previous nights, released a low rumble of a sound that gradually turned into a song.

Mary, we searched long and far,

For the wails of famine to be gone,

But love for us will never be,

The crown has taken our hearts and run us down.

I tapped my foot with the beat and marveled at how the whole pub seemed to know the song and crept into it with a throwaway word or a hum.

When the song was finished, I waited a respectful amount of time before speaking. “The thing is,” I said softly, “I don’t know much about her. I’d like to know more.”

I noticed a moment, a heartbeat pass among them. Dermot spoke first to the others. “’Tis only fair.”

They nodded in agreement.

“What we know has been handed down from our parents and their parents before them.” He leaned forward and looked me straight in the eye. “She was a witch, and she wasn’t a good woman.”

“I gathered as much, yeah.”

“She ruled this village with cruelty.” He took a long sip of his Guinness.

“She ruled this village? Like the town mayor? Like Johnny?” Whenever I’d thought about the other Kate McDaid, I’d never ever considered she might be in a governmental role.

He threw his head back and breathed heavily out his nose. “Johnny has his faults, but he’s nothing like that. No, she was a different kettle of fish. She was a young woman after the famine. Some have her as a great beauty that could cast spells over men. She had red hair like yourself—that’s where she got the name. It sets you apart, the hair.” He stopped for another drink, and I felt very self-conscious about my curls, falling over my shoulders like a deep red blanket.

“But the potato famine, oooh.” His face creased into lines of pain. “The village was ravaged. There was death everywhere—oh, the misery of it! The people had nothing. They had no roofs over their heads because the English landlord, Phillips . . .” He curled his lip in disgust. “He burned them out. They had no land to call their own, no coins in their pockets, no food in their belly, and no whiskey in their mouths. Babies died in their mothers’ arms and the stench of death was everywhere. The people fell
down on their knees and prayed with all their might to God. And He never answered them. He never lightened their load. For four years the potato crop failed. They never knew that life could be so cruel, that God could do this to them. So they turned their backs on Him and the church. They looked to the pagan gods, who were here long before the church.” He lowered his voice and leaned in closer to me. “They asked the fairies for help.”