The Good People (30 page)

The maid shook her head, picking up the comb.

Nóra sat, clutching the bottle. ‘We will take the changeling back tonight, Mary. I can’t be waiting like this. Hearing it scream, waiting for it to change. I can’t be waiting.’ She took another sip. ‘Ever since Nance pronounced it fairy, I can’t help but think on what Johanna’s son will be like. Her true son. He will have grown. I can almost see him . . .’ Nóra lifted the bottle to her lips and took a deeper draught. ‘I dream about him, Mary. I see her boy. A right natural little lad, laughing. I hear him. His voice speaking to me. Just as when I first saw him in his mother’s arms. And I hold him and I tell him of his mother. How good she was, how . . . how beautiful. Oh, she was a beautiful child, Mary. Every night I combed her hair with that you’ve got now. Combed it till it shone. She loved that. I dream of combing her hair, Mary. I dream of the both of them, Johanna and Micheál, and them both alive and with me, and . . .’ She shut her eyes and her voice grew bitter. ‘But then that one starts up with its screaming.’

Mary was silent. She brought a hand to her mouth and spat a gob of chewed potato into it.

Nóra waved the
poitín
in the boy’s direction as Mary fed him, his body jerking. ‘That one has no love for me. It knows nothing like that. All it is . . .’ She pushed the cork back into the neck of the bottle. ‘It’s all need and no thanks for it.’

Mary wiped her hands on her skirt and eased the child up onto her chest, tucking his head against the side of her chin.

‘But Johanna’s true son . . .’ Nóra took a deep breath. ‘Even in my dreams he is a consolation. He is a gift. Something left for me.’ She looked across at the maid and saw both Mary and the boy watching her. The changeling was quiet, his eyes sloping over her face.

‘Do you know, Mary, in my dreams he looks like Martin.’

Mary glanced at the
poitín
bottle in Nóra’s hands and began to brush the fairy’s hair. He blinked at the light pull of Johanna’s comb.

Nóra shuddered.

‘Tonight,’ she said, tugging the cork and taking another swift sip. ‘We’ll take it at dusk.’

They returned to Nance’s cabin that evening, the boy bundled in rags, pale legs dangling against Mary’s thin hip. The sky was crowded with clouds threatening rain, but as they reached the end of the valley the horizon broke clear, letting in a late sun. Light fell on the puddles in the fields until they seemed like pools of gold amidst the mud. Mary glanced at Nóra and saw that she had seen the sudden seams of light on the ground too. A good omen. They smiled, and Mary thought the widow seemed calmer for the drink. She had seen Nóra tuck the bottle safely into her shawl before they left.

Nance was sitting on a stool in her doorway, smoking the evening hours. She waited until Mary and Nóra stepped into her yard before rising and greeting them. ‘God and Mary to you.’

‘You knew we’d be coming.’ Nóra’s words were slurred.

‘Your Mary Clifford there told me that there was no change in him. I thought you’d be here one of these nights.’

‘There’s no change in him at all.’ Nóra reached out to take Micheál from Mary’s arms, but her grip was weak and she stumbled, nearly dropping the boy. Mary quickly grabbed the child and hoisted him back onto her hip. He began to squeal.

Nóra righted herself, blushing. ‘There, see.’ She pointed to the way his legs fell useless, toes pointed inwards. ‘Do you see, Nance? No kick at all.’

‘Mmm.’ Nance narrowed her eyes at Nóra, then took a drag on her pipe and blew smoke over the boy’s face. He needled the air with his cries. ‘Best come in then.’ As they stepped into the cabin, Nance caught Mary’s arm. ‘Has that one liquor taken?’

Mary nodded and Nance ran a tongue over her gums. ‘Right so. Well, put him down.’ She pointed to her bed of heather in the corner. ‘Nóra Leahy, I’ll not be lying to you. The cure of mint and selfheal was a small thing but it proved the child changeling as we suspected. Now, to banish the fairy calls for stronger stems.’

Nóra sat down on the stool by the fire and looked at Nance expectantly. Her face was flushed, her hair dishevelled from the walk outside. ‘What is it you’ll be trying next?’

Nance waited until Mary had settled the boy on her bed. ‘
Lus mór
. The great herb.’ She showed the women some green leaves, slightly crumpled.

‘Foxglove,’ Mary whispered, her eyes flashing to Nóra. ‘’Tis poison.’

‘Fairy blasts calls for fairy plants,’ Nance chided. ‘And no plant is a poison to the one who knows how to use it.’

Mary’s heart began to pound in fear, as though the current of her blood had changed direction. ‘You’ll not be giving it to him for the eating, will you? Just for the soles of his feet like before?’

Nance regarded Mary with a smoky eye. ‘You have a right to trust me.’

Nóra nodded absently in agreement.

Mary bit her lip. She felt sick. The cabin air was hot and stuffy, and she could smell the goat waste lying in the drain. She closed her eyes and felt sweat break out on her upper lip. In his dark corner, Micheál was bleating like a lamb separated from its mother. A strained wavering cry sounding over and over.

‘’Tis a bath we’ll be giving him tonight,’ said Nance, and she placed the foxglove leaves in a large pot of water. Nóra rose to help her lift the black crock directly on the embers of her fire.

‘We’ll wait until ’tis warm enough for the water to take on the power of the
lus mór
,’ Nance said, settled back on her stool.

‘There’s no need to have the boy on the bed when I might hold him,’ Mary said. Without waiting for the women to respond, she rose and stumbled to the child. His eyes darted over her face as she approached. Mary picked him up, her eyes averted from his lolling head, the quiver of his face.

‘She’s forever holding it,’ Nóra muttered to Nance.

‘It keeps him from crying,’ Mary said.

‘Well, there’s truth in that,’ murmured Nance. ‘Not a sound from him now.’

Nóra frowned. ‘But sure, aren’t you holding it the whole night long, and it screaming like you’re about to cut the throat of it?’

Mary tucked Micheál close against her chest, and arranged his legs so that they fell neatly over her knees. ‘I think it does calm him some. To be held.’

Nóra blinked slowly, staring. ‘It screams and screams.’

Nance was thoughtful. ‘’Tis no harm in the girl holding the changeling, Nóra. Sure, ’tis right that she be kind to it for the sake of your Micheál with Them.’ She picked up a piece of knotted rag and soaked it in goat’s milk, handing it to Mary. ‘Here, give the cratur this to suck on.’

They waited for the water to take hold of the plant. Nóra sat staring at the leaves floating in the crock, her hands trembling. When Nance handed Nóra a small cup of
poitín
the widow drained it in silence.

When the water had warmed, Nance and Nóra hauled the pot off the embers and Nance motioned to Mary. ‘Take the wee dress off him now. We’ll put him in the bath.’

Mary’s mouth was dry as she lay Micheál on the floor and began to unwrap the clothes from his body. She could feel the women’s eyes on her, feel the fragile neck of the boy cradled in her hand as she lifted his skull off the floor to slip the cloth over it. As she took the last of the rags off him, his white body purled in gooseflesh.

‘The water won’t burn him, will it?’ she asked.

Nance shook her head, reaching for the boy. Together they eased his dangling legs into the crock. ‘Down into it now. That’s it, girl. Hold his arms. Don’t be getting the water on your skin. Dip him in so.’

The boy’s eyes widened at the heat of the water, then fixed on the shadows moving against the wall.

‘He’s too big,’ Mary gasped, breathing hard. ‘I don’t think he’ll fit.’

‘Sure, the fairy’s all bones. We’ll get him in there.’

Water lapped over the side of the pot as they folded the boy’s arms across his chest and slipped him into the crock. His knees bent high about his neck.

‘Let go of him now.’

Mary hesitated. ‘If I let go of his head he’ll knock it on the side of the pot.’

Nóra’s voice came out in a husk. ‘Do as Nance said, Mary.’

Mary took away her hand and the boy’s head dropped to the side, his ear close to the water. The women stepped back and watched him.

‘The fairy in him is suspicious,’ Nance muttered, and Mary saw the truth of it as soon as the words were spoken. Micheál’s head lolled back above the water, his chin pointed to the soot-stained rafters. A shudder went through him like wind rippling over water and he yelped, tongue stretched.

‘That’s the fox cry of him,’ Nóra whispered.

Mary felt her stomach cramp and she could not tell if it was from fear or excitement. The darkness seemed to hum around them.

‘Now we must give him the juice of it.’ Nance leant forward and reached for the boy’s chin. At her touch his jaw snapped shut, hinges of muscle suddenly tense. Glancing back at Nóra and Mary, Nance tried to slip her finger between his lips and behind his teeth, but the boy jerked his head, struggling.

‘Mary. Open his mouth for me, would you?’

‘’Tis as though it knows,’ Nóra marvelled. ‘It knows we’re after banishing it.’

‘Mary?’

Mary knelt by the crock and reached for Micheál’s mouth. He groaned as she touched him, his arms wresting and splashing the water from the pot. She recoiled, waiting until the boy had stilled and she wasn’t in danger of the liquid spilling on her. Then she reached for him again and gently inserted the tips of her fingers between his lips. Micheál looked at her from the corner of his eye, his head slumped towards his shoulder. The pink gleam of his inner lip sat beneath her fingers. She could feel the hard press of his teeth.

‘Will this hurt him?’ she asked.

‘Not at all,’ Nance reassured her. ‘Remember, girl, we’re only after sending him back to his kind.’

Mary felt for the gap in the ridge of teeth and, quickly pushing her fingers into the wet of Micheál’s mouth, pressed down on his molars. His jaw dropped open. Nance pinned one crooked finger on his tongue and squeezed the juice of foxglove leaf down his throat.

‘There. ’Tis done.’

Mary pulled her fingers from the boy’s mouth as though she had been burnt. When she glanced down at them she could see the vague imprint of his teeth on her knuckles.

‘What do we do now?’ Nóra asked. Mary turned and saw that the widow was swaying behind them, grey hair sticking to her forehead in sweat.

‘We wait,’ Nance said.

Micheál sat scrunched in the crock, moaning, disturbing the water like a fish in a pail. Mary thought that perhaps the warm bath comforted him, had lifted the chill from his marrow and soothed the flaking rash on his back. His eyes were glazed and his cheeks flushed red, and she thought that, for the first time since she had seen the child, he was peaceful. She exhaled in relief.

Then, slowly, so that at first it was almost imperceptible, a shaking rose in him.

‘So it begins,’ Nance murmured.

The shaking grew stronger. He tremored like the crushed catkin of birch, like the fluttered seed of an ash tree, and within minutes the convulsions grew so violent that he seemed to be shivering out of his skin.

Panic flared in Mary’s chest. ‘Nance?’

‘The herb is doing its work.’

Water splashed from the pot as the convulsions turned to thrashing. Micheál’s head swung forward, his chin suddenly tight against his throat. Water swallowed his face.

‘He’ll drown,’ Mary whispered. She reached for Nance’s shoulder, but the woman gently pushed her back.

‘Nóra. Lift him. Help me lift him.’

Nóra, looking bewildered, drunk, did as Nance said. Together the older women lifted the convulsing boy, wet-skinned and dripping, from the bath of boiled leaves. He shook in their grip like a rabid dog, his mouth rent open in a terrifying gape, arms rod-straight and trembling, and his head shaking from side to side as though in terror of what was being done to him.

‘Mary! Open the door for us.’

She held her breath in horror, unable to move.

‘Open the door!’

A strange noise began to come from the boy. A shrill gasping, as though there weren’t enough air in the world and he was struggling to breathe.