The Good People (32 page)

Mary peered at it more closely. ‘Ashes?’

Nóra shook her head. ‘A dead ember.’

‘Protection.’

‘Protection against the
púca
.’

‘Did Nance give it to you, then?’

‘She did not, no. ’Twas here, in Martin’s coat.’

The girl nodded absently and tucked the blanket in more firmly around the boy’s shoulders. ‘His hair is growing long.’

Nóra stared at the ember in her hand. Martin had never mentioned it, had never gone to Nance for anything other than the cold swelling in his hand. It was to the blacksmith’s for the teeth that troubled him, the broken rib all those years back when he fell from a horse. Never Nance.

‘And his nails too,’ Mary was saying. ‘Missus?’

Nóra turned the ember in her fingers. Had he gone in secret? Had he gone for something to protect the boy? Or had he gone for protection against him?

‘Missus?’

‘What?’ Nóra snapped, shoving the ember back into the coat pocket.

‘Micheál’s nails. They’re too long. He might scratch himself with them.’

‘’Tis not Micheál!’ Nóra reached for her shawl and began to wrap it around her head.

‘The . . . boy. I meant –’

‘I’ll milk the cow this morning.’

‘Shall I cut his nails?’

‘Do what you like with it.’

Nóra slammed the door behind her and paused in the yard, letting the damp of the morning cool the burning of her cheeks. She gripped the handle of the milk pail until it pinched hard against her skin, swung it against her leg until she could feel the lip bruising her thigh.

Nóra looked down towards the Piper’s Grave where the whitethorn was emerging in the gathering light. She would have burnt it down, stuffed their clothes full of ashes had they been able to help against the fairies and their slow malevolence.

Let it tremble, she thought. Let the foxglove shake the fairy out of my house, and give me back my daughter’s son. Please, God, rid the fairy.

‘Nance Roche, are you in there?’

It was a man’s voice, coloured with impatience. Nance paused and put the eel she was skinning back in its bucket of river water.

‘Are you of the living or the dead?’ she asked.

‘Mercy woman, ’tis not one of your patients come to be tricked. ’Tis Father Healy. I’ve come to speak with you.’

Nance rose and went to the door. The priest was standing outside with his feet apart, his coat flapping in the wind.

‘Father. What a pleasure.’

‘And how are you keeping, Nance?’

‘Still alive.’

‘You didn’t hear the Mass on the holy days?’

Nance smiled. ‘Ara, ’tis a long way for an old woman.’

‘But you got your meal and turf?’

Nance paused, wiping her bloody hands on her apron. ‘That was you, was it?’

‘Did you think ’twas a gift for the quackery?’ Father Healy peered past her. ‘Are you alone in there?’

‘Not if you count the company of goats.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Come in to the warm, so. Let me make you welcome in thanks for the meal. Sure, ’twas kind of you to be thinking of an old woman like me, alone on the day of our Lord.’

The priest shook his head. ‘No, thank you, I’ll not be coming in.’

‘Have it your way then, Father.’

‘I will.’

Nance waited for the priest to speak. The eel blood had started to dry to a rusty stain on her skin. ‘Well now, Father. Say what you’ve come to say. Constant company wears out its welcome.’

He crossed his arms tightly over his chest. ‘You should know, Nance, ’tis with a heavy heart I come to you today.’ He shifted his weight. ‘’Tis a serious matter I’ve come about.’

‘Best say it and be done with the saying of it, then, Father.’

Father Healy swallowed. ‘I’ve had good word that it was by your hand that Brigid Lynch lost her baby. There is an accusation against you. Some folk came to me saying you sought to poison Brigid Lynch.’

Nance looked at the priest. ‘That is quite an accusation.’

‘Did you or did you not give her berries of bittersweet?’

‘Bittersweet is no poison. Not when taken as it should.’

‘I’m told ’tis nightshade.’

‘Her man came to me looking for a cure. She was walking in her sleep and he was afraid for her. I am no murderer, Father. The herbs I pull are taken with prayer. In the name of the Lord.’

Father Healy shook his head. ‘Well, I can tell you now, Nance Roche, that herb-pulling like that . . . ’Tis an abuse of God’s holy ordinance. I can’t stand for it. There’s people here in this parish who have had enough of you bringing misfortune down on them with your pagan, unmeaning practices.’

‘Say what you will about my practices, Father, but they are full of meaning.’

‘They’ve had enough of your bawling.’

‘Aye, you’re against the keening, so you said.’

Father Healy fixed her with a grim look. ‘No, Nance. No. This has gone beyond keening. This is about nostrums and
piseógs
.’

Nance’s body ached and she fought a sudden desire to lie down on the grass and turn her face up to the sky.
Piseógs
and curses. That was what it was about.
Piseógs
and the dark things people did to one another when their hearts blacked with anger and the edges of their souls curled in bitterness.
Piseógs
. Muttered supplication to the Devil before the sun rises on a feast day. Curses wrought out of the wellbeing of another. The shifting, secret trade of vengeance and ill intent.

‘Aye.
Piseógs
. And ’tis not just Brigid Lynch I’ve come about. Seán Lynch found a wreath of mountain ash on his gate,’ Father Healy continued.

‘Did he now?’

‘And he is saying ’tis a
piseóg
.’

‘Now, Father, I know a few things about this world we’re in, and a wreath of ash is no
piseóg
. A good, clean fire, a hurley and a fence – that is what the quicken tree is for. ’Tis not useful for any kind of
piseóg
.’

Father Healy’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh, you know what is good for a
piseóg
, do you, Nance?’

‘I have no part in
piseógs
. I don’t lay curses. I have no hand in that.’

‘Then would you tell me, Nance, why there are plenty coming to me now saying ’tis your custom? They’re saying ’tis how you survive here, Nance. Taking people’s money for wickedness. Stealing the butter profit from the milk. Cursing churns. Setting neighbour against neighbour and cursing those that would not let you steal from them.’

‘Is it stealing the butter, I am?’ Nance gestured to her
bothán
. ‘Rolling in riches, am I?’

‘Nance, whether ’tis people thinking you’re stealing with curses, or whether you’re stealing by plugging the necks of beasts . . .’ He paused as if to note her reaction. ‘I can’t be standing for thievery. I’ll be fetching the police for that. Sure, the constable will take you in if that is what you’re after doing.’

Nance lifted her stained hands to the priest. ‘’Tis eels that fill my belly, not stolen butter.’

‘Look at you, red-handed as the Devil.’

‘You know as well as I that no one is bothered by a bit of eel catching.’

‘Nance, go on and catch as many eels as you like. You’re right, ’tis no bother to anyone who knows. But don’t be stealing the blood out of beasts, and don’t be putting the fear on the valley with your
piseógs
!’

Nance laughed in exasperation.

‘’Tis not a thing to be laughing at!’ The priest took a step towards her. ‘Nance, I tell you, my patience is mighty thin with you. If keening is unholy, then laying mountain ash and giving herbs to women in a delicate state to earn your place here is devilry.’

‘Father –’

‘Nance! I warned you to be a handy woman to those who need and no more.’ His face softened. ‘If bittersweet be a cure, and the death of Brigid Lynch’s baby the work of God, then no more about it. But . . .’ He pointed a finger of warning at her chest. ‘Don’t be laying curses.’

Nance threw her hands up in the air. ‘Father, I have no hand in
piseógs
! I have no hand in curses.’

‘Just a hand in with
Them that does be in it
. I know ’tis your mouth that’s been spreading the word about fairies.’ Father Healy turned his palms upwards in ecclesiastic habit. ‘Nóra Leahy came to me begging magic, gabbling superstition. Saying the poor boy she has in her care is the talk of the valley, that he’s fairy. That wouldn’t be your worm in her ear, would it, Nance? Sure, folk will pay handsome when they’re desperate. No harm in claiming cures when they bring food and turf to the door.’

Nance felt anger rise in her. ‘That boy is not natural.’

‘And you are doctor to the unnatural?’

‘I am.’

‘And you plan to cure him.’

‘I plan to banish the fairy and bring Nóra Leahy back her grandson.’

Father Healy gave her a look of weary frustration. ‘’Twould be a kindness for you to tell Nóra Leahy that she has a right to care for the cretin, and to expect nothing more.’

‘There’s no kindness in helplessness, Father.’

‘But there is in false hope?’ The priest sighed and looked out to the valley. ‘People are suffering, Nance.’

‘Yes, Father.’

‘They’re worried about the butter. About being forced on the road. About having no money to pay the rent with. About neighbours turning on them, wishing them ill. Wishing sickness and death on them.’

‘Yes, Father.’

He looked back at her, his brow furrowed. ‘If I find out that you do have a hand in it, I’ll not be as kind as I have been, Nance. I will see you out on the road. I will see you out of the valley.’

CHAPTER

THIRTEEN

Devil's-bit scabious

S
t Brigid’s Eve came to the valley
and with it the assurance of spring. Winter-weary, the eve of the holy day lured people out of their stuffy cabins down to where the field rushes grew and tremored in the wind.

Mary thought she could almost feel the swelling of the earth beneath her feet as she escaped the confines of the widow’s cabin and ran down the mountainside to the grassy stretch of moor. It was cold, but the sun was bright, and she felt that the waterlogged fields carried the promise of growth. Even in the gloom of dipped soil, where old snow lay patterned with the midnight flight of rabbits, early daffodils had emerged. She watched the robins, blood-smocked against the sky, and imagined they were leading her to the rushes, that they were pleased to know that warmth would return to the light.

It was a relief to be in the open air. A relief to leave Nóra and her constant crouching over the boy, watching him like a cat staring at a dying bird. A relief to leave the sight of the child fitting and moaning like the Devil was inside him, fighting for purchase. The very air of the cabin seemed leaden to Mary. She suffocated in the weight of the widow’s expectation.