The Troubles (The Jessica Trilogy Book 2)

by Connie Johnson Hambley

  “The drugs help the horses feel good.”

  “We’ll do that without drugs. We’ve got to understand what we’re dealing with and won’t have any injuries masked by a painkiller.” She went into the storage room and came back rolling a cart. On top sat two metal boxes with dials and something that looked like microphones with a long cord. “Michael had these shipped here last week. We’ll use the ultra-sound machine if we’re dealing with a serious injury and the other for sound wave therapy. Have you used these?” Tim nodded, and they worked in silence. His entire focus went to the animal and all awkwardness evaporated. He was skilled, and Planxty relaxed under his care. She tried another attempt at conversation. “There is a lot to get used to here.”

  Tim looked up, cocking his head to one side in thought. “Not so much. Good countryside for riding though.”

  “I wondered about that. I’ve been out a few times and am never sure what’s public or when I cross onto someone else’s land. Would the neighbors have a problem with someone trespassing?”

  He laughed, pulling his lips back to show even, white teeth. She noticed how his weathered skin folded back in creases, accentuating his smile. “Nobody knows who owns what around here. That’s why the sheep have spray painted marks on them so the farmers can keep track of flocks even if they can’t keep track of their lands. Keep the gates as you found them and they won’t turn a rifle on you.” Any hint of warmth cooled. Agitation replaced his even demeanor. “You’re supposed to leave things as they were,” he sputtered. “Don’t go changing things or goin’ into places you’re not wanted. If they don’t want you there, the owners will put a sign up that says ‘Keep Out.’ That’s the rule. Learn what’s expected. Do what you’ve learned. Follow the rules, and you’ll be fine.”

  His response held more than awkward phrasing. Tim could change from shy to antagonistic and back without warning. Jessica found it hard to establish her footing with him. She ventured another topic. “Have you seen the stone circle? It’s on the other side of the farm, up the eastern trails. Can you tell me anything about it?”

  He looked out over the hills. “That’s Beltany Circle.” His upper body rocked a few times, then he stood completely still and spoke as if reciting a page from an encyclopedia. “It’s pronounced BAL-tin-neh. Ireland is dotted with them. The one you saw is said to be the worship site for Mother Earth and fertility. The locals don’t go there.”

  “Why?”

  “We Irish don’t question that there is more to our world than what we see.”

  She didn’t need to hear more to decide never to go back there.

  He grabbed a brush and began grooming the horse. With each short, quick stroke, he flicked the brush upward and released a tiny cloud of dirt and horsehair. He moved around the horse in tiny steps, keeping up the rhythmic brushing, slowly working his way closer to her.

  Hot, then cold. She’d never met anyone like him. Without Nan to talk to, she had no one to connect with. She had to keep trying. “The horses were chosen well,” she said, keeping her voice steady. “Michael must have known you had an eye for horses.”

  “He did.”

  “How long have you known him?”

  “I’ve known him all my life.”

  “Oh? You’ve been to the States?”

  His voice lowered, masking whatever it was he felt about his childhood friend. “Never. I’ve lived in the Irelands all my life.”

  The prospect of learning more was tantalizing. Michael was born and raised in the U.S. He was as American as she was, yet here was this dyed-in-the-wool Irishman who claimed they were boyhood friends. “How did you know one another?”

  “Our fathers were...” he worked his mouth to find the right word, “colleagues.”

  A flatness in his voice wasn’t the only indication that made Jessica instinctively want to stay away, but the mention of Magnus, the man responsible for turning her life upside down. As helpful as Tim was, she didn’t wholeheartedly welcome his presence. They stopped talking as they put one horse away and prepared another. This time they readied a small bay, its black mane and tail set off by a blaze of white on its face matched with a cap of white on its dock. She needed to break away. “Leg up?”

  Tim gave Jessica the requested boost into the saddle and watched as she began an easy trot to the ring. He ran through the pair’s physical language, losing himself in the unspoken signals. The horse was easy. Expectant. A rapport had already formed between animal and human. The horse’s head hung down, accepting the loose rein without taking advantage of it. Animals don’t lie. Their eyes don’t shift to the side and fake being nice if they don’t like something. Tim craved that honesty, and the world of horses is where he found it. The urge to walk in rapid circles vanished. He wasn’t a good poker player because of the quirky and unconscious things he did. He had to learn how to lie by keeping the muscles in his face relaxed or not jamming his hands in his pockets. More important than teaching his body to obey, he learned to spot a lie in someone else.

  He saw how the reference to Michael’s father stunned Jessica. He watched as she worked her mouth as it went dry and her eyes widened, unblinking, with pupils constricting to tiny dots. It confirmed what he had learned about her—she hid things. Even with the overt threat Magnus held over her, she did not gasp or blink or try to divert attention. Her eyes did not widen in fear, but narrowed in disgust. That told Tim she was gutsy, didn’t run from fear, and would be unmanageable if she felt threatened. She was the most exquisite person he had ever met. He wanted to spend hours watching her.

  Tim looked back at the cottage. Nan stood in the shadows of the doorway, arms crossed, and the corners of her mouth turned downward. She looked in the direction of the horse and rider then gave a quick nod. He walked back into the barn.

  A few minutes later, a van pulled up. Another man emerged and helped carry several large wooden boxes into the barn, keeping a nervous look over his shoulders as he worked.

  Tim opened one box and peered down inside. A series of wooden shelves divided the stacked layers. The top layer contained an assortment of horse poultices, wraps, and splint boots that were part of the essential gear of high-end horse care. Lifting this shelf out, he retrieved a plastic bag that held a large coil of wire and several rectangular blocks of a gray, putty-like material. He tossed this bag to his companion, who quickly placed it back into the van.

  Tim nodded his satisfaction. They hoisted the boxes up into the loft and hid them behind a carefully stacked wall of hay bales. The day proved warmer than he expected and in the rapid pace of work he broke into a sweat. He gave Nan another quick look. She remained standing with her back to them facing the ring where Jessica rode. Nan’s arms were still crossed to signal no one was coming. He rolled up his shirtsleeves, exposing the pale skin of his forearms to the summer sun. Even a dark tan would not have hidden his tattoo.

  A three-leaf shamrock shaded in the colors of Ireland—green, white, and orange—was nearly sliced in two by a long dagger. An intertwining Celtic design decorated the dagger’s handle up to the quillion. The black outline of three tears dripped from the blade’s edge. He caught the driver of the van stealing a quick look at it and smiled when the younger man seemed to put more effort into his task. Tim’s army didn’t have fancy uniforms with badges and stripes of rank. The tattoo showed his commitment to the cause and that he had risen to its highest levels. He only needed to add blood red to the tears for the symbol of his ascension to be complete.

  What she learned from Tim gnawed at her. She knew so little of Michael but could hardly be angry with him for her ignorance. Michael had a childhood friend whose fathers were colleagues of some sort. Regardless of what she thought of Magnus, it stung that she had scant knowledge on her own roots—her real ones. Resolved, she hastily rummaged around the crawlspace and pulled out a handful of papers from the box. Spreading them across the planks of the kitchen table, she began the process of making sense of the pieces of her life.

  She
would start with her biological mother. Jessica smoothed the yellowed paper onto the table, settling it for inspection. She stared at her mother’s name.

  Bridget Heinchon Harvey.

  Jessica closed her eyes and drew on every memory she had of Bridget. For years, Jessica rejected the awkward love of a sickly aunt and wondered how their relationship would have been different if she knew her mother was with her when she needed one the most during her rebellious teen years. She felt stupid and barren for not realizing it. Stupid, because she thought people just knew this stuff, like who their mother really was. Barren because she ached to change how she treated Bridget and to fill up on the warmth of a mother’s love.

  Margaret was considered a dark Irish—black hair with gray eyes and a crackling wit that her private nature showed only to her closest family. Bridget’s gentle manner of speaking only hinted at an Irish brogue. Her alabaster skin was lightly flecked with pale brown freckles. Her hair, gray by the time they lived together, hinted at being blonde flecked with faded strawberry, suggesting her Irish lineage. How could Jessica not have been fully aware that Bridget and Margaret were true Irish—not simply by ancestry but by where they were born? They never spoke of their roots, but Jessica shook her head at being so blind to what should have been obvious, including the physical similarities she shared with Bridget, not Margaret.

  Frustrated, she went back to examine her birth certificate. Long versions, like this one, typically provided both the names of the parents and where they were born. The entire document would have been rolled into the carriage of an old typewriter and the information entered, metal keys hitting an inked ribbon, imprinting one perfectly formed letter at a time. Her fingers felt the slight bumps behind each letter where the paper had been struck. At the bottom of the page, she looked for the information she craved but thought she would never see. Beside Bridget’s name was a blank place where the mother’s place of birth would have gone. She assumed the next line down held a space for the father’s name. Jessica had looked at this form before and always thought that this space was blank. Looking more carefully, she noticed the bottom of the document did not have a crisp edge. Instead, the old parchment-like paper was faintly frayed. The thinnest of fibers clung to the slightly fuzzed edge, clearly showing that it had been carefully ripped or cut many years before.

  Jessica held the paper up to the kitchen light and studied it for a very long time. The information typed onto the old form did not follow a perfectly straight line. The paper had been loaded into the typewriter at an angle and adjusted clumsily to complete each space. It had been torn through the very information she craved. In the space marked “Next of Kin,” the bottom half of the typed letters had been severed. She could tell a rounded capital letter started the first name and a pointed capital started the last name. It fit the convention for “Gus Adams,” but the thought pained her. If Jessica could find the bottom half of the certificate, maybe she could learn who her father was and why Bridget gave her away and kept her secret even in death.

  This mystery had roiled inside her head ever since the certificate’s discovery only a few months before. From that moment, unthinkable possibilities ran through her thoughts every second of every day. The shock she had when she learned the truth had not faded. The fear she had at knowing more grew.

  Jessica was given away at birth, but she felt far less a precious gift bestowed upon Margaret than an abandoned, unwanted nuisance. Bridget gave her baby girl to her sister and never broke the secret even after Margaret’s tragic death in the automobile accident that also claimed the lives of Erin and Jim. The anger and bewilderment about being lied to in the years Bridget lived in the Wyeth home to care for Jessica threatened to consume her. All of those Sunday night dinners where Jessica sat at one end of the huge dining room table and Bridget sat at the other came rushing back. Nothing but the uncomfortable stirrings in their chairs filled the silence. Jessica believed life could have been different if they both knew they were mother and daughter. Instead, they sat in silence as a sickly aunt played guardian to an estranged teenaged niece.

  Jessica fingered the yellowed parchment form as if some remnant of memory could seep up through her fingertips and provide the answer. Bridget was born on December 27, 1933 and was thirty-three years old when she had Jessica. It wasn’t a lot. But it was a start.

  Father Mervyn Archdall smoothed the front of his black cassock over his prominent belly and straightened his slumped shoulders. His skin felt like static electricity raced over it, a physical sign of his intuition. He was determined to project calm and confidence to his flock during today’s mass and wait to see what unfolded which would require his attention. As was his habit, he had risen before dawn, bathed, ate a sparse breakfast of brown bread and tea, and slipped out of the rectory without waking his housekeeper and resident deacon.

  He walked briskly, hoping to get to his office before anyone else arrived. The Bishop’s Cathedral stood a navigation point in the remote countryside. The massive stone structure sat upon the crest of a hill, maximizing the cathedral’s impact when approached from the main street. Its stumped steeple did not thwart the illusion that the cathedral was bigger than it really was. Rather than taper to a point, the steeple was either lopped off or never completed, leaving a squared and blunted limb. The walled churchyard enclosed decaying crypts and headstones but no bishop lay buried there. The cathedral earned its name from the clergyman who took refuge within its walls. Legend told of a bishop who dared to question how the Catholic Church raised its money and distributed power. Such questions made him wildly popular with the people, but his superiors held a different opinion. Whispers about a labyrinth of tunnels began when the bishop mysteriously disappeared without a trace after a mass. Rumors persist about subterranean passages under the town and throughout the countryside. Father Archdall would hrmpf anyone into silence who suggested their existence.

  Once inside, he wandered the hallways of the cathedral—pacing, restless, caged. He tried to channel his nervous energy by performing odd tasks—stacking missiles neatly in pew corners or running a damp cloth over smoothed marbled floors. He dusted the sloped sills of the narrow windows—filled with stained glass interpretations of Jesus’ life—and replenished the ancient carved stone bowl at the entrance of the church. Another slight blessing of the holy water to boost its potency completed his tasks.

  He considered the cathedral his home more than the rectory. He knew every square inch of the huge stone structure even better than he knew his own body. He unlocked the huge wooden doors and pushed them wide in welcoming. An overturned bucket sat on the steps. He pulled the doors shut and locked them.

  His heart pounded. The timing was all wrong. Things were happening much faster than he expected. He felt the generations of priests before him place their hands on his shoulders in support. He played a part in something larger than himself, far larger than all of Donegal parish. He knew his words today would set actions into motion. Sometimes, exact words were provided to him. Other times, a passage of scripture encompassed the reference. He hurried down the hallway to receive the message.

  “Morning, Sagart Archdall,” Mrs. McDonnaugh, the church’s treasurer and town registrar chirped her greeting through the cracked opening of her office door, using his Irish title. “Looking for inspiration for another sermon?”

  He hid his surprise and pretended to pause his pacing long enough to reply, “Yes. It’s coming along well enough.” He looked at his watch. “You’re here early.”

  “I had an hour’s work to do before mass. The supper last night was well attended. Lots of folks contributed.” She shook a zippered money pouch for emphasis. “People showed a good deal of curiosity about that young American girl. We don’t often get visitors like her around here.”

  His raised eyebrows did little to soften his expression. “Oh?”

  “I’ve had a few people come in looking up old deeds or some other such record with an excuse for idle chat. Pickin’ my brains
for crumbs, they were.”

  “What did you tell them?” he said with more force.

  “I told ‘em the truth. She’s not come to me to with any questions. Mute as a mouse and gets hustled out as soon as the service is over. She’s keepin’ to herself, and I’d nothing to tell them.”

  “Hrmpf,” he exclaimed, considerably more relaxed.

  “No news will be coming from me, so they can stop their pryin’.”

  He was careful not to nod his approval with force enough to set his jowls in motion. “Well done. We don’t need to be the source of gossip.”

  “Right you are, Father. Will you be needing anything more before mass? I wouldn’t miss the sermon you’re cooking up in that head of yours. It must be a good one. You’re wearing out a track in the stone with your pacing.” She pulled the door to her office shut.

  Father Archdall let his shoulders droop and leaned against the cold stone wall. He had thought he was alone. With renewed energy, he started at the top of the cathedral and worked his way down, checking every hidden corner and shadow for a second and third time. How could he have been so careless as to not realize she was there? He blessed himself, gripped his rosary in his hand, and said a chaplet.

  Events were in motion. What they were, he had no idea, but he knew he wouldn’t be the one to make a mistake. It took him another twenty minutes to comb the cathedral again. The altar servers would be arriving soon, but he knew he had time. He locked the vestry door behind him. He didn’t need light as he made his way down the cellar stairs, for they were as familiar to him as the back of his own hand.