by Amy Harmon
“I want to go home.”
“Wait until the rain eases,” Thomas said. “I’ll figure something out.”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken out loud, but I didn’t slow. “I can’t live like this.” Again, I spoke without meaning to.
“Like what?” Thomas scoffed, incredulous, matching his steps to mine.
“Like this,” I mourned, letting the rain disguise the tears that had begun to streak down my cheeks. “Pretending to be someone that I’m not. Being punished for things I can’t explain and blamed for things I know nothing about.”
Thomas grabbed my arm, but I pulled free, stumbling and warding him off. I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t want to love him. I didn’t want to need him. I wanted to go home.
“I am not the Anne Gallagher you think I am,” I insisted. “I am not her!”
“Who are you, then? Huh? Don’t play games, Annie,” he said, moving around me, heading me off. “You ask me things you should know. You never speak of Declan. You never speak of Ireland! Not like we used to. You seem lost half the time, and you’re so different, so changed, that I feel like I’m seeing you for the first time. And dammit if I don’t like what I see. I like you!” He ran an impatient hand over his face, wiping the rain from his eyes. “And you love Eoin. You love the boy. And every time I’m convinced you really are someone else, I see the way you look at him, the way you watch him, and I feel like a feckin’ lunatic for doubting you. But something has happened to you. You aren’t the same. And you won’t tell me anything.”
“I’m sorry, Thomas,” I cried. “You’re right. I’m not the same Anne. She’s gone.”
“Stop it. Stop saying that,” he begged. He raised his face to the sky, as if begging God for patience. Hands fisted in his hair, he took a few steps toward the long row of homes along the square, putting distance between us. The lights of his house beckoned weakly, taunting us. A shadow moved behind the drapes, and Thomas froze, watching the dark silhouette against the tepid smear of light.
“Someone’s already here,” Thomas said. “Someone’s in the house.” He cursed and supplicated the heavens once more. “Why now, Mick?” he said under his breath, but I heard the words. Thomas turned back to me, pulling me into his side, keeping me close in spite of it all. My control broke.
I wrapped my arms around him, burying my face in his chest, clinging to him—and the impossibility of us—before our time ran out. The rain drummed against the pavement, counting off the seconds, and Thomas welcomed me into his body, his lips pressing against my hair, his arms encircling me, even as he groaned my name.
“Anne. Ah, lass. What am I going to do with you?”
“I love you, Thomas. You’ll remember that, won’t you? When this is over?” I said. “I’ve never known a better man.” I needed him to believe that, if nothing else.
I felt a tremor shake him, but his arms tightened around me, a vise of desperation that spoke of his turmoil. For a moment more, I embraced him; then I let my arms fall as I pulled back. But Thomas didn’t release me, not completely.
“It’ll be Mick. Inside. He’s going to demand answers, Anne,” Thomas warned, his voice weary. “What do you want to do?”
“If I answer every one of your questions, will you promise to believe me?” I begged, looking up at him through my tears.
“I don’t know,” Thomas confessed, and I watched his frustration disintegrate, washed away in the downpour, leaving resignation in its wake. “But I can promise you this. Whatever you tell me, I’ll do my best to protect you. And I won’t turn you away.”
“Liam was the one who shot me on the lough,” I blurted. It was the truth I was most afraid of, the truth that pertained to this time and place, and the truth Thomas might be able to explain, even understand.
Thomas froze. Then his hands rose from my arms to cradle my face as if he needed to keep me still while he examined my eyes for veracity. He must have been satisfied with what he saw because he nodded slowly, his mouth grim. He didn’t ask why or how or when. He didn’t seek clarification at all.
“You’ll tell me everything? Mick too?” he asked.
“Yes,” I breathed, surrendering. “But it’s a long . . . impossible . . . story, and it will take me a while to tell it.”
“Then let’s get out of this rain.” He tucked me against his body, and we moved toward his house, toward the soft light that glimmered in the windows.
“Wait,” he commanded and climbed the stairs to the front stoop without me. He knocked on his own door, rapping a rhythm that was clearly preestablished, and the door swung open.
Michael Collins took one look at the two of us and pointed to the stairs.
“We’ll talk when you’re dry. Joe made a fire. Mrs. Cleary left bread and meat pies in the larder. Joe and I helped ourselves, but there’s plenty left. Go. It’s been a helluva night.”
Mrs. Cleary was Thomas’s Dublin housekeeper. Joe O’Reilly, Mick’s righthand man, looked on sheepishly. The fact that it was Thomas’s home and Michael Collins was giving orders was clearly not lost on him, but I didn’t need any further encouragement. I climbed the stairs, my shoes squelching and my teeth chattering, and stumbled into the room Thomas had assigned to me, peeling off his suit coat and my red dress, hoping Mrs. O’Toole could rehabilitate the clothing like she’d saved my bloodstained blue robe. Our clothes were covered in a layer of soot, and they reeked of smoke, just like my hair and skin. I wrapped my robe around me, gathered my things, and took a hot bath. If Michael Collins objected to the time I was taking, too bad. I scrubbed my hair and skin, rinsed it, and scrubbed it all once more. When I finally made my way downstairs, my hair was still wet, but the rest of me was clean and dry. The three men were huddled around the kitchen table, speaking in voices that quieted when they heard my footfalls.
Thomas stood, his face scrubbed free of the grime but not the concern. He wore clean, dry trousers and a white shirt. He hadn’t bothered to button on a collar, and his sleeves were rolled up, revealing the wiry strength of his forearms and the tension in his shoulders.
“Have a seat, Anne. Right here.” Michael Collins patted the empty place beside him. The kitchen table was perfectly square, with a chair on each side. “Can I call you Anne?” he asked. He stood, shoved his hands into his pockets and sat down again, agitated.
I sat next to him obediently, the sense of an ending all around, like I was caught in a dream I was about to wake from. Joe O’Reilly sat on my right. Collins sat on my left. Thomas sat directly across from me, his blue eyes troubled and oddly tender, his teeth clenched against the realization that he could not save me from what was about to go down. I wanted to reassure him and tried to smile. He swallowed and shook his head once, as if apologizing for his failure to return my offering.
“Tell me something, Anne,” Michael Collins said. “How did you know what was going to happen tonight at the Gresham? Tommy here tried to pretend it wasn’t you who tipped him off. But Tommy’s a terrible liar. It’s the reason I like him.”
“Do you know the story of Oisín and Niamh, Mr. Collins?” I asked softly, letting my mouth find comfort in the sound of their names—usheen and neev. I’d learned the story in Gaelic, speaking the language before I’d learned to write it.
I’d startled Michael Collins. He’d expected an answer, and I’d asked a question instead. An odd one.
“I know it,” he said.
I fixed my gaze on Thomas’s pale eyes, on the promise he’d made not to turn me away. I’d thought of Oisín and Niamh more than once since I’d fallen through time; the similarities of our stories were not lost on me.
I began to recite the tale the way I’d learned it, in Gaelic, letting the Irish words lull the table into a hushed silence. I told them how Niamh, Princess of Tír na nÓg, the Land of the Young, had found Oisín, son of the great Fionn, on the banks of Loch Leane, not so different from the way Thomas had found me. Collins snorted and O’Reilly shifted, but Thomas was still, holding my
gaze as I wove the ancient tale in a language every bit as old.
“Niamh loved Oisín. She asked him to go with her. To trust her. And she promised to do all in her power to make him happy,” I said.
“This is an odd way of answering my question, Anne Gallagher,” Michael Collins murmured, but there was a softness in his tone, as if my Gaelic had calmed his suspicions. Surely one who spoke the language of the Irish could never work for the Crown. He did not stop me as I continued with the legend.
“Oisín believed Niamh when she described her kingdom, a place that existed separate from his own world, and he went with her there, leaving his land behind. Oisín and Niamh were very happy for several years, but Oisín missed his family and his friends. He missed the green fields and the loch. He begged Niamh to let him return, if only for a visit. Niamh knew what would happen if she let him go back, and her heart broke because she knew Oisín would not understand unless he saw the truth for himself.” My throat ached, and I paused, closing my eyes against the blue of Thomas’s steady gaze to gather my courage. I needed Thomas to believe me but didn’t want to see the moment when he stopped.
“Niamh told Oisín he could go but to stay on Moonshadow, her horse, and to not let his foot touch Irish soil. And she begged him to return to her,” I said.
“Poor Oisín. Poor Niamh,” Joe O’Reilly whispered, knowing what came next.
“Oisín traveled for several days until he returned to the lands of his father. But everything had changed. His family was gone. His home too. The people had changed. Gone were the castles and the great warriors of the past,” I said. “Oisín stepped down from Moonshadow, forgetting, in his shock, what Niamh had begged him to remember. When his foot touched the ground, he became a very old man. Time in Tír na nÓg was very different from time in Éire. Moonshadow ran from him, leaving him behind. Oisín never returned to Niamh or the Land of the Young. Instead, he told his story to whomever would listen, so the people would know their history, so they would know they descended from giants, from warriors.”
“I always wondered why he couldn’t return, why Niamh never came for him. Was it his age? Maybe the fair princess didn’t want an old man,” Collins mused, locking his hands behind his head, completely serious.
“Cád atá á rá agat a Aine?” Thomas murmured in Gaelic, and I met his gaze again, my stomach trembling, my palms damp. He wanted to know what I was really trying to say.
“Just like Oisín, there are things you won’t understand unless you experience them for yourself,” I urged.
Joe rubbed his brow wearily. “Can we speak English? My Irish isn’t as good as yours, Anne. A story I already know is one thing. Conversation is another. And I want to understand.”
“When Michael was a child, his father predicted he would do great things for Ireland. His uncle predicted something very similar. How could either of them possibly know such a thing?” I asked, reverting to English once more.
“An dara sealladh,” Michael murmured, his eyes narrowed on my face. “Second sight. Some say there’s a touch of it in my family. I think it was just the pride of a father in his young son.”
“But time has proven your father right,” Thomas said, and Joe nodded, his face filled with devotion.
“I cannot explain what I know. You want me to give explanations that will make no sense. I will sound crazy, and you’ll be afraid of me. I told you I was no threat to you or Ireland. And that is the only reassurance I can give you. I cannot explain how I know, but I will tell you what I know, if it will help. I knew that the doors would be barred and a fire would be started only moments before it happened. When Murphy made his toast . . . I just . . . knew. I also knew the truce would be signed before it was. I knew the date, and I told Thomas, though even he had no knowledge of an agreement.”
Thomas nodded slowly. “She did, Mick.”
“I know that in October, you will be sent to London to negotiate terms of a treaty with England, Mr. Collins. Mr. de Valera will stay behind. And when you return with a signed agreement, the people of Ireland will overwhelmingly support it. But de Valera and some members of the Dáil—those loyal to him—will not. Before long, Ireland will not be fighting England anymore. We will be fighting each other.”
Michael Collins, his eyes full of tears, pressed a fist to his lips. He rose slowly, burying his hands in his hair, his anguish terrible to watch. Then, with violent emotion, he picked up his saucer and teacup and smashed them against the wall. Thomas handed him another, and it shared the same fate. The dish that held a single slice of meat pie followed, raining bits of potato and crust across the kitchen. I could not lift my eyes from his empty chair as he made short work of anything that would shatter. The shaking in my belly had moved to my legs, and beneath the table, my knees bounced uncontrollably. When he sat back down, his emotion was banked, and his eyes were hard.
“What else can you tell me?” he asked.
26 August 1921
(continued)
If I had not seen it, not heard it, I wouldn’t have believed it. Anne entered the lion’s den and calmed the beast with nothing but a tale delivered in perfect Irish and a well of knowledge that should have condemned her, not saved her.
Ireland has long since abandoned her heathen roots, but my Anne has druid blood. I’m convinced of it. It’s in her soft eyes and her purring voice, in the magic she weaves with her words. She’s not a countess; she’s a witch. But there’s no evil in her, no ill intent. Maybe that, in the end, is what won Mick over.
He asked her a dozen questions, and she answered him without hesitation when she could and with calm denial when she claimed she couldn’t. I watched her—amazed, stricken, proud. Mick didn’t want to know where she’d been or how she’d come to be in the lake—those were my questions. He wanted to know if Ireland would survive, if Lloyd George would uphold his end of the Treaty, if Partition would be defeated, and if the British would actually leave Irish soil, once and for all. It was only when Mick asked if his days were numbered that she hesitated at all.
“Time will not forget you, Mr. Collins, nor will Ireland,” she said. “That is all I can tell you.” I don’t think he believed her, but he didn’t press her. And for that, I was grateful.
When Mick and Joe finally left, slipping out the back and into a waiting car, she wilted in relief, laying her head down on the kitchen table and clinging to the edge. Her shoulders shook, but she cried silently. I tried to draw her up, to comfort her, but her legs wobbled, and she swayed. I picked her up instead, carrying her from the kitchen to the rocking chair by the fire, to the place where Mrs. Cleary knitted on nights when I asked her to keep watch for men or materials.
Anne curled into me, letting me hold her. I held my breath, fearful I would startle her, that she would bolt. Or that I would. She tucked her legs beneath her and turned her face until it was resting against my shoulder. Her breath was warm against my shirt and her tears wet, making me long to hold her tighter, to draw her even closer, to be nearer. My rough exhalation stirred her hair—the breath I’d been holding—and I tightened my arms and dug in my heels. Our combined weight deepened the sound of the swaying chair against the wood floor, echoing the beat of my heart in my chest, reminding me I was alive, mind and body, and so was she. My hand mimicked the rhythm of the chair, stroking her back as we rocked to and fro. We didn’t speak, but there was a conversation happening between us.
The window closest to the fire rattled suddenly, making her breath catch and her head lift infinitesimally.
“Shh,” I soothed. “’Tis just the wind.”
“What story is it trying to tell?” she murmured, her voice rough with spent emotion. “The wind knows every story.”
“You tell me, Anne,” I whispered. “You tell me.”
“I had a teacher who told me fiction is the future. Nonfiction is the past. One can be shaped and created. One cannot,” she said.
“Sometimes they are the same thing. It all depends on who is telling the st
ory,” I said. And suddenly I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t care where she’d been or what secrets she guarded. I just wanted her to stay.
“My name is Anne Gallagher. I was not born in Ireland, but Ireland has always been inside of me,” she began, as though she were simply reciting another poem, telling another tale. Our eyes clung to the fire, her body clung to mine, and I let her words take me away once more. It was the legend of Oisín and Niamh, where time was not flat and linear but layered and interconnected, a circle that retraced its path again and again, generation after generation, sharing the same space if not the same sphere.
“I was born in America in 1970 to Declan Gallagher—named after his paternal grandfather—and Hannah Keefe, a girl from Cork who spent a summer in New York and never went home again. Or maybe she did. Maybe Ireland claimed her when the wind and water took them away,” she whispered. “I hardly remember them at all. I was six, just like Eoin is now.”
“In 1970?” I asked, but she didn’t answer. She just continued, not rushing, the lilt and flow of her voice quieting my questions even as my head rebelled against my heart.
“We’ve traded places, Eoin and I,” she said, inexplicably. “Who is the parent, and who is the child?” For a moment, she was silent, contemplative, and I continued rocking, staying in one place while my thoughts went in all directions.
“My grandfather recently passed away. He was raised in Dromahair, but he left as a young man and never went back. I don’t know why . . . but I’m starting to believe he did it for me. That he knew this story, the story we’re living now, before I was even born.”
“What was your grandfather’s name?” I asked, dread coating my mouth.
“Eoin. His name was Eoin Declan Gallagher, and I loved him so much.” Her voice broke, and I prayed that her account would turn from parable to confession, that she would abandon the storyteller and just be the woman in my arms. But she pressed on, her agitation growing with every word.
