by Stina Leicht
My fault. Should’ve been home.
Then they’d have had us both.
Took too long to get her to hospital. I should’ve taken the risk. I should have driven her myself.
“Liam?”
“Get back inside, Father.”
Liam didn’t turn around. He was afraid of what might happen if he did.
“I—I must tell you something.”
“I know what they—” He swallowed. The lump lodged in his throat hurt, but it was only another pain lost among a whole catalog of pains. “I know what they did to her.”
“It isn’t that,” Father Murray said.
Liam wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold himself together. Instinctively, he reached inside his pocket and found his lighter. The lighter that Mary Kate painted the tricolor on, he thought. He jerked his hand from his pocket and slapped it against the side of the taxi instead. “Get away, Father. Get away, now.”
“You won’t harm me.”
“Please, Father. Go.” Liam couldn’t stand straight anymore. His guts were twisting. The pain was awful. It was the monster clawing its way to the surface at last.
“You aren’t evil. Nor is whatever it is inside you. Evil isn’t capable of love. You loved Mary Kate, and she loved you.”
“Mary Kate didn’t know. Never saw it,” Liam said. “Father, please. You don’t know what will happen. I can’t control it.”
“Let it come. Whatever it is. We’ll deal with it together.”
“No.”
“What are you afraid of?” Father Murray asked. He paused and then seemed to come to a decision. “You’re wrong, you know. She did see it.”
Liam slammed his hand against the car door again. It wasn’t working—not this time. Nothing was the way it should be. I don’t want to know this. Not now. “You’re lying.”
“It wasn’t long after you were married. She told me she saw something while you were sleeping. At the time, she wasn’t sure what she should do. She came to me to ask whether she should stay.”
A cold knot formed in Liam’s stomach as pieces fit together in his head, forming an ugly picture. We have to wait. Just a few years. “It wasn’t about finishing university. Wasn’t about the money. She didn’t want to have a monster’s baby.” The ground seemed to shift from under him. He staggered.
Father Murray didn’t speak.
“That’s the reason, isn’t it?”
Taking a deep breath, Father Murray released it slowly. “We weren’t sure of what would happen. She loved you. She chose to stay. And in the end, she loved you enough to have your child. This time. In spite of her fears. Isn’t that enough? She believed you were a good man—whatever lurked inside you.”
Liam stumbled, the tingling sensation forgotten. “She knew.”
“Yes.”
“You told her what I am?”
Father Murray paused and then nodded.
“But you didn’t see fit to tell me?” Liam’s heart went colder yet. “Why did you marry us?”
“At the time I hoped she could help you. Keep you from indulging your destructive side. And so I thought she did. Combined with proper guidance from me. I thought we had everything under control. But I was so wrong about—”
“What did you tell Mary Kate?”
Father Murray stared at the ground. “There’s something I need to say, but you must be calm.”
“What did you tell her?”
“She was pregnant when we talked that first time. God help me, I—”
“Pregnant? Wait. When?”
Closing his eyes, Father Murray said, “A month after you were wed. She came to me. Terrified of what she’d seen and more of what she carried. We… we got rid of it.”
“She was sick. A virus. You said.” Liam was cold, and he stood straight—the pain forgotten for the moment. “I remember. It was a virus.”
“A doctor performed the procedure. It was handled as safely as—”
“You talked her into murdering our child?” Oh, God. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, not this. Not now.
“There wasn’t a choice. It had to be done. Based on what she told me, based on what I thought I knew, the baby would only have been an abomination.”
They’ll take the babe from us. You’ll not say a word, will you? It was clear who she’d meant now, and it hadn’t been the fairies. Liam’s teeth ground together, and he felt a snarl building up in his throat. The hairs on his arms were standing on end. “An abomination. Like me.”
“No, no, you’re not. I was wrong. You’re different.”
“And who is to say my children wouldn’t have been the same?”
“I… I thought… at the time… we couldn’t take the risk,” Father Murray said. “What I did was wrong. So terrifically wrong. I know that now. I’m so sorry.”
The chill in Liam’s chest was gone—transformed into a terrible rage. “Why tell me this now?”
“You must be careful, Liam. You can’t afford revenge, do you hear? You’ll be executed. It doesn’t matter that I was wrong. That you aren’t one of the sons of the Fallen. You’re one of the Fey. You’re—”
“Get away from me!”
“You must listen.”
The proper guidance, Liam thought and remembered all the wise things peace-loving Father Murray had said. And all the while he believed not a word. “Never come near me again, or I’ll kill you. You hear?”
Father Murray’s expression grew fearful.
A sharp pain lanced through Liam’s chest. He held his breath until it passed. “Get the fuck away!”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, son.”
“Then stay and be torn apart. I don’t fucking care anymore!” Liam listened to Father Murray’s staggering retreat and desperately clutched onto his self-control until he was certain the man was gone. Then he slipped to the ground and let the monster come. There really wasn’t any other choice. It was going to whether he let it or not. His senses changed in a last wrenching gasp of agony. His eyesight grew sharper. His sense of smell became so intense that he could see what he smelled. His hearing—
He would find the men that had killed Mary Kate. He’d find them and rip them apart one by one. He’d taste their blood, breathe in their fear and bathe in their screams. They would suffer for having touched her—for having raped her. He would rip and tear until nothing recognizable remained. Their families would carry with them the result of his grief for generations. None would prosper. None would make old bones. All would die of the violence their fathers had perpetrated. Red rage seared his veins—cooled for an instant by a single thought as a soothing voice from Derry filled his skull. It was Father Murray.
Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord.
No. It’s mine, the monster thought back, shaking its head to rid itself of the words. You hold no dominion over us, priest. And with that, he sprinted—his sense of purpose guiding him through the confusion of sights and smells. When he got to the car park outside their apartment building he saw the RUC had indeed arrived. Shadows moved across a window on the fourth floor. In the car park, Mrs. Black stood alone in the cold answering their questions. The other residents cowered in their beds.
Mrs. Brown frowned and shouted, “We’d have called for you if you’d have done something about it!”
He kept to the shadows and wished himself invisible. It had worked before, in the Shankill. It wasn’t reliable, but the stronger his emotions the more likely it was to work. He took a lungful of air and sifted its contents for the scents he had noticed before—sweat, blood—Mary Kate’s blood—tobacco, ale, gun oil, wool, leather. He was surprised to find there were four trails and not three. The fourth contained old blood, not Mary Kate’s alone. All four ran north and west.
To Loyalist territory.
Then he remembered the shoes. Polished to a fine shine, they were—marred only with blood and scuffs from their flight. A military shine. He looked to the men questioning Mrs. Black. A constable’s shine.
/> It came as no surprise. The monster located the scents again and followed on four legs, not stopping until one trail vanished. The fourth. He paused long enough to set the spot in his mind and then continued on. He traced the Peace Line along its length until he could pass through, invisible. Buildings, storefronts, houses all slipped past. The passage of time became the passage of scents and colors. He didn’t stop until he arrived at the end of the first trail.
He knew the house, or at least Liam did, nested in the hindmost part of the monster’s brain. Most of all he knew the car parked out front.
Ah, now. Is that any way to repay the favor we’ve done you? We’ve half a mind to take the plugs back and a good portion of the engine with them, he thought. After. After we’ve paid our call. He went through the front gate headfirst, breaking the latch. It let out a small squeal as it bent back.
Lights glowed from inside the house. A woman was speaking, accompanied with the sounds of a fork scraping a plate.
It seems we’ve arrived in time for the dinner.
Wood gave way without much resistance as the monster threw itself against the door. He entered a small, shabby room with a black-and-white television and two padded chairs. The television, showing some sort of news program, was the only light in the room. A woman screamed from the kitchen. Something clattered to the floor. The monster roared its arrival. From his dark corner Liam urged it on.
A man ran into the room, his face bunched with anger in the flickering light until he spied what had broken into his house. He was dressed in a constable’s uniform.
His anger became terror.
The monster leapt for the man’s throat, knocking him flat. Its teeth ripped into the constable’s flesh before Liam had time to think. The stink of urine. Warm salty blood flooded his mouth. The constable struggled, shrieking. Somewhere a gun went off. Once. Twice. Three times. Distant pain exploded in the monster’s body. The woman screamed again and fled back into the kitchen. Pots and pans clattered to the floor. The constable made a last fight for freedom, shoving with futile hands—the gun lost. The monster lowered its jaws again and fell to its work. Dark liquid sprayed the walls in the cold blink of television light.
Sirens wailed. Outside, gunshots echoed.
The monster lifted its gore-stained face and sniffed. Others were on the way. It was time to leave. But there was one left. One who must pay.
The monster trotted into the kitchen, its toe-nails clicking on cold tile.
The woman was curled into the far corner, a skillet clutched in one hand, her skirts were rucked up around her thighs. She might have been pretty, but her face was drained of color, and her eyes were distorted with horror. They were green like Mary Kate’s. In his distant place, Liam had a change of heart and implored the monster to leave the woman be. The monster panted a laugh and padded closer. The woman squeaked and held up the skillet. It wavered in the air, an ineffectual threat. Stop. You have to stop, Liam pleaded. We can’t do this. Please. She wasn’t a part of it.
We can. We will. For Mary Kate. Isn’t this what you want? The monster paused, one paw above the woman’s ankle. It slowly rested the pads of its foot on the edge of the woman’s skirt, inking a print in blood on the cloth. Its foul breath huffed stray curls from her terror-frozen face. Shivering, she flinched and turned away. Above, the pan in her hand wobbled. The monster glanced up.
The skillet was made of iron.
Backing away, the monster left a trail of sticky crimson and then exited the house the way it came. It hurried along the streets. Sirens and lights invaded the night behind it. Pain throbbed in its shoulder, gathering force. It reached the other side of the Peace Line and limped to a group of buildings on the opposite side of the Falls Road. It left Liam quaking in agony in a filthy alley. He dragged himself from the grimy concrete and staggered to his feet. His left shoulder was immobilized with pain. He couldn’t stand straight. Using all of his strength to will himself invisible, he retreated from the sirens and gunshots. Somewhere above an Army helicopter battered the air. Liam walked in fits and starts, pausing to lean against store fronts or brick walls to catch his breath. Consciousness flickered in and out. He didn’t know how far he’d gone when he found himself blinking up at a night sky hemmed in by street lamps. The pavement was hard and cold beneath his back. It was snowing. A car approached, and unable to move, he prepared himself for death. The tire squealed to a stop inches from his face. The tread had been worn bald on the inside.
Needs an alignment. He felt a smile curl the corners of his mouth. Doors swung open.
“Liam? Is that you?” It was Níal. Oran was there too.
“Out of the way, you amadán. Of course it’s him,” Éamon said. “And still alive yet, in spite of Father Murray almost having run over him.”
Liam groaned. He wanted to die. He didn’t care how. He should’ve stayed at the constable’s house until they came for him. He should’ve made them shoot him down. He should’ve—
Not until they pay, the monster thought. Not until every last mother’s son pays. We live until then, damn you.
Chapter 21
Ballymena, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
March 1977
Rory Gallagher’s Moonchild thundered out of the monolithic stereo speaker at Liam’s back. In a drowsy haze, he allowed the guitar riff to vibrate through him as if he were no more substantial than sea mist. The music tickled somewhere inside his chest and threatened to bring him back to himself. He would’ve moved to prevent it but couldn’t find the energy. Ultimately, he’d have preferred The Clash, or Iggy Pop—even the Sex Pistols would’ve better suited, but his current host, Jimmy, had no appreciation for punk music. Liam didn’t mind. To be honest, in his current state he wouldn’t have reacted if the Shankill Butchers rompered his skull in with heavy boots while carving him up like a side of beef. Liam was floating in a drug-saturated sea, and it was the best he’d felt since December. The nightmares had retreated, which meant he’d been able to sleep for the first time in months. He wasn’t himself anymore. He was someone who didn’t feel pain or rage or fear. Someone who didn’t have the troubles Liam Kelly did—someone who lived with his uncle and mourned a young wife that had died of a long illness—not a wife murdered by Loyalist constables. Thanks to Father Murray and Liam’s mother, who both insisted that he leave Belfast for his own safety, the new man Liam had become didn’t have to think about which side of the street he walked on, or what he wrote on job applications. He didn’t have to think about Mary Kate either, unless he wanted to, and right now, he wanted anything but.
Jimmy’s sister, whose name he’d long forgotten, danced topless in the middle of the room. Liam was fairly certain she was unaware she had an audience, and he felt a little guilty for gawking. On the other hand, he recalled some vague argument over women’s rights and the inequality of sexual norms imposed by a patriarchal society. It ultimately led him to wondering that if it were “liberating and revolutionary” for her to go about half-naked, was it equally so for him to watch her doing it? Or was he supposed to ignore her? A damned near-impossible feat if you ask me, he thought. She had nice tits, and from what he could see of the back of her tight jeans the rest of her wasn’t bad either. Sometime earlier she had made a rather “liberated and revolutionary” proposition, but then he wasn’t certain she knew to whom she’d made it or even if it mattered to her. Women’s Liberation was confusing and unsettling in the worst way. So, he’d resolved the matter for himself by refusing her. Of course, he hadn’t been high at the time. Now, he couldn’t have put up a fight—which, on second thought, might not have been so bad.
He closed his eyes, not wishing to watch her long brown hair glide across her silky skin. The truth of it was he didn’t want her. He wanted Mary Kate with every cell of his body. He missed everything about her. The feel of her sleeping at his side. Her gentle snores. Her soft brown curls tickling his nose enough to wake him from a sound sleep even on nights when he needed it most. Her smile. The sm
ell of her. At odd moments he thought he had heard her laughter, or he’d catch a glimpse of her in the corner of an eye, but all of it was a lie, and every time it happened it was as if someone had ripped a deep wound in his chest. The pain was raw enough to make him want to take a razor to his wrist, but each time he considered acting upon the idea something stopped him, and so, he stumbled on barely alive and wishing for an end. At times he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move without wanting to scream.
Hard as he tried for his Uncle Sean, he hadn’t lasted at the cigarette factory. One month in, it had become too much to get up in the morning and face the concerned looks of his coworkers. He assumed his uncle had told them enough to explain the erratic behavior—enough to keep them from asking too many questions. When Liam’s supervisor had taken him aside to discuss the latest spate of tardiness, Liam had ended up at the pub. That’s where he’d met Jimmy. Jimmy had seen something was wrong from the moment they had met. Drunk, Liam had told him there wasn’t enough whiskey in the world. Jimmy had said he understood and that he had just the thing—had imported it himself from England.
Jimmy was a weedy twenty-year-old living off his father’s money. Why he wasn’t doing it somewhere more exciting than Ballymena Liam hadn’t brought himself to ask. He didn’t exactly care. There wasn’t much he cared about these days. If he could, he’d stab enough smack into his veins to make him sleep for the rest of his life, but Jimmy was onto him and doled out the shite a bit at a time regardless of how much Liam begged. To Jimmy’s consternation it never seemed to last as long as it should, but for now Liam was content. He was nothing and no one, drifting away and never returning to a world where Mary Kate was dead. Worse than dead. And he’d been the one to leave her unprotected. Her and the babe.
