“So, off in this direction we go,” announced Oisin, turning and showing the way to the gate again with his light. Seamus and Mary Claire took each other’s hands and followed Oisin toward the gate, Seamus keeping the much brighter beams of his light on Oisin’s back and the road at their feet. They stepped off the gravel of the driveway onto the grass of the field and then through the gate, which Oisin swung open with a grunt.
“So, what is it again that we are looking for here?” Mary Claire asked as they crossed the field. Light reflected off the surface of the River Barrow in the distance, large bulky silhouettes of trees standing guard silently alongside the river.
“Well, it sounds a bit daft, even I have to admit,” Seamus offered as a preface. “But ol’ Professor Sean—God love him!—he was quite insistent that we come out here to Castle Annaghs as soon as we could and get the cairn of stones built on that grave of hers for him.”
Mary Claire shook her head. “What cairn? What grave? Whose grave is on a dairy farm?”
Oisin glanced over his shoulder at Seamus. “Well, who tells it to ’er? You or me, mate?”
“I will. He’s my professor.” Seamus said, turning serious. Oisin continued to lead them across the fields towards the river. Their steps through the long grass made a quiet “swish” and the mutter of the river as it flowed was also audible. Beside Seamus, Mary Claire kept her eyes on him, waiting for whatever explanation he was prepared to offer.
“Professor Sean sent me that e-mail that I told you about,” Seamus said, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground as if that made it easier to speak. “He was very concerned with a local Waterford legend, the Dearg-due story, one I might have told you about before. Do you remember it?” He glanced up at Mary Claire. She shook her head.
“No, it doesn’t sound familiar,” she said.
Seamus recounted the story of the creation of the Dearg-due. Mary Claire recognized the lilt and rhythms of a story oft-told and waited for Seamus to finish it. They made their way around a large overthrown tree, a tree that seemed gigantic as it lay in the dark on its side, gnarled roots twisting in the air at one end. The field began to slant more steeply down toward the river.
“Her husband beat her to death, one version of the story says, while another has it that she killed herself in desperation to escape her misery. In any case, she was dead and buried but then—the stories never say quite how it happened—she rose from the dead in vengeance to kill the husband who beat her and the father who forced her to marry the husband.” Sean looked for Mary Claire’s reaction.
“What a gruesome story!” Mary Claire shuddered. “I’ll never really understand what fascinates you so about these bloody old folktales!” She paused and considered. “There has to be more to the story than just that. There always is. What was the point the story was trying to make?”
“Yeah, there always is more to the story than meets the eye,” Oisin agreed. He glanced back at Mary Claire. “I was a folklore student when we were undergraduates.”
Mary Claire sighed. “There’s no escaping you types!” She looked at Seamus again.
“Well, there is the protofeminist aspect of the story, to begin with,” Seamus told her.
“Well, obviously,” Mary Claire snorted. “Young wife, abused and beaten to death, rises from the dead to kill the men who abused her. Even I can make out that bit. What else?”
“Elements of class and ethnic pride,” Seamus went on. “She was poor and the husband, rich. She was Irish and the husband, English. She lived during the height of the anti-Irish and pro-English laws promulgated by Cromwell after his invasion and conquest of Ireland. So there is also the implication that she was Catholic and he was Protestant. So, in some ways, she rose from her grave to defend all these things—women, the poor, the Irish, the Catholics—against the men, the English, the rich, and the Protestants who would attack them.”
Mary Claire nodded, impressed. “Not bad, not bad at all. Quite a wallop for one little story.”
“Well, there’s more.” Seamus swallowed. “The girl was said to continue rising from the dead, seducing and slaying men over the years. She came to be known as the Dearg-due, the ‘red blood sucker,’ and could only be driven away by erecting a cairn of stones on her grave. Non-Irish folklorists call her a ‘vampire,’ but she is immune to all the usual talismans that drive off vampires.”
“Like the garlic and the sunlight in Dracula?” Mary Claire asked. “Or crosses?”
“Exactly,” Oisin agreed.
Mary Claire considered everything Seamus had told her. “So this… this Dearg-due is buried out here someplace? Professor Sean wants a cairn of stones on her grave for some reason? Tonight?”
Sean hesitated. “In a word, yes,” he answered.
“How does anyone know where she is supposed to have been buried?” Mary Claire wanted to know.
“The story says that she was buried in the shadow of Strongbow’s Oak, where he married Aoife in 1170,” Seamus resumed the tale. “There are three possible locations of that oak. Two are in the city of Waterford, at Christchurch Cathedral and at Reginald’s Tower right along the river. But the most likely site of Strongbow’s Oak was right up here, along the river, next to Castle Annaghs.”
“Why is that the most likely location?” Mary Claire asked, sighing.
“Because the castle here, around which this whole estate was built, was the stronghold of Aoife’s father when he invited Strongbow into Ireland to help him reclaim the Irish throne. There was a tremendous—tremendous!—oak next to the castle.” Oisin said. “It was still living in the 1700s but died sometime after that. The last of it was only pulled down in the 1960s. And”—Oisin stopped walking and swept his flashlight back towards Mary Claire—“all the local farmers here agree that this was Strongbow’s Oak! Its branches still scratched the castle walls when the last of it was pulled down forty years ago and the cemetery for the estate was just near it.” He grinned in triumph and set off toward the river again.
“Confess it now,” Seamus urged his friend. “Of all the farms you might’ve wanted to get your hands dirty at, wasn’t it Castle Annaghs bein’ here that made you want to get your hands dirty at this farm in particular?”
“Well, that was a bit of calculatin’ on my part,” Oisin admitted. “Though they were hirin’ at the time, it was primarily the castle’s bein’ here that made my choice so simple.” He swept his flashlight in front of him and narrowly missed tripping over a small hollow in the ground.
Seamus lifted his flashlight and swept its more powerful beam further afield. Trees and cattails marked the transition from farmland to riverbank. A large, hulking stone rectangle loomed up out of the dark, its wooden door a bright red in the light Seamus washed across it.
Mary Claire stumbled, and only kept from toppling into the grass by catching hold of Seamus. A muffled cry escaped her lips. Seamus heard a squishing noise at the same time he realized she was not continuing forward with him. His and Oisin’s lights both converged on her feet, revealing a large black mass spread atop the grass where she stood.
“Agh! What is that?” she asked, trying to lift her feet free of it.
The men laughed. “Really? You don’t recognize that?” Oisin seemed surprised at her question.
“No, why should I?” Mary Claire demanded. She held onto Seamus’ arm more tightly and was able to pull one foot free of the black shadow that struggled to hold her.
“You’ll have to excuse her,” Seamus explained to Oisin. “She grew up in the city, up in Dublin. She’s not poor old country folk, like you and me.” He turned to his girlfriend and winked. “You really never have stepped in cow shite before, have you? Or ever even seen it?”
“Cow shite? You mean… Bleah!” Disgusted, she nearly pulled Seamus down into it as she tugged on his arm hard enough to give herself enough leverage to free her other foot. She hurriedly attempted to wipe the soles of her shoes off on the grass nearby, a series of burps and growls expressing her dist
aste as she did so. Seamus and Oisin continued to laugh at her predicament, trading jibes about the city girl out on the farm in the dark on a lark, which only infuriated her more.
Finally she was ready to go on and took Seamus’ arm again, unable to keep a grin from her own lips. “I really am a city girl at heart, aren’t I?” she whispered to him. He nodded vigorously, saying nothing, keeping his eyes fixed on the ground ahead of them. She glanced down and narrowly avoided another large cow pie. The two of them laughed quietly into each others’ shoulders. Oisin glanced back at them.
“Don’t go getting any ideas back there of any private goings-on,” he warned them, mock anger rising in his voice. “Not until we’ve done with this errand. Not until we’ve found a lass for me as well!” They all laughed as they came to stand before the ruins of Castle Annaghs.
The lights in the men’s hands now better revealed the squat rectangle of stone reaching into the sky, three or more stories tall. The bright red door read, “Annaghs,” as if there were any way to mistake the remains of the tower for anything other than the fortress, the ancient seat of Irish power and authority for the region. Mary Claire ran her palm along the wall.
“Seems solid enough,” she observed. “Not like it will collapse on us, at least.”
“Of course not!” scoffed Oisin. “It’s perfectly safe. Just a bit overgrown and left to its own devices. I’ve been inside and it’s in good condition, especially considering how old it is. But we don’t have to go inside tonight. The graves are over this way.” He gestured with the flashlight, setting out for the corner of the tower and disappearing around it. Seamus and Mary Claire followed. She seemed mesmerized by the stonework next to them, running her fingers along the tower as they walked.
“This is the oldest thing I’ve ever touched,” she whispered to Seamus. “I mean, I’ve seen the tomb at Newgrange, but they don’t really let you touch anything there. This… this is incredible. When was it built, again?”
“Not sure when it was built,” Seamus answered, smiling at her. “But it was here before 1170. That’s when Strongbow married Aoife here.” They came around the corner of the tower, just in time to see Oisin set out across the fields on the other side.
“Lucky he’s that far in front of us.” The small star of light in Oisin’s hand bobbed and swayed as he moved across the field, which must have been more a series of small hills, rising and dipping, than the fields they had walked across thus far. Seamus swept the powerful beam of light in his hand, revealing many sharp drops and inclines that they carefully made their way over or around.
“We’d break our necks here without these lights,” muttered Mary Claire in exasperation, nearly taking a tumble into a thorn bush as she negotiated her way down another drop in the long grass. “I just might, in any case!” Seamus held her arm and steadied her, guiding her onward. Oisin’s light seemed to have finally stopped ahead, just shy of the trees along the riverbank. Lights, reflected in the moving river, sparkled. Branches creaked in a breeze. Leaves rustled.
Then, in a sudden rush and what seemed like a roar, after the silence of the fields, a massive black cloud rose from the trees. Thousands of crows took flight, rising from the shadows, high into the air, loud caws and cries and the beat of their wings startling the three people down below. Mary Claire dipped her head in shock, raising an arm to shield herself from the black birds wheeling in an arc above them. Seamus also covered his face with his arm, the flashlight’s beam careening wildly in the sky as he did so and revealing more crows than seemed possible to flock together.
The crows wheeled and dipped above them and Seamus was sure they were about to be attacked by sharp claws and beaks. Mary Claire cringed closer to the earth, dropping Seamus’ hand and protecting herself as best she could with her arms and hands, inarticulate cries bursting from her lips. The crows swooped towards them. Seamus swung his heavy flashlight above him and ducked his head.
Elizabeth and Magdalena stood at the foot of the Astronomical Clock, meeting exactly where George had instructed them. Magdalena had brought the rabbi’s staff, as he had also instructed. But when they met, Magdalena thought Elizabeth seemed distracted. Confused, even. Her hair was disheveled. There seemed to be a blister forming on her forehead and her clothes were hanging in awkward ways on her frame. The usually stunning, sophisticated, beautiful Irishwoman had become a mockery of her normal self. Had Elizabeth hurried to meet her from a tryst? If so, with whom? Magdalena wanted to ask what had happened but thought it might be indelicate.
“The Astronomical Clock is the pentacle that defends Prague against Fen’ka’s vindication,” Elizabeth explained, pointing to the tower.
“Yes, it was built to protect those same leading, upright citizens who lynched poor Fen’ka,” agreed Magdalena. “George explained that to me. He said that the magical balance and order of the clock has to be upset if Fen’ka’s name is to be cleared and her ghost set free to rest at last. He said the staff, as one of the four magical tools of Prague, would be one of the few objects able to upset the equilibrium of the clock. But he said you would have to show me how to do it.”
Elizabeth nodded, brushing the tangled hair away from her face. “We can do it together,” she said. “Just follow my directions, all right?”
Magdalena bobbed her head enthusiastically. “Of course!”
“The first thing to do is trace a circle around us with the staff,” Elizabeth instructed. “But it should touch the base of the tower so that the clock is included in the circle.” She gestured towards the cobblestones they were standing on and stepped closer to the clock tower.
Magdalena touched the tip of the staff to the cobblestones and walked around Elizabeth in a small circle, making sure that the staff touched the base of the clock tower as she passed it. Energy surged in the air around her as the circle was completed. She stood within it, looking at Elizabeth for the next directive.
Elizabeth stared up at the clock, as if struggling to remember what to do next. She finally reached for the staff, keeping her eyes on the clock. “Help me hold the staff toward the hands of the clock,” she instructed Magdalena. “We will have to use the power of the staff to stop the hands of the clock from moving, for a moment or two. That should be enough to upset its equilibrium. The effects won’t be obvious or the results instantaneous, but the disharmony will have been planted like a seed. It will grow and eventually cause the power of the clock to falter, breaking its protective shield around the city.”
“The protective shield?” asked Magdalena.
“The shield that protects the persecutors of Fen’ka,” Elizabeth quickly corrected herself.
“Yes. All right. Just hold the staff up to the clock?” Magdalena wanted to be sure she understood the instructions, which seemed simple enough. Why had George been so insistent that she could not do this herself?
“Yes. Help me hold the staff. Try to imagine that it reaches the clock’s face and that we are wedging it under the hands of the clock,” Elizabeth repeated. “Some forms of magic only need the proper materials and tools to be manipulated in the proper manner. Other forms of magical energy need to be shaped and harnessed by the thoughts of the magic worker. Tonight, we need both. We need to hold the staff here and wedge its energy with our thoughts into the energy of the clock. Then hold it there.” She took the staff and braced it against the ground, holding it firmly in both hands as she adjusted its angle so that, if it had extended several more feet, the tip would have reached the clock. Magdalena stood opposite Elizabeth and also grasped the staff in both hands, bracing herself against the slender wood and closing her eyes.
“Now.” She heard Elizabeth’s voice, but it seemed to be coming from a great distance. “Feel the staff reach the clock face and …”
The staff bucked and reared in their hands, nearly pulling free from Magdalena’s grip. It truly did feel as if the wood had gotten wedged among the gears and cogs of the clockworks, which were pushing valiantly against the impediment to
their usual progress. Magdalena struggled to maintain both her balance and her grip on the staff.
She could hear Elizabeth breathing hard, gasping with the effort to maintain her own grip on the staff. “No wonder George sent both of us,” Magdalena hissed between her teeth, her feet slipping as the staff slipped ever so slightly as the cogs inched forward. “This would have been impossible for either of us alone.”
“Indeed.” The single word seemed almost more than Elizabeth could manage while keeping her focus on the staff. She jerked the staff back towards her and Magdalena could feel the clockworks stymied again, the gears desperate to shred and consume the invisible length of the wood.
They stood locked in silent struggle with the hands and gears and apparatus of the clock. There was a grinding and a whining of the clockworks. The staff twisted in their hands, bowing slightly in the strain against the clock as the two magical tools were pitted against each other in a way never intended by their creators. The staff groaned in their hands. It seemed on the brink of snapping.
“Hold it steady,” grunted Elizabeth. “Just another moment.”
Voices broke out across the Old Town Square. “It must be them!” “What are they doing?” “Stop them!” Footsteps ran across the square.
The commotion startled and distracted Magdalena, who opened her eyes. Her grip loosened for an instant and the staff burst from their hands, springing free and somersaulting across the square and toward a side street leading toward the river, knocking both women to the ground. It clattered to the ground outside the confines of the circle Magdalena had traced with it, its tip ground to rough splinters. The energy hovering in the air dissipated, the circle broken. The hands of the clock sprang forward, the gears moving freely again but with a shrill rasp. Magdalena turned her face slightly, enough to see what was going on. A handful of people were running toward them, gesturing wildly and shouting words she couldn’t make out.
Sean, Victoria, and Fr. Dmitri darted across the Square to the base of the clock tower as Elizabeth managed to stand again, appearing slightly dazed from the force that had thrown her to the ground. Sophia and Theo emerged from a side alley into the Square behind the others and hurried to catch up with them.
Come Hell or High Water: The Complete Trilogy Page 90
