Devil's Mountain

by Bernadette Walsh

  Bridget went to Mary and put her arms around Mary’s shoulders.

  Quiet Conor took charge. “Da, why don’t you look in the barn? Caroline and I can look in the fields behind the house.”

  With that, he took me by the arm and led me to the fields. Once away from Mary and the others he said, “You’re very calm.”

  “Aidan is a bit of a wanderer. He likes to hide. Once in our apartment, I spent twenty minutes looking for him. He’d managed to wedge himself in the back of my closet. If this was Central Park and full of potential perverts, then sure, I’d be worried. There’s only Mary and your family here. Honestly, what could be safer?”

  He said nothing.

  “Don’t you agree? Unless you have lions and tigers around that I don’t know about.” I smiled at him.

  He didn’t smile back. Rather, his mouth was a thin hard line. “We’ll find him,” was all he said as he took my hand.

  Twenty minutes later we had scoured the two fields beside the Griffin main house, and now even I’d started to worry. Aidan was only four. He couldn’t have walked this far. My worry had almost escalated into panic, when we saw the red of Aidan’s cotton sweater in the distance.

  Aidan, snuggled against a large sheep sitting in the middle of the field, was fast asleep.

  As we approached, the sheep turned its head to us. His flat black gaze bored into me and pain began to emanate from the top of my head down my spinal cord. I stopped walking and stared into those black pools. Unable to move. Unable to do anything.

  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Conor run up to the sheep, give it an odd salute, and then gather the sleeping child in his arms.

  “Look away,” he whispered. “Just look away.”

  But I couldn’t look away from the creature. I swear its lips were curled in a horrible smile.

  Conor slung Aidan over one shoulder and with his free hand pulled me away from the sheep. Together the three of us stumbled through the fields back to Conor’s cottage.

  Once the cottage was in sight, the throbbing in my temples stopped. Mary was on her knees beside Kathy’s stroller.

  “He’s all right,” I cried out. “Aidan’s fine.”

  Mary’s back was to me and she was rocking back and forth. When I reached her, I placed my hands on her shoulder. “Mary?”

  She turned to me, eyes wild and tunnels of tears carved into her pale cheeks. “You,” she growled. “You’re the cause of this.”

  “Mary, Aidan’s fine. There’s no reason to be upset.”

  “You. Always pushing, pushing, pushing. These two children will wind up in the grave alongside my poor Bobby. Because of you.”

  I stepped back, stumbling slightly. “Mary...”

  “All right there, missus,” Seamus said as he brought Mary to her feet. “I’ll take you home, now.”

  Once he took her arm, all the fight seemed to leave Mary. Without looking at me or the children, she walked with Seamus to his car, as docile as a lamb.

  Bridget took my arm and said in a low voice, “Never mind Mary. She loses her head sometimes, gets overexcited. It’s nothing to do with you. Now, why don’t you and the children come back to my house for tea?”

  “I shouldn’t leave her.”

  “Seamus is well able to take care of her. He knows where her tablets are.”

  “Pills? I haven’t seen her taking any.”

  “That might be the problem. Sometimes Mary forgets to take them.”

  “Tablets for what?” I asked.

  Bridget tapped her temple with her finger. “You know.”

  “I don’t know. I know she had a bad turn a few years ago.”

  Bridget seemed unwilling to provide any more of an answer. She simply lifted Kathy out of the carriage and walked back to her house. I looked at Conor, who still held the sleeping Aidan in his arms.

  “Mary’s got schizophrenia. Did you not know? Did your husband not tell you?” he said.

  “No. That can’t be right. These past few weeks she’s been so normal.”

  Conor’s pale blue eyes brimmed with compassion but his voice was firm. “Everyone knows the Devlin women have the madness. Mary is mad, as was her grandmother before her.”

  “But...”

  He took my hand with his free one. “Come now, Caroline. Come back to the house and give my father time to settle her down.”

  Tears filled my eyes. I nodded, for once mute, and followed him up the pitted lane to his mother’s house.

  Chapter 15

  Mary

  I’d turned my back for no more than a minute. That damn Bridget. Why on earth had she kept me in the kitchen? As if I cared about her new ceramic floor.

  “Girls,” I’d said to the two black haired lasses in the front garden, “have you seen my grandson?”

  “He’s ’round back with Mick.”

  But young Mick thought he was with Maggie.

  And it had been then my stomach dropped. Then that I knew.

  My vision blurred and I stumbled back to young Conor’s cottage, hoping that somehow the lad had wandered there in search of his mother. But I knew He had Aidan.

  It was the same when He’d taken Orla. I had turned my back for an instant and she was gone. At the time, I was not worried. I knew the Mountain like I knew my own face. I had just seen her. She couldn’t have gone far. When I saw my normally unflappable mother’s pale face, I knew. I didn’t know that He had her, but something was wrong.

  My father and younger brother scoured the back fields. My brother’s wife stayed with Bobby, who’d been having his afternoon nap. Without a word, my mother had grabbed a small black book from beneath her bed and shot out the door. I struggled to keep up with her as she tore down the lane, past the cows in the front field. I stopped when she turned into the copse of ancient trees. I never went in there if I could help it. The woods scared me, for some reason.

  She turned around. “If you want to see your daughter again, you’ll come with me.”

  “Mammy, she’s five. There’s no way she could’ve come this far.”

  “Slanaitheoir.” She spun around and disappeared into the woods.

  I’d no choice but to follow.

  My mother stopped in a clearing in front of a cave. “He’s here,” she said.

  “There’s no one here, Mam.”

  She opened the book and began to chant in Irish. Not the Irish I’d learned in school.

  Something more guttural, more ancient. The language of the druids.

  In the center of the clearing was a tall flat rock that looked like a table. Or an altar. The air around the rock began to shimmer. My mother continued chanting, her face a blank as if she couldn’t allow her emotions to interfere with her words. A swirling mist appeared, and within that mist, I could see the face of my daughter.

  The mist thickened and then disappeared, leaving in its wake my daughter, unconscious and bloodied on the altar. Beside the altar was a man. No, not a man, a god. Closer to seven feet rather than six. His black hair gleamed in the dull light of the woods and His emerald eyes bore into me as He wiped blood from His mouth.

  “Return her to us, healed and unharmed,” my mother commanded.

  “She is defective. I will not accept this one. Tell your slut of a daughter to make me another one.”

  My heart raced and I longed to tear at His face. Before I could move, I heard my mother’s voice in my head. Don’t move. Don’t speak or we’ll lose her.

  “The Agreement is clear. You will receive the oldest daughter from each generation and no other. If you kill this one there will be no more from my line.”

  He’d peered into poor Orla’s face. “Look at it, fat and ugly. No. This is not a suitable Devlin woman.” He turned to me and smiled. “Let’s kill it and start anew.”

  “Return her to us, unharmed. If you don’t, the Agreement is broken and Mary and I will be free.”

  “No!” He roared.

  “Oh, yes, my lord,” my mother said, her voice low b
ut strong. “The Agreement is quite clear.”

  “Fine, take her.” He lifted the unconscious child up. “But first, I want to give her something to remember me by.” He brought her chubby arm to his mouth. He opened wide and those terrible teeth I would eventually know all too well tore at my child’s flesh. The pain awakened Orla. Her eyes flew open and she howled. He tossed her like a rag doll onto the ground at my feet.

  Later we explained the marks on her body as spider bites. But that day changed not only her body, but also her heart. The poor thing didn’t realize it, but somewhere she must have blamed me and her grandmother for Slanaitheoir’s torture. She associated me with pain, with fear. In turn, I never blamed her for her treatment of me. I was so happy to have her back, I willingly released her to the realm of Paul and his Dublin relations.

  As I’d walked those last few steps to Conor’s cottage I’d prayed to God, my mother, even the Devil himself. I offered my body, my soul and whatever was left of my mind. “Please, I will do anything. Give up anything. Only please let the lad be safe.”

  The baby was in her pram, asleep and alone. I could see Caroline through the open doorway, her head cocked in a flirtatious way as she listened to that boy Conor. Flirting, with my son dead. Flirting, while her children were left unprotected.

  “Aidan! Aidan, love, where are you?” I called into the cottage, knowing he wasn’t there.

  The little slut came out, not an ounce of concern on her face.

  Visions of Slanaitheoir, His mouth covered in Aidan’s blood. Visions of my Bobby, broken, shattered beneath slabs of concrete. I could hear Slanaitheoir in my head. Mine, mine, mine.

  I sank to my knees. Not again. He couldn’t take another child from me. The roaring of Slanaitheoir’s terrible voice continued in my head.

  Her. It was all her fault. She’d done this to me. She’d done this to them.

  I didn’t know how much time passed. All I remembered was Seamus slipping a tablet into my mouth. “Is he all right?” I mumbled as the tablets took effect. “Is the lad all right?”

  “He is.”

  I wished I could believe him.

  Chapter 16

  Caroline

  “Orla, I don’t know what to do.”

  “Brendan, can you not see I’m on the phone? Sorry, Caro. I swear these young ones will be the death of me. Now, what were you saying?”

  “Your mother. I’m worried about her.”

  I could hear Orla inhale a cigarette on the other end of the line. In a bright, brittle voice she said, “I’m sure after a few days of her tablets she’ll be as right as rain. She always is.”

  “But you didn’t see her. She completely lost control, and really, I know it was a little scary, but Aidan wasn’t gone for more than twenty minutes. I think if you had actually seen her, you’d know what I mean.”

  Orla laughed. “Oh, I know what you mean, all right. Sure, haven’t I lived with it all my life? Do you know on my fifteenth birthday she walked down the road, in front all the neighbors, in only her knickers because the cat told her to. The cat! Believe me, Caro, I know all about it.”

  “She’s your mother, and once we’re gone she’ll be all alone.”

  There was silence on the other end of the phone.

  “Orla? Are you there?”

  “After Bobby fecked on off to America, have you any idea how many trips I made to that godforsaken Mountain? Too many to count. And of course, my father was no help. She’d see him and the ranting and raving got even worse. Do you know, I lost my job because I took too much time off? I could leave my husband and children and move in with her. Hand her her tablets. Make her cups of tea. And at the end of the day, it would make no difference. Do you know why?”

  “Why?”

  “Because she likes it. I really do believe my mother likes being mad.”

  “How can you say that, Orla?”

  “Because it’s true. She’d rather run around that Mountain in the back of the beyonds with the faeries than be a wife and mother and live like a normal person in a normal house.”

  Mary wandered past me, hardly noticing me. Nonetheless, I lowered my voice. “I don’t think she can help it. If you could’ve seen her eyes. She was frightened to death of something.”

  “If she wanted to get better she’d take her bloody tablets!” Orla paused for a moment, as if to collect herself. “I’m sorry, Caroline, but there’s nothing I can do. I have three small children and I’m miles away. I’ll come up in August for a few days, like I always do.”

  “I wasn’t planning on staying that long.”

  “Then go home. For God’s sake, go home and be with your own people. I know you think you’re helping her, but you’re not. She’s always worse with an audience. In fact, she hadn’t had an episode in ages. Not ’til you arrived.”

  “This is my fault?”

  “I think it is. You know, don’t you, that she blames you for Bobby’s death.”

  “She blames me? I’m not Osama bin Laden. How can she blame me?”

  “Oh, something about Kathy. I don’t know, but blame you she does, and although she might be nice to your face, she can turn. It’s only a matter of time before my mother turns on you.”

  “I don’t believe it. I don’t. Before last week she was wonderful, and the children love her.

  How can I abandon her now, when she clearly needs help?”

  “Play the martyr if you want, but leave me out of it.” And with that, Orla hung up.

  Go home and be with my own people. And who would that be? My brothers, busy with their own lives and tired of my endless grief? My distant parents? The 9-11 widows? Aunt Dot and the Griffins, and yes, even crazy Mary, felt more like my people than my family and friends in New York.

  The Griffins had been wonderful this past week. Bridget cooked us lunch and dinner and Seamus stopped up once a day to deliver food and check on us. I even hired Margaret, one of the older Griffin girls, to watch the children while I went walking for an hour or so, just to have a break. It was Conor who’d thought of it, and he’d often wait for me in the late afternoon outside his cottage and join me on my rambles.

  After my call with Orla, I needed to get out. Clear my head. Mary was settled in the small front room, with a book on her lap. I hadn’t seen her turn a page all afternoon but at least she was pretending to do something rather than stare endlessly out the window. That had to be a good start. Kathy was asleep and Margaret was reading Aidan a story. Now was a perfect time to make my escape.

  The sun had broken through the clouds and it was now hot. I tied the sweatshirt I always carried with me around my waist. After six weeks in Ireland, I’d learned not to be fooled by a sunny sky. The weather could turn in an instant, and even on the sunniest, mildest day, a chill hid beneath.

  Bales of hay dotted the fields. I know Seamus was praying the weather would hold fine until he could bring it all in. I waved to him and one of his younger sons as they worked in the distance.

  I always walked toward the Griffin’s on the east. The south side of the Mountain was more ruggedly beautiful, but I also felt somewhat ill at ease there. Plus, it held too many memories from my last trip. Bobby’s arms around my waist as we scanned the valley from the high rocks. His promise to always show me beautiful things. Our night in the old Collins cottage.

  The Griffin’s side of Devlin’s Mountain was typical picture postcard Ireland: rolling green fields, speckled cattle, low white-washed cottages, laughing black-haired children. Their side of the Mountain was peaceful and suited my mood.

  Conor, his fair hair lit up by the sun, sat in his usual spot outside his kitchen door. As soon as I saw him I waved, like an excited school girl, and cursed myself for not showing more restraint. He was a nice young man, a nice neighbor, who couldn’t possibly have any interest in someone like me. Besides, I was a widow in mourning.

  As I argued with myself as I walked to the cottage, I couldn’t help noticing his smile was a little too wide for a man who
was only meeting a neighbor.

  “Hello, Caroline. You’re looking well.”

  “Oh, I’m not,” I spluttered.

  He walked up to me and touched my hair. “Yes, you are. Your face is brighter. I think our Mountain agrees with you.”

  I smiled. “I do feel more relaxed here. At peace, if you know what I mean.”

  “I do. That’s why I came back from London.”

  “I didn’t know you’d lived in England.”

  “Yeah, for two years. And I worked in an office, if you can believe it.”

  “No.” I couldn’t see Conor with his ruffled hair and battered blue jeans ever working in an office.

  “It’s true. But I’ve spent the last eighteen months trying to forget all that.” He took my hand. “Let’s go. I thought of a new spot I want to show you.”

  His hand was warm in mine and I felt my cheeks grow hot and flush with, well, with I don’t know what. I tried not to notice Bridget’s pale face as she spied at us from behind her kitchen curtains.

  We walked for a while, silent, along our normal route. Then Conor led me to a small path. It was narrow and we were heading sharply downhill. I stumbled slightly, but Conor’s strong hand kept me steady.

  I heard the roaring of the water before I saw it. The Feale River, placid and well behaved as it snaked through Kilvarren town, here, was violent and angry. The water slapped against the rocks, and fat fish leaped out of its froth.

  “This must be a good fishing spot,” I said. “It’s funny. My uncle is a big fisherman. He never mentioned coming here.”

  “Those from the town avoid the Mountain. Surely, you know that.”

  “Why? It’s beautiful here.”

  “The townsfolk, even after all this time, fear the Mountain and the five families.”

  “He married my aunt. She’s one of the five families.”

  “That’s rare enough, believe me. Most of the five families marry each other or they leave for Dublin or over the pond to England.” He smiled. “Some brave souls even made it to America.”

  I smiled back. “Are you telling me all the Kilvarren girls aren’t chasing you?”

  “Hardly.”

  I looked at him, his blue eyes so clear, so honest. “Then they’re fools. Their loss.”