Song of Erin

by BJ Hoff

  A low groan now tore from her, a bold, primitive cry in the face of this God of destruction. If she survived this night of horror—and in that moment Terese vowed that survive it she would—then she would know herself capable of surviving anything, and surviving it on her own, without any help from God or anyone else.

  Suddenly, the wind hurled what seemed the full force of its fury at her. The gale hammered at her, whipping and slashing, pelting her with hail, pressing her into the earth, yet threatening to sweep her up and over the rocks. Terese shook with such violence she thought all the bones in her body would surely shatter. Blinded by hail and bruised by the merciless wind, she could do nothing but cling to the rock.

  At last, she began to scream…terrible, wild cries, not of fear, but more of rage—rage, and a desperate, almost savage, shout of defiance. And with each bitter cry, she seemed to absorb the force of the storm, claiming it and making it her own.

  Brady felt as if his clothes were being ripped from his back, so fierce was this wind that seemed to have come out of nowhere. He knew about hurricanes only from books, except for what he’d been told by Ransom, the black carriage driver Jack employed, who claimed to have survived such a tempest somewhere in the Caribbean. As he blundered up the path toward the miserable little dwelling that was clearly his guide’s destination, he reasoned that this storm could be nothing less than one of those terrifying gales.

  As he recalled, a hurricane could supposedly lift a church right off its stone foundation and send it hurtling across town. Yet this wild-eyed young woman thought they would be safe inside that pitiful cottage just ahead.

  She was daft, no doubt about it!

  Disgusted with himself for following the simpleminded girl to his own destruction, Brady could see nothing for it but to change course and look for more suitable shelter somewhere else. He stopped, digging his heels into the ground against the force of the wind as he looked this way and that. To his dismay, none of the other thatched houses nearby appeared any more substantial than the one in front of him.

  He felt a rough yank at his sleeve and looked to find the girl tugging at him, her dark eyes snapping. She began to jabber something at him in the Irish. The word amadon was the only thing that registered, and that was because he’d heard Jack apply it to any number of his business acquaintances in New York.

  If he wasn’t badly mistaken, the word meant “fool.”

  Brady stood his ground, refusing to follow her into that thatched death trap. The next thing he knew, the wild girl was trying to wrest the child out of his arms, all the while scalding him with her Gaelic diatribe, most of which was immediately swallowed up by the wind.

  They were nearly at the house, but they had to struggle mightily now just to keep their footing. Brady still had the child anchored securely in his arms, but his chest felt as if it were about to explode, and fatigue and the battering wind were threatening to bring him down at any moment. He knew they had no time to lose, so when the girl would not be deterred, he gave in and followed her.

  At that instant, a towering hulk of a man, lantern in hand, appeared in the doorway of the cottage. He looked to be hewn from stone, a colossus with hard, craggy features and a rugged frame, a full head of jet black hair laced with silver, and a riot of black beard. It struck Brady that all the behemoth needed was a pike in his hand and he could have easily been taken for one of the ancient warrior-chiefs who had once gone roaring into battle sporting little more than a kilt and brandishing a rough-hewn spear.

  Without warning, the fierce-looking creature rushed at them, whipping the child out of Brady’s arms as if she were no more than a twig and at the same time hauling the older girl to his side. Before Brady could even react, the big fellow hissed something in the Irish at the little girl locked against his chest. She chirped a response, and the man turned a blistering scowl on Brady.

  The giant gave the dark-haired girl a tug and moved to turn away, clearly intent on leaving Brady to his own resources. But the girl snapped a quick look over her shoulder, then grabbed the big man’s arm, gesturing insistently in Brady’s direction.

  The man’s look dripped suspicion, but with a hard jerk of his head he indicated that Brady should follow. Brady hesitated. There was no telling what might lie in wait inside this great oaf’s dwelling.

  But then another wall of wind slammed him in the back, shaking him like a rag doll and propelling him forward. He followed the three inside, reasoning blackly that if this was his day to die, he might just as well have a bit of company in the passing.

  Only once did Terese dare raise her head to look about her. Wicked bolts of lightning still pierced the night with abandon, but even with the intermittent light she could scarcely make out her surroundings through the wind-tossed sheets of ice and rain.

  The stones and ground were glazed with sleet, as were her own face and hands. Even her hair felt stiff and weighted with a thin layer of ice. Still clinging to the stone, she pulled herself up just enough to look toward town. A hail of icy rain struck her like a whipsaw, slashing her skin. She cried out in pain, then screamed again at the sight of a table, all four legs intact, scudding across the fort only to be dashed to pieces against one of the taller stones.

  Lightning knifed the sea, the fort, the cliff, revealing momentary glimpses of things Terese would have expected to see only in nightmares. Boats had been smashed to pieces, their debris now bobbing wildly in the water. A poor, terrified hen, feathers plucked from its body, went screeching into the sea, carried by the wind. Torn remnants of clothing whipped across the shoreline like a macabre parade of boneless corpses. Other objects flew by: crockery, bits of wood, clumps of sod and thatch, shrubbery ripped free of its roots—even animals, pathetic, broken creatures swept up from the earth and flung out upon the night.

  Terese knew she was weeping, but her tears were lost in the downpour of sleet and rain cascading over her upturned face. When a vicious blast of wind seized her, her hands slipped free of her stone anchor. Panic barreled through her, but she clambered to regain her hold, fastening herself once more to the ancient rock of Dun Aengus.

  Still the baleful wind continued to shriek and hurl its wrath, as if hell itself had been loosed and would this night claim not only its own but whatever innocent might chance upon the march of its deadly destruction.

  As Brady passed through the open door into the small dwelling, he was surprised—and vastly relieved—to note the thickness of the walls, far sturdier than they had seemed upon first glance. Inside, the cottage was not quite as wretched as he might have imagined—but it didn’t miss by far.

  There looked to be no more than two rooms, partitioned by a curtain that hung between them. He saw only one window, and this too narrow to allow much light. No doubt the place would be gloomy both night and day. A beeswax candle burned weakly in the middle of a deal table, and the wild flickering of the flame revealed the force of the draft blowing through cracks in the walls.

  Brady took in the furnishings in one quick sweep. The turf fire, flanked by stone benches, had been allowed to go out; no doubt this break in tradition was in deference to the dangerous wind. There was a painted dresser of surprisingly good craftsmanship, two three-legged stools, a wicker basket half-filled with potatoes, and a good-sized but badly sagging bed pushed against one wall. The floor was dirt, but well swept. In one corner was a pool of water, apparently the result of a leak in the thatched roof above.

  He had seen enough of the cottages of the poor to imagine that beyond the curtain probably lay little more than a straw pallet or two, covered with thin blankets for the girls. He heard a scurry in the corner nearest the hearth and saw three or four chickens scratching in the dirt. It had taken him a long time to grow accustomed to the sight of fowl or pigs inside even some of the better Irish dwellings, but now he found the sight strangely comforting, as if this sign of domesticity meant the inhabitants might not be quite so peculiar after all. It was clearly the home of poor but ordinary people, not
a charnel house where unsuspecting sojourners might disappear.

  He was allowed little time to appraise his surroundings, however, for once inside, the big fellow shoved the table out of the way and drew up a large, wooden slab door from the dirt. He said nothing but merely made a sharp gesture to the girl and the child, then to Brady, that they should all descend.

  A huge wave of relief washed over Brady. They were going below ground! It seemed that his guardian angel had not abandoned him entirely!

  Thick walls aside, the little house was shaking like a creature caught up in the grip of a violent palsy. Brady hurried to join the others. When he would have stopped long enough to offer a word of gratitude to the man holding the door, the unfriendly giant froze him with a dark glare and an impatient snap of his head. Those cold blue eyes left no doubt whatsoever that he thought Brady a fool—an unwelcome one, at that—and that Brady’s bid to share their underground shelter was granted grudgingly.

  Despite the man’s churlishness, Brady gave a quick nod of thanks as he prepared to descend a hemp ladder leading below. At the instant he turned to lower himself into the pit, a screaming blast of wind roared in on the small dwelling. There was a deafening shriek, then a groaning overhead, followed by the terrible sound of something splitting.

  Brady hesitated, shooting a glance upward only to see the thatched roof begin to rock, then whip madly up and down just before it lifted completely free and went flying off into the furious night. For a split second he locked gazes with the big man holding the slab door open and saw his own terror reflected in that hard blue stare.

  He watched the giant reel and stagger, losing his balance in the furious gust of wind that now came howling through the house. The door fell away from those large, rough hands, and in one lightning flash of clarity Brady realized what was about to happen just before the heavy slab came crashing down on his head.

  5

  THE WEARY AND THE WOUNDED

  Solomon! where is thy throne? It is gone in the wind.

  Babylon! where is thy might? It is gone in the wind.

  Like the swift shadows of Noon, like the dreams of the Blind, Vanish

  the glories and pomps of the earth in the wind.

  JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN

  The madness had gone on until nearly dawn. Even after the storm finally subsided, Terese had remained sealed to her rock of anchor, half-frozen and numb from the relentless battering of the wind and icy rain.

  Now she stood on the shore, watching the sea. After the deafening, seemingly endless roar of the storm, the present silence was somehow unnerving. The waves were still turbulent but not so violent now, mostly roiling crests keeping harmony with the morning wind.

  The harbor teemed with floating debris: broken boats, dead animals, pieces of furniture, and clumps of shrubbery and other vegetation. All around her, the smell of smoke mixed with the acrid odors of salt water and dead fish.

  Exhausted from her night’s ordeal and still dazed by the unthinkable devastation she had found upon returning to the village, Terese could do nothing but stand and stare, letting the spray off the ocean bathe her face. The nightmare of the past few hours had totally depleted her, drained her last vestige of strength. Her skin still tingled from the long exposure to the elements, and she felt the onset of a head cold. More than anything else, however, there was merely the somber awareness that the storm had passed, that she had survived it only to find herself more alone than she had ever been in her life.

  Behind her, the small village had been nearly decimated. What few houses remained were without roofs. Most had either been burned or leveled or swept away altogether. Many villagers had already declared their intention to go on the road, to make their way to Galway City and seek refuge with relatives. Terese suspected that by the end of the day the town would be virtually deserted, except for those who had vowed to stay and rebuild. As to whether these few were brave or merely foolish, she couldn’t say. She knew only that she did not intend to remain with them.

  She turned slowly away from the sea and stood staring at the village. There was nothing there for her. Her aunt’s house had been razed, crushed to random heaps of thatch and rubble. Like countless others, the entire family was now homeless.

  Aunt Una had wasted no time in announcing, with an unmistakable hint of spite in her tone, that Terese need not expect to accompany the rest of the family to Galway, where they would shelter for a time with Uncle Felim’s aging parents. No doubt by now they had already started off, and without so much as a final farewell.

  Earlier, her mild, subservient uncle had made a halfhearted attempt to assuage his conscience by seeking out Terese to explain. “You understand, lass? The old man and woman, they haven’t the room for us as it is, much less yourself. Your aunt is fearful lest they turn us all away.”

  Terese had never found it in her to either like or dislike her uncle. Even though he was the only member of the household to favor her with a kind word now and then, he was so cowed by his wife that he always seemed a mere shadow of a man. She could not respect him, and so she could not feel any real affection for him. Most of the time, she held no more than a faint contempt for him, tempered only slightly by the awareness that Uncle Felim was not a bad man, really, nor an unfeeling man. He was simply a weak man.

  Terese had no use for weakness.

  So even though she was trembling inside at the time, she had brushed off his feigned concern, telling him she would manage well enough, that he was not to worry. “I’m seventeen years old, after all. ’Tis time for me to be on my own.”

  “You won’t be holding it against us, then?” he said, glancing around as if to make certain his wife was well out of earshot.

  Terese assured him that, far from holding it against them, she thought things would work out perfectly fine for her. She carefully refrained from divulging her plans to go to America, however; if they suspected that she had money put aside, they would be after her like starving dogs at a kill.

  Now, as she watched the procession of the displaced that had already begun to file out of the village, their few remaining worldly goods tied upon their backs, she wondered if Galway might also have been struck by the past night’s storm. Was there any cause to believe that the evil wind had confined its destruction to Inishmore?

  Well, then, and what of it? America was her destination, and the sooner the better. So long as there was a harbor where she could board a ship, she was not long for this wretched island.

  If she felt a prickling of fear at the thought of launching into such an adventure alone, she suppressed it. In the aftermath of the storm, her friend Peggy had decided she could not leave her family now. Her father had hurt his back, and her mother, she said, could do nothing but stand and weep; she must stay and help however she could.

  At first, Terese had been angry, and they had exchanged bitter words. But not for long. She had no strength left to waste on anger. Besides, Peggy was only doing what she thought she must do, after all. And it would be her loss, would it not? She would be the one left to Ireland’s mean poverty while Terese went on to prosper in America.

  She could fend for herself well enough. She had her wits, the dress on her back—a dry one, thanks to Peggy, whose personal belongings had fared somewhat better than Terese’s—and the money she had buried in the ground behind the henhouse. She needed nothing more, at least not for now. Once she reached Galway, she would try to purchase a better dress for the crossing. But for the present, she looked as respectable as anyone else she was likely to encounter this day.

  Stooping, she retrieved her weathered pampootas—her shoes—and slipped them on. Earlier she had found a piece of a shawl, which she now knotted about her shoulders, savoring the warmth against the chill air. Finally, she cinched the crios—the bright sash she had made for herself—at her waist and lifted her face for one final look at the towering eminence of her old friend and protector, Dun Aengus.

  Then, squaring her shoulders, she turned her bac
k on her past and went in search of a shovel.

  Pain.

  Hard, red explosions of it in his head, down his neck…

  Brady had been dreaming that he was standing on a bleak shore, alone and shivering as he suffered the attack of dark-featured sailors who hurled massive stones at him from a ship that bobbed up and down in the bay.

  Behind him and all around, there was nothing but barren land. No houses, no shops, no trees, and no people. The unknown waters were silent, as were the sailors on their battleship. Nothing broke the stillness except for the splitting of his skull beneath the onslaught of the stones…

  He felt nothing but the pain as the sound of whispering crept in on him, prodding him awake—short, harsh whispers and utterances he couldn’t make out. Meaning to ease the pain, he tried to turn but stopped, gasping as a white-hot bolt of agony shot through his skull.

  Someone was holding his hand. He felt the warmth, the slight pressure. He forced his eyes open, groaning as the dim, flickering light set off another sharp wrench of pain in his head.

  On a stool close beside him sat a dark-eyed little girl, gripping his hand. When she saw him turn toward her, she smiled.

  Brady stared at her, recognition gradually dawning. The fey child squeezed his hand as if to encourage him.

  He blinked several times against the pain as his eyes finally began to focus. He was in a cold, dark hole of a room, the air thick with dust and mildew. He could make out a slight, womanly figure in the corner, bent low as she rolled what looked to be a piece of cloth. She glanced up at the tall, dark form hovering over her and murmured something in the Irish.

  Brady tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth nothing came, only a blinding slam of pain at his temples and the back of his head.