The Ground She Walks Upon

by Meagan Mckinney

  In pastoral harmony, the form of Michael O’Shea appeared in the distance, hoeing and tending to his plants with all the care of his father. His four brothers had long since departed for America, but now six of Michael’s sons worked the fields, as Michael had done before them.

  Reverend Drummond had found peace. The emerald splendor of the landscape was balm for his Ulster soul. Nothing was more satisfying to a loyal subject of the Crown than to see his land tilled and fruitful. Donations would be good this year from the looks of the abundant landscape.

  “Wha’s he doin’?” Millie Sproule whined, still not adjusted to the quirks of the people though she had been in Ireland more than five years now.

  “What’s who doing?” asked Reverend Drummond, cursing his age. His eyesight wasn’t worth a damn these days, and every time Millie had to raise her annoying voice in order to explain something to him, he felt as feeble as Griffin O’Rooney.

  “Why, Mr. O’Shea. ’E’s on his knees, diggin’ up all his potatoes. I daresay they haven’t gotten big enough for him to start harvestin’. Why … Go on! Look at him! He’s running around like a madman, diggin’ up them potatoes!”

  Those potatoes, Drummond thought, fighting the urge to correct her. Millie Sproule, to his familial shame, spoke like a tavern wench.

  “He’s shoutin’! Go on with you, look! They’re all a-runnin’! Even McKinnon is dropping his hoe and comin’ ’round the ogham stone.”

  “I can’t imagine!” Though his eyesight wasn’t what it once was, Drummond could make out the blurry figures of men running toward O’Shea. They were in a panic. “Get me out of this chair. I’ve got to find out what’s happening.” The reverend held on to Millie Sproule’s arm. He rose from the chair and forced her to lead him down the rectory lawn to the tilled fields below.

  Slowly they made their way through a furrow of potatoes. Men were running to Michael O’Shea. When the reverend and Millie reached his side, they found Michael on his knees, his head bent low in defeat.

  “’Tis the blight, it is,” someone in the crowd whispered in despair.

  Reverend Drummond broke through the crowd to see the plants. They were dusted with a downy mildew. The tubers in Michael O’Shea’s hand that should have been the size of rocks were instead the size of acorns.

  “Famine is come to Lir,” another man announced, his voice full of doom.

  There was a long, oppressive silence, and then Michael began to weep.

  “My good man,” Reverend Drummond put a hand on Michael’s shoulder. “’Tis only a bit of blight. All is not lost.”

  “Famine is everywhere in Ireland, why not in Lir, too? We’re just as downtrodden by the English as in Derry,” an angry man spat at the reverend.

  “See here now,” Drummond defended himself. “The famine is not England’s doing. And it is most certainly not my doing. The crops are not all doomed. Harvest what you can, Michael. I’ll see that your family’s fed.”

  “Blight can’t come to Lir. It can’t,” McKinnon keened as loud as if he were at a wake.

  “We’ve been lucky here in Lir,” Drummond said. “The famine has not touched us. If we see a bit of what the others see, we should count our blessings it’s not worse.”

  “It’s not over yet, Reverend.” The angry man looked at Drummond.

  Drummond didn’t recognize him but thought he was one who ran with Malachi MacCumhal. “Sir,” he said coldly, “if blight has come to Eden, ’tis best to go to the serpent with your complaints.”

  “You are the serpent, Reverend.”

  “Nay. I am not.” Drummond leaned on Millie Sproule’s arm. He turned to go, but before he did, he said, “We were born of Eden. But no more. You men take to the serpent if you must, but I shall denounce it.”

  “What’s he saying?” one man mumbled in Gaelic.

  “He’s a crazy old Anglican. Leave him be,” McKinnon answered in the same language.

  Meanwhile, Drummond took the exhausting walk back to the rectory, his every thought consumed by the Trevallyan geis and the babe, Ravenna, Niall had held in his hands so many years before.

  It would be the last in his lifetime. But he knew, without a doubt, he must call another meeting.

  “My Lord Trevallyan, you know why we’re here.” Drummond sat stiffly in the Trevallyan library, flanked by the aged, bent forms of Father Nolan and Griffen O’Rooney.

  “The blight has come to Lir. Famine awaits at our doorstep. Have you made any progress with Ravenna?” Father Nolan’s hand trembled on his cane as if it were a sign he feared the answer.

  Trevallyan agitatedly ran a hand through his hair. “Enough of this. I beg of you. Are you to blame this entire famine on one girl?”

  “Not on the girl! Never on the girl! ’Tis our fault. We never should have let you marry,” Griffen O’Rooney chimed in. He sat a bit away from the group. His clothes were dirty and tattered, and his nails were bloodied where he had dug in the graveyard, attempting to plant flowers where no flowers would grow.

  Trevallyan watched him with unease. It was clear he thought the old man mad and didn’t want him in his library.

  “He’s right,” Drummond broke in. “Ravenna’s not to blame. You are the one who must win her love.”

  “She knows about the geis. I told her. She doesn’t believe it and neither do I.” Niall poured himself three fingers of whiskey. He meant to sip it, but the next time he looked down, the glass in his hand was empty.

  “Can you not win her love, me boy?” Father Nolan asked softly. “With all your money, have you not the means—”

  “My money be damned, ’tis not enough.” Trevallyan laughed, bitterly. “The task is impossible. I’m twice the lass’s age, not a boy to be begging for favors. She’s taken up with MacCumhal, and there’s naught to be done about it.”

  “But have you really tried with her?”

  Trevallyan looked at Drummond with ice in his eyes. If the minister had known him better he might have thought the ice was hiding hurt. “I have approached her. That is all I will say. I’ve done my part. She doesn’t want me. Let us go on without this geis.”

  “But the blight—” Drummond interjected.

  “The blight has nothing to do with this.” Niall refilled his glass, his jaw set in anger. “Besides, no one in Lir shall starve. We’ll destroy the potato crops and use the land for cattle if we have to, until spring, when we can replant corn. You know I’ll use all the Trevallyan lands and money to protect the well-being of this county.”

  “But who will protect you, my lord?” Father Nolan asked.

  “Why do I need protection?”

  “Your money is not limitless. You will lose thousands of pounds on your crops alone if the blight continues. Too, there are rumblings of rebellion. Some in this county would see you dead.”

  Trevallyan met the father’s gaze with a steady one of his own. “If you’re speaking of MacCumhal and his ilk, then let it be said right now that I am not afraid. If they’re thinking of lynching Ascendency in Lir, let them think again. I will not be lynched. I am as Irish as they, and I’ve the God-given birthright of this land.”

  “Centuries ago when the Trevallyans took this land, their payment was the geis. You have not fulfilled yours, Niall,” the priest said softly.

  “She does not love me.” Fury stained Trevallyan’s cheeks. He looked at the priest with eyes that gave away no emotion. “What else is there to say? She’s given her heart to another.”

  “But I hold the heart—I hold the heart—” Griffen began to rant in the corner.

  Disgusted, Trevallyan rang for Greeves.

  When the butler arrived Trevallyan pointed to Griffen and said, “Take him to the kitchen and see that he is bathed and fed. I do not want to see him in the graveyard anymore tonight. Lock him in one of the servants’ bedrooms if you must, but see that he is taken care of.”

  Greeves nodded and motioned for Griffen to follow him. Griffen did, but before he left, he turned to Trevallyan a
nd said, “I hold the heart. If you need it, ’twill be yours.” Mournfully, he followed the butler out of the room.

  “Christ,” Trevallyan muttered, disgust and despair etched on his face.

  “I must be leaving too,” Drummond announced. “Millie is waiting in the carriage and it’s grown cold this evening.” Wearily, he reached for Trevallyan’s hand. Trevallyan helped the old man up. “My boy, ’tis doom I fear I see. I do not want to trust superstitions, but so much has happened … I cannot help but believe them sometimes.” With a sigh, he picked up his shawl and slowly crept from the room.

  Trevallyan was alone with the priest. A silence passed between the two men like the silence of father and rebellious son.

  “There will never be another meeting of the council. Peter Maguire, rest his soul, should have been here tonight,” Father Nolan commented softly.

  “What you’ve held on to all these years is gone. I’m sorry, but ‘the truth will out.’” Trevallyan leaned his head on the mantel. He looked tired, as if he’d been fighting a war he could not win.

  “Have you fallen in love with her yet?”

  The question seemed to startle Trevallyan. His head shot up, and he stared at the priest. “Why do you ask me such an inconsequential thing?”

  “Inconsequential? No. It is anything but that.”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Your anger makes me think it, that’s why. If you didn’t care for the girl, these questions, this geis, would leave you dispassionate. You’re far from that, my son.”

  Niall turned away, as if he didn’t want the priest to read the expression on his face.

  “What say you, my lord? Do you think of her often? Does the thought of Malachi MacCumhal kissing her make you feel murderous? Does she appear in your dreams when you long to forget her?”

  Trevallyan would not turn to face him.

  That was all the answer Father Nolan needed.

  The old priest leaned shakily on his cane and made to depart, but before he did, Trevallyan asked in voice hushed and solemn. “If it’s true, if I do find myself falling in love with the girl, what do you make of it?”

  “It fills me with pity, my lord, and it makes me believe in geise.” The priest stared at him. Slowly, he said, “They may take away the Trevallyan riches and the Trevallyan lands, but there is no greater curse than to love someone you cannot have. We Celts are a strange people, as you know from your own flesh and blood, Niall. If we wanted to curse the Trevallyans, we could have found no better way.” He nodded to the morose figure standing at the mantel. “God bless you and keep you, my lord.”

  Chapter 17

  RAVENNA DID not sleep for two days. Her anger simmered beneath a calm facade like a pot of water on the edge of a boil. Fury turned to hatred, then cooled to a false, self-induced detachment. Deep down, she knew she was not indifferent to Trevallyan, but she made a death-bed vow to herself that from now on she would show nothing but dispassion toward him.

  Grace and Skya were her only escape. In the wee hours of the morning, when the hurt threatened to erupt in tears, she stumbled to her battered old writing desk and scrawled by the thin light of a puddly candle.

  Grace found the cottage as if led by the hand of a faerie. She reached the copse in the woods where the cottage lay just when the last beams of sunlight filtered through the dense canopy of tree boughs. Darkness carpeted the forest floor like a moss. The only light was from clusters of mushrooms that seemed to glow as if sprinkled with enchantment. In just one visit to the old woods, Grace understood why her Celtic people weaved the tales they did.

  An old bridge built of gnarly, petrified wood stood between her and the cottage. Below, she could hear the singing of a brook as it skipped across smooth stones. A candle burned in the cottage beyond, and Grace felt a flood of excitement pulse through her at the thought of seeing her long-lost sister once more.

  “Who goes there?”

  The voice brought Grace upright. The horrible croak was most certainly not her sister’s voice.

  “Who may ye be?”

  There it was again. A wretched, annoying, whiny sound like fingernails dragging across slate.

  “Tell me, or ye will not be crossin’ my bridge.”

  Grace looked down. Way down, to where the brook flowed beneath the bridge. There in the dank, shadowy cover stood a troll no taller than wheatgrass. He wore grimy, patched braies the color of mud; short, pointy-toed boots, and a wretched, filthy bliaud that had once been the finest velvet but was now crushed and soiled. He stared at her from the darkness, his pale knobby nose a blight on his face, his stringy black hair falling across piggy, malevolent eyes.

  She cleared her throat to hide her fear. “I—I am Princess Grace. I’ve come to see my sister Skya who lives in the cottage.”

  “She is yer sister?” A pudgy shadow of a thumb jabbed in the direction of the cottage.

  “Indeed.” Grace nodded. “I’ve come a long way to see her.”

  “If ye be that one’s sister, then ye will not be crossin’ my bridge.”

  To her dismay, the creature crossed his arms and stared at her, a mutinous jut to his horrible little chin.

  Ye will not be crossin’ my bridge, a little voice inside her mimicked. This little troll was like a crotchety old woman. “Surely you don’t hold the power to keep me from crossing the bridge? Why, you barely reach my hips.” She stifled a small giggle.

  The troll jumped up and down in a display of fury, and she heard water splash beneath his little boot-clad feet. “You will not cross my bridge! You will not cross my bridge!” he ranted.

  Grace gathered the fabric of her kirtle and stepped onto the structure. The bridge gave an audible moan beneath her human weight, a thing for which it was clearly not built. She took one step and another. The other side, where her sister’s cottage dwelled, loomed ever closer, but beneath her, she heard the ominous sounds of the troll rummaging around in a container as if he were desperately searching for something. He must have found it, for he released a vile little laugh.

  She placed a foot on the other side and began to run. In her mind, she thought she heard the sound of hundreds of tiny feet running behind her, but she discounted it. Until a creature grasped on to her linen kirtle and clawed its way onto her shoulder.

  Screaming, she looked right into the face of a huge, ugly rat. Behind her, an army of them ran toward her, so many that they were tumbling from the bridge into the shallow brook. The troll’s laughter rang through her ears with the lyrical sound of sweet revenge.

  “Help me! Help me!” Grace cried, and ran to the cottage. She pounded on the door, and when it opened, she ran inside, rats and all, not even bothering to acknowledge the sister whom she hadn’t seen in years.

  “Grace!” Skya exclaimed, running to her to give her a hug. The rats did not seem to bother her at all.

  “Skya…” Grace croaked, limply holding out her arms for her sister’s embrace. Rats fell from her head and shoulders as Skya held her tight.

  “Come have food and drink and tell me of home.” There were tears in Skya’s eyes as she gazed at her little sister, but this was not the kind of reunion Grace expected. Mutely, she watched Skya clear a place at her board and set down a clay pitcher and a plate full of sweet biscuits.

  Grace wondered if she was living a dream. Rats streamed in the front door unnoticed, but when one shimmied up the table leg and scurried for the biscuits, she couldn’t muffle her gasp.

  “Rats! Rats! Why does he always send rats!” Ignoring her sister, Skya picked up the offending creature that was just about to feast on the biscuits. She held the rodent up as if to study him, then she gazed around her cottage. Grace looked too, cringing at the hundreds of ugly gray-brown rats that haunted the corners and cabinets.

  “Oh, bother it! He’ll pay.” Then to Grace’s amazement, Skya snapped her fingers. The rats suddenly turned into brilliant white doves, hundreds of them. They flapped their wings and flew from every window and door, leav
ing iridescent feathers in their wake. Without comment, Skya blew the snowdust of feathers from the board and bade Grace sit down and enjoy her refreshment.

  “Tell me of home. How is Mother? And Father?” Skya asked.

  Grace’s ears still rang from the coos of the doves as they fled the cottage. “Skya, You’re really a witch, aren’t you?” she said in awe.

  Hurt and discomfort crossed Skya’s beautiful face. She sat down with her sister at the board and said in a sad little whisper, “Yes, I am really a witch. And to pay for this magic means to never fit in.” She took Grace’s hand and squeezed. Every melancholy word echoed in Grace’s heart. “How I wish I fit in.”

  Griffen O’Rooney had finally found a home. He had a warm, dry bed, the first he’d seen since the madness struck years ago, and three fine, healthy meals a day in the castle kitchen with the company of more servants than he could talk to. In the mornings, when he awoke, Fiona gave him his breakfast beside a blazing hearth.

  “Heat’s good fer the bones,” he said to Fiona while she punched down a yeasty dough at a marble-topped kitchen table.

  She smiled absentmindedly at him. No one at the castle seemed to mind the old man. Even the lowly sculleries thought it better to have Griffen in the kitchen, warm and dry, than out frightening them all in the cemetery.

  “I’ve got to be speakin’ with the master today,” Griffen announced with self-authority.

  “Ah, the master’s quite busy, Mr. O’Rooney. Perhaps I can send Tommy James here to give you someone to talk to.… now let me see, where did I see that boy last? He was helping in the stables, I think.…”

  “I must talk to Trevallyan today,” Griffen insisted, clearly not hearing her. “I must tell him the story of how I come by the ring. ’Tis time, I think, for him to marry. Why, the lass is all grown up.”

  “I really can’t say if the master will see you,” Fiona said, a distracted, confused expression on her face. She picked up an armful of laundry and made to leave.

  Griffen’s mood seemed to just skirt panic. “I must be tellin’ the master the story today. You will tell him for me, won’t you?” He looked at her.