The Godforsaken Daughter

by Christina McKenna

  There was nothing in it apart from a hairgrip and a white metal badge with her name crookedly written in black marker. At the sight of the badge her heart sank. How unhappy she’d been back then! Thrust out into the big, cruel world—a lamb among wolves. She slammed the lid back down. Stood up and pushed the skylight free, needing air.

  “THE CASE! YOU CAME HERE FOR THE CASE. LOOK BEHIND YOU!”

  She jumped. The voice. It was the same one from her dream, but this time clearer and more insistent.

  Ruby began to sweat; she wanted to flee the attic but instead found herself turning round, as instructed, and looking above the door.

  There, perched on a shelf, was the object of her mission: an ancient, brown case studded with tarnished rivets.

  Grasping the leather handle, she eased it down, shutting her eyes against a dust cloud of many vintages. The case, though small, was unusually heavy, and she could see why. It was made of wood with inlays of what looked like snakeskin, on top and along the sides. She found an empty place on the floor beneath the skylight and set it down.

  On the front was the image her mother had so scorned: a line drawing of a naked woman with her arms raised, hands joined above her head. Ruby did not find the image offensive. If anything, it reminded her of a pair of closed scissors. On a nameplate underneath she could just about make out the word Revelation. Was it the name of the maker, or an indication of what she might find inside?

  The case did not have two locks, as she’d expected, but one brass clasp in the middle, shaped like a half-moon and secured with a small padlock. Fortunately, it didn’t look too strong. Two tugs with the pliers had it falling apart.

  She slid the clasp free of its leather loop and raised the lid.

  A cloth of blue velvet covered the contents, fastened at each corner with ribbons of the same shade, tied in neat bows. Ruby’s fingers hovered over the first bow. She hesitated. Grandma Edna had died thirty-two years before. Those bows had been tied by her way back then. Suddenly, Ruby felt the weight of her trespass and sat back on her heels, closed her eyes, heart hammering with indecision.

  “DON’T BE AFRAID. LOOK INSIDE.”

  The voice again: but this time, soft, assuring. She began to breathe more slowly, and soon felt calmer.

  Gently, she worked each bow loose, drew back the cover, and peered inside.

  She was confronted with an odd sight: a tier of rich blue satin, within which were embedded four objects: a crystal ball, a flat gold disk engraved with a five-pointed star, a knife with a curved blade like that of the crescent moon, and a small silver cup with three chains attached.

  Ruby ran her forefinger lightly over each object in turn, afraid to dislodge them. She knew what the crystal ball was for. In Donegal, a lady calling herself Madame Calinda used to do readings with one on the seafront. She’d heard her colleagues discuss how accurate her predictions were, but had been too afraid to venture into her tent. Life was horrible enough back then without hearing even more bad news.

  There were tabs either side of the tier. Carefully, she lifted the tray of objects out and set it aside.

  The second tier was just like the first, but instead of objects, it held two small books, placed either side of what looked like a length of silver cord wound tightly into a spiral shape. Curious, she pried it free, and was startled to find a very long belt unraveling across the floor. She gathered it up quickly, hoping the dust hadn’t soiled it. It had three knots tied at either end. She attempted to roll it back into its original shape, but the effort was too much. She bundled it on top of the first tier and gave her attention to the other two items.

  One, Ruby discovered, was not a book at all, but a pack of cards. The emblem on the front: an elaborate, monochrome drawing of what looked like a deer with the moon between its antlers; below it were the words The Rider Tarot.

  Tentatively, she drew out the cards and shuffled through them, turning each one face upward as she went. She counted twenty-two in all. They were numbered 0 to 21 in what Ruby recognized as old Irish lettering. Each card bore a full-color illustration, and each came complete with a title. She read each one in turn, intrigued and frightened by their strangeness.

  “Death” showed a skeleton in armor riding a horse.

  “The Lovers.” A naked boy and girl against a backdrop of what could have been the Garden of Eden. An angel hovering above them.

  “The Devil.” The same boy and girl, in chains in front of a throne. On the throne sat a huge, baleful entity. It had bat-like wings and horns growing from its head.

  Ruby’s hands shook as she quickly turned the card facedown, and returned it to the pack.

  The second item was, indeed, a book: a dream dictionary. Remembering her lucid dream about seeing herself in the coffin, she turned the pages with trepidation, until she reached the entry under the heading “Death.”

  Death dreams signify a desire in you to end or escape a current situation, which is causing you unhappiness. They also denote that you are on the brink of great changes in your life.

  She looked up from the page, stunned at the accuracy of that statement. She read on.

  Dreaming of your own death often occurs when you are facing a major life-altering change. Something has died within you to make way for a new beginning.

  There was the phrase she’d heard in her dream. The voice had said it twice. She repeated it now, aloud.

  “A new beginning. A new beginning.”

  Ruby grew excited. Grandma Edna was talking to her. It was Edna’s voice she was hearing. She was sure of it. That’s why she’d been led to the secret case. That’s why she’d had the dream. There was no need to be afraid.

  She replaced the dream dictionary, and was about to restore all the items to their proper place and shut the case, when she noticed that this second tier had tabs either side, just like the first. Perhaps there was something underneath.

  She lifted out the second tier. There was something. At the bottom, she saw a flat, rectangular object inside a black velvet bag. It had a drawstring of golden cord. Nervously, Ruby lifted it free. She untied the cord and drew out a book. But no ordinary book. This one was handmade. The spine was bound with string and reinforced with two lengths of branch cuttings. It was covered in thick black canvas.

  She turned it over.

  On the front, calligraphed in gold Celtic script, were the words:

  THE BOOK OF LIGHT

  Written by Edna Vivian Clare

  1854–1952

  The book fell from her hands.

  Those dates!

  Oh God, if Edna wrote the book, how did she know when she was going to die?

  Suddenly, she felt sick. Nausea rose in her throat. The urge to flee the attic, strong again. Maybe her mother was right. Maybe she should simply burn the case and everything in it.

  She tried to get off her knees, but the effort was too much. First, she needed to put everything back. With trembling hands she returned each item to its rightful place.

  “SAVE IT FOR ME, RUBY. SAVE IT FOR YOURSELF.”

  She stopped. The voice had used her name. Now she knew for certain it was Grandma Edna. She started to weep.

  “I’m afraid, Grandma!” she cried. “I’m afraid, so I am.”

  “THERE IS NO DARKNESS BUT IGNORANCE. YOU ARE PROTECTED.”

  “I am?”

  She waited for an answer, but none came. She repeated the words out loud several times. “There is . . . no darkness but . . . but ignorance. I . . . am . . . I am protected.”

  Repeating the words made her feel calmer. A clearness of purpose overtook her. She knew what she had to do. She fastened the clasp, rose from her knees with ease. Through the skylight, she saw that Ida’s car was still in the yard. Good. That meant the door to her mother’s bedroom would still be closed.

  She secured the skylight once
more, carefully lifted the case, and left the attic.

  She descended the two flights of stairs to the first-floor landing. Murmuring voices from her mother’s room promised safe passage to her own bedroom. She tiptoed inside, crossed to the bed, and placed the case under it. A pelmet of pink valance made for the perfect hiding place.

  She felt relieved as she exited the room. Relieved and exhilarated. She had done what her father would have wanted: protected Grandma Edna’s legacy. Those ancient secrets in that black book were now hers to learn.

  It was her duty to do so.

  Ruby Vivian Clare’s new beginning was about to begin.

  Chapter nine

  Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, hail, our life, our sweetness and our hope. To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve; to thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears . . .”

  Nine twenty-five p.m.: Ruby and her mother on their knees in the kitchen—exhorting God with a protracted rosary. Mrs. Clare’s voice ringing out above Ruby’s: more sonorous, more earnest sounding, as was the matriarch’s right.

  “Turn then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy towards us, and after this our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O merciful, o loving, o sweet Virgin Mary! Pray for us. Pray for us. Pray for us. Amen.”

  In tandem they crossed themselves, kissed Christ’s image on the crosses of their rosaries, returned the beads to purses, and rose. Ruby first, who then assisted her mother.

  This duty of saying the rosary was strictly adhered to by Mrs. Clare. Even if she happened to be lying down of an evening and feeling poorly, she would make the effort to rouse herself at precisely 8:55 p.m. and come downstairs to kneel on the flagged floor for this devotional observance.

  She balked at the idea of saying something as important as the rosary while lying down. One had to show reverence for Our Lady at least once during the day by kneeling to pray. It was a penance. Suffering the discomfort of painful knees on the unforgiving floor was appropriate, because Christ had suffered a lot more, had he not? Besides which, one gained a “plenary indulgence” for reciting it in the family home with other family members present. This added bonus meant time off for good behavior when one entered the purgatorial fires of the afterlife.

  “How are you now?” Ruby asked when she’d got her mother upright. It had been an interesting day. She’d found and secreted Edna’s case. And this deceit, carried out under her mother’s nose while she gossiped with Ida, made Ruby feel more self-satisfied and willing to forgive and forget the fact that she’d slapped her. She was an old woman, after all, mourning a great loss.

  “How am I? I’m as well as can be expected, Ruby.” The mother sighed. “As well as can be expected in the circumstances.”

  Ruby helped her into an armchair by the stove and spread a rug over her knees.

  “I’ll get the cocoa ready, so I will. The kettle’s already boiled.”

  The mother settled herself, feeling more reassured, having recited her prayers. It had been a good day. She’d enjoyed Ida’s visit. After the weekend, Ida with her pedicure and chitchat had been a welcome distraction. She’d even allowed the Avon Lady to paint her toenails. Something her daughter June hadn’t managed, despite all those years on the Rimmel counter. There was something, however, niggling at her, and she needed to know the answer from Ruby before retiring for the night.

  “Did you burn that case like I told you?”

  Ruby, in the pantry spooning the cocoa into mugs, was glad the query was being made at a safe distance. She was not a good liar.

  “Yes,” she said, a little too quickly, halting the spoon and looking up, only to see her guilt reflected in the window glass. “I . . . I did it today when Ida was doing your toes.”

  “Good. I thought I heard you coming and going on the stairs. I’m glad that’s out of the house. I can rest easy now.”

  Ruby set the nightcap on a little table beside her mother’s chair and withdrew to the recliner opposite. “I put an extra spoon of sugar in. But if you want more . . .”

  “No, there’s no need.” Mrs. Clare took a tentative sip. “Where did you burn it?”

  “Burn what?” Unnerved now, Ruby tried to buy time.

  “The case.”

  “Oh, down—I mean in . . . in the wood . . . at Beldam.”

  Beldam.

  She had the words out before she could stop herself. Beldam Lake was a no-go area, both in speech and thought. Not long after the grandfather’s tragic death, five-year-old Declan, her father’s younger brother, had wandered out onto the jetty, fallen in, and drowned. Forever a wound on the landscape of Oaktree Farm, it was fenced off with stout skeins of barbed wire, rusted now with age. Shut off decades ago, to shut out the pain of the family’s unspeakable loss.

  Martha Clare studied her cocoa, gripping the mug in cupped hands. “That’s why she got into all that again . . . your grandmother. She lost her faith when the child died so soon after your grandfather.”

  Ruby shifted in the armchair, uneasy. The creaks of the old recliner pricking the silence in warning.

  “What did she get into?” She’d seen the contents of the case and had an inkling of what her mother meant. But she needed to hear more.

  “Trying to make contact with the dead. God had let her down, she said. So she turned to all that . . . all that mumbo jumbo . . . and made things worse. Far worse. Couldn’t let it go. ”

  Ruby looked down at her cocoa. She didn’t feel like drinking it. “But . . . but if it helped her, what was wrong with it?”

  The mother’s face darkened. “Who’s saying it helped her?”

  “I dunno . . . Daddy always said his mother was the best in the world. So she must’a been a good woman.”

  “You don’t know the half of it. Your father was as mad as her when I met him. She had his head turned with all that nonsense. You can thank me for bringing some sort of sanity into this house. It was a godless place before I came about. Not a crucifix or a drop of holy water anywhere to be seen. See that prayer over there of Saint Michael? When I married your father and moved in here, I gave her that for her sixtieth birthday. I’ll never forget the look on her face when she unwrapped it. She dropped it immediately as if she’d burned herself, and the glass broke. Then I knew for sure what she was.”

  The more Ruby listened, the more fearful she was becoming. “Maybe it was an accident?”

  “Why are you sticking up for her? It was no accident. Archangel Michael, our protector against Satan. Oh no, she didn’t want that in this house. But I stuck to my guns. I insisted that as long as I was living under this roof, I’d have religious pictures and a bit of Christianity about it. She didn’t like that one bit. Started to stay more and more in her bedroom until she died. Your father never talked about that side of her to you. Oh no. In his book, she could do no wrong. But she did a lot of wrong, I can tell you that. We fought over that case when she went, your father and me. I wanted it burned there and then. But when her will was read, that settled it. She’d made a specific request that as long as Oaktree Farm was in the Clare name, the case should remain in the house and not be opened. Far be it from me to go against someone’s dying wishes. So it was put in the attic, out of my sight.”

  Ruby felt relieved and anxious at the same time. She’d done the right thing by saving the case—but she had opened it.

  “I’m glad you’ve burned it. As I say, I can rest easy now, knowing it’s out of the way.” Martha looked at the clock. “Time for bed. Tomorrow I have an appointment with Mr. Cosgrove, the solicitor. What time is it at? I forget.”

  Ruby got up and checked the calendar. “Half past nine.”

  “Good. You can make a shopping list in the morning.”

  After her mother retired, Ruby did the washing up, full of apprehension and forboding. What terrible fate would befall her no
w? Unwittingly, she’d gone against Edna’s dying wishes. She dimly recollected a fairy tale she’d heard as a child. It concerned a box and a girl who’d opened it. Ruby couldn’t remember her name but thought it was Greek. When the girl opened the box, she’d let loose all kinds of terrible things on the world.

  Wicked things.

  Before climbing the stairs to her own bedroom, she went to the framed prayer of St. Michael, which hung in a niche by the back door. She’d never taken much notice of it before. Like the other pictures that hung around the house, it had disappeared into the fabric of the wallpaper. But now that she’d learned of its origin, the picture took on a whole new significance. She lifted it from its nail, dusted it off, and held it up to the light.

  St. Michael the Archangel defend us in battle.

  Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the Devil.

  She looked up from the picture. “Grandma Edna wouldn’t be consorting with the Devil,” she whispered, half to herself. “Why would she be?” There was more, but Ruby didn’t feel like reading it. She returned it to the nail on the wall and climbed the stairs to her room.

  Once inside, she took the precaution of locking the door. Her mother’s words had frightened her, but she knew her mother generally looked at everything in a negative light. She sat on the edge of the bed.

  “THERE IS NO DARKNESS BUT IGNORANCE. YOU ARE PROTECTED.”

  The voice. The words had come to her just like they had in the attic when she’d felt afraid.

  “I’m protected?” Ruby looked about her. “I’m protected,” she said again, willing herself to believe it.

  Quietly, she got down on her knees and retrieved the case from under the bed. She found The Book of Light and unsheathed it from the velvet pouch. Sat back on the pillows and opened it. There was a dedication on the first page, the writing rendered in what could only be Edna’s hand.

  Dana

  The Great Mother Goddess. Beyond all other Gods of this World.

  Queen of the Celts. Caretaker of the Faery Folk. Life-giver of Water.