Some nights, I would open up all seven of my windows just to feel the wind on my skin. And when the first frost came in mid-September, I stayed up all night and breathed in the air. The crisp, cool air that reminded me so much of blackberry pies and long walks in the willow glades and peat burning in the hearth and sneaky sips of Nuala’s hot Irish coffee. My fingers would go numb and my teeth would chatter and my toes would quiver, but I would not give in to blankets or bathrobes. I would let the cold sink in. Let it sail me away, carry me until, at last, I scraped the shores of dreamland. And always, I dreamed of Ireland. Always, I dreamed of the little house at the edge of the willows in Donegal, where nothing ever happened, yet adventures roamed free for those who called it home.
But what frightened me most was this: I got used to the smell of blood.
Chapter 25
ONE NIGHT, I STAYED UP until the stars dulled and the moon sank low and the sky corners collected dust the color of plum blossoms. I played a Peter, Paul and Mary record that was left in the record player in the guest room, and I wept and I prayed, but most of all I forgot. I forgot my disdain for stories, the danger and the loss and the loneliness they brought. I forgot and I wrote. I wrote down stories, the stories Nuala would tell me before bed and at cliff edges or wildflower meadows, the stories she had handed down to me, and each one I addressed to Da. The last story, I scribbled at the top of the page with shaking fingers:
The Children of Lir
I told of the children-turned-swans just the way I told it to Darcy, but this time, when I told of the eldest child, Ena, I imagined the swan from the train. I imagined her eyes, dark and afraid. And as I wrote, the song “500 Miles” chimed through the record player. The song lilted:
If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone …
I told of Lir mourning the loss of his wife, Aobh, as the twins, Fiachra and Conn, were born.
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles …
I told of the wedding bells. Of Aoife marrying Lir, of Aoife holding a child of her own. A child named Finnuala.
A hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles, a hundred miles …
I told of how Ena took Finnuala from Aoife’s loving arms, how Lir left his wife without home or family out of false love.
Lord, I’m one, Lord, I’m two, Lord, I’m three, Lord, I’m four, Lord, I’m five hundred miles from my home …
I told of Aoife taking the children to their half-faery grandmother. To Inis Eala, to the hawthorn tree, where the elder children ate the berries to save Finnuala.
Not a shirt on my back, not a penny to my name …
I told of the half-faery grandmother. I told of her cradling the life-fading children. Saving them with berries of the same hawthorn, these ones blessed instead of cursed.
Lord, I can’t go a-home this a-way …
I told of the berries turning the pale-limbed children into swans. I told of how they flew away.
If you miss the train I’m on, you will know that I am gone …
I told of the half faery sending her daughter across the globe. Banishing her from her home.
You can hear the whistle blow a hundred miles.
I left out the part about Aoife causing Aobh’s death—how Aoife grew a thornbush in her sister’s heart with her faery magic of life. Because despite all the people Aoife had hurt, I knew she would want to go home.
And I swear, through the feathered walls I could hear my mother weeping for all the years she had lost with me, and for her infertility that followed her loss of me. I could have sworn I heard it. And it hurt, because despite it all, I understood. So I turned the record louder. And despite all the people I hurt, I wanted to go home. Those were the final words I wrote, and I wrote them over and over and over.
I want to go home.
I want to go home.
I want to go home.
WHEN THE CROWS CAWED, I trundled weary-eyed down to the drawing room for breakfast and sat down at the table. Pushing my food in circles around my plate, I realized how foolish I had been. I wouldn’t be able to send the stories. I wasn’t allowed to go to the post office, no less out the back door. At least … not alone.
“Ma?” I said, looking up at Aoife. I had discovered that the more I called Aoife Ma rather than Miss or Madam or Ma’am, the more likely I was to get out of violin lessons or stay up an extra half hour.
“The Finbird talks,” ogled Posy-Kate.
She shoveled a forkful of scrambled eggs into her mouth, then leaned in close as if she were telling a ghost story and repeated, “The Finbird … it talks.”
“Hush, Priscilla-Kathryn,” snapped Aoife. She turned her attention to me and smiled. “Yes, what is it, darling?”
“I wondered if I might stop by the post office. I’ve some letters I thought I might send to folk back home.”
Posy-Kate choked on her orange juice. Aoife contorted her smile so it stretched twice as wide as a normal person’s.
Posy-Kate scoffed. “Who’d want to hear from you? I know I’d rather receive mail from a dirty bird than—oh wait—that’s right, you are a bird. A grimy, covered-in-pond-scum waterfowl. Isn’t that right, Finbird?” she cackled, tossing a piece of sausage to the crows at the feet of the table. They pounced on the meat like vultures, savagely tearing at the carpet with their beaks. The moment one believed it had won the prize, the other would peck it out of its greedy little mouth.
“Enough, girls,” shot Aoife. “And don’t feed the crows; they’re already fat as it is, the wee beasts.” Immediately, Aoife reddened, as she so often did, at the slip of her colloquial Irish. She turned to me and added, “If you have mail, simply give it to Nancy. I’m sure she’d send whatever you wish.”
“I’d like to see the letters off myself, if it’s all the same to you.”
Aoife took a sip of her tea, then said, “It isn’t.” She dabbed her mouth and turned to Posy-Kate. “Priscilla-Kathryn, did you finish your—Dorothy! Leave that plate be. Good Lord, it’s hard to find decent help these days.”
“Sorry, ma’am,” squeaked the maid, scurrying back into the kitchen.
Aoife returned her gaze to Posy-Kate, but I piped in. “Has there … By any chance … There hasn’t been any word from my da?”
Aoife’s jaw twitched, and she tipped up her chin. “Not a word. Priscilla-Kathryn, use your napkin, please.”
“Sorry, Mom.”
“Now, Priscilla-Kathryn—”
“I just thought he’d have written by now. He promised he would, and he never breaks his word. Besides that, I was supposed to be back in Ireland by now.”
Aoife’s neck tensed as if she were holding her breath, lips parted, before she finally said delicately, “Has it occurred to you that perhaps your father no longer wishes you around?”
Posy-Kate snickered. My fingertips went cold and I dropped my spoon into my porridge. “What’s that supposed to mean?” I said.
“Oh, darling …” cooed Aoife, bending close to embrace me, but I pulled away. I shoved back my chair, tossed my silk napkin onto the table, and dashed for the stairs.
Don’t be stupid, I thought, of course he loves you. But the trouble was, there wasn’t a soul left to affirm this, nor was there a speck of evidence to support it. As much as I hoped Aoife was wrong, that Da still loved me, still longed for me, there was a possibility—perhaps even a probability—that yes, Aoife, yes, she was right.
Don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid, don’t be stupid, I thought as I raced up the stairs, trying to bottle the thoughts inside my stomach. But there was just something about Aoife’s voice, the slickness of it, that weaseled its way into my brain like a bookworm, chewing at all that I knew to be true.
When I came to my bedroom door, I stopped but for a moment. I wanted to be alone. Despite the loneliness burning in my chest, all I wanted was to be alone. Truly alone, where no one would find me. I raced past the door and down the feather-walled corridor, up winding stairwell after stairwell
until I found myself thoroughly lost.
The room I came upon was set off from the rest of the house—a sort of attic perhaps, or an old servants’ quarter. It was bare, except for a single black curtain draped along an oddly lightless window. It was perhaps the only un-feathered room in the manor, walls simple white with water stains by the window and mothballs in the corners. A chill rattled my bones, slunk into the small of my back like snow slipping down my blouse. I walked on a sea of cobweb castles, dust billowing like pixie dust beneath my feet.
“Hello,” I whispered.
My breath turned to smoke in the air, and my voice echoed back:
Hello, hello, hello …
“Hello?”
I froze. That surely was not an echo. My throat seemed to have frosted over, but I scraped out a feeble “Hello?” again.
“Helloooooo,” repeated the voice, soft and small. “Posy-Kate, is that you?”
“No,” I said.
Silence.
A shiver struck my ribs, and I chattered out, “It’s Finbir—Finn. It’s Finn.”
Silence.
And then a squeak. A flighty, fluttery sound that I knew oh so dearly. “Finn? Finnuala O’Dálaigh-Sé?”
“Yes,” I breathed.
With a pound, the floorboards shuddered, and I could tell the voice’s owner had leapt with joy. “I knew you’d come for me!” And then came the banging behind the black curtain, as if someone were throwing pebbles at the window.
I trod closer, each footstep sounding like a crash, zoink, ping! despite how high on my tiptoes I walked. I shouldn’t be here, my mind repeated, but my fingers took no mind and tugged at the curtain. It felt like river water beneath my fingertips. I closed my eyes and pretended I was dipping my hand into the River Boyne, as I so often did back in Ireland. I could smell the freshness mingling with the farm animal dung, hear the cows lowing in the green, green fields and the oaks rustling in the wind. Cool breeze in my hair, a lemon drop on my tongue. If you’re away long enough, anything can make you miss home.
I pulled back the curtain and opened my eyes. The window, well, the window was not a window at all.
Chapter 26
IF YOU DO NOT KNOW ABOUT TREES, you likely would not know that yew trees grow in graveyards. They grow tall and wide and house robins in the springtime. Well, the door behind the curtain in the hidden room above the manor was made from the wood of a yew tree. I could tell by the smell of it—the smell of death and sorrows. It was rough, unfinished wood, and when I touched it, I had to pluck a splinter from my palm with my fingernails.
“Won’t you come in, Finn?” bubbled the familiar voice again. It sounded like it was coming from just behind the doorknob. “Oh, please do. Please come in.”
I twisted the knob, and out tumbled a tiny girl with hair the color of raven’s feathers and eyes like storm clouds over Connemara. My heart jigged double time, and tears spurted from my eyes. I melted to my knees and embraced Darcy Brannon with all my might.
When she squeaked with breathlessness, I withdrew and blubbered, “I—I thought I’d never see you again. I—I thought you were … oh, it doesn’t matter!” I sighed and choked out, “I’m so sorry, Darcy. I’m so sorry.”
“Why’re you sorry, Finn? You en’t got nothin’ to be sorry for.”
And then logic dawned on me, and I tilted my head up at Darcy and asked, “What are you doing here? Why’re you—who brought you here? Who put you here?”
“Shh,” hushed Darcy. “C’mon in, I’ll explain everythin’. But we mustn’t be heard by her.”
I nodded, thoroughly confused, and followed Darcy into the cavernous room behind the yew door. I coughed out a cloud of dust as I crossed the threshold, yet a distinct pine aroma pleased my nose. The room must have been a sort of attic-turned-conservatory. The walls were made of slanting, sloping wood, and beams crisscrossed the ceiling like telephone wires, but strung across them were—I gasped in horror—barbed wire? No.
They were vines. Thorn-speckled vines and thick-wooded tree branches zigzagged the ceiling and the walls, collecting in piles in the corners like rope. They appeared to be exactly the same mystifying species as the thorn trees that encircled Starlight Valley.
“What are they for?” I breathed, my voice echoing ’round the room.
Darcy glanced up to the ceiling where I was staring, and shrugged. “Oh. Dunno, really. Aoife grows them, I s’pose.”
I gazed around the rest of the room, a sick feeling squeezing my insides ever tighter. A lumpy, dull gray cot was perched in the corner beside a flickering candle, and a few shafts of light filtered in from cracks in the ceiling (under which pails were set to collect rainwater). A minuscule bathroom was tucked in the corner, and piles of old toys, books, and records cluttered the walls. The most cheerful thing about the place was a wide fireplace set with three glass swan figurines on the mantelshelf. But that too was falling apart, crumbling bricks collecting in the hearth. In the dim light, I could see Darcy’s porcelain dollface was marred with ash and silt, and her hair was matted. Her eyes, still shining, sunk back in her head.
“Leave the door ajar, or we’ll be stuck here till Posy-Kate comes with lunch,” said Darcy.
My footsteps creaked as I walked. “You know Posy-Kate?” I whispered. “She’s a horrid girl. Ciara Cassidy times a thousand worse.”
Darcy bit her lip. “She en’t that bad.”
“She is so. They call me ‘Finbird,’ both of ’em, and they make fun of my clothes and my hair and the way I talk too.”
Darcy turned away, and I had to lean down to hear her say, “She brings me food. She brings me water. She sews me blankets.”
“She sews?” I muttered, more to myself. That would explain the quirky patterns and peculiar sweaters and buttons Posy-Kate so often wore—so different from her mother with swan-feather jackets and what I had come to realize were swan-bill high heels.
Darcy nodded and pulled me by the hand over to the cot. She then threw back the cot’s gray sheet to reveal a quilt of vibrantly colored mismatched fabrics—some flowery cotton, others silk, and yet more, weathered denim—appeared beneath. My mind flashed to the quilt Nuala had made long ago. I remembered that blackened patch and wondered if perhaps it belonged to Aoife. “Almost as well as Nuala, if I might be so bold. How is she, anyway? I can’t believe she sent you here. I mean, I knew they were looking for you—matter o’ fact, that’s how I ended up here—but that’s old news. Hey, what’s that feather doin’ ’round your neck? Doesn’t suit you, Finn, not one bit.”
I stifled a laugh as Darcy shuffled over to a jewelry box balanced between a stack of envelopes and a record player. She opened it up and withdrew something that glimmered in the candlelight.
“I thought my life was full-out over. But then I found this. I tried to mend it with some old packing tape I found,” said Darcy, “but Aoife caught me—she comes up every now an’ then an’ checks that it’s still here. And me. I told her straight out it belongs to you an’ no one else, but that Aoife wouldn’t listen, now would she? She’s a grumpy lady. Anyway, here it is.” She skipped over to me and dropped Nuala’s broken locket in my unsuspecting palms. I fumbled to catch it, then held my breath. Despite the goose bumps dappling my arms, warmth trickled down my fingers and into my chest.
I brought the locket to my nose and breathed in the smell of burnt brambleberry pie and rosemary soap. It smelled like Nuala. It smelled like home. Margaret, Ed, and Oliver gazed up at me, and there was something about their smiles that appeared more joyous than ever. The hawthorn tree seemed to waltz in a wind before my eyes, though perhaps it was simply the dizziness that had descended on me, and I remembered the tree I had come to before. The one with the scarlet berries, where I had entrusted Sojourn with the injured swan. Ena. It was, I realized, the one place I had visited that felt like home. I longed to return.
“Imagine Nuala’s face when she finds out what Aoife did to the locket—an’ you an’ me. You’re stick thin, Finn, stick t
hin!” Darcy chirped. “That Aoife has it comin’ to her, I tell you.”
“Darcy …” I looked up at her, eyes spritely as ever. Guilt rumbled the pit of my stomach.
“Hmm?”
“Nuala … Nuala’s dead.”
Darcy’s mouth dropped. “What?” She shook her head and added, “No. Don’t be silly, Finn. Nuala doesn’t die, and it’s not nice to fib about such things.”
“It’s my fault. She was saving me after … and then we had to go to … I was stupid, okay? Really, really stupid.”
“Oh …” Darcy’s eyes fell, and her throat tightened as she slumped onto the cot.
I slumped down too, a low-hanging thorn vine scraping my chin on the way, and wrapped an arm around Darcy’s shoulder.
She sniffed and whispered, “But I like Nuala.”
“Me too.” I sighed, and the lump in my throat rose again.
No. I would not cry in front of Darcy. I had to be her rock, not the other way around.
“Did you bury her?” asked Darcy.
“We—” I stopped short.
No. We hadn’t buried her. Hadn’t even had a proper ceremony. Father Cooley hadn’t visited, and I didn’t even know where Nuala’s body was. Was it being kept at a hospital? A funeral home? Was she cremated yet? Had they buried her without me or scattered her in a river or sent her ashes up to the stars in a floating lantern?
“I’m sorry, Darcy,” was all I could say. “I’m sorry. If I hadn’t told the story … If I hadn’t heard the story … If I hadn’t swam to the isle …”
Darcy’s face popped up, tearstained and blotched red. “You made it to the isle?”
I nodded, pulling from my sweater pocket the hawthorn flower I had rescued from the locket. “An’ all I’ve got to show for it is a dried-up bit o’ hawthorn flower an’ a dead Nuala.” I didn’t mention the story Nuala gave me on that isle, but it occurred to me that that story—the one about Nuala immigrating to Starlight Valley and befriending the children from the locket—had been the last story she’d ever told me. I’d already given Darcy the Children of Lir story; I’d keep this one for myself awhile.
The Serendipity of Flightless Things Page 11
