Miserere

by Caren J. Werlinger

  Nearing the house, she was startled again by a rustling, audible over the wind and this time very close at hand. A shadow moved to her right, and Lucy stepped into her lantern light.

  “Put out thy light!” Lucy whispered.

  “Why? What’s happened?” Caitríona asked, dousing the lantern immediately.

  “I came to warn thee… men have come, asking questions,” Lucy said.

  Caitríona didn’t need to ask what kind of questions. “Where are the others?” she demanded.

  “Ruth, Henry and the children are safe in the tunnels,” Lucy replied.

  Caitríona’s heart ceased to beat. “Hannah?”

  Lucy didn’t answer immediately and Caitríona’s face drained of all color, looking ghostly in the darkness.

  “Where’s Hannah?” she repeated.

  Lucy laid a restraining hand on Caitríona’s arm. “She wanted to warn thee,” she said softly.

  Caitríona grabbed Lucy’s hand in an iron grip. “Where is she?”

  Lucy gestured wordlessly toward the house, but “Don’t go,” she pleaded. “Run, hide. I’ll –”

  But Caitríona could hear nothing for the blood now pounding in her ears. She tore loose from Lucy’s grasp and ran the remaining way toward the house, stumbling and slipping on snowy tree roots.

  The front door stood open, throwing an elongated patch of lantern light out across the porch and over the snow-covered grass. And there, lying in the small patch of light was a shadow. Caitríona stumbled to Hannah’s body, lying there, her beautiful face bloody where she had been hit, her dress and shift ripped away to reveal her breasts. Dropping to her knees, Caitríona covered her and picked her up, cradling her closely. She was cold, so very cold. Raising her face to the heavens, Caitríona let loose a cry, an animal scream that rent the night – a lament for all that she had lost, all that had been taken from her in her life. Lucy felt the hairs raise on her neck and arms as she listened to that cry and never forgot it for the remainder of her life. But others also heard it. Shadows moved within the house, and men’s shouts were heard.

  Caitríona gently laid Hannah back down on the frozen earth, and, filled with a blind, driving rage against those who had done this, she knew in an instant what she would do. She ran a few steps toward the woods, giving them time to spot her. She hadn’t gone twenty paces when she heard a man’s voice yell, “I see her!”

  Another voice, deeper, said, “Ames, you call the others and follow as fast as you can. The rest of you, come with me!”

  “Remember, they’re worth more alive!” yet another voice shouted.

  Sprinting, Caitríona tore off through the woods, ignoring the branches that whipped her face and caught at her hair. After a few minutes, she stopped to listen. She could see the dancing light of torches behind her. She wanted to stay ahead of them, but did not want to lose them entirely. Her trail in the snow was easy to follow. She could hear the sound of heavy footsteps crashing through the woods in her wake. She began running again, heading in the direction of Lucy’s house. She stayed just far enough in front of them to stay out of their clutches and keep leading them away from the house. If she could just get to the tunnel entrance behind Lucy’s house, she could slip inside and they would follow.

  She emerged from the woods, but to her dismay, they had gained on her. She had no time now to find a lantern. She knew she would be blind once in the tunnel, and hoped she would remember the way. Deciding she had to take the chance, she sprinted toward the rock face, found the cleft in the wall and slipped inside. As quickly as she dared, she began climbing down the stone stairs, feeling her way, the sound of water growing louder as she descended.

  “In here!” said one of the voices above her. “She went in here!”

  She could see the flickering light of the men’s torches reflected off the damp walls behind her. Her only advantage was that she knew where she was going. Once she was down on relatively level ground again, she began running as fast as she could on the slippery wet rock, trailing a hand along the wall to her left to guide her. She got to the shallow lake and stopped, listening. They were still behind her. In one last moment of indecision, she had to choose which tunnel to take from there. One led to the main cavern where she knew she could lose them and get away, but she and Henry and Ruth would forever be looking over their shoulders; and the other tunnel, she knew, led to the cave-in. Remembering Hannah’s cold, beaten body lying in the snow, she made up her mind, splashing through the pool and into the cave-in tunnel. Running along this tunnel, she stumbled over piles of dirt, evidence of other partial collapses since she’d last been there. At one point, she fell headlong, scraping her hands and face on the rocky floor beneath her. Scrambling to her feet, she paused to listen.

  The men were further behind her now, she had temporarily lost them at the pool, but it wouldn’t be long before they saw her wet footprints and figured out which path she had taken. She knew she was nearing the cave-in; she could feel the timbers she and Henry had put up to bolster the walls and roof from this side when they had thought they might be able to clear the blockage. But every time they dug, more of the roof had caved in on them until they decided it was too unstable to try any further. Dropping to the floor, she felt about and found what she was searching for. There, where they had left it, was the long coil of rope which they had used to hoist timbers into place. Working as quickly as she could in the dark, she coiled and knotted the rope around every post and looped it quickly around the horizontal timbers supporting the roof as bits of earth and rock fell down upon her. Then, climbing and digging her way up the mound of dirt and rock still blocking the tunnel, she waited, the free end of the rope held tightly in her hands.

  She could hear them now, whispers and low voices coming in magnified echoes in the dark, but she could not yet see the light of their torches. Digging in further, she created a small bunker she could burrow into that would hide her from their view until it was too late. The darkness was absolute as she waited.

  Within a few minutes, she could see flickering lights far down the tunnel. The lights grew brighter and she could hear their voices. It seemed they had been joined by the second group, for there were more torches now.

  “This is the devil’s work, I tell you,” said one.

  “I’ll give you the devil,” growled another. “That red-headed witch is the very devil.”

  “What the –”

  The men had arrived at the cave-in. Caitríona held her breath, waiting for them to step a little closer… just a little closer….

  With a scream and a mighty yank on the rope, she brought the timbers crashing down, one pulling the next. Dirt and rock began to fall in large chunks, much of it falling behind the men, trapping them. The men yelled and their yells helped accelerate the fall of debris. The ones closest to Caitríona and the wall of dirt were the first to realize what was happening, but as they turned to run, they found their way blocked by the others trying to avoid the debris falling down on them from behind.

  With a savage scream, Caitríona saw them buried by an avalanche of rock and earth. The dust choked her as more dirt rained down upon her and all light was extinguished. Coughing, she covered her head and face with her coat to filter the air. It took a long time for everything to settle, and when it did, she was partially buried in fresh dirt herself. Once again, she was in absolute darkness, the torches having been buried with the men. Carefully, she raised herself up from the earth covering her, shaking the dirt from her hair. Gingerly, she tested the wall behind her to see if any of it had shifted, but it remained as solid as ever it was. Slipping and sliding down the mounded dirt, she made her way over the newly caved-in portion under which Hannah’s attackers lay buried. Crawling over the debris, she found that it was piled solidly, but not all the way up. With a new sense of hope, she scrambled forward to see if she could dig her way out the other side.

  Her hope died in an instant, as she found that way blocked by a huge chunk of rock that had collapse
d down from the tunnel roof, now firmly wedged in place by the surrounding rock and dirt so that it left only a tiny gap through which she could reach a hand, but not large enough for her to crawl through. She dug, trying to enlarge the gap, but her fingers were soon raw and bleeding.

  When they search for me, I’ll be able to call and signal to them, she thought, but immediately realized that no one knew where she had run to.

  She fell back on top of the freshly collapsed dirt, sitting on the bodies of her enemies and realized that she, also, would die. She could feel a small whisper of fresh air blow past her cheek, and laughed at the irony that, unlike her enemies, her death would not be mercifully swift as air ran out, but would be agonizingly slow as thirst and hunger took her.

  §§§

  “Why, Jed, what are you doing here?” Elizabeth asked in response to Jed’s knock on the kitchen door.

  “We were gonna go fishin’,” Jed replied, once again wearing his faded and patched overalls. “Isn’t Conn up yet?”

  Elizabeth frowned. “I thought she’d already left the house to go meet you,” she said. “I’m sure I heard her leave. Come on in.”

  Jed waited in the kitchen as she went upstairs, calling for Conn.

  “Hi, Jed,” said Will, coming out of the bathroom still in his pj’s.

  Elizabeth came back downstairs. “That’s odd. She’s not here. I can’t imagine where she’s gone. Do you know where your sister went?” she asked Will.

  He shook his head with a shrug as the telephone rang.

  “Elizabeth?” came Molly’s voice, slightly out of breath. “I think you should get over here as quickly as you can. I’ll explain when you get here.”

  Elizabeth herded the boys into the car, and sped to Molly’s cottage, where the front door was standing open.

  “In here,” Molly called out, and they trooped into her house.

  There, in the kitchen, they encountered the strangest sight. Molly was sitting on a struggling Conn, pinning her to the floor.

  “I’ve got to go to her!” Conn was crying.

  Elizabeth dropped to her knees and held Conn’s face in her hands. Conn seemed not to know she was there as her eyes remained focused on some distant thing, and she kept repeating the same phrase.

  “She’s been like this since I found her,” Molly explained. “That’s all she says, over and over.” She looked up at Elizabeth. “I think we should let her go and follow her.”

  Elizabeth met Molly’s eyes. “You think –?”

  “Yes.”

  Fearfully, Elizabeth nodded and Molly got up. As soon as she was released, Conn sprang to her feet and sprinted out the back door toward the shed.

  “Wait!” Jed called as the others started to follow. “We need a light.”

  Molly grabbed an oil lamp from her pantry and lit it hurriedly.

  “William Joseph, you are to stay right here,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Don’t you dare follow us. Do you understand?”

  Will nodded, sitting down on one of the kitchen chairs.

  “Vincent, stay,” Molly commanded. “He’ll keep you company,” she added kindly.

  By the time they got to the shed, Conn was nowhere to be seen. Jed took the lamp and led the way carefully down the stone steps.

  ***

  Conn needed no light. She had done this in the dark before. She knew the way. Reaching the shallow pool of icy water, she splashed across, staying near the left hand wall, not bothering to take off her shoes. Groping on the far wall, she bypassed the tunnel on her left, the one that led back to the cavern. Reaching to her right, she found the other tunnel, the one she and Jed had never explored, but which she now knew would bring her to the culmination of her quest.

  She moved more slowly now, relying on her feet and hands to guide her. The tunnel curved slightly to the right, and she could see a ghostly light up ahead as the air before her chilled.

  Caitríona stood before an immense pile of dirt supporting an enormous vertical slab of rock.

  “Here?” Conn asked.

  Caitríona nodded. “‘Tis the place.”

  Climbing up, Conn began digging with her hands. She paused, looking at the apparition next to her. “Stay with me.”

  “I’m with you, child.”

  The rock slab was too massive and was buried too deeply to be removed. Conn began scratching at the rock-hard dirt near a small opening up high, but made only a tiny increase in the size of the gap. Her nails were soon scraped down to raw nubs and she realized she could not dig an opening large enough to get through.

  “Conn!”

  “Conn, where are you?”

  Conn looked back at the sound of the voices approaching from down the tunnel. “Down here,” she called. “Keep coming.”

  With one last glance, Caitríona vanished and Conn was left in total blackness for a few minutes until a beam of light thrown by their lantern pierced the darkness.

  Conn slid down the dirt pile as the others approached. Elizabeth grabbed her and held her tightly. “Are you all right?” she asked anxiously.

  Conn nodded. She pointed. “We need tools. She’s in there.”

  ***

  Within the hour, they were back, accompanied by Abraham. Armed with more lanterns as well as shovels and picks, they worked carefully to enlarge the opening without bringing the roof crashing down upon them.

  Before too long, they had an opening big enough for Conn to squeeze through. She wriggled and squirmed until she fell through on the other side. They passed a lantern through to her.

  “What is it?” Elizabeth called up. “What’s there?”

  Conn squatted down beside the mummified remains lying there. “Caitríona.”

  There was silence for several seconds. “You found her?” Molly asked.

  Jed’s face appeared in the opening. He squirmed through also as the adults waited anxiously on the other side.

  Conn handed the lantern to Jed and turned back to the dessicated remains. There, clutched in the withered hand, was Orla’s rosary. Gently, Conn pried the wooden beads from the brittle fingers. “It’s her,” she said reverently.

  “What’s that say?” Jed asked, holding the lantern up high. There, a rock had been used to carve a word into the packed dirt wall.

  By the illumination of the lamp, Conn read, “Miserere.”

  CHAPTER 34

  “We have to bury her next to Hannah,” Conn insisted. She worked for hours with Abraham to make a simple coffin, laboring to carve a simple Celtic cross into the top.

  She had sat down and described the last dream in detail for her mother and Molly. “I don’t think she ever knew that Hannah hadn’t died that night,” she said sadly.

  After some discussion, the three of them decided against notifying anyone else of the presence of other bodies in the tunnel. “They’ve been buried there for over a hundred years,” Molly argued. “I think it best if they stay there.”

  “I don’t understand,” Elizabeth said to Molly later as they sat together on the porch swing watching the children out in the yard.

  “You don’t understand what?” Molly asked.

  “The connection between Caitríona and Hannah.”

  Molly looked askance at her. “They were lovers,” she said matter-of-factly.

  The look on Elizabeth’s face was comical. “How do you know?” she asked, non-plussed.

  “Conn told me.”

  The expression on Elizabeth’s face a moment ago was nothing to the one it wore now. Molly waited for her to process this information.

  “What exactly does she know?” Elizabeth asked carefully.

  Molly shrugged. “I don’t think she was shown anything intimate, but she understands that they loved one another, that they were in love.”

  “But she’s only eleven!” Elizabeth said indignantly.

  “Whatever she is, she is most definitely not ‘only eleven’,” Molly said calmly. “No normal eleven-year-old could have done what she has done.”

&n
bsp; Speaking very deliberately, she continued, “Elizabeth, I believe that the fact that Connemara was capable of understanding their relationship was the reason she was the one Caitríona was waiting for. She needed someone who could truly understand the anguish she felt when she thought Hannah was dead. It was the thing that drove her to do what she did in that tunnel.”

  Elizabeth frowned as she considered the significance of Molly’s words. “Are you saying…?”

  Molly shrugged again and smiled. “Who knows? Does it really matter? Abraham told me that she asked him once why love should be so hard to understand. Good question, don’t you think?”

  ***

  A small procession made its way to the Faolain family cemetery. It was a glorious August morning, cool and dewy. Birds were singing joyously. Columbine and morning glory were blooming in profusion, climbing the grave markers and the stone boundary of the tiny graveyard. The Mitchells stood gathered around the freshly dug grave, joined by Abraham, Molly and Jed. Together, they lowered the coffin with ropes, settling Caitríona Ní Faolain at long last into her final resting place next to Hannah.

  Elizabeth gave Conn a small nod of encouragement, and she picked up the Bible she had brought from the house. As she opened it, she said, “Caitríona spent her last hours in that tunnel praying for forgiveness. This is the Miserere, the 51st Psalm.” And she read,

  “‘Have mercy on me, O God, in your goodness,

  in your great tenderness wipe away my faults;

  wash me clean of my guilt,

  purify me from my sin.

  For I am well aware of my faults,

  I have my sin constantly in mind,

  having sinned against none other than you,

  having done what you regard as wrong.

  You are just when you pass sentence on me,

  blameless when you give judgement.

  You know I was born guilty,

  a sinner from the moment of conception.

  Yet, since you love sincerity of heart,

  teach me the secrets of wisdom.