Devil's Mountain (11 page)

While my new sorority sisters, the other 9-11 widows, received the calls, the gruesome news of an arm, a leg, a bone shard being found even, my phone remained silent. Until last spring when I’d gotten the call. They hadn’t found my Bobby, but his briefcase.

I’d never opened it. In my fog of antidepressants and tranquilizers I felt neither pain nor joy at receiving this last piece of Bobby. Still in its plastic bag, I’d thrown it unceremoniously into the chaos of my closet floor.

Now, as the sleepless hours lay before me, I wanted to see it. Touch it. See if it retained any smell of my husband.

I shoved my feet into the slippers and walked into the kitchen. I made myself a cup of tea and treated myself to some of Aidan’s Oreos.

After swallowing the last of the tea, I ripped open the plastic bag. The briefcase, once black, was now gray with ingrained dust, toxins, I supposed. It was torn on one side, but otherwise intact. The clasp opened easily and inside was a business card holder, a copy of a client presentation, pens and a datebook.

As I flipped the pages of the datebook, I saw notations for client meetings, the occasional dentist appointment. And nothing else. Well, what had I been expecting? Declarations of love for his wife in his date planner?

My eyes brimmed as I flipped through April, May.
Pitch at Merrill, lunch to follow
.

Nothing personal in these pages reflecting the Bobby I knew. This could be anyone’s briefcase.

July and August were more of the same. And then I got to September. Blood roared in my ears as I reached that accursed day. I scanned the page and saw more notes. A lunch appointment in midtown. If only. If only he’d had a midtown breakfast rather than a lunch. But I couldn’t play the “if only” game. Not anymore.

I went to close the planner but then noticed a glint of gold, wedged in the binding. A ring.

The gold was dull, as it had always been. The carvings of intertwined branches were delicate.

Unlike his wedding ring which was properly sized, this ring which had belonged to his grandfather and his father before him, had never fit. It was impossible to size because of the design. It was loose, but Bobby wouldn’t leave the house without it. He’d been forever twirling it around. Taking it off, putting it on. I guess for some reason he’d left it in his date planner.

I placed the ring in the middle of my right palm and squeezed it tight in a fist. The kitchen was silent, aside from the whir of the refrigerator. I closed my eyes and prayed for some sign from Bobby. A few of my fellow 9-11 widows claimed their husbands had made contact with them. A candle had blown, a light flickered. I wasn’t sure whether these things were the result of overactive imaginations or grief, but I envied the other widows nonetheless. I’d received nothing from Bobby. No last phone call, no communication from the beyond. Nothing aside from this strange ring.

“Please, Bobby. If you’re out there. Give me a sign. Show me that you’re still there. I’m lost, sweetheart, I’m lost without you. I know I should be strong for our children, but you know I’m not. I’ve never been strong.”

The metal warmed in my hand and vibrated slightly. “Is that you? Are you here?”

I opened my fist. The ring was glowing now, and the heat was nearly unbearable. It fell from my hand onto the floor, leaving a circle of red burnt flesh in the center of my palm.

Too stunned to even cry, I knelt beside the ring. “What do you want?” I whispered to it.

“What should I do?”

That voice. That strange, seductive voice filled my kitchen. “Come home.”

* * * *

Mary hadn’t taken Bobby’s death well, but she hadn’t slipped into madness again either.

There were no more trips to the home. But her trips into Kilvarren became even less frequent, and she never ventured to Dublin anymore to see her grandchildren. Mary hadn’t been more than ten miles from the Mountain since Kathy’s birth.

Mary had been so good to me when Kathy was born, that despite my own grief, I made it a point to call and mail pictures of the kids. She was always polite on the phone, if distant. It wasn’t until I received a call from Orla suggesting I not call her mother so much that I realized that hearing from me was not a comfort to Mary, but rather a source of pain.

I limited my calls to twice a year--Christmas and Easter--and even then I wasn’t sure that limited contact was welcome.

So why did I drag my two children three thousand miles to that godforsaken Mountain?

I wish I knew. But ever since I found that ring, I’d dreamt of nothing else. Thought of nothing else. And besides, who would miss me in New York? Certainly not my family. I suspected my brothers, my school friends, even my fellow 9-11 widows would be a little relieved to see me go. Even for a 9-11 widow, there was a sympathy limit and it seemed that I’d reached mine.

Find a job. Volunteer. Take a vacation. Start dating.
These were the helpful suggestions thrown at me almost daily.
You’re young. You’ll find someone new.
As if Bobby was just an old pair of shoes I needed to replace. As if he wasn’t my life.

But the dreams, though haunting and horrible in a way, had woken something in me. A need to return to the Mountain. I became fixated on returning “home” as my dream man called it.

I mentioned I was thinking of returning to Ireland to Orla on one of our infrequent calls but she discouraged me. Told me to move on with my life. I suspected I’d receive a similar reaction from Mary, so I didn’t tell either of them I was coming.

I hadn’t driven a stick shift since college and had never driven on the left side of the road before, but somehow I made it out of Shannon airport, my two little ones blissfully asleep in their rented car seats. I smiled as the early morning mist burned off and the elusive Irish sun shone brightly. I took the fine weather as an omen of good things to come.

Two hours later I pulled in front of Dot’s shop. Last month I’d called her and told her I was thinking of coming for a visit. I asked if she knew of any hotels. “Hotels?” she’d said. “As if I would let family stay in a hotel. I’ve plenty of room since the boys moved out. It’s lonely with only Tim and myself. We’d love for you to stay with us.”

Aidan sprang out of the car but Kathy’s eyes remained closed, her black curls damp against her forehead. I kissed my sleeping beauty and lifted her out of the small compact, careful not to bump her head.

Dot’s shop wasn’t opened to customers yet but the door was unlocked. I pushed against the heavy glass door and was hit by the smell of bacon and sausages, the traditional Irish welcome for exhausted Yanks.

“Caroline?” Dot shouted from the back room. “Come on back.”

I walked past the butcher’s display case and through a narrow aisle of groceries, all the while keeping Aidan from grabbing a bar of Cadbury’s.

Dot had set out plates on the small scarred table. In her work smock and without her customary red lipstick, she looked older than the last time I’d seen her. Although of course, it had been almost five years. I suppose, I too had changed from that summer of what I thought was despair. Fool. I’d been a fool to think a barren womb was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.

“Hello, young man,” she said. “Are you ready for your breakfast?”

Aidan, suddenly shy, hid behind my legs.

“Ah, and who is this lady? Can I?” Dot asked, holding out her arms.

Kathy eyes fluttered briefly. She nuzzled in Dot’s arms and returned to her dreams.

“Isn’t she a dote, though. Oh, and the image of your husband.” Dot touched a small curl.

“She has the look of the Mountain, all right. Like my Sean.”

I nodded, suddenly unable to speak. For God’s sake, I wanted to shake myself. Kathy was the image of Bobby, and his mother. Of course people would comment. What had I expected?

I’d just gotten here, I couldn’t be Martha Mopey in my first five minutes. I forced a bright smile.

“She’s a good girl. Sweet, well behaved. No trouble at all. Now, Aidan, sit down here and eat your breakfast.”

Our first three days with Dot and Tim were calm and uneventful. I wandered around the small village during the day while Dot worked in the shop. In the evenings, one of my many Collins relatives would stop by and I drank so much tea with them I thought I would float away.

But, for the first time in a long time, I slept through the night unaided by pills or wine.

Dot had the day off from the shop and she took me to nearby Killarney, while a teenaged Collins cousin watched the children. We strolled through the bustling town, overrun with tourists this time of the year. Dot led me to a narrow side street and we stopped for lunch in a cafe owned by a school friend of Dot’s.

Unlike the dark pubs that lined the main streets of Killarney, this cafe had cheerful yellow walls lined with floral prints. A perfect place for a ladies’ lunch.

Midway through our salad, Dot broached the topic of my mother. “I spoke to Nellie last night while you were putting the children down. She was surprised to hear you were here.”

“I haven’t spoken to my mother in close to six months.”

“Six months? Why, Caro? I don’t understand.”

“I don’t either, to tell you the truth. When I came back from Ireland last time, before I found out I was pregnant with Aidan, we argued. She accused me of making some sort of deal with Mary. With the devil. After that, well, let’s just say we haven’t been close.”

“Poor Nellie.”

“Poor Nellie?” I snapped. “What about poor Caroline? I’ve been through hell these past two years and not a peep from my mother. It would’ve been nice to have her support. Hell, even a phone call every now and then would have been nice. But she’s cut me out. Ever since that day, she’s cut me out. And she’s barely seen the children.”

“She’s frightened, Caroline. She’s frightened of the Devlins and their power.”

“Power? For God’s sake, Mary is afraid of her own shadow and can barely leave her house. What’s to be frightened of?”

“Did your mother not tell you more about the Devlins, about
Slanaitheoir
?”

“Oh, was that the mountain spirit? The one who cured the sick cow?”

“Yes. She didn’t tell you any more?”

“No.”

Dot looked around the almost empty cafe and lowered her voice. “I think in order to understand Mary and your mother’s fears about Mary you need to know the whole story. Now, how much of the story had I told you? I can’t remember.”

“You said something about the thorns keeping the people on the Mountain.”

“Ah, yes, I remember now.” She took a sip of the house white wine. “The men tried to cut through the thicket surrounding the base of the Mountain. But no matter how much they cut down in one day, the next day the hedge of thorns was twice as thick and high. The men eventually gave up. The five families had food on the Mountain, more than they ever had before.

They had clothes. They had thick mead, magical mead. They had music. They had each other.

And they had
Slanaitheoir
, who cared for their every need.
Slanaitheoir
, who loved them dearly.

“For years the five families lived in their Mountain paradise. They prospered and the women, no longer underfed, were fertile. Each woman of childbearing age had at least one child a year. A few had twins. And the children, they were beautiful. Fat rosy cheeks. And many, many of the new babies had green eyes and curly black hair.

“One day one of the men, a Murphy I believe, came home from the fields early and found
Slanaitheoir
in bed with his wife. He was smart enough not to confront
Slanaitheoir
. He pretended nothing was amiss. Later that night, he went to each home on the Mountain and spoke to the men. Told them how he’d found
Slanaitheoir
in bed with his wife. Pointed out to the men how each one of their fat new babies looked like
Slanaitheoir
.

“It was then the enchantment fell away from the men, and they realized they had been bewitched by that thing living in the forest. All of the men and boys older than sixteen, thirty in all, gathered in front of Tim Devlin’s cottage with torches, and clubs and holy water and thus armed, marched to the cave.

“The men returned later that night, battered and bruised, and more than one had lost his reason. But the men could not return to the way things were. They could not sit back and accept
Slanaitheoir’s
gifts and his mead, while He bedded their wives and filled their houses with His children. The men couldn’t trust their wives not to tell
Slanaitheoir
of their plans, so they continued as they had before. They worked their fields, they danced with
Slanaitheoir
, but at night, they met at the base of the Mountain and with their dull axes worked steadily at cutting back the branches that entrapped them. The magic of the branches after all this time must have weakened, because although the work was slow and they didn’t make much progress, they did make some. Night after night they cut away more and more, until one night, they cut through and three of the men were able to crawl through a small hole. They ran to Kilvarren for a priest.

“The Kilvarren they had last seen seven years earlier was a much different place. The once bustling village was almost empty and those few people who remained were gaunt shadows of themselves. The townsfolk stared at the three men, with their strong muscles and healthy bodies, as if they were aliens. Famine. The Famine decimated Kilvarren, but had somehow never made it to the Mountain.

“The priest, the only one in the village who didn’t look like a walking skeleton, agreed to go to the Mountain with the three men. He sprinkled holy water on the branches and the accursed branches withered and died at its touch. The priest went with the men to the cave, and with his Latin and his holy water he reduced
Slanaitheoir
to dust.

“The men were jubilant. They’d defeated
Slanaitheoir
and reclaimed their women. They were able to go to town and sell their crops at good prices. They were no longer prisoners of the Mountain. They had won.