Nory Ryan's Song (11 page)

C
HAPTER
21

E
very day was a day to get through, a day to wonder about Celia and Granda, a day to long for Da. Anna watched me, shaking her head. She was stronger now, and one morning at last she left her bed and went slowly to the doorway. She looked toward the cliffs. I knew she was looking for Maeve. “It is all I need,” she said, nodding at me. “A dog at my hearth, a few weeds for medicine, and a field of growing potatoes.”

I felt a quick pain in my chest. I knew where Maeve was. I opened my mouth, wondering what to say, but then I saw Sean and his cart coming down the road toward us.

Sean was stronger too. I had climbed down the cliff again and again. We had cooked birds, tasting horribly of the sea, eaten their eggs, and Sean had dipped his hands into the bay every day until they began to heal.

It wasn’t that we weren’t hungry. We were hungry all the time. And Patch was still thin, still white, his skirt big enough for two boys his size.

I went outside to take a breath of the damp air and there was Sean, coming down the road, waving, and his mother lumped up on the edge of the cart, holding a small chest on her lap. “We are leaving,” she called. “Leaving for Galway to find a ship.”

Sean leaving? Not Sean, too! My fist went to my mouth, hard against my teeth. We had always been together, the two of us.

He reached out and took my hand from my mouth. “A friend of Liam’s,” he said, “stopped with the papers last night. He told us that Liam and Michael had worked on the docks before they sailed to America.”

“And what of Da and Celia and …”

Before I could finish, he shook his head. “There are so many people at the dock.” He reached for my other hand. “There is one extra ticket, Nory. Granny’s ticket. And it is for you.”

Smith Street, Brooklyn. Horses clopping down the streets. Maggie waiting at the door. Food
.

“Come with me, Nory,” he said.

Anna spoke from the doorway. “I will keep Patch for you. He will be safe with me.”

But even as she said it, I shook my head. I would never leave her. It was Patch who had to go to America, Patch who had to have that chance. “Will you, Sean Red …,” I began, and he knew what I was going to say.

Mrs. Mallon knew too. “How can we take someone so small?” she asked, but Sean held up his hand.

We looked at each other, the two of us, and I remembered walking to Patrick’s Well together. How many times? I had danced with him at Maggie’s wedding, making faces at Celia.
Dear Celia
. I remembered singing and sharing dulse with him. I remembered the cliffs.

Sean nodded. “You can trust him with me.”

“Don’t I know that?” I told myself I couldn’t cry now, not until they were gone. I went to the side of Anna’s house. Patch was there, bent over, humming to himself, piling one stone on top of another. I sat down next to him and touched his hair and his little shoulders, and his neck that was almost too thin to hold up his head. “Someone is waiting for you,” I said.

He looked up at me with blue stone eyes. “And who is that, Nory?”

I could hardly talk. “It is your own Maggie,” I said. “You will climb up on the cart with Mrs. Mallon. You will take your best stones and your coat. And a ship will be waiting for you in Galway.”

“The
Emma Pearl,”
he said dreamily. “And you, too, on the cart.”

I shook my head. “I must stay here. I will find stones for you and send them someday.”

He shook his head, beginning to sob, reaching out for me. I held him, his hair fine under my hands, his arms tight around me. He was the last one left.

I pried his fingers away. “You must go,” I said, my voice hard. “Maggie is waiting, and there will be food.”

“No.” He pulled at my arm, at my skirt. “Let me stay.”

“Maggie will be waiting at the port of New York for you. She will lift you up, hug you. She will be so happy to see you.”

He was on the ground now, sobbing, his face buried in the earth. I pulled him up on his knees, looking into that little face. “You will find stones in America. You will build a house and tall buildings.”

He shook his head hard.

I cupped his cheeks in my hands, kissed his tiny nose. “You will remember something, when you are an old man like Granda.” I said it slowly, each word above the noise of his crying. “You will say that your own Nory sent you because she loved you. You will say that no one ever loved you more.”

He shut his eyes over his tears, the lids swollen.

“Patcheen with the blue stone eyes,” I said, and stopped. I could not cry. Not yet. I darted into the house, trying to think. An egg hard-boiled for one pocket, another for his hand, a pile of stones. And Anna grabbed up the old black coat to cover him.

I went out to the cart, looking at Sean, looking at Mrs. Mallon. “You will put him into Maggie’s hands, then,” I said.

“It is where we are going, after all,” Mrs. Mallon said in her harsh voice, but moving over, making room for him on the edge of the cart.

I bent over him and pulled him up, his legs kicking out, and his arms. “No, Nory, no,” he cried as Sean took him from me and put him up on the cart.

Sean turned back to me. “I will see you on Smith Street,” he said. “We will climb cliffs if they are there to be climbed.”

I reached out to touch his forehead.
“Dia duit.”
Then I stepped back and Sean began to pull the cart.

“Remember,” I called to Sean. “Remember me.” I waved to them all the way down the road, even though I could hardly see for the tears. I could hear Patch crying for me a little longer. Then they were gone. I stood there, my forehead against the wall of Anna’s house, feeling its roughness against my skin, sobbing, as Anna rested her hands on my shoulders.

At last I turned to her. “Gone,” I said. “All of them.”

She gripped her clay pipe in her mouth. “I don’t know why life is so hard,” she said. “But I do know this, Nory Ryan. It is a lucky house to have you in it.”

I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and the back of my hand. “I will walk up to my house. I will see what food there is to find.” We both knew there was nothing there. But I couldn’t stay there for another minute. I needed time to take deep breaths, time to walk along the road by myself. Later in the day I’d go down the side of the cliff for eggs again. I didn’t need Sean Red. I had gouged out small pieces of rocks, places to fit my feet. I knew where to hold, where to lean, where to rest.

I walked to my own house first, added a piece of turf to the fire, ran my hands over the stones in the hearth. I knew the house would be tumbled any day now, but I’d never let the fire go out until then.

A trail of stones wandered along the floor.
Patch
. I caught my breath.

I looked out the door the way Anna had, still searching for Da every day, even though I was sure now he’d never come. And then I took the steps over the stile and went through the old cemetery. I stopped for a prayer at St. Erna’s shrine, leaning under the roof to stay out of the wind. I remembered the stones piled up around the statue, Da fitting each one perfectly together; remembered his smile as he touched the statue’s feet:
“It’ll keep the old monk out of the rain for another hundred years or so.”

Something was caught against the stone wall. What was it? A piece of wood? I reached for it, and as I pulled it out gently, I could see it was a piece of a box.

A piece of our box! The box that had come all the way from Smith Street. The man must have pried it open and left the part that didn’t matter. But it did matter. It made all the difference. I sat back on my heels, holding it against my chest.
Maggie had touched it too
. I turned it over, patting the rough piece of wood, and it was even more wonderful than I had thought. It had been sheltered from the wind and the rain in back of the shrine, so I could still see what Maggie had drawn.

This picture was different from her usual ones, drawn with thin lines of color, greens and yellows, instead of thick peat lines. I could see a row of houses stuck together, and in front were people, stretched along that Smith Street, and I knew who they were.

Da was there, the tallest, and Granda next to him, and Patch on one end, looking up. Celia and I were in the middle, making faces at each other, and Francey had one arm around Maggie.

And Maggie! She had made a small curve in her long skirt so it billowed out, and one hand was over her waist. I ran my fingers over Maggie and her full skirt, so glad the man who had stolen the package never knew he had left the best for me.

Staying there in Maidin Bay wasn’t going to be the worst thing. I would have Anna, and I knew by the small
N
Maggie had drawn over her skirt that there was going to be a baby, and she meant to name her Nory.

I stood up then and told myself for the hundredth time that year that I would never cry again. Then I saw someone coming. Devlin! And when he saw me he reined in his horse. “You,” he called. “It’s you I want to see.”

C
HAPTER
22

“Y
ou
are staying with Anna Donnelly.” He tilted his head toward Anna’s house.

I didn’t answer. I tucked my hands under my shawl, clenching my fingers.

But he showed his long teeth in a smile. “The landlord is here for a visit. He needs healing.” He waved his hand. “I thought I’d talk to you about it instead of the old woman.”

I stared at the horse, at Devlin’s rough boots, then up at his face. And standing in the road, I knew I could do something for Anna at last. It was hard to get out the words. “Sometimes she heals,” I said, “and sometimes she doesn’t.” I made myself raise one shoulder just the slightest bit.

“I remember she does something about stomach pains.” He ran his hand over his waist.

I had to tell Anna. He hadn’t forgotten about that cure after all.

“Broken bones,” said Devlin. “And wens.”

“And the fever people are having in Ballilee,” I said, taking a guess about what might be wrong with the landlord.

I saw the light come into his eyes, but I shook my head before he could say anything. “Anna is not healing now.” My mouth was dry. “Her dog is missing, a black-and-white dog with a freckled muzzle.”

He narrowed his eyes, staring at me.

“She needs the dog.”

Devlin looked back and up at the landlord’s house. “I will send the dog.”

I closed my eyes. “Food.”

“There is little food in the whole land.”

“It has gone to England,” I said bitterly. “But someday the potatoes will grow again. She will need the seed potatoes and help planting them.”

“All right.”

“I will ask her.” I stopped and started again. “As soon as she has the dog and food. Just a little food. She doesn’t need much.”

“Don’t go too far,” he said, but nodded just the slightest bit.

I clutched the rough wood of Maggie’s box to my chest. Before I could answer, he rode away. I waited until he was gone, and then I ran across the fields to Anna’s door.

We laid the piece of the box on the table with Anna’s cures and made ourselves a bit of hot water to sip while I told her all that had happened, almost all. I kept the part about Maeve to myself. Suppose Devlin changed his mind?

“There will be food for you,” I told her, “and seeds to plant when the
sídhe
are finished deviling us in the fields. And I—”

“We will share everything,” she said.

I shook my head. “There won’t be enough for that.” I drew myself up. “I am strong, Anna. I will bring down the eggs as long as they’re there, and the birds when I can. If I have to, I’ll work on the roads.”

I looked down at my hands, rough now but strong. I shook off the memory of Sean’s hands, blistered and bleeding. Nothing would be as hard as letting Patch go.

In the dim light Anna’s eyes were sparkling; I knew they were filled with tears. I took a sip of the water. It was hot enough to scald my tongue, but the heat of the cup warmed my hands as I stole a look at the drawing on the box.

How could it be that I would never see any of them again? Not Da with the smiling lines around his eyes. Not big Maggie. Not any of them. And where was Patch this night? Somewhere on the road, out in the cold.

Anna and I dozed then, heads bent forward. It was late when I heard something. Was there someone on the path? Startled, I jumped to my feet.

Anna looked up, awake now. “Nory?” she asked.

I went past her to the door to see what was out there. Then I looked back at her over my shoulder. “I think there’s a bit of good to this day.”

I opened the door and Maeve sailed past me, her lovely ears back, her tail high as Anna stood there, hands out, and the dog went around the table and into her arms.

I watched them for a moment, and then I ran my fingers over the wood of the box, gently over each one of my family. I went back to the hearth and swung the pot over the fire. We’d have one more cup of water to get us through the night.