The Shadows Read online

  “As if he would be any help,” I muttered.

  But it was no bill collector. Patrick stood on the stoop, looking distressed, and behind him were two policemen.

  Patrick smiled at me, though he seemed distracted. “Miss Knox—” Spoken like a caress, as if he wanted to say my Christian name but didn’t dare in front of the police. “Forgive me for intruding this way, but there’s been an incident, and the police want to speak with you and your mother.”

  Pretend you don’t know. I hoped I only looked concerned. “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “Something’s been stolen, miss,” said a policeman with heavy muttonchops and a full mustache. “We’re speaking to everyone who was at the Devlin house last night.”

  “Just questions,” Patrick assured me. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

  “I see.” I stepped back to let them in. “What was taken?”

  Patrick’s mouth tightened; a haunted look came into his eyes. “The ogham stick.”

  “But surely you don’t think—”

  “You’re not under suspicion, miss,” said the same police officer.

  “My mother’s in the parlor,” I said, and then I realized there would be nowhere for them to sit—only the ancient settee and the chair—and Patrick would see how we truly lived.

  As I reluctantly ushered them in, my mother rose to greet them, looking alarmed, and I tried not to see the way Patrick peered about the room.

  Whatever he thought, I couldn’t see it in his expression. He said courteously, “Mrs. Knox, I hope we haven’t come at an inopportune time.”

  “No, of course not. You’re welcome always, Patrick; you know that.” She stared questioningly at the police.

  Patrick introduced officers Moran—the one with the sideburns—and Stoltz, who was clean shaven with close-set eyes.

  Moran said, “Please, ladies, sit down. This won’t take long.”

  I took the settee, and Mama sat again in her chair. Patrick seated himself on the edge of the windowsill—again I saw the way he glanced around, and I looked away in shame. Something else to blame Derry for. I hadn’t considered this at all, that the police would be involved or that Patrick might come here. The next time I saw Lucy’s stableboy, I would tear into him for it.

  “I trust you ladies are familiar with Mr. Devlin’s collection of relics?” Moran asked while Stoltz stood behind him, silently taking notes.

  I nodded. “Yes, of course. I’ve seen them.”

  My mother said, “I know of them.”

  “When was the last time you saw them, Miss Knox?”

  “A few days ago,” I answered. “Mr. Devlin showed them to me himself.”

  “Not since then?”

  I shook my head.

  “Apparently, at some point last night, something was taken. The lock was picked, but we don’t believe it was an expert job. The relic taken was worth little—” Here he looked at Patrick for confirmation.

  “Its value was more sentimental,” Patrick said, but that it mattered to him was obvious.

  “Mr. Devlin says he last saw the item, an—”

  “Ogham stick,” Patrick put in.

  “Aye. Earlier that evening. Did either of you ladies have occasion to go into Mr. Devlin’s study that night?”

  “Of course not,” Mama said.

  I shook my head again.

  “Did either of you see anything odd during the evening? A servant where he or she shouldn’t have been, for example, or perhaps a door left open that should have been closed? Anything at all out of the ordinary?”

  “I’m afraid not,” my mother said.

  I thought of Derry in the shadows, pressing his finger to his lips. I thought of him leaning over me on my bed, whispering, “You have me in your power—command me as you will.”

  I met Moran’s gaze and tried not to look as guilty as I felt. “I saw nothing unusual.”

  Patrick rose. “I’m certain someone would have told me if they had.”

  Moran gestured to Stoltz, who closed his notebook. “But we have to be sure now, don’t we? Thank you, ladies, for your time. I’m very sorry to have disturbed you with such a matter.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Mama said. “I completely understand.”

  We saw them to the door. I hung back, as did Patrick. He touched my arm just before we went into the hall, and when I turned to look at him, he said, “Tomorrow’s your birthday.”

  I would be seventeen. It seemed suddenly both too old and not old enough. “You remembered.”

  The warmth of his gaze enveloped me. “I’ve something special for you.”

  “You shouldn’t.”

  Mama was ushering the police out. Patrick whispered in my ear, “We’ll see each other soon,” before he left with the police.

  Mama leaned her head against the closed door as if her strength was gone. “Well, that was unfortunate.”

  “Yes. But I’m certain they’ll recover it.”

  “That Patrick came with them, I meant.”

  I thought of our empty parlor. Then I remembered his words. “I don’t think it mattered. He said he had something special for me for my birthday.”

  Mama raised her head. “He said that? Something special?”

  I nodded.

  Her mood lightened immediately. “Do you think it could be a proposal?”

  I hadn’t thought of that. “Oh. I don’t know.”

  “Well, we can only hope it is, and that this”—a limp gesture at the house—“hasn’t changed his mind.”

  “Yes,” I said, though now I didn’t know which I felt more: dread or excitement. “We can only hope.”

  My seventeenth birthday dawned cloudy and humid, promising thunderstorms. I spent the day waiting anxiously for a message. I jumped at every sound until my mother said, “Goodness, Grace, you’re restless as a cricket.”

  But I knew she was waiting too. I knew she was worried that Patrick’s visit had changed his mind about me.

  That wasn’t really what worried me. Today could be the day I went from being just myself to being a fiancée, the day my future was truly decided, and I didn’t know what to feel—one moment cursing how everything in my life had conspired against me, the next remembering Patrick’s kiss, the warmth of his eyes.

  And I couldn’t stop thinking about my dream of Derry laughing, the longing I’d felt for him. Just a dream, thank goodness, but . . . “You’re not as powerless as you think.”

  I didn’t want to think of him at all. It was possible that he had ruined everything for me.

  The day passed slowly. In the far distance, I heard thunder, and it made me think of blood and fire and ravens, so I couldn’t concentrate on my book. I put it aside and went to the window.

  Aidan wandered into the parlor and came up beside me. “I suppose you’ve plans with Patrick today.”

  I turned to glare at him. “Nothing’s been settled.”

  He looked surprised. His blue eyes were bleary, red rimmed. “Really? You mean you aren’t to see him? I thought he meant to propose today.”

  “What do you mean? Did he say something to you?”

  Aidan shook his head and then squeezed his eyes shut as if the motion hurt. “No. I just thought . . . the way he looks at you . . . and it’s your birthday. It’s the kind of romantic gesture you’d like. Patrick knows that well.”

  I couldn’t answer. I felt close to tears, which was ridiculous. Just then a delivery wagon drove up, with “Davis’s Flowers” painted on the side. The door opened and a man stepped out—a messenger bearing a huge bouquet of flowers and a small package.

  “Well, that must be from Patrick now,” Aidan said.

  I went hurrying to answer the door, my mother and Aidan just behind. When I opened it, the messenger said, “Miss Grace Knox.”

  “That’s me.”

  He placed the bouquet into my arms—it was so large I could barely grasp it. The whole world was suddenly perfumed with pink roses and lilies. Aidan
stepped forward to take the other package the man held out and closed the door.

  “Just flowers?” Mama sounded disappointed. “Is there a card, Grace?”

  I searched for the card and plucked it from the stems, handing the bouquet to my brother. My fingers trembled as I opened it.

  “Well?” Mama asked.

  I tried to smile as I handed it to her.

  Aidan said, “There’s this too,” and thrust the package at me.

  I knew the moment I took it that it was a book. I opened the paper. The cover was smooth and unblemished—the book was brand-new, the pages uncut. I opened it to the flyleaf, where Patrick had written:

  It was a book of poems by an Irish poet, J. J. Callanan. I said to my brother, “Hand me your knife.”

  He pushed aside the lily tickling his nose and gave me the knife. I turned the folded, uncut pages to where Patrick had indicated, and then I cut the folds to reveal a translation of an Irish poem called “The Lament of O’Gnive”: “How dimm’d is the glory that circled the Gael. / And fall’n the high people of green Innisfail / The sword of the Saxon is red with their gore / And the mighty of nations is mighty no more!”

  Another poet who spoke of oppression in Ireland. “Do you want to know me?” Patrick had said, and now I wondered: was this all there was to him? Only Ireland?

  “What makes you so sure he knows you?”

  “No jewelry, eh?” Aidan said disapprovingly.

  “That would hardly be appropriate,” Mama said. “But I hoped for a proposal. Oh, what he must have thought yesterday . . . What is that book he sent you, Grace?”

  “Poems,” I said. “An Irish poet.”

  “More gloomy talk of rebellion,” Aidan said. He peered at me around the flowers in his arms, and I was surprised to see compassion in his eyes before he shoved the bouquet at our mother. “You’d best put these in water, Mama, before they wilt. I suppose we’ll have to smell the things for the next week. They’re making me sneeze already.”

  Patrick had told me this would be something special, and I supposed it was special that he wanted to share his passion with me. But I’d wanted something more. Even Aidan understood my wish for romance. “What makes you so sure he knows you?”

  I pushed Derry’s words away. Patrick did know me. “Perhaps I could be your Diarmid,” he’d said. Patrick understood that I’d felt we were moving too fast. But things could not be delayed much longer. My family could not afford the luxury of waiting.

  My mother was tight-lipped the rest of the day, more wan and distracted than usual. She did her best with a birthday supper. Soup with decent bread and a dessert of applesauce and cream. But she ate almost none of it, and her hand went to her head often, as if she were in pain, which was something I could understand. I felt the start of my own headache. “You’d best push him along if you can, Grace.”

  “Why?” Aidan asked, taking a spoonful of applesauce—the only thing he’d eaten. “I promise you he’ll ask her to chain him soon enough. There’s no point in rushing it.”

  I kicked him under the table.

  “Oww,” he cried out. “What’d you do that for?”

  My mother sighed. “We can’t wait much longer. I expect a summons any day.”

  “A summons?” Aidan asked.

  “From the doctor’s lawsuit,” I told him. “Come, Aidan, you know all about it.”

  He went silent. Then he put his spoon on the table, deliberately, as if the world depended on him doing it just right. He rose. “If you’ll excuse me. Happy birthday, Gracie.”

  He went out of the room. But not before I’d seen the misery in his eyes and felt his terrible despair. I stared after him, my anger with him replaced by sudden fear. I’d known something was wrong with my brother, but this was the first time I’d thought that perhaps he was as afraid as I was. I heard his footsteps down the hallway, and then the opening and closing of the front door.

  My mother put her face in her hands.

  I had no idea what to say to her that hadn’t been said a hundred times. I rose, gathering the dishes, putting them into the washing tub. “I’ll take Grandma her supper.”

  I took the bowl of soup and some applesauce upstairs. I forgot my brother when I saw Grandma out of bed, wavering as she stood in her bare feet at the window, her nightgown fraying about her bony shins.

  “Grandma.” I set down the food and rushed over to her. “Whatever are you doing out of bed?”

  I tried to help her back, but she shook me off. “I’m fine, mo chroi.” She was as clear-eyed as I’d seen her in days.

  “I’ve brought your supper. Won’t you sit to eat it?”

  She sighed and shook her head. Her cap lay abandoned on the bed, and her gray hair straggled from its braid.

  “Then sit so I can brush your hair?”

  “Bring the chair here,” she commanded.

  I pulled the chair to the window, and she sat, staring outside. The air was still and heavy, the leaves on the trees not stirring. The sky was gray, and I heard thunder in the distance.

  I took up her brush and felt her relax beneath my touch as I undid her braid.

  She said, “’Tis your birthday today.”

  “Seventeen,” I said.

  “I heard a knock.”

  “Patrick Devlin sent flowers. And a book of poems.”

  She grunted. I brushed her hair in silence for a few moments before I said, “There’s a storm coming in.”

  “Not yet. But the sidhe are everywhere already. And the ships are on their way.”

  I had to bite back a sigh. I expected her next comment to be something about They are coming, or That boy, another slip into dementia, but instead she said, “Do you remember the old stories, mo chroi?”

  “The old stories?”

  “Cuchulain. The Battle of Magh Tuiredh. Lir’s children.”

  “You know I do.” She used to hold me upon her lap, her words seeming to unfold before my eyes like vibrant, glowing visions. “The Children of Lir made me so sad. Turned into swans for nine hundred years.”

  Grandma’s shoulders bowed in relief so palpable I could feel it. “Thank God for that,” she whispered.

  “Thank God for what? That the Children of Lir were swans for nine hundred years?”

  “No,” she said, so quietly I had to strain to hear. “That you remember the stories. What about Lochlann’s son?”

  It was the story of a famous battle between the Fianna and those gods of darkness and chaos known as the Fomori.

  “Of course I remember,” I told her.

  “You see it in your dreams,” she said, and I started—how did she know of my nightmares?

  She went on in the storytelling voice I remembered, quiet and intent. “It began when the King of Lochlann decided to invade Ireland and take back what was once under Fomori rule. The attempt cost him his life and left his young son orphaned. It was Finn MacCool himself who took the young Miogach to foster, and the son of Lochlann was raised to manhood in the Fianna’s fortress and given every comfort.

  “But Finn did not realize how much Miogach hated them all, nor did he know that Miogach had secretly gathered together the Fianna’s enemies: the Fomori and their allies.

  “One day Finn and some of his men were out hunting, and they came upon Miogach, who invited them into a room with soft silk hangings, comfortable pillows, and polished wood floors. The Fianna left their armor and weapons at the door, as was the custom, and Miogach left to get food and wine.”

  “But he didn’t return,” I said, plaiting her hair.

  “No. The walls became rough planks, the silk tapestries decaying rags, and the floors cold, wet earth. The Fianna were imprisoned in the House of Death. Finn and the others called for help in the hopes that some of their fellows might hear their cries.

  “Finn’s son, Fia, was out searching for his father when he saw Miogach’s mighty army gathering to cross the river. Miogach called, ‘You slew my father. I will have my vengeance.’ Fia said, ‘
’Twas your father who decided to invade Ireland. Don’t seek vengeance for what is just, or vengeance will rebound on you.’ But Miogach advanced.

  “Diarmid and Keenan arrived at the river just in time to see Fia on his knees, soldiers dead all around him, his weapons and his shield crushed, while Miogach raised his mighty sword to take Fia’s head. Diarmid threw his spear, but it only struck Miogach in the side, and Miogach killed Fia. In a rage, Diarmid slew Miogach. Then Diarmid heard the cries of those in the House of Death and followed them. But he could not release Finn and the others, who were dying of hunger and thirst.

  “When Diarmid returned to the ford for help, he found that Keenan had fallen into an enchanted sleep. It was left to Diarmid to fight the three kings and their six hundred men who were the advance riders for Daire Donn, the King of the World, who had come with the Fomori to aid Miogach. Keenan finally woke to help, but by then Diarmid had killed them all. He took the heads of the three kings to Finn, who rubbed the blood on himself and the others, freeing them from the spell. But there was not enough blood to rub on Conan, and they had to pry him up from the floor, leaving some of his skin and hair behind so he was forever bald.

  “They were joined by the rest of the Fianna and met Daire Donn and his two thousand men in a battle to end all battles, with thunder and lightning from Druid stormcasters and the screams of the Morrigan’s ravens. At last, the Fomori and their allies were defeated, though the Fianna lost many of their own as well, thus ensuring that the hatred between the Fianna and the Fomori will never die.”

  “But it was Miogach’s fault,” I protested. “His vengeance rebounded on him just as Fia said it would.”

  “Aye. But do not be so quick to think truth holds to only one side, mo chroi. Vengeance is a bitter cup to drink from, but perhaps it would have been avoided had Finn not assumed his kindness to Miogach would make up for killing the boy’s father. ’Twas Finn’s arrogance at fault nearly as much.”

  “Well, thankfully those battles are long over,” I said.

  “Battles are never over, and nothing stays gone. Everything circles ’round and ’round about, over and over again. The end is only another beginning.”

  I assumed she spoke of my father’s death and our losses, of Aidan. “I haven’t lost hope, Grandma.”