The Fire and the Earth: Glenncailty Castle, Book 2 (22 page)

In 1866, there was a thick black line across the page. Below the line it said simply
Died in uprising, taken by British troops
, followed by a list of over twenty names, with the age of each person or child noted beside it. Most were males in their late teens or twenties, but there was a group of six all with the same last name—a whole family.

Thomas Mac Gearailt, 18; Ronan Mac Gearailt, 20; Carrig Mac Gearailt, 24; wife Carroll Nic Gearailt, nee O’Donnabhain, 20; Ruari Mac Gearailt, 6; Kirin Mac Gearailt, 4
.

Only six and four and they’d been killed.

Were those the children in the castle? But that didn’t seem right. She’d heard from Elizabeth that Dr. Heavey had said that the older boy was eight or nine and the baby only four months. These two boys couldn’t be the ones in the castle. She checked for Ruari and Orin in the school records and found them both in there, though Ruari had a note by his name.
Behavior poor when seated by cousins Murtagh and Charles.

Sorcha looked back to the parish record. Included in the list of those slain in the “uprising” was another familiar name.

Charles, age 11.

This poor child, who seemed unloved and alone, with no last name or family listed anywhere. And then to see him listed as having died so young was heartbreaking.

But he was too old to be the body in the nursery. She scanned the list, and there were no male children of the right age to be the bones they’d found.

Then again, it could be that this was the wrong year all together. She quickly flipped through the rest of the parish records, and though there were a distressingly large number of children listed under deaths, most were under the age of two.

Finally she turned to the small journal-like book.

“Sorcha?”

Séan was standing in the doorway between the kitchen and the living room. His eyes were half-lidded and sleepy, his hair tousled. He looked unbearably sexy.

“Séan.”

“I fell asleep. I’m sorry.”

“You were tired.”

He glanced at the papers in front of her. “You’re going through the records?”

“Yes. I hope that’s okay.”

“Of course. Tell me what you found.”

“First sit down and I’ll make you a cup of tea.” It wasn’t until Sorcha had gotten up and put the kettle on that she realized she was acting like this was her house. To cover her discomfort, while the kettle boiled she went to the living room and picked up their plates, carrying them back to the kitchen. Séan was seated and tugging at the braces on his hands.

“Should you take those off?”

“Yes.”

“You mean you want them off. You know that’s not the same thing.”

He only grunted. Taking pity on him, she went to help him with the braces. Once they were off, she turned away, but he caught her hand. He tugged and she tumbled down onto his lap. Out of instinct, Sorcha wrapped her arms around his neck. He reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear.

“I liked waking up and knowing you were here in my house.”

“Oh, Séan, why are you making this so hard?”

“Nothing has to be hard.” He cupped her cheek and drew her down. Sorcha didn’t resist. She knew she should, but she didn’t want to.

Sitting in his kitchen surrounded by the smell of food, tea and dusty records, he kissed her. It was both exciting and comforting. With his arms around her, she felt whole.

Sorcha eased back, stroking his temple, his cheek.

There were so many things she wanted to say. Last night her emotions had been too close to the surface, and she’d reacted rather than explaining. She and Séan needed to have a calm, adult conversation, with no tears and no kissing.

But not now. Right now she wanted to talk about what she had—and hadn’t—found in those papers.

She rose from his lap, making them both fresh cups of tea. Catching Séan eyeing the basket of muffins, she brought him one and a napkin. He bit into it, carefully catching the crumbs with his teacup.

“What did you find?” he asked.

“There’s plenty of boys here in the school records that could be the bones in the castle. Did I tell you that the scientist said they’re boys, one age eight or nine, the other four months?”

Séan nodded and motioned for her to continue.

“Well, the baby wouldn’t be in the school books, but the older boy should be. There are plenty of nine-year-old boys in here.” She touched the school records. “But there aren’t any deaths for both an eight- or nine-year-old and a baby in here.” Now she touched the parish records. “Are you sure they’d be in these books?”

“No. These could be the wrong years, but it’s interesting that the records from the time of the Fenian Rising were left here.”

“The Fenian Rising, of course.” 1866 was just before the uprising, and the deaths that took place here might have been some of the impetus for the 1867 rising. “The time period is about right, based on the furniture, but we need to look for the records in the years before and after this.”

“Yes, we should, but we can’t.”

“Why?”

“These are the only records we have for those years.”

“Oh.” Sorcha looked at table and all the history that rested there. “The other records were destroyed?”

“Or the priest moved them to the new parochial house.”

“Leaving these behind.” Sorcha tapped her fingers on the table as she thought. “You think they were left behind because they contain information about what happened in the castle?”

“Glenncailty likes to keep her secrets, and that may have been a way to bury the tragedy. If they went to all the trouble of sealing the door, I’m sure they would have gotten rid of other records.”

“But why keep them at all? Why not burn them?”

“Maybe the priest said he did.”

“There’s something that’s been spinning around in my mind.” Sorcha pulled her phone from her pocket. “One time we had a visitor at our guesthouse who’d come looking for her roots. It was an Australian woman. Family history said that they’d come from Athlone, but she didn’t know much else. We helped her a bit, but I remember she had to go to Dublin, to the National Archives.” As she spoke, Sorcha typed information into her phone, checking what she was saying. “She mentioned the school records when she came back.” She got the information she wanted after a quick search. “Yes, it says here that the National School Records were established in 1831 and stopped in 1921, and that though it was a nationwide project, the records are still held by the parishes.”

“So these papers are actually an official government document and should be with the parish records.”

“Yes, and it also means there would have to be more of these books.” Sorcha’s voice rose with excitement. She had the feeling that if she could just get a few more pieces of information she could put it all together. It was as if the pieces were all there, but she didn’t know how they fit together.

“They were left here as a way of hiding them but not destroying them.” Séan’s voice reflected some of the same excitement she felt.

“But then why isn’t there a record of the death in the parish register? We know how old the boys were, and probably they died at the same time, so the parish register should show the death of two boys together, age nine and four months.”

There was silence before Séan looked up. “Because they never really died.”

“What?”

“The room was sealed, meaning the bodies were never seen, and they were never buried.”

“But surely someone had to know they were in there, that they were dead.”

“Maybe they did, but without the bodies, without a burial, would that be recorded?”

Sorcha licked her lips and looked back at the records. “So if not the parish records…”

“We need to look at the school records for a boy who disappeared from the records after age eight or nine.”

They looked at each other for a moment, then both sprang into action. Séan pulled his chair up beside hers. Sorcha grabbed a pen and pad from her purse and took a seat beside Séan.

“I’ll start at the beginning and read off all the eight-year-old boys, then we’ll do nine-year-olds.”

Page by page, Séan went through it. Every time they found a boy of appropriate age, Sorcha noted his name, only to cross it off if the boy was still listed at age ten. When they reached the end of the book, there was only one name on the list.

Henry.

“One of the boys with no last name,” she said, circling it on her list.

“He’s in the book until he’s nine. Then there’s nothing.”

“I wonder why he doesn’t have a last name. There are a few others like that.”

“It can’t have been that they didn’t know it—it’s clear the boy lived in Glenncailty his whole life.”

“Maybe the mother wouldn’t say.” Sorcha, already sad at the poor child’s fate, took a deep breath to hold back tears. “It must have been hard, to have no family.”

“But why wouldn’t he have his mother’s name? Surely even if the child were a bastard he would carry his mother’s family name.”

“It seems a strange coincidence that there are other children with no name too. I looked at them earlier, while you were sleeping, because I thought it was odd. There’s a year where all three are listed.”

“It’s this same year.” He turned forward a page and then back. “Charles is eleven, Henry is nine and George is five in this entry.” He went to the next year. “But now none of them are listed.”

“I know what happened to Charles.”

“You do?”

“Look in the parish record—he’s one of the people listed as having died in the uprising.”

Séan turned to the parish record and compared the entries. “Here it is, Charles with no last name, died age eleven, the same age he disappears from the school records. But the other two aren’t listed as having died in the uprising.”

“But the ages are right for them to be siblings. None of them are so close in age that they couldn’t be related.”

“And the lack of last names is too odd and specific to be coincidence.”

Sorcha’s heart sank. “Maybe they moved away after the oldest died. If they were bastards, life would have been hard in a little town like this. Even I was made uncomfortable by the way people acted when I was pregnant but not married. I can only imagine what it was like over 150 years ago.”

“If we’re right, and Henry is one of the bones in the castle…”

Sorcha and Séan looked at each other.

“Then Charles and George are his brothers, and according to the school records, they must have died the same year.”

“If that’s the case—” Séan closed the book. “Where is George’s body?”

Chapter Fourteen

The Truth May Set Them Free

Séan felt sick at what they were discussing. Could these three children really have suffered so horribly? One brother dead in an uprising, another entombed in the nursery with his brother, who was too young to be in the records.

“Séan, how many beds were there in the nursery?”

He thought about it. “Three or four— I can’t remember.”

“I know there was a larger bed, like for a nurse or nanny. There was a crib, and I think three other beds.”

They’d gone from two dead children, which was horrible enough, to two more, one of whom’s body was missing. “That would fit. A bed for the nanny, then one each for Charles, Henry and George, with the baby in the cradle.”

Sorcha shook her head. She looked worried and sad. He wanted to wipe that expression from her face, to protect her from all the sadness in the world, but that wasn’t something he could do, especially not when the cause of her distress was so far in the past.

“I may be wrong about the beds,” she said. “We need to go back to the castle and check.”

“And we need to tell this scientist of yours that there might be another body somewhere in that room.”

She nodded grimly, getting to her feet. Séan jumped up and grabbed his wallet, phone and keys. Moving quickly and in silence, they headed out of the house. He followed her to her car.

She looked up. “Are you riding with me?”

“Yes.”

“I have to work later.”

“That’s fine. I’m going to stay with you until we talk.”

“Séan…”

“Now isn’t the time, but you’ll hear me out, Sorcha Kerrigan.”

The keys rattled as she clenched her fist, and for a moment Séan thought she’d refuse to open the car doors, but then she nodded. They climbed in and drove to the castle where Sorcha parked not by her cottage but in the main lot. Together they walked to the castle, footsteps crunching over the gravel.

The bones had been there for 150 years, nothing they said or did would change that, but Séan was gripped by a strange sense of urgency. He realized he was walking fast, and with his long legs that meant Sorcha was probably having trouble keeping up, and yet when he looked over she was a little ahead of him, as if she too were anxious to get back to the nursery and check what they’d found.

She waved at the woman at the front desk but didn’t stop. When they reached the west wing, she dug into her purse and pulled out a large set of keys, flipping through them before she found one that opened the door. They closed but didn’t lock the door behind them and in silence started up the steps.