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It was true that this part of Ireland had
more harshly felt the effects of the dirty bomb that had exploded
over the Irish Sea four years ago. At least more than other areas
closer to the bigger villages and towns. It had been a long hard
four years of learning to farm, finding alternate ways of
communication and travel, and learning to survive. And in the end,
most people in the outlying villages had struggled unsuccessfully
to grasp the necessary skills—even at the cost of their own
lives.

The compound was now the only town outside
of Limerick for over five hundred miles that behaved almost as much
as any town in pre-Crisis times. They had working electric interior
lights, motion-activated flood lights, a satellite phone for
emergency contact with the outside world, a Jeep Wrangler in
addition to a larger truck, C4 explosives, a cache of
semi-automatic weapons, and enough medical supplies to outfit a
small clinic.

When Sarah returned from the States last
year with nearly everything the average American Wal-Mart had in
its inventory, the camp changed from a collection of tents and huts
with a bunch of teenagers patrolling the perimeter, to a
well-fortified town with enough food and medicine to make the last
four years feel like they’d never happened.

To everyone living within its walls,
anyway.

Sarah knew the villagers were counting on
the new mill Mike was building to provide them with work and with a
guaranteed supply of flour for the hard years ahead. Mike had sent
teams out last summer to teach the locals how to farm and fish. But
come autumn, they still had nothing in their larders and storage
cellars.

Along with his son Gavin and Sarah’s son
John, Mike had driven a truck full of corn, potatoes and smoked
bacon to two villages last week. Even though it had only been four
years since gas-powered vehicles were seen in Ireland, the truck
was looked upon by the villagers like it was powered by angels and
pixie dust—so amazed were they to see an operating vehicle
again.

“I’m not even sure we’re doing any good,”
Sarah said. “One guy in Ballinagh had a foot that was badly
infected but when I tried to give him the antibiotics he just asked
me if I could bring whiskey next time.”

“Aye, well,” Fiona said and shrugged.
“Life’s hard now, sure it is. Mike should let them come live in the
compound.”

“You know he won’t. And you know why,” Sarah
said.

But when Sarah thought of Mike’s edict, it
saddened her. It was one thing for her to want to close the doors.
She always was a little stand-offish—but Mike was an arms-open-wide
kind of guy. Until last year, he hadn’t known a stranger. But that
was last year.

“I feel like Lady Got-Rocks,” she said,
“going around dispensing bandaids and ibuprofen like some benign
pharmacy fairy. Why can’t we just give the extra food and medicine
to the priest? Isn’t that where the charity should be coming from?
This is embarrassing.”

“Nobody likes charity no matter who it’s
coming from,” Fiona said. “When work on the mill gets under way,
it’ll be different.”

Mike had marked out a
stretch of land outside the compound where the grist mill was to be
built. Sarah had to admit the idea was brilliant. Not only because
the people needed a food source that wasn’t based on electricity
but because they needed to
work
.

“You’re just grumbling because your feet
hurt,” Fiona continued. “Besides, not everyone goes to the priest.
Or likes him, come to that.”

“What are you talking about? Father Ryan?
Why wouldn’t they like him?”

“I’m sure I don’t know, Sarah, but some say
he rubs them wrong. Besides, most people have their pride and
coming hat-in-hand to the local vicar—who would likely insist they
stay for mass—is asking a lot from people who are already hard put
upon.”

“Yeah, I can see where it’d be easier taking
a handout from Mike and his Yank wife than sitting through an hour
of church.”

Sarah didn’t feel as annoyed as she was sure
she sounded. While the trip seemed like a lot of work for very
little, the fact that Mike asked her to do it was all that really
mattered. It was possible he was assuaging his guilt over not
allowing anyone new into the compound. She wouldn’t make it harder
on him, in that case. These were his people after all.

Even if half the time they were trying to
kill him and everyone he held dear.

“Oh!” Fiona gave a gasp and stopped walking.
Sarah turned to see what she was looking at. They were passing a
broken down cottage on the side of the road—which didn’t mean it
wasn’t inhabited. In the years since the bomb, cottages rotated
through several different owners as people left for the towns—or
England if they thought it might be better there—or were driven out
by bandits and hooligans. The cottages stood vacant until gypsies
or other wanderers moved in for a night or a month.

Before the bomb, a barking dog would alert
you to the fact that the house was inhabited. These days that was
rarely the case. As food became scarce, so did people’s pets. A
pack of once-domestic, now feral dogs lived near the compound. They
weren’t yet a problem to face but Sarah knew they would be some
day.

“What is it?” Sarah asked, squinting at the
house. The door was shut but a front window was open. A curtain
fluttered inside and Sarah glimpsed a blue dish on the sill.

“Nothing,” Fiona said. She turned away but
Sarah could tell she was troubled.

“Don’t make me go over there and see for
myself, Fiona. As you’ve already pointed out, my feet hurt.”

“It’s a dish of milk,” Fiona said, motioning
to the road ahead of them. “Let’s shake a leg or we’ll miss
dinner.”

“Since we’ll be the ones making it, that’s
not bloody likely,” Sarah said, still standing in the road. “What
the hell is a dish of milk doing in a window sill?”

“Will you come on, then, Sarah Donovan?”
Fiona said peevishly. “I’ll tell you as we walk if you’re that
intent.”

Sarah hurried to catch up to Fiona who was
walking quickly now as though she was trying to put distance
between her and the cottage.

“Have you not heard any of the gossip at
all?” Fiona asked.

“What gossip? And where would I hear it
from?”

“From the village we just spent the day
tramping around? Did nobody say a word to you?”

“Are you kidding? I’m the last person they’d
tell any secrets to.”

“Well, sure, it’s not secrets, precisely,
they’ll be keeping.”

“Come on, Fiona. We’ve got two miles before
home. Don’t make me spend every step of it digging this out of you.
The gossip. Spill it.”

Fiona scanned the sides of the road. “Sure,
I don’t believe it myself, mind. But there is talk in the villages
about someone who claimed that he saw something in the forest.”

“I’ll bite. What did he see in the
forest?”

“Something not possible to see.”

“Okay, Fiona, you know how I said I had two
miles to hear this story no matter how long it took?”

“Sarah, it’s just superstition but to rural
people around these parts—”

“Up until four years ago,
these
rural
people all had computers and iPods. So what are you trying to
say?”

“I heard from two different sources that
somebody claimed to see the trees in Daughton’s Way…walking.”

“Wait. You mean as
in…
walking
?”

“
It’s just silly gossip,
Sarah. From a group of superstitious people who are likely to
believe anything they hear, no matter how daft.”

They walked in silence for a moment before
Sarah spoke again. “So what does that have to do with the house
with the dish in the window?”

Fiona sighed and quickened her pace.
“Nothing,” she said. “Only me old granny used to tell the tale that
if you wanted to call the fairies to do your bidding, sure, you’d
leave a dish of milk on a window sill.”

“The fairies.”

“Sarah, I’m as sure as you are that it’s all
stuff and nonsense. I’m an educated woman, you know.”

“Then how come you’re acting like you’ve
just seen a ghost?”

*****

Mike stood in the
observation tower at the north wall of the compound. Climbing the
wooden ladder in order to squeeze into the two-man room at the top
of the structure had left him with a pounding heart. He hated
heights.

Tommy Donaghue sat in front of the video
screen. Tommy was a good lad, a little older than Mike’s boy Gavin
and brilliant with electronics. Since the bomb—and before Sarah
came back with her Santa’s bag of goodies last year—Tommy hadn’t
had much opportunity to demonstrate his skills. Now he was able to
keep things running and while the screen wasn’t connected to the
Internet—that would still be years off—it was connected to six
strategically placed video cameras in order to monitor the main
entry points of the compound.

“It’s probably nothing, Mr. Donovan,” Tommy
said, tapping the screen as Mike squeezed into the only other seat
in the tower office. “But I thought you should know.”

Mike peered at the screen. “What am I
seeing?”

“This is a tape of last night’s surveillance
footage,” Tommy said. “If you look close you can see it. Just there
in the woods.”

“Help me out, Tommy,” Mike said gruffly. Bad
enough he had to climb up here like some teenager. He wasn’t going
to play guessing games.

“It looks like something is shaking the
bushes just here. You see?”

The video was grainy but clear enough. It
showed the stretch of woods that lined the outside of the north end
of the compound. A scraggly line of tall bushes merged into a thick
forest of oaks and sycamores behind.

Sure enough, as Mike watched the bushes
facing the compound started to shake. The movement increased in
intensity until the bushes were agitating frenetically for several
seconds before simply stopping.

“What the hell?” Mike said.

“I know,” Tommy said. “Time stamp says it
started at three in the morning on the dot. Then the camera swings
away and when it pans back ten minutes later, it’s stopped.”

“And you’ve never seen anything like this
before?”

“No sir.”

Mike sighed. “Well done, Tommy. Keep an eye
on it and let me know if it happens again. I’ll send Gavin out to
check the area.”

Was it an animal? If so, the size and
ferocity of the bushes’ movement would require it to be as big as a
gang of tigers. But bushes didn’t just shake on their own
accord.

As Mike made his way back down the ladder he
saw Fiona and Sarah walking up the main entrance to the compound.
Both women walked quickly and purposefully. His eyes went from his
sister’s form to his wife’s. And he grinned. She even walked like
an American, he thought. Ready to get right in your face if
necessary. Ready to see what was around every corner. She looked up
and spotted him and waved.

Ten minutes later, he met them in front of
the main campfire at the center of the compound. There was still a
large fire going in the center—the gypsies insisted on it—but since
Sarah had returned from the States last year with six cookstoves
and enough gas to fuel them, most people cooked indoors.

Fi unbuckled her gun belt and let it slide
to the ground. Mike picked it up and frowned at her. Ever since she
faced down the Gilhooleys last year, she’d had a new confidence
that translated into an interest in guns and the compound’s
security.

“You need a belt that fits you,” he said
before turning to Sarah. “Good trip?”

She looked tired but her eyes sparkled with
interest as he regarded her. “As usual,” she said. “Everything okay
here?”

He stepped up to her and drew her in with
one arm and kissed her. “Now it is.”

“Oh, it’s like that, is it?” Fiona said,
pulling her gun belt from Mike’s hand. “Well, I’ll be going to find
me own man, now, if you don’t mind. Sarah? Your kitchen or
mine?”

Mike ran a hand down Sarah’s back and she
smiled, her eyes never leaving his.

“Mine,” she said to Fiona without looking at
her. “But not straightaway.”

“Sure you’ll be explaining to three hungry
children that supper will be delayed because, please God, Missus
Donovan has had to go six whole hours without Himself. I’m sure
they’ll understand, demanding little shites that they are.”

“Okay, Fi,” Sarah said, taking Mike by the
hand and pulling him in the direction of their cottage. “Five
minutes.”

Regardless of what Fiona thought, Sarah
didn’t want to jump her handsome six-foot four husband or at least
not at the moment. She was footsore, exhausted and hungry herself.
She just needed a few minutes wrapped in the sanctuary of the two
of them. After their wedding eleven months earlier, they’d both
discovered a respite from the worry and uncertainty of the lives
they led. Whether in bed, united as closely as a man and woman can
be, or standing side by side in the midst of a crowd, when they
were together, they were whole.

Their cottage was larger than most of the
huts that formed a tight ring around the compound’s center. Behind
them was a ring of smaller cottages and behind those the sprawl of
tents that housed the gypsies.

Sometimes when Sarah sat in her kitchen
drinking a cup of tea and looking out the window that faced the
compound’s center, she could almost believe nothing had changed and
that it was as it had been—before the bomb had detonated over the
Irish Sea in 2011 and for practical purposes flung all of the UK
back to the nineteenth century.

She dropped her bag of medicine inside the
front door and pulled Mike across the threshold and into her arms.
He held her without speaking, his hand on the back of her head, his
face buried in her long dark hair. Sarah heard the sounds of the
few camp dogs barking in the distance and smelled the singular
fragrance of somebody making soap.