The Good People (17 page)

‘Brought you a hen,’ he said, nodding to the struggling chicken he held pinned under his arm. ‘She’s stopped laying, but I thought it might be good for your pot. I didn’t know . . .’

‘That’s kind.’ Nance beckoned him in with a trembling finger. ‘Come in, son, come in and God welcome.’

Daniel ducked his head under the door and Nance noticed him take in the small cabin with its tethered goat, the drain of waste and the dead fire in front of her. He pulled the chicken out from under his arm and offered it to Nance, holding it by its legs. The bird flapped, sending the bunches of herbs swaying on their strings.

‘Set her on the floor, there, good man. She can stretch her legs. Grand so.’ Nance prodded at the fire and blew on the embers. ‘Would you pass me some of that dried furze? Ah, I thank you. So, you’ve come about your young wife, your Brigid. The one with child. Is she in good health?’ Nance nudged a stool towards Daniel and he sat down.

‘She is. Only . . .’ He let out a short laugh, embarrassed. ‘I don’t really know why I’m here. ’Tis nothing, only the little woman’s taken to walking at night. In her sleep.’ He watched the hen jump the drain and begin to scratch in the hay.

‘Walking at night, is she? Not a thing for a woman in her state to be doing. Will you have a drink?’ Nance reached for an empty piggin and poured out a liquid, tinctured yellow, from a pot near the fire.

Daniel regarded the cup with a frown. ‘What’s this, then?’

‘’Tis a cold tea. ’Twill calm you.’

‘Oh, I don’t have a need for calming,’ Daniel said, but he took a tentative sip. ‘It tastes like weeds.’

‘Go on, Daniel. Tell me about your Brigid.’

‘I don’t like to make a fuss, only, begod, ’tis a strange thing she’s doing and I have no wish for people to talk of it.’

‘You say she’s walking in her sleep.’

He nodded. ‘A few evenings back I woke in the night and she wasn’t to be seen. Her side of the bed was cold empty. My brother sleeps by the fire and we have the wee room to ourselves. Well, I woke up and thought to myself, “She’s maybe after getting a sip of water,” and so I waited. But a good time crept past and there was no sign of her. I went out and there’s my brother, sound asleep, except the door is wide open and there’s a fierce cold coming in. I look for Brigid’s cloak and ’tis there, where she normally sets it on the rafter, but her shawl is missing. Well, I was frightened for her then. I didn’t know if someone had taken her, or what. You hear stories . . .’ His voice broke off and he took another sip of tea. ‘I woke my brother and asked him had he seen her and he hadn’t. So we set out to look for her and thank God for the bright moon! After a time we find her shawl lying on the ground and perhaps we walk on for another mile, and I see a flash of white, and . . .’ Daniel frowned, pulling at his lip. ‘Well, ’twas her. Lying down, asleep.’

‘She was safe, then.’

‘That’s why I thought to come see you, Nance. She wasn’t just lying any place. She was asleep in the
cillín
. Near the fairy
ráth
. Hardly a stone’s throw from where we’re sitting now.’

Nance felt the hair on the back of her neck stand up. The
cillín
was a small triangle of land next to the fairies’ whitethorn. The grass grew long there, around a standing stone guarded by a ragged copse of holly trees. The thin slab of rock stood perpendicular to the soil like a tombstone, the vestige of an etched cross upon its surface. Surrounding it, like stars without pattern, were white stones marking where clusters of limbo-bones lay in the soil. Sometimes the people of the valley buried unwed mothers there, and sometimes those who had died in sin. But mostly the
cillín
was for children. Stillborns. It was not a place people visited unless they had an unchristened baby to bury.

‘The
cillín
?’

Daniel rubbed at the stubble on his chin. ‘You see now why I’ve come? She was lying there amongst the stones. Amongst all the poor dead, buried babies. I thought she was dead herself until I shook her awake. I’ve heard of folk that do be wandering in their sleep. But to a
cillín
?’

‘Who knows of this?’

‘Not a soul besides my brother, David, and myself. And I made him swear to keep it quiet. ’Tis the kind of thing to get tongues moving faster than a middleman to tithe day. Especially with all the goings-on in this place.’

‘Tell me. What goings-on?’

Daniel grimaced. ‘I don’t know, Nance. There’s just an uneasy feeling about the place. Cows are not giving the milk they once did.’ He pointed at the chicken fussing in the straw. ‘Hens have stopped laying. Folk are still talking of the way Martin Leahy died. A fit man in the full of his health, dying at a crossroads? People are saying ’tis unnatural. Some are getting on with nonsense about the evil eye. Saying he was blinked, like. Others keep talking about a
changeling
child. A changeling, like! We all know Nóra Leahy has a boy in with her. When her daughter died, the son-in-law came with a child in a basket. We saw him in the fields. But when no one saw the boy afterwards, we thought perhaps he was sick. Ailing, like. But Brigid has seen him. And she told me that there’s something woeful wrong with him. Woeful wrong.’

Nance remembered the cripple Peter had spoken of. ‘Not a sick child, then.’

‘Sure, he’s got no health about him, but it seems to be more than that. Brigid says the boy is a wee raw thing, all bones and no sense in his head. Not like any child she’s seen before.’

‘Have you seen him yourself?’

‘Me? I’ve not seen him, no. But I’m thinking that perhaps . . . Perhaps if that boy has been touched by the Good People, then they’re after touching others. Or maybe he has the evil eye and he blinked Martin Leahy, and now he’s after blinking my wife.’ Daniel pressed his thumbs to his temples. ‘Holy Jesus, I don’t know, Nance.’

Nance nodded. ‘I think it best to keep this to yourself, Daniel. People here have enough troubles without finding cause for fear in things they do not understand.’

‘Would explain it if the boy was changeling, though. The more I think of it, the more I wonder whether the Good People are abroad, and if they’re after sweeping folk for themselves. Only, you hear the stories, about the women who are carrying. About them disappearing into ringforts.’ He leant closer. ‘I remember the stories. The old folk still tell them. The Good People have a need of women who are carrying, to take the human child for their own, and keep the woman to feed theirs . . .’ He took a deep breath. ‘Begod, I know there’s plenty that laugh at those who believe every wind they meet with is a
sigh-gaoithe
. But I thought you might know, Nance. People say you go with Them. That they gave you knowledge and the eye to see Them.’

Nance dragged more furze onto the fire and the flames leapt up, casting wild light across their faces. ‘How was your Brigid when she woke?’

‘Her face was all white and washy when she saw where she was. She had no memory of walking out the cabin, nor down the lane.’

‘And has she walked in her sleep before?’

‘She hasn’t. Well, not that she can remember, and not since she’s been my wife.’

Nance cast him a sharp look. ‘And is all well between ye? Are you great with each other? There’s no reason for your wife to be wanting to go with the fairies, now?’

‘Not on my life.’

‘Naught to flee from, then. Well now, Daniel. Sure, ’tis a dangerous time for a woman when she’s carrying. ’Tis a time of interference. Your wife is on a threshold and can be pulled back and forth. Either into the world we know, or the one that we don’t. And ’tis true, what you say about the Good People. They are much given to taking young women. I’ve never known a woman to be swept into the fairy
ráth
by here, but ’tis not to say they won’t or haven’t.’

‘They say ’twas the fate of Johanna Leahy by Macroom. That ’twas not to God she went, but to the fairy fort by there. That when she saw they’d changed her own son for fairy, she let them sweep her to be with her boy.’

Nance leant closer, her face growing flushed in the rising heat of the fire. ‘The Good People are cunning when they are not merry. They do what pleases them because they serve neither God nor Devil, and no one can assure them of a place in Heaven or Hell. Not good enough to be saved, and not bad enough to be lost.’

‘Are you saying that the Good People are abroad, then?’

‘They have always been here. They are as old as the sea.’

Daniel had grown ashen. His blue eyes stared at hers in the firelight.

‘Have you ever gone walking at the changing hours by the woods or in the lonesome places and felt Them watching you? Not so wicked as a man waiting to beat you, but not so gentle as a mother watching her children sleep.’

Daniel swallowed. ‘I believe it. I do. I am not such a fool to say that there is no more to this world than what I can see with my own two eyes.’

Nance nodded approvingly. ‘The Good People watch us with a kind of knowing that can undo a man. Make him want to turn heel. Sometimes they wish to reward him, and he finds he has fairy skill with the pipe, or that his sick cow is well again, and there’s no accounting for it. But sometimes they punish those who speak ill against them. Sometimes they repay good with good. Bad with bad. Sometimes ’tis all unreason and no knowing why things are as they are, except to say ’tis the fairies behind it and they have their own intentions.’

‘And so why are they after taking Brigid? What has she done to the Good People that they might like to steal her away?’ He paused for a moment. ‘Do you think ’tis something
I
have done?’

‘Daniel, your Brigid is a dear one. There’s no use in you believing she has some hand in this, or that she’s astray. There’s no fault on her. When They are here, watching us, they know the human of us and an envy comes upon them and there are some who will have of our kin, of our blood. I have seen them sweep a woman in front of my eyes.’

‘Sweet Christ. ’Tis as folk are saying. There’s some awful mischief about and ’tis the Good People behind it.’ Daniel’s face was pale. ‘What must I do?’

‘Is your Brigid changed at all? Does she eat? Is she injured in any way?’

‘She eats. She was frightened to wake and see that she was sleeping in the
cillín
and her feet were bloodied from hard walking, but she is not changed.’

Nance leant back, satisfied. ‘She was not abducted, then. She is still your wife.’

‘Begod, what is happening in this valley, Nance? Moves my bones to powder. The priest said ’tis no reason for the cows and hens and Martin but the will of God, and all will be well, but he’s a man from town.’

Nance spat on the ground. ‘Perhaps someone has offended Them.’

‘There is talk that one of Them is amongst us.’

‘Aye, that boy your Brigid speaks of. With Nóra Leahy.’

Daniel looked at the floor. ‘Or another,’ he mumbled.

Nance gave Daniel a hard look. ‘Do you know something? Has that Seán Lynch been swinging his axe at whitethorns again?’

‘He has not. He’ll have no talk of the Good People, and he spends his nights on ramble driving us all to tears with his talk of Father Healy and Daniel O’Connell. The priest has been in his ear about the Catholic Association. A penny a month and O’Connell will have us all emancipated, so says Seán. We all think he’s on the drink and bouncing the boot off his wife again, but he has not been interfering with the fairy trees.’

‘That one has trouble coming to him,’ Nance said. ‘Cheating the Devil in the dark, so he is.’

Daniel picked up his tea and drank it, avoiding her gaze. ‘He has the hard word against you, Nance.’

‘Oh. There’s plenty that have the hard word against me. But I know what I know.’ She lifted her hands in front of Daniel’s face and he flinched, leaning away from the reach of her fingers. ‘What do you see?’

He gaped at her.

‘My thumbs. Do you see how they’re turned?’ She showed him her swollen knuckles, the crooked angle of her joints.

‘I do.’

‘’Tis Their mark on me. ’Tis how you may know that whatever Seán Lynch and Father Healy say about me, I have the knowledge of Them and there is no lie in it. Whatever lies they tell about me, there is no lie in this.’ She fixed him with a kindly look. ‘Do you trust me?’

‘Aye, Nance. I believe you.’

‘Then let me tell you that all will be well if you do as I say. Your wife must rest until her time comes. She is to get what sleep she can and she’s not to walk at all. Is she still up and about the house?’

‘She is.’

‘No more. You must do all the chores, Daniel. Churn the butter. Feed her hens. Cook your praties. No fire must be taken out of the house when she’s in it. Not even the flare of your pipe. Not even a spark. Do you understand?’

‘I do.’

‘Not a single flame nor ember, Daniel, or you’ll be taking the luck out of the house. You’d be breaking all that which serves to protect her and keep her in the world. And give her these.’ Nance shuffled to the corner of her cabin and fetched a parcel of cloth tightly bound with straw. She unknotted the ties and shook some dried berries into Daniel’s palm.