Late August 1886 Off Dawrosbeg, County Galway, Western Ireland

“They say all of Ireland is cursed, but don’t ya believe it, Aggie,” Festus says, a jaunty smile on his lips.

It’s a sultry day, temperature and humidity colliding, only weeks until Mary Agnes’s leave taking. Festus and Mary Agnes drift off the inner islands in a lull, their lines down. Mary Agnes wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. She can’t believe just two months ago she wished for more layers to keep warm. Today, she yearns for fewer layers, but that would border on obscene. Her shins are already exposed—and her upper arms, her dress rolled up to her shoulder almost—but her granddad doesn’t seem to mind, or care.

“Cursed?”

“I say, we’re not! What other peoples have wee folk as infamous as giants? Warriors standing side by side with women? Sinners wise as saints? I tell ya, Aggie, we’re not cursed. We’re made of something different, and don’t let anyone tell ya otherwise.” He takes off his hat, dips it in the water, and wipes his brow before he puts it back on. “Best in the world, the Irish.”

The moon, but a sliver, is visible in the day sky.

“Does the moon really heave the tides, Granda?” Mary Agnes asks. There is so much she wants to know, and little time left to ask.

“Aye, it does, girl. Tides, the ways of the moon and the sea, when and where to fish.” He swallows the last of his tea. “In ancient lore, it was thought the sea a living, breathing thing. I don’t disagree.”

Mary Agnes drains her tea and throws the dregs overboard. “But how does the moon heave the tide? In and out?”

“The moon, she’s a powerful force, Aggie. Ya can read her. A moon like that,”—he points to the sickle moon overhead—“is a sign of poor weather. Same when there’s a halo around it, especially in winter. We live by the moon, girl. When it waxes, we plant seed crops and slaughter sheep; when it wanes, only woe will come to ya if ya build a stone wall or thatch a roof. And when the moon is at its fullest, tides are highest and life is once again filled with promise. A babe born at the full moon is the luckiest of all.”

Mary Agnes looks at the tiny slice of moon and wonders how it holds so much sway.

“I mayn’t be able to explain it rightly,” Festus says. “But we can count on it, the tides, in, then out, twice a day. The tide can be yer fiercest friend or fiercest foe. Learn to respect it, Aggie.” He reaches for Mary Agnes’s hand. “Show me yer fingers, girl.”

Mary Agnes splays her fingers.

“Ya can count on yer fingers all that’s certain in life.” He touches the tip of each of her fingers as he lists the reasons. “Tides,” he says, as he touches her thumb; “seasons,” the pointer finger; “sun rising,” the elongated middle one, “moon,” her fourth finger. When he gets to her pinky, his eyes close as he says, “And the grave.”

The latter she knows. She can’t count the wakes she’s sung at.

The tide is at its lowest point now, exposing rocks and shoals that foul Ballynakill Harbour. A damp, sour smell pervades the bay. Mary Agnes leans over the side of the currach near a tidal pool filled with prickly sea urchin and flowery anemone, deep-hatted limpet and sleek olive-red carragheen. She runs her hand through cold sea water and watches as a small rock crab scurries into a crevice, until, like her granddad said, the tide begins to turn, slowly, lap by lap, and all—a whole world undersea—is submerged once again.

“Time we get back,” Festus says, and Mary Agnes is filled with an overwhelming sense of melancholy, not knowing if she will ever fish with her granddad again.

“Just one more story? I’m keeping them all safe, here, to carry with me.” She touches her chest.

Festus looks at Mary Agnes with filmy eyes and reaches for her hand. “How could I ever turn ya down?”

There, amidst gulls and curlews soaring overhead and noisy oystercatchers lining the strand, their long, bright orange beaks piercing the shore, Festus begins another tale.

“The merrow are all about, Aggie, luring sailors and fishermen under.” His hands span wide to encompass the sea.

Mary Agnes’s eyes grow wide.

“Not the worst way to die, Aggie. It can’t be. Ya can hear the merrow at night, their songs rising from the sea. When ya hear them, ya can’t row away. Ya don’t want to.”

“Have you heard them, Granda?”

“That I have, girl, more than once. The first time, off Inis Bo Finne I was, I saw the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, God as my witness, fully woman from the waist up . . .” His eyes focus on something beyond the boat, beyond the bay.

“And?” she asks.

He snaps back. “And fish from the waist down.”

“Like a mermaid?”

“Aye, with hair the deepest green to match her eyes, like yers they were.” Festus pinches her cheek.

“What happened next?” Mary Agnes has not heard this story before. Her spine tingles.

“I was about to take her hand when I was jerked back by a rogue wave. The sea saved me that day, Aggie. But at the time, I wanted nothing more than to follow that sea faery under the waves, live with her for all my days.”

“And another time?”

“Not long after that, I went looking for her again.”

“Were you married then?”

“No, girl, not yet. I was young and full of drink and thought I’d try my luck with the merrow, see if I could entice one to come and live with me.”

“But I thought you said—”

“Yes, I know. But young men have unreasoned thoughts. I thought I could slay the myth. ‘If not me, then who?’ I would say.” He covers his mouth as he coughs.

“Not far from here I saw her,”—he points to a spot south of where they’re anchored, near the place they row to Mass on Sundays and Holy Days—“and I heard the most beautiful voice I’d ever heard. And there she was, on the strand, singing me in. It wasn’t until I got closer that I realized it was not a sea faery, but yer gram. She sang me home, Aggie. We were married the next Shrovetide and I never heard the merrow again.”

From far across the water, weather closes in, quicker than one might think, first a stirring, then a gust, then a deep-throated wind that announces an afternoon squall. Festus takes to his oars and rows the short distance back to Dawrosbeg. There are no fish today, so he pulls the currach deep into the rushes and they walk, granddad and granddaughter, hand in hand, back up the hill to the cottage.

That night, after the squall has passed and the sun makes its slow descent, Festus spreads a large map on the worn table at the cottage and sits to study it, head close to the parchment.

Mary Agnes watches him, that face she loves. At first she thinks the day will never die, it is light so late this time of year, but when the day finally surrenders, Festus brings the oil lamp close and calls Mary Agnes over. Smoothing the map out with rough hands, all the corners of the earth flat, he points with a stubbed finger to a small peninsula on the far west coast of Ireland.

“Here we are,” he says. “Dawrosbeg.” He slowly drags his finger across the vast Atlantic Ocean to a large continent. “And here is New York.”

“Must I really go, Granda?”

“There’s no promise for ya here, girl.”

Mary Agnes swallows. “And Chicago?”

Festus points to a spot midway across the North American continent near a series of large lakes. “Right here. Some say there are more Irish in Chicago than all of Ireland by now.”

Mary Agnes squints to read: Chicago.

How will I do this? Alone?

“It’s a long journey,” Festus says, as if to mirror Mary Agnes’s thought. “But the die is cast. Ya’re off for America and a new life there.”

How will I ever manage? Without Gram and Granda?

Festus looks at Mary Agnes with tenderness, as if he can read her mind. “And let me be the first and last to say, I’ll miss ya, girl.”

AT DINNER THE NEXT DAY, A FISH STEW with soda bread to celebrate Seamus Bourke’s forthcoming departure for Dublin, Mary Agnes plays with her spoon, twirling it in the soup.

“Before Mr. Bourke takes his leave of us, can I climb Bengoora with him?” she blurts out.

Seamus drops his spoon in his bowl and entreats Festus like a small boy caught red-handed. “I-I-I didna encourage this conversation, sir,” he says.

“I did,” Mary Agnes says. “Mr. Bourke says you can almost see America from the top.”

Festus laughs, deep and booming. “That’s a saying, Aggie. Ya can’t see America from anywhere in Ireland. It’s more than five thousand miles to America.”

Five thousand miles?

“But, still, I would like to go.”

“I find this highly improper, sir,” Seamus says. “I expect you’ll refuse.”

Festus sits back and rubs his chin. “On the contrary, young sir. I think it fitting that Aggie here do whatever it is she likes this last week before she leaves for America. I climbed Bengoora as a young man just once. I’ve never forgotten it, the way ya can see the whole of the countryside like a hawk sees it. And I trust ya, Bourke. What do ya think, Grace?”

“Heartily. Leave the donkey cart in town with the publican. And mind the weather, ya hear? Be back by dark or I’ll have words with ya, young man.”

The following Thursday dawns unusually clear, so Mary Agnes and Seamus head out early instead of taking to lessons. The day is fair and cool. Mary Agnes wears her old boots and her ivory cable-knit sweater over her brown skirt. Seamus wears sturdy boots, the only thing sturdy about him. His clothes need washing and pressing. He is so tall, Mary Agnes often wonders if he could topple over with just a gust of wind. She also wonders if he ever eats, so thin he is.

Does he have a family? A mother or a sister? A lover in Dublin? She follows him by three paces, wondering these things. Being a university student sounds so intriguing.

They start their trek in dark woods behind the Letterfrack school through thick stands of hawthorn, rowan, oak. It is easy footing here. Grace packed soda bread for them before they set out, so they will eat today. Mary Agnes carries the bread in a kerchief tied in a knot and is cautious lest the bundle tumble to the ground and be water-logged. When she exhales, frosty breath clouds ahead of her.

When they break out of the trees, they’re standing in shin-high tufted purple moor grass thick with bell heather and myriad mosses. The ground is hummocked and boggy, with numerous rivulets that surface and disappear as fast.

Picking their way along a meandering sheepherder’s path up the constant rise, Seamus points. “Be careful of gullies.”

Mary Agnes sidesteps a gully as sun peeks from beneath high, wispy cirrus clouds. After an hour’s walk, mostly in silence, Seamus stops at a rocky outcropping and mops his forehead with his handkerchief. Mary Agnes catches up to him and stands beside him. The grade rises sharply from here, crowded with sharp rocks.

“This is as far as we go,” Seamus says. “It’s quite steep after this. I don’t want you to turn an ankle on the rocks.”

“But we’re not even halfway to the top!”

“We’re higher than the trees, lass. Remember we have to account for the journey back down.”

“Certainly that will be quicker than the way up.”

“It usually is, but we still have to watch our footing.”

Mary Agnes kneels in spongy mosses there, a carpet of reddish-brown, golden, and green. She gets down to eye-level with the moss, surprised how intricate each clump is, tiny leaves whorled inward. She runs her hand over the velvety texture as a dragonfly buzzes past. She follows its path until she cannot see it.

Seamus squats near Mary Agnes on the spongy bogland. “You’ll be getting damp, kneeling like that,” he says.

“I’m used to being damp.”

Seamus stands, takes out his field glass, and focuses his sight west.

“Can you see America?” Mary Agnes asks.

“No, lass,” he laughs. “But I see Dawros, the shape of it, like a claw.” He wipes the lens with a handkerchief and holds the glass to his eye again. “I do believe I can see your granddad’s cottage, Miss Coyne. Yes, I’m sure of it. There, at the end. Would you like to see?”

“I’m afraid I can’t see past my hands, except if it’s large as a mountain.” She unties the kerchief and offers her tutor a piece of soda bread.

“Thank you, lass.”

“What else can you see?” she asks, as she eats her share of the bread.

He points to the northwest. “Letter Hill, of course.”

Mary Agnes squints. She can make out the faint shape of the mountain, but it’s blurry.

“And beyond,” Seamus says, “the outline of the outer islands.”

“Inishbofin? Inishshark? Inishturk?”

“If that be their names.”

“Can you see Granda? He’s out today.” Mary Agnes stands and shields her eyes from the sun. “Be my eyes. Tell me.”

Seamus scans the harbor, left to right. “It’s a grand soft day, it is. I do see a currach, Miss Coyne. It might be your granddad, but I canna be sure. Yes, wait, I see several of them. More, now that my eye’s peeled for them. There’s a great many of them, actually, all the way past the point. They look like little blackbirds, they do, bobbing upon the sea.”

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, AS AN ALMOST predictable afternoon squall careens across Ballynakill Harbour, Mary Agnes waits on shore with the others for boats to return. It will be a long, wet night fileting fish and packing them in salt barrels. She is tired after the day’s walk, but needs must, as her gram says.

One by one the boats come in from the mist offloading their catch. By five-thirty, everyone’s eyes are glued to the horizon. All the boats are in except Festus’s.

Mary Agnes stands shoulder to shoulder with the others as she guts cod and hake. Her hands are numb and bloodied. There is a rhythm to it, processing fish. Grab by the tail, slice, peel, dump the innards, repeat. The women, usually loud with song (and even louder with gossip), are unusually quiet tonight. Everyone is thinking what no one is saying: Where is Festus Laffey and his men?

By nine-thirty, flirting with dark now, women and children peel off toward home. Grace Laffey puts her arm around Mary Agnes. The weather has turned sour, rain in slanting sheets.

“Isn’t the first time that man of mine has given me a scare. Come now, child, off to bed. He’ll be back, ya’ll see. I’ll stay up and wait for him.”

“It was so nice this morning, when Mr. Bourke and I were walking.”

“’Tis Ireland, lass.”

Mary Agnes looks up at the night sky as she and her gram walk the rutted lane home. There are no constellations out tonight, no Ursa Major or Ursa Minor, Orion or Cygnus. Not even Polaris, the north star. Polaris cannot lead her granddad home tonight.

At the cottage, Mary Agnes turns to look back at the sea, angry tonight, and black. The wind howls and hurts her ears.

“Dirty weather,” Festus would call it.

She looks again to the sky, beseeching all the saints.

Where are you, Granda? Won’t you come home?

“THIS, FOR YOU.” SEAMUS HANDS Mary Agnes a small gift wrapped in brown paper and twine. They sit at their favorite spot on the knoll behind the Laffey’s cottage surrounded by a carpet of tiny wildflowers. She has one eye on Ballynakill Harbour.

Please, Jesus Mary and Joseph, send Granda home.

Mary Agnes swats a midge and turns to the tutor. When she unwraps the package, she clasps it to her chest. A journal. “For me? Thank you, master.” Now she can write her poems and keep them in one place, not just on scrap pieces of paper crammed into a book. She can write out Stevenson’s poems, too, the ones she’s memorized, Windy Nights, The Land of Nod, Summer Sun.

For several minutes, master and student sit side by side without talking.

“He’s sure to be back,” Seamus says.

“I will count on that,” Mary Agnes answers.

“I’m off now.”

“To Dublin?”

“Aye.” He stands and offers Mary Agnes his hand.

“Thank you again for the walk,” she says, and shakes his hand as she’s seen men do. “I will remember it always.”

“My pleasure, lass. It’s good that your gram didn’t have to come looking for us. I shudder to think what she would have said had we become lost.”

“Do you ever get lost in Dublin?”

“I do. Sometimes I want to.”

“What do you mean by that, master?”

He looks at her through smudged eyeglasses. “You’ll know one day.”

One day?

“Thank you, sir,” she says. “For taking a chance on me. I won’t soon forget you, either.”

“Nor I, you, Miss Coyne. You are a most promising pupil. I have no doubt you will succeed at university in America.” He tips his hat and turns to go. “God prosper your day, lass.”

Mary Agnes watches as Seamus lumbers down the lane until she cannot see him anymore. It is almost dark now. Her feet sink in peat, leaves and roots and stems and twigs packed down, layer by layer, over tens of thousands of years until the peat is dark and rich, hiding secrets and memories and bones. She ambles down from the knoll toward the cottage, skimming buttercup and dandelion, ribwort and chickweed. She kicks pebbles and dirt along the gravelly lane and answers a loud, fluty thrush in the hedge with faulty bravado. What will she do if her granddad doesn’t return for a second night in a row? She will likely have to leave Dawrosbeg even sooner. Like a seesaw, she goes back and forth between wanting to stay and wanting to go.

“I should like to rise and go,” she begins, her throaty alto voice putting music to Stevenson’s words, “Where golden apples grow—”

A rumble of thunder interrupts her song, the first raindrop giving way to another and another, and soon she is on the lane in a downpour. She ducks into the broken doorway of an old shed and thinks of Stevenson’s poem, Rain.

The rain is raining all around,

It falls on field and tree,

It rains on the umbrellas here,

And on the ships at sea.

It is almost dark when she reaches her grandparents’ cottage. Her gram is not in, the fire gone nearly cold. She stokes the embers and puts on another bit of turf. Back outside, drenched now, she looks toward the sea.

Where is everyone?

Through thick fog off Dawrosbeg, she cannot see anything on account of poor weather and poor eyesight. Then she hears a shout coming from the strand. Her heart gallops as she heads for the beach. Clutches of men and women and children line the shore, arms waving. Voices shout out: Festus! Festus!

Mary Agnes begins to run now, not caring about the rain, her bare feet flying over clods of dirt and weeds as she yells at the top of her lungs: Granda’s home! Granda’s home! She spreads her arms so wide that if she were a bird, she would rise and take flight above Dawros by now, bank left and right over the small peninsula, out past Ballynakill Harbour, out past the point, out past the outer islands, and then circle back above the great ocean itself, singing and squawking, her heart is that happy.

“IT WAS ALL A BOTHER ABOUT NOTHING.” Festus sits in his favorite chair by the fire puffing his pipe.

“Well, don’t ya go disappearing again anytime soon,” Grace says.

“Don’t plan to, my love.”

“Did you want to get away? Like when you went looking for the merrow?” Mary Agnes sits at her granddad’s feet with her head on his knee.

“Not exactly, girl. The wind turned sour and we thought it best to weather the night in the lee of the big island. We pulled the currach far up the strand and turned it upside down. A right little shelter we had there. Out of the wind. Isn’t the first time we’ve done so.”

“I told ya he’d be back,” her gram says.

“I thought you were lost,” Mary Agnes says.

“Nay, girl, not lost.”

“My tutor’s gone back to Dublin,” she says.

“Has he now? I suppose his semester is about to start up.”

“He told me you can get lost in Dublin.”

“I suppose he’s right.”

“But he said sometimes he wants to be lost. Whatever does that mean?”

Festus rubs his chin. “Aye, girl, he’s right. Sometimes ya just want to disappear in this world. Too many troubles.”

Mary Agnes bites her lip, her forehead lined. “Please don’t go disappearing again, not before . . .” Her mouth stumbles over the words.

“Shh, now,” Festus says. “I’ve got a story for ya.”

Mary Agnes settles at his feet, rests her head on his knee again, and closes her eyes to picture the story.

“Out beyond the islands, as far as eyes can see, and then some,” Festus begins, “there lies a Phantom Isle. Some thought it first a whale, and others, a sea monster, but when fishermen approached, it was most certainly land.”

Festus takes a long draw on his pipe, and then continues. “But as soon as the fishermen rowed ashore, the island disappeared. The next day, the same fishermen made another attempt, but, again, nothing. The island disappeared into the sea just as they were about to make landfall.”

Mary Agnes’s mind is filled with images.

“It was on the third day that one of the fishermen—some say it were a woman in disguise—thought to try a new scheme,” Festus continues. “She let an arrow fly toward the island, barbed and red-hot with flame, and the arrow landed on the island and stuck.”

Mary Agnes opens her eyes and looks up at Festus. “She did that?”

“Aye, she did, girl. With fire, the fiercest of elements. Remember this when ya face something ya think impossible. Take that fire within yer belly and take claim to what’s rightfully yers.”