Bloody Ground

“They give birth astride of a grave,

the light gleams an instant,

Then its night once more.”

Samuel Beckett

Waiting for Godot



A S MANY INTERVIEWS AS SHE had done in the course of her career, it never ceased to delight Meg when she got an answer she couldn’t have anticipated. Nothing in Adam’s intriguing mixture of combativeness and vulnerability had suggested anything like this.

“A banshee?” she asked.

Adam’s expression tightened into superiority. “ Bean sidhe ,” he corrected, splitting it into two words and adding a slightly different—Gaelic—intonation. “I’m an O’Sullivan on my mother’s side. They dropped the O but the blood’s still there.”

Confused, Meg turned from him to Niall. “Both you and your wife are Sullivans? Or did you take her name?”

There was a brief silence, then Adam gave a disgusted snort. “Niall’s not my da, he’s my uncle.”

“Siobhan—Adam’s mother—was my twin. She was killed five weeks ago in an accident,” Niall said, his voice dropping in both tone and volume.

He didn’t say any more, but the words were there in the way he looked at Adam, with a raw mixture of love and pity and bewildered exasperation that gave Meg’s heart a painful twist.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, not knowing which of them to look at. Seeing so much open anguish on a man like Niall, someone who didn’t seem like the type to wear emotion on his sleeve, made her want to look away, to give him privacy. On the other hand, you had to be so careful with teenage boys. Vulnerability too often turned to anger.

She tried to imagine the enormity of losing a twin. Or a mother.

No wonder Adam was acting out and seeing ghosts.

“I don’t think I’ve ever stopped to imagine what a banshee looked like,” she said, summoning up a casual tone to keep him talking if she could. To help, if that was possible. “I’m Scottish on my mother’s side. You might have guessed that—she hasn’t completely lost her accent. But I’m not even sure if they have banshees in the Highlands, whether that’s a Gaelic–Celtic thing or purely Irish.”

“The Scots have their own version, but it’s a little different,” Niall said.

“And forgive me if I’m being dense, but what does seeing a banshee or not seeing one have to do with being an O’Sullivan?” Meg turned to Adam, watching him as he stared out the window, noting his body rocking back and forth. When Adam didn’t answer the question, she glanced back at Niall.

He was watching Adam, too, almost visibly willing him to respond. After a long pause, Niall cleared his throat and answered himself. “The function of a bean sidhe is to call a spirit home. There’s a certain school of thinking that claims they only appear to the original clans of Ireland, and that how they behave depends on their relationship to that family. If the family was one of their enemies, they scream in delight at the knowledge that another of their foes is about to be cut down. But if they’re friendly, they can warn that death is coming or provide reassurance and welcome for a person who’s meant to die.”

“Ours watches over us,” Adam said, turning to them with his eyes strangely empty. “Over the people she loves. Comforting them. Waiting for them.”

That bleak look in his eyes as much as the words themselves left a shiver trailing along Meg’s spine, and she had to force herself not to grip Niall’s arm and make sure he’d noticed. She didn’t know what to say. When she turned, Niall’s eyes met hers and lingered long enough to let her see how deeply Adam worried him.

Hands clenched at his sides, Adam jumped to his feet as soon as the cable car pitched to a stop.

Meg had almost forgotten that they were moving, but she wished they had more time. More opportunity. Then Adam dove out the door and Niall bolted after him.

The two of them were both so clearly broken. Meg wondered if Niall had gotten Adam a counselor or therapist, someone to help him cope with the grief and changes. Adam didn’t really seem the type to take such a suggestion willingly, though. She thought of how hard it had been to hear that her parents were divorcing, and she was two decades older than Adam. And her own parents would both still be as close as her telephone if she needed them, not simply there one moment and gone the next. Except that in a way, they were gone, because they weren’t the same people she’d always believed them to be.

Ducking through the door, she paused on the concrete platform with the wind whipping her hair and the crash of tide in Dursey Sound sending up a fine, chilling spray. Adam slunk off to a dusty white Peugeot station wagon parked at the edge of the lot not far from a red Porsche 911 and tried the passenger door. Unable to wrench it open, he hit the window with a fisted hand then turned and walked in front of the car and stood looking out across the fields, the picture of hurt and fury and loneliness.

Niall, still partway across the parking lot, stopped and watched him. Equally hurt and lonely, Meg suspected, though she didn’t have any right to think so.

She tried to consider what to do, how to give them space. If she crossed the parking lot and walked up the path to the Bay Point, Fergal would sweep her inside—sweep them all inside—and the mood would change. Any chance of Adam continuing to talk would vanish, and he clearly needed to talk, if Niall could get him to open up.

Smiling at the volunteers and tourists who were queued up waiting for the cable car to make the fifteen-minute round trip to the island, she edged past a tall woman in a wide-brimmed hat who was waving a steaming disposable cup of coffee in one hand and a sticky napkin in the other as her hands punctuated whatever she was saying to a friend. Several of the other volunteers were holding disposable cups as well, and the window at the blue-and-white fish truck parked near the station was open. Meg set off in that direction.

The truck’s owner, a spry, balding man in what had to be his mid-seventies at least, had a line of what looked like bread machines lined up along the back of the far wall beside the fryers. Turning to Meg as she approached the window, her feet crunching on the gravel, he wiped flour from his hands with a rag and leaned over the counter on his elbows, beaming. The wide smile behind his long white whiskers faded as he took in the tissue she was still pressing to her face.

“You look like you could use some doctoring. Come around the back to the door and let’s have a look at you,” he said. “I have a first aid kit here.”

Meg shook her head. “Thank you, but we’re off to the hospital in a minute. I was hoping to get a cup of water and some salt, if that’s all right?”

“Of course it is, bless you.” The man dug under the counter for a container of salt and measured out a generous amount into a cup before adding steaming water from the enormous metal thermos. He filled the cup halfway, then stirred vigorously, his expression intent. Finally, he turned back to the sink and added more water before coming back to slide the cup toward Meg across the gleaming metal counter. “There. The tap water’s safe. I’ve added cold to keep it from damaging the skin—don’t want it too hot. Now what about gauze and tape? Or tea and a doughnut? All the above?”

A giggle bubbled up Meg’s throat. “You had me at tea. That would be fantastic.” She accepted the cup he’d slid over and poured some of the saline onto a folded napkin. Holding it pressed against her cheek, she winced as the salt soaked in and stung. Then, thankful her mother wasn’t there to reproach her about empty calories, she decided to indulge herself. They hadn’t eaten much for breakfast after all. “Did you really just say doughnut?”

“Deep fryers work equally well for that.” The old man picked up a small blue trashcan from behind him and lifted it so Meg could throw the used tissue inside. “Makes sense when you think on it, like. Now, what’ll you be having? I can do chocolate, strawberry, sugar glazed, or caramel toffee. They’re all good, if I say myself. Or you could try the Nutella. That’s my Eileen’s favorite.” He leaned in closer. “She swears it’s the best thing I’ve ever given her. Mind you, we don’t mention that to any of our seven children or eighteen grandchildren.” He chuckled, and with his bald head, white whiskers, round rosy cheeks, and a family that size, Meg couldn’t help wondering how many times he’d dressed up as Santa Claus. Of course finding a Nutella doughnut was pretty much like Christmas morning anyway.

“Eamon makes the best doughnuts in Ireland, as far as I’m concerned,” Niall said, walking up behind her. “Let me get you some. It’s the least I can do.”

Meg glanced sideways at him, then busied herself throwing the napkin in the larger bin beside the window and dampening another. “Adam might be hungry.”

“Possibly, but fair warning—it’ll take more than doughnuts to sweeten his disposition.”

“Does he have a favorite flavor?”

“Toffee. And the strawberry. Though he’s ordered chocolate a couple of times, too, come to think of it.” Niall shook his head. “Honestly, I haven’t any idea what’s in his head. About doughnuts or anything else.”

He smiled at her with a wry shake of his head, but it was a haunted smile that struck her as brave, though she’d never particularly thought of smiles in that way. She found herself studying, and he was the kind of man who drew one in the longer that one looked. It was one of those faces, Meg decided. The kind that was good looking without being pretty and changed with every thought and mood.

Less afraid of intruding than she was of stepping into something on the long drive out of ignorance, she worked up her courage to ask, “What was Adam—why was he—running away this morning? If you don’t mind telling me. Was is something to do with his mother?”

“He won’t talk about Siobhan. Not as much as he needs to. We argued, but one way or another, he’s been running since he got here. He was glad to see me at the hospital after the accident, but he’s been getting progressively angrier, and I don’t know how to help him.”

Something in the way he said that made Meg wonder whether it was only Adam who was having trouble coping. “It takes time for grief to sink in,” she said. “All those stages.”

“I know, and everyone takes it differently. I’ve read the literature.”

“I can’t even imagine losing a mother at his age. And his father?”

Niall leaned across the counter and ordered three teas and a mixed dozen doughnuts, evenly split, before turning back to face her. “His father’s no use,” he said. “I’m all he has, and I’m not much of an improvement. Every day that passes, I realize how much I don’t know about teenage boys.” He picked up another couple of napkins and folded them together into quarters, then gently took the cup of water from Meg and soaked the napkin with it. “May I?”

She nodded, and he set the cup down and stepped close to dab the wound. He was intent as he worked, and she had the odd impression he was the sort of man with the rare ability to focus all of his attention on a task. It made her uncertain where to look—it felt too intimate looking back at him, but impolite to look away.

His smile was sweet—kind—as he soaked the wound and then wiped gently at the blood that streaked her cheek. “Would you mind—” he began, then shook his head and started over. “What Adam said to you about the bean sidhe comforting the family, that’s the closest he’s come to talking about Siobhan in weeks. And what he said about waiting—that smacks of survivor’s guilt. Or worse. I’ve no right to ask at all, but he seems to connect with you more than me. Would you see if you can keep him talking?”

“I’ll try.” Meg frowned at the bloody napkin in his hand, took it from him and threw it into the larger trash bin beside the window. She found Eamon taking out a sheet of parchment paper containing precut doughnut shapes and dropping them into the deep fryers, turning to watch her and Niall occasionally as he worked, his eyes bright and curious within their folds of wrinkles. “Now you realize you’ve created a dilemma by ordering all those different doughnuts,” she said to Niall, changing the subject. “I’ve no idea what I want.”

“I won’t be much help with that,” Niall said, grinning. “I happen to be a purist. With Eamon’s doughnuts, anything more than a crisp dusting of sugar would only spoil the perfection of all that yeast and air and grease and goodness.”

Meg found herself smiling at him again, at this big man who loved his nephew and talked about doughnuts in a way that made her stomach growl. Uncomfortable, she turned away as Eamon came back to snap lids onto the three steaming paper cups he’d set out on the counter earlier.

“In that case,” she said, “I guess I’ll have to make a point of working my way through every flavor in the next few days.”

Eamon nodded, beaming widely. “Oh, a girl after my own heart, you are. And you’ll be needing to try my fish and chips. After you get that pretty face of yours seen to, of course. How’d it happen, anyway?”

“I was clumsy, and I’m prone to sticking my nose where it isn’t wanted,” Meg said easily. “This time, my cheek just got there first.”

Niall’s eyes focused on her and rested there, surprised. Then they shuttered, and he took the three cups that Eamon slid over and asked her, “How do you like it? Milk and sugar?”

“A hint of sugar and too much milk,” she said, “at least according to my mother.”

He added all that and gave her the hot cup, then doctored another for himself and one for Adam. Eamon went back to the fryer, and they both stood sipping and watched him work, the silence between them comfortable enough that Meg didn’t feel the need to fill it. She wasn’t even thinking anything in particular when Niall spoke again.

“You’re being very good about all of this . . . Adam and—” He extended a forefinger, gesturing toward her cheek, making her go still at the thought that he meant to touch her. “Does it hurt much?”

“Not much.” She raised one shoulder an inch or two.

In the fryers, the doughnuts grew and bloomed and turned a golden brown, like leaves changing from spring to summer to fall, and the scent of dough frying curled out through the open window in invitation, hinting at one of those food moments where everything in the universe conspired to make something ordinary unforgettable.

Meg imagined the segment she could have filmed about this marvelous Santa Claus of an Irishman and his doughnut and fish truck out here in one of the most beautiful places in the world. How quickly did the smell of frying doughnuts dissipate? If the wind blew westward, how far out into the Atlantic would the scent of Eamon’s doughnuts travel? She was surprised that half the seagulls on the coast of Ireland weren’t circling the parking lot like ocean-going pigeons.

But she didn’t have a camera crew or even a place where the story could be told.

She watched, a little bereft, as Eamon removed the doughnuts with a spatula then set them on a paper towel while he eased the next batch into the fryer. When the last few were done and drying, he removed several large ziplock bags from the refrigerator, each with a small bit of a bottom corner cut away and, one flavor at a time, drizzled the toppings over the glistening doughnuts in even strokes. He stacked them in a box and slid it onto the counter as carefully as if the contents were the crown jewels of Ireland.

Meg reached for her wallet, but Niall beat her to it. Handing over a banknote, he added a smiling “Thanks, Eamon,” and he picked up the box.

“Mind you don’t forget to stop and tell me what you think,” Eamon called after Meg as they turned to go.

“I won’t,” she said, and she followed Niall across the parking lot carrying her own tea along with the cup for Adam. He was still over in front of the dusty Peugeot, picking up rocks and throwing them hard into the nearby field.

Niall’s expression went tight as he stopped beside the car and watched a moment. Adam didn’t turn.

“Adam?” Niall prompted after a minute. “You ready?”

He opened the door for Meg, flipped the lid of the box open, and handed her a napkin from the sheaf Eamon had tucked inside. She peered into the box, trying to decide, then the lid shuddered as Adam slammed into the back hard enough to make the vehicle shake. Plucking out one of the creamy, glistening Nutella-topped variety, Meg exchanged a glance with Niall, then dropped into the passenger seat.

Niall’s voice held amusement. “I won’t disrespect your unfortunate choice, but I will beg you to at least have a bite of mine. You’ll thank me once you can actually taste the doughnut beneath the topping.”

Meg had never imaged that doughnuts could be sexy, but somehow Niall made her think illicit thoughts. Which was ridiculous. Absurd. And so not what she needed to be thinking about Niall Sullivan.

He moved around to the driver’s door with that easy stride of his and lowered himself behind the steering wheel before plucking out a doughnut for himself. He passed the box back to Adam. Glancing at Meg, he broke off a small piece of the pastry and handed it to her. As he’d promised, it was yeasty and light as a cloud as it collapsed in her mouth, like no doughnut she’d ever tasted, and the crumbs of sugar lingered like a kiss.

Behind them, Adam sat with the box on his lap, staring down at it without opening it to take one. He was brooding again, brooding more, and Meg thought about what Niall had said about survivor’s guilt.

“So, Adam,” she said cheerfully, hoping to pick up where they’d left off. “The banshee. I’m curious. Were there words or just a tune when you heard her singing?”

She didn’t think Adam would answer, he let the silence drag so long. But he flipped the doughnut box open and ducked his face behind the lid.

“There are words, but I don’t understand them,” he said. “Can’t even hear them, really. What she says is gentle, I know that much.” He leaned forward, intent on making Meg understand as though that was important. “She’s sad.”

“Is the O’Sullivan banshee always sad?”

“ Bean sidhe ,” Adam corrected. Then he shrugged, and just like that, the opportunity was over. He turned to look back out the window, leaving Meg wondering what else she could have said.

Niall switched what remained of his doughnut to his other hand as he shifted the car into gear and turned off onto the main road. Briefly, he watched Adam in the rearview mirror, then pressed his foot back down on the gas as a minivan rounded the bend behind them.

“The whole idea of bean sidhe is sad to me,” Meg said. “It seems only fair that things like pain and hate and sadness should fall away once you die.”

Niall flicked a look at her. “It’d be nice to think so, wouldn’t it? But the old families—those were ugly histories. Cruel ones, with people fighting to survive any way they could. Some of the stories claim bean sidhe are messengers more than ghosts. Leftovers from a time when the first families arrived and they and the old gods divided Ireland between them, mankind above ground and the gods below.”

“I’d have thought gods could negotiate a better deal,” Meg said.

Niall’s laugh was dry. “One would think. But good deal or bad, they kept their bargains. The fortunes of the families rose and fell—and kept falling once the English came. My father used to say the bean sidhe sang all the sweeter the crueler a family’s fate had been, so the O’Sullivan bean sidhe sang the sweetest of them all.” He slanted a wry smile across the car to Meg. “You know the story of the Dursey massacre and the O’Sullivan march?”

“Only what I looked up once my mother talked me into coming.”

“Thanks to Mary Queen of Scots, people think more about Elizabeth I’s problems with Scotland, but it was Ireland and the Nine Years’ War that nearly bankrupted the English treasury. Many of the Gaelic chiefs came together to fight, and Donal Cam O’Sullivan Beare led a guerrilla war here in the south after the Irish defeat at Kinsale. But the Spanish who had fought with them there betrayed them and handed the local castles over to the English to save themselves. Donal Cam tunneled back into Dunboy and reclaimed it, and Elizabeth’s commander, Sir George Carew, sent in an army of five thousand men with orders to show no mercy. Every one of Donal’s men who wasn’t killed in the siege was executed after they’d surrendered. Their families—the elderly, women, and children—had all been sent here to Dursey for safety, but the English came here, too .”

“They ran the babies through with spears and paraded them around,” Adam said with the relish for the gruesome that was the particular province of teenage boys. “Tied the women and children back to back and threw them over the cliff. Then shot them while they fell.”

He observed Meg while he told the story, and she couldn’t help shivering as though he’d drawn the edge of a knife across her skin. The cruelty mankind could inflict on itself never changed, but every generation thought cruelty had been reinvented especially for them.

“The glory of war,” she said, her voice laced with bitterness. She wrapped the doughnut she’d barely touched back into her napkin and held it on her lap.

“At the time, it was how wars were won and empires were made,” Niall said, shifting gears.

“It still is. Shock and cruelty and displays of power.” Meg examined his profile, which had grown sharp and cold against the green pillow backdrop of the surrounding Beara hills. “But I thought the Dursey fortress was destroyed at the time of the massacre, so what are you hoping to find?”

Niall pulled off to the shoulder to allow a black Ford that had been tailgating to pass, then he eased back onto the road. “There’s no precise record of when the massacre took place. The English commander, Carew, and a nephew who served as his secretary, weren’t shy about recording their own atrocities—to the contrary, they were matter-of-fact about them—but the particulars here are lacking. Mostly it was Phillip O’Sullivan, the son of the Diarmuid O’Sullivan who’d built the Dursey fortress, who recorded stories from the handful of survivors. There are some historians who claim the massacre didn’t occur until a few months after the fortress was razed, in a second wave under Sir Charles Wilmot with a mixture of English and Irish troops.”

“Can you narrow an event timeline to months based on artifacts?” Meg asked.

“We might at least be able to tell whether it was mostly English soldiers or Irish who did the killing. That would help tell us which historical accounts are more correct.”