Never say a word, chava. Not so long as you breathe. You’ll have honey poured in your ear and whiskey in your mouth but this place, this secret, you carry to the grave . . .”
I was a boy, I think. I remember that feeling, that sensation of doing something that was part of a world I wasn’t a part of and that was so fecking exciting I might just piss myself. It was just me and Da. Full moon and the feel of silver between finger and thumb. That cold, glaring light of a moon made of the same stuff as the still, looming statues that stood to our left. There wasn’t a sound, except the scrape of Da’s big strong fingers scratching through the roots and the earth.
“Ye want to scare yerself, imagine your great-great-grandfather. He were here, chava. Here just like we are now. Same tree, same earth, same stones. Picture yer da, no older than you are now, shivering.”
There wasn’t much of a ceremony, but it felt like one. He found the pouch in moments. Dug it out of the ground and held it up like he’d unearthed a diamond. Wasn’t much bigger than a pebble and it didn’t shine. But it was gold.
“Yer great-great-grandfather took a coin from every member of the clan and he melted it down and buried it beneath this tree on the night of a full moon. Only the oldest sons in the Ayres line have known about this place, or the secret of our good fortune. There’ll be those who tell you it was dark magic but that’s bollocks. It was hard work and the knowledge of a good shuvani that meant we didn’t suffer like most. Now, kiss the rock, put it back, and don’t expect to see it again until you’re a father yerself.”
I did as I was told. Felt the thrill of it. Tasted the soil of my people. Felt the shower of loose earth as he ruffled my hair.
“You’re my boy, Brishen. You’re my blood, no matter what.”
Brishen Ayres. Fecking hell, I remember it. Jaysus, keep hold, man. Don’t let it go. You’re Brishen Ayres. You’re a traveler. Your father was Roddy, your Ma was Fionnula. You were a fighter. You got hurt. Feck, you did! Metal and bright lights and the hard road against your face. But you fought back. You kept swinging. Became someone. A teacher. And the boys came from fecking miles around and you made them into men. The big lad—he could be something. Someone. The little gobshite, too.
I see it now. Brishen Ayres. You made a bad call. Backed the wrong horse. You made a mistake and you had to put it right.
—
On the monitor that sits next to Brishen Ayres’s bed, the display registers a sudden spike. Above the crisp, clean sheets, two of his fingers begin to twitch.
The Penitent looks up from his Bible. He sits in the floral, hard-backed chair and drifts in and out of sleep as his concentration permits. He reads aloud when the mood takes him and wafts lazily through the rooms in his mind when he does not care to speak.
He wonders what Brishen can see, trapped in that place between life and death. Wonders whether he can see God’s face, and whether it is as glorious as the one that he carved from the baby boy as he lay in a dead girl’s arms and suckled upon a brown breast, inches from her unbeating heart.