Conn woke early and quietly dressed in shorts and t-shirt. Carrying her Keds, she tiptoed down the stairs. She opened the kitchen door silently and sat on the porch steps to put her shoes on. She’d been trying to talk Will into playing Huck Finn to her Tom Sawyer, but it was hard to have adventures with someone who was afraid of the dark and scared of climbing too high. She and her brother had explored much of the land around Nana’s house. Most of it was overgrown pastureland, but there were large tracts of undisturbed woodland, and a few streams nearby. And streams had fish.
She ran to the barn, the cold dew on the grass tickling her bare ankles. She pushed against the door on the upper level and retrieved the pole she had hidden there, rigged with a long string and a safety pin for a hook. She remembered to grab the small coffee can she had stashed in the corner and stopped to dig up some worms. She made her way across a large, grassy pasture to one of the creeks they had discovered.
Following it upstream, she searched for a spot that looked fishy, and came upon a deeper pool nestled at the base of a small waterfall where the stream tumbled over some boulders. Reaching into her can, she pulled out a worm and, grimacing only a little, put the worm on the safety pin. Squatting on a rock above the pool, she dropped her line in and watched the worm sink out of sight.
She waited patiently, not sure what was supposed to happen. When she felt a tug on the line, she jerked the pole up so excitedly that the tiny fish on the safety pin flew in a wet arc over her head, landing on the grass behind her. She ran to scoop up her prize, admiring the blue and green and gold shimmers of the little fish’s scales. Quickly, she dumped the worms and dirt out of her coffee can and dipped it in the creek to fill it. Releasing the tiny fish into the water, she watched it swim round and round. Out of the corner of her eye, a movement caught her attention. She thought she saw a flash of blue denim and bare feet disappearing behind a boulder on the other side of the stream. She watched intently for a few seconds, but saw nothing else.
Carefully, she made her way home, trying not to slosh the water out of the can. Her mother was in the kitchen by the time she got home. She had a fire lit in the stove and was adding more wood.
“Where have you been?” Elizabeth asked, startled at Conn’s entrance into the kitchen. “I didn’t know you were up.”
“Look!” Conn exclaimed proudly, holding the can out.
Elizabeth peered into the can and jumped a little. “Where did that come from?” she asked.
“I caught it!” Conn crowed.
“What did you use for a pole?”
Conn explained how she’d made one, and suddenly realized she’d left it lying by the creek.
“Well, Jonah, set your whale out on the porch while you eat your breakfast, and then you can take it back and let it go,” Elizabeth smiled.
Conn did as her mother asked and came back inside to wash her hands at the new faucet Abraham had installed in place of the kitchen pump.
Will came into the kitchen, yawning and rubbing sleep from his eyes.
“I caught a fish!” Conn announced.
Will woke up properly at that and followed his sister out to the porch to see. They were soon lured back into the kitchen by the smell of bacon. Elizabeth, who was getting the hang of cooking on the ancient woodstove, fried up some eggs in the leftover bacon grease.
The children hurried through their breakfasts and Will ran upstairs to get dressed.
“Be careful, and be home by lunchtime,” Elizabeth called after them.
Conn let Will carry the can back to the creek where they released the fish back into the water. She looked around for her fishing pole. It wasn’t where she’d left it. Will helped her look through the grass and bushes near the creek.
“Lookin’ for somethin’?”
Conn and Will both jumped at the sound of the voice. Perched high on the rocks overhanging the stream was a boy. He had blond, untidy hair and patched denim overalls which he wore shirtless. In his hands was Conn’s fishing pole.
“That’s mine,” Conn said.
“Prove it,” the boy challenged.
Conn put her hands on her hips as she looked up at him. “It has a safety pin for a hook.”
The boy seemed to consider this for a moment, then tossed the pole down. “Who wants it, anyway? It ain’t even a real pole,” he said disparagingly.
“It was good enough to catch a fish,” Will declared. “Let’s see yours.”
The boy shifted positions so he was sitting with his feet dangling over the edge of the rock. “Don’t wanna fish today,” he said.
Conn laughed. “That means he doesn’t have a pole,” she said to Will.
“Do so,” he countered. “I’m catchin’ crawdads today.”
“Come on,” Conn said. “Just ignore him.” She led Will over to the small pile of dirt and worms she had dumped out of her can earlier. Picking a worm out, she speared it on the safety pin, trying not to make a face with the boy watching. She showed Will how to drop the worm into the pool, and they waited. When they saw a tug on the string, Conn and the boy yelled together, “Pull!”
Will jerked up on the pole much as Conn had done, with another gleaming sunfish flopping at the end of the line.
“Okay,” said Conn, “take it off the hook and let it go.”
But Will was afraid to touch the fish. Every time he tried to hold it, it flopped and scared him.
At last, Conn grasped the little fish and unhooked it.
“You’re pretty brave, for a girl,” said the boy grudgingly as Conn dropped the fish back into the pool.
“Gee, thanks,” said Conn sarcastically. “What’s your name anyway?”
“Jed Pancake,” the boy replied.
“Pancake?” Will laughed.
“Yeah, Pancake,” Jed said defiantly. “I know who you are. You’re the folks lives in the haunted house, where old lady Cook died.”
Will’s eyes got big. “It is not haunted,” he said, but he didn’t sound so sure.
“He’s just saying that,” Conn reassured him.
“Ain’t,” Jed insisted. “Everyone ‘round here knows it. There’s strange lights at night, in and outside the house. And folks’ve heard moanin’.”
“Well, we haven’t seen any lights or heard any moaning,” Conn informed him. “Here’s a new worm,” she said, handing the pole back to Will.
Will dropped his line back in the water.
“Why ain’t you in school?” Jed asked.
“Our school was almost done in New Mexico,” Conn told him. “Mom says we’ll start next year. Why aren’t you?”
Jed shrugged. “Don’t go ‘cept when I wanna.”
Conn turned to Will who had another fish. Without asking, Will swung the pole toward his sister. Embarrassed, Conn snuck a look over her shoulder to see if Jed was laughing at them, but to her relief he was gone.
“Huck would never ask Tom to unhook his fish for him,” she grumbled.
§§§
Orla and Caitríona trudged along behind the wagons, the sodden woolen blankets draped over their heads doing little to keep them dry, but at least keeping them warm. The wagons were loaded with trunks and crates carrying furniture, china and provisions. Besides the girls, there were two boys about Caitríona’s age who were to be stable hands, and a woman, Fiona O’Hearn, who would be cook. The wagons rattled along the rutted lanes leading them ever farther from home. The girls had quickly discovered that walking was easier than being tossed about, and the boys followed suit. The lead driver was a taciturn man who spoke only when barking orders. Fiona rode with the second driver, keeping a tight hold on the edge of her seat to keep from being bucked off. When they stopped for the night, the wagons offered some shelter from the rain, though the ground was soaking wet.
For three days, they traveled thus.
What had felt like a prison sentence to Caitríona after Lord Playfair’s visit now felt like a death sentence. Though she had heard the words of Brónach’s prophecy only once, they were burned into her memory forevermore.
“What is it, daughter?” Eilish had asked as Caitríona isolated herself from the rest of the family those last few days before departing.
Caitríona could only shake her head wordlessly and let her mother assume it was just her sadness at having to leave. She couldn’t express to her mother the hatred and loathing she felt – toward her father and toward herself. Her father was the cause of all this, but the curse indicated that she was somehow culpable as well.
Niall had only been home a few times since that afternoon. When he was home, he bellowed angrily at all of them, swaying drunkenly until he collapsed into his chair by the fire. Caitríona had watched him warily, and had seen him leering at Orla with a drunken lust that sickened her. She began to feel almost glad that she and Orla would be getting away from him.
“He’s only drinking because he feels bad,” said Orla.
Caitríona stared at her in disbelief. “He should feel bad,” she retorted. “I hate him!”
“You don’t mean that,” Eilish said sharply.
“I do mean it,” Caitríona replied emphatically. “I hate him. I will never forgive him and nothing you say will change that.”
The day the wagons came for them, Niall wasn’t there. Eilish, thinner than ever, held her girls to her, whispering to them in the Irish. Orla and Caitríona both clung to her tightly.
“I want you to take this,” Eilish said, pressing a small book into Orla’s hands. “It’s not a full Bible, only the Gospels and Psalms, but I want you to read from it every Sunday. I’ve no idea if there’ll be a church where you’re going.”
“But Mam,” Caitríona protested, “the nuns gave you this.”
“And I’m giving it to you,” Eilish insisted.
Perched on top of crates in one of the wagons, the girls watched their brothers and sisters huddled together in the doorway waving to them, but Eilish stood off to one side, one hand clutching her dress over her heart as if trying to hold the broken pieces together.
After three days of slow travel, the bedraggled group neared Cobh. The traffic on the road increased and the drivers insisted that everyone ride to avoid getting separated. Orla grabbed tightly to Caitríona’s arm as the wagon rattled noisily over the cobblestones toward Cobh’s wharves. None of the Irish bound for Lord Playfair’s plantation had ever been to such a large city. They were overwhelmed by the noise. There were shops and vendors, people shouting, children running and laughing. The streets were littered with piles of manure and puddles of urine, animal and human. As they got closer to the wharves, there were corrals holding horses, cattle, sheep and pigs as well as wire cages containing chickens and geese – all waiting to be loaded onto one ship or another. The drivers guided the wagons to the pier where was anchored the ship that would take them to America. The lead driver barked at them to get out, and remain next to the wagon until it was time to board ship. Clutching their small bags to their chests, the girls watched the wagons being unloaded, the heavy crates and trunks hoisted in huge nets onto the ship where they were carried below deck to the cargo hold. Nearby, the horses and livestock added their terrified cries to the general din of the docks as they were walked up a wide gangplank directly into a lower hold of the ship. A short while later, as the Irish were ordered to board, Caitríona paused on the gangplank to look back, hoping for one last glimpse of the hills and colors of her beloved home, but all she could see was the confusion and filth of Cobh.