Conn lay in the dark in her bedroom, staring at the patches of moonlight streaming in through the windows. Unable to concentrate on anything she tried to read that evening, she’d finally told her mother she was tired and had come up to bed early. Hours after her last vision, her heart was still beating rapidly with the fear and dismay Caitríona had felt during Batterston’s attack and its aftermath. She felt racked by a terrible guilt at the thought that she had killed him – “that wasn’t me”, she had to keep reminding herself. Caitríona’s emotions were becoming so enmeshed with her own, that she couldn’t easily separate them any longer.
She could hear the muffled sounds of her mother saying good night to Will, and then there was a soft knock on her bedroom door as Elizabeth opened it and came in.
“Are you awake?” she whispered.
“Yes,” Conn said, rolling to face her.
“Are you feeling all right?” Elizabeth asked, sitting down on the side of the bed.
Conn didn’t answer immediately.
“What happened at the river today?”
“I lost my balance and fell in,” Conn said evasively.
“That’s not what Mr. Greene said,” Elizabeth said.
“What do you mean?”
Elizabeth shifted on the bed, leaning sideways and bracing her arm on Conn’s other side. “He said before you fell in, you had a strange look on your face. Your eyes were kind of unfocused, and when he called to you, you didn’t answer. He said you didn’t stumble or anything, you just… fell.” She reached with her free hand and smoothed Conn’s forehead. “I’ve noticed similar things lately. There are times when you seem like you’re in some kind of trance or something.”
Conn looked up at her mother’s face, half-shadowed in the dim light.
“What’s going on, Connemara?”
Her mother almost never called her by her full name. Conn suddenly sat up, hugging her mother tightly, wanting to leave all this business of the prophecy behind, wanting to just be eleven. Elizabeth held her, waiting.
“Caitríona comes to me,” Conn whispered at last. “Sometimes, she really comes, but mostly, I have dreams about her, showing me things.”
Conn waited for her mother’s reaction. Elizabeth didn’t say anything, but Conn could hear her mother’s heartbeat quicken against her ear. She pulled away and looked up into her mother’s eyes.
“You’ve seen her, too, haven’t you?” she asked.
Elizabeth nodded. “A few times, when I was your age. But not since we came back here.”
“So, you believe me,” Conn asked hesitantly. “You don’t think I’m making this up?”
“I believe you,” Elizabeth said. “But what does she want?”
Conn bit her lip, trying to decide how much to tell. “There really is a curse on our family. It was told to Caitríona by an old woman who knew things, could foresee things, before she left Ireland. Her name was Brónach.”
Elizabeth looked hard at Conn for several seconds. “What does this curse say?”
Conn closed her eyes and intoned,
“Ill-fated shall your progeny be;
From each generation after thee
Only one girl child shall survive
To carry on and keep alive
The hope to right a grievous wrong,
Until the one comes along
Who may set the past to rights.
None may help her in her quest, or
Ease the burden laid by her ancestor
On shoulders much too young to bear such sorrow.
Not since barren fields stole all hope for tomorrow
Has such a one been needed,
When father sold daughter for land he was deeded,
And plunged his soul into endless night.
Hatred is poison, like blood on the fields,
Father to daughter, a blackened soul yields
Naught but mem’ries of what once was good.
A child, ne’er soiled by hate or greed could
Bring forgiveness and healing to those long gone.
With the dead laid to rest, the living move on,
Freed at last by a soul blessed with light.”
When Conn finished, there was a long, strained silence. She opened her eyes and looked up at her mother, waiting.
“Will almost died,” Elizabeth whispered.
Conn nodded solemnly. “No boy has lived. Only one girl from each generation.”
Elizabeth pressed a hand to her cheek. “But what happened? What was the ‘grievous wrong’?”
“I don’t know yet,” Conn said. “The dreams have been taking me through her life, like a story, but I don’t know how it ends.”
They sat, each lost in her own thoughts for long minutes.
“That’s how you knew Deirdre was Orla’s daughter?” Elizabeth asked. “And the stories you were telling Will about how they almost died on the boat here?”
Conn nodded. Elizabeth lapsed into silence again.
“Miss Molly sees her, too, sometimes. It was Caitríona who told her we were in danger the night of the fire,” Conn said, hoping this would mollify her mother, helping her to see this as maybe a good thing, too.
Elizabeth opened her mouth a couple of times before saying, “Can you call her?”
Conn’s eyes opened a little wider. “Do you want me to?”
Elizabeth nodded slowly, not truly sure she wanted to see what would appear.
Conn closed her eyes again, concentrating hard and said, “Caitríona Ní Faolain.”
For several seconds, nothing happened, but then there was a sudden chill that raised goosebumps on their arms. Nothing more happened for a while and Conn began to think nothing would, but slowly a mist gathered in the center of the room and Caitríona’s form took shape.
Elizabeth gasped, as if she still hadn’t truly believed it was real. “I remember you,” she breathed.
“Yes.”
“You came to me when I was a girl.”
“Yes,” Caitríona said again. “But you weren’t the one I was waiting for.” Her eyes shifted to Conn. “Connemara is the one.”
“But why?” Elizabeth demanded. “She’s only a girl.”
“She’s a girl and a woman both,” Caitríona said, her brogue undiminished by time. “She is innocent, but wise beyond her years. She can feel and understand things, things others would never understand.”
“You killed Batterston,” Conn said.
“Yes,” Caitríona answered at the same time Elizabeth exclaimed, “What?”
“He was trying to kill you,” Conn said.
Caitríona nodded.
“Was that the thing you need forgiveness for?”
Caitríona’s eyes filled with ghostly tears and ran like quicksilver down her cheeks as she shook her head. “It was my hatred…” she whispered.
“But… but you loved,” Conn said, hesitating to say more in front of her mother. “I know you did.”
“But my hatred was greater,” Caitríona said. “What I did… was unforgiveable.”
With a heartrending cry, she vanished, leaving behind her the bone-penetrating cold of her misery.
Elizabeth clasped her hands to her chest. She and Conn both jumped as the bedroom door was flung open.
“I heard noises,” Will said, rubbing his eyes as he stood there in his pajamas. “Why is it so cold in here?”