4
Mike stood in the washroom the next morning dripping from the ice cold water he’d just splashed on his face. He didn’t need a mirror to tell him he looked rough.
Sarah had held all the questions he knew she was brimming with until he’d had a night’s sleep. When he awoke this morning, she was already gone. Off tending to Siobhan most likely. He grabbed a towel and gingerly rubbed his face, mindful of the bandage.
He knew her first thought when she heard about the airliner was of John. He’d fretted about that very thing on the walk back to the convent. But in the end, it was what it was. The lad was either safe in the UK. Or he wasn’t.
Deep in his thoughts, he didn’t notice that Sarah had walked up and was standing at the washroom door with the baby in her arms. Looking at her, he could see she’d lost all her pregnancy weight. Her jeans even looked a little loose. He dropped the towel in the stone basin in front of him.
“We’ll get him back,” he said. “I swear we will.”
She moved to him and he took Siobhan from her. The child’s beauty always amazed him. Where she got that translucent pink skin and the wide blue eyes was beyond him. He kissed her, prompting a giggle.
“Your Da’s scratchy this morning, eh, Siobhan?” he said with a laugh. When he looked at Sarah, his smile fell away.
“How?” she said, her arms crossed. “How will we get him back? Are we going to the UK? Or are we going to wait for him to come back here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Because it’s just something people say, isn’t it? ‘We’ll get him back.’ Only you don’t have a plan of how to do that. What if we leave and he’s heading back here? You know John.”
Mike sighed. “Aye, I do. The lad will come here. That’s certain.”
“So we won’t get him back, is what you’re saying. We’ll stay and wait and hope he shows up.”
“Sarah…”
“Do you think he made it there safely?”
“The plane came down hours after he should have landed in Oxford.”
She chewed her lip and he knew he hadn’t told her anything she hadn’t already told herself.
“Have you had breakfast yet?” he asked, shifting Siobhan to his other arm and reaching for his shirt. It was cold. Either winter was going to be particularly brutal this year or just long as hell.
“Siobhan ate,” Sarah said.
They moved into the sunshine and Mike blinked at the glare.
“How’s your head?” she asked.
“Fine. I asked Declan to gather everyone.”
“Fiona told me. What are you going to say?”
“Just that we suspect there was another EMP.”
“How does that affect them?” Sarah said as they walked to the main house. “We’ve been essentially living without electricity for the last four and a half years. It’s not like their lives will change.”
“This second EMP, if that’s what it was, changes everything,” Mike said, pausing on the doorstep to the convent. He handed the child back to Sarah while he buttoned his shirt. “It evens the playing field. Whatever edge the Garda or Dublin or even the UK had is gone now. There are no lights anywhere now. No vehicles and no communications. We’ve all gone back to square one.”
“What do you think people will do?”
“No telling. But if the Dubliners leave the city—which is likely—to look for food or to take what they need—we need to be ready.”
“Is that necessary? They can’t find us here.”
“We need a place we can defend. A fortress.”
“Not this castle idea of yours again.” Sarah rolled her eyes.
“Aye, that’s it exactly. A castle. With the ocean behind us and high on a bluff where we can see what’s coming. Nobody will be able to scale the walls or burn us out.”
“Ever hear of a siege?”
“Not when there’s grazing and crops and a water source inside the castle.”
Sarah looked uncertainly around her. He knew she felt safe here. The blackbirds sang and flew over the little garden plot that had comfortably fed the entire convent—nearly seventy people—all summer long.
“Likely Dublin and the other main cities will react at first by looting themselves,” Mike said, “but they’ll soon get hungry enough to come into the countryside.”
Her face was screwed into a mask of confusion. “Who are you talking about?”
“The opportunists, the provisional government, the army. And it’s people like us they’ll look to take from. We’ll need to move quickly.”
Sarah put a hand on Mike’s arm as if to prevent him from entering the front door. Siobhan began to fuss in her arms and he took the baby from her.
“You just got through telling me the only way to find John again is to wait for him to come back here.”
“Listen, Sarah…”
“No.” Her face was flushed. “He’s coming back here. You know he is. If…if he can.”
“Sarah, lass, listen to me…”
“No! I’m not leaving without him. You can do what you want.” She pulled Siobhan out of his arms, causing the child to give a startled shriek, and stomped into the convent.
The dining room was the biggest room in the nunnery. Since Sarah and Mike and the people of the compound had come, everyone took their meals together in this room.
Fiona thought she would never get tired of seeing their whole community around the table like one big happy family. Her two little girls sat to her left on a long wooden bench. They were inseparable and Fiona was glad for that. Both of them had seen some terrible things in their young lives. It was good that they had each other.
Declan sat on her right. Solemn, silent and still. Nothing like the man she’d once known and loved. The man who had led his gypsy family with humor and bravery. Now his hands shook and there were times when he looked at her with uncertainty.
Breakfast had been over for an hour but the air buzzed with anticipation. She hoped Mike wasn’t planning on breaking the news to everyone about the EMP as some sort of surprise since she was pretty sure everyone already knew.
When Sarah came into the room—a squirming, fighting Siobhan in her arms—her face was dark with frustration. A few steps later, Mike entered to cheers and applause from the gathered men and women. He went to the head of the table and held out his arms for quiet. Fiona noticed he did not look in Sarah’s direction. Sophia—so big she looked like she’d deliver any moment—lumbered over to Sarah to relieve her of Siobhan. The child settled down quickly.
Fiona knew that everyone here had cause to trust and respect her brother. From the men he’d rescued from the work camp in Dublin last spring to the women he’d brought home safely from the rape camp—herself included. She felt a movement on her right and placed a calming hand on Declan’s knee. He’d even found her dear Declan and brought him back from the grave. Almost literally.
“Well, sure you’ll have all heard the big news by now,” Mike said in a loud voice. Instantly, the talking ceased and all eyes regarded him.
“Is it true then?” Terry Donaghue called out. A thin, wiry man, it had taken Terry many months to regain his strength. He sat with his wife, Jill, and their two sons, Tommy and Darby.
“We won’t know for sure until the evening news,” Mike said to general laughter. “But I think it’s a fair guess.”
“Did you leave the Jeep in the woods?” Tommy asked.
“Aye and I’ll be asking you and Gavin to return to it and strip it of anything that might be of use to us,” Mike said.
“What does it mean for us?” Liddy O’Malley asked. In her late thirties, Liddy was impregnated by rape last winter and delivered a beautiful baby girl in mid summer. Because her husband Davey refused to accept the child, Mike had asked him to leave the community.
“Good question, Liddy,” Mike said. “I’d say it means good news and bad news for us.”
“What’s the good news?” Tommy called out to more laughter.
Mike grinned. “It means we’re all working from the same playbook now, to use a phrase from our American allies.”
“Some allies!” Regan called out. “They never did shite for us when the first EMP went off.” She turned to look at Sarah. “No offense, Sarah.”
Fiona couldn’t see Sarah’s face. Regan was a handful—and mostly trouble—but she was also brave and had withstood more than most so the group was inclined to be forgiving.
“In any case,” Mike said, giving Regan an annoyed look, “the good news is we’re all in the same boat now.”.
“And the bad news?” Terry’s wife Jill raised her hand as she spoke.
“We need to leave.” Mike said. He gave a slight bow to Mother Angelina who sat closest to him at the table.
“Sure all of the Sisters are welcome to come with us, so they are. And we’ll never be able to thank them enough for the sanctuary they gave us. I hope to return the favor some day.”
Mother Angelina smiled. Mike glanced over to where Mac stood by the door and nodded to him, the invitation offered. Mac’s shoulders relaxed and he nodded back.
“And go where?” Nuala O’Connell asked. She was sitting with her two young boys and her newborn daughter in her lap. Nuala knew full well where Mike wanted them all to go. Fiona wondered if Mike had asked Nuala to ask the question.
“To Disney World!” a young boy shouted. The group laughed and Terry tousled his son’s hair with a grin.
“That’s the shot, lad,” Mike said with a laugh. “Sure we’re going to Cinderella’s Castle, so we are…where we’ll be safe and where no one can ever take what’s ours ever again.”
The group applauded along with a few whistles that Fiona thought came from Gavin and Tommy.
“It’s ten days walk from here,” Mike said, rubbing his hands together as he clearly warmed to his subject. Fiona wouldn’t be surprised if he’d totally forgotten Sarah was glowering in the audience.
“Maybe a little more. Northwest and on the coast. It’s called Henredon Castle and before the Crisis it was used as a tourist attraction back in the day but it was in good shape. A classic example of a Norman fortress. Built in 1175.”
“How do you know there’s nobody living in it?” someone asked.
“I don’t, do I?”
Heads turned and Fiona knew it was Sarah. The tension crackled in the air between her and Mike.
“Ten days is a long way to walk with screaming babies and women who’ve just delivered,” Sarah said, her voice cold but firm. “Not to mention lugging all our worldly belongings behind us. And what exactly do you suggest we do if we get there and the place is already inhabited? Have you thought about that?”
“We do what everyone has done throughout history,” Mike said with a shrug, turning to face his audience. “We take it.”