Tentatively, I placed a trembling hand on the bundle, on what I thought in the gloom might be Sammy’s shoulder, and I gently shook it. As I did so, the sun finally rose above the horizon and filled the ruined cottage with a golden light. A ray of sunshine now shone across the boy’s face, and I saw with immense relief that he was breathing, he had colour in his cheeks and he was merely sleeping.
‘Sammy? Come on now, wake up. I need to take you back to your mummy.’ I spoke gently, quietly, to wake him but not frighten him. I was worried too about the state of the broken wall he lay beneath. It was listing badly inwards and I knew that outside the stream was undercutting it severely.
‘Mmm?’ he said, lifting his head and looking at me with sleepy eyes. How he could have slept, in the cold and wet, lying on a pile of rubble I had no idea. But he obviously had slept, and deeply.
‘Come on, sweetie,’ I said. ‘We need to get you out of here. Are you hurt?’
‘Nnh-hn.’ He shook his head, and gazed at me with confusion in his eyes. I wondered if he recognised me at all.
‘Let’s get out of this cottage, hey? The sun’s just coming up over the hill. Want to see?’
He nodded, and lifted his arms to me. I found myself gathering him up instinctively, my hands under his arms to lift him. He wrapped his legs around my waist and his arms around my neck. He was heavy, but perfectly manageable like this, and I carried him outside, breathing a sigh of relief when we were out of the danger of that cracked and leaning wall.
The next door cottage was the one with a low, broken wall – the one where I’d seen Declan sit and where I too had sat yesterday, as I’d pondered Jackie’s email. I placed Sammy down upon it. Despite his night out he didn’t seem cold, or upset in any way. He was warmly dressed in joggers, a fleece and a waterproof coat and I supposed the remains of the cottage had offered him some shelter.
‘I need to make a phone call now, Sammy, and let your mummy and daddy know I’ve found you, OK?’
He nodded, and I pulled out my phone. I didn’t have Sharon or Dave’s number so I called Aoife at the pub. She had the list of contact numbers that Paulie had compiled yesterday.
‘I’ve found him,’ I said, as soon as she picked up. ‘Little Sammy. He’s all right. I’m up at the abandoned village with him. We’ll start walking down, but can you contact his parents and maybe Dave can come up and meet us.’
‘Oh praise the Lord, that is fantastic news, so it is! The Gardaí have just arrived to start organising the search party. I’ll tell them now.’
I listened as she announced the news, and heard whoops and cheers. Obviously the whole town had gathered at the pub already to start the search.
‘They said to stay where you are – they’ll pick up Dave and Sharon and come up to you. Oh, Maria, well done for finding him!’
I hung up, and went to sit on the wall beside Sammy. I wished I’d brought some water and something for him to eat.
‘Your mummy and daddy will be here soon. They will be so pleased to see you again. What happened?’
He shrugged. ‘We were walking in the fog, and Nathan said it was cloud come down to earth, and I said it wasn’t, and he ran ahead to ask Daddy if it was cloud or wasn’t, and I sat down to wait, but he didn’t come back and then I couldn’t see anyone.’
‘Must have been very frightening?’
He shrugged again. ‘Nope. Was all right. I walked and walked through the heather and it was very scratchy and I fell over twice but I didn’t cry and then I found the little house and it wasn’t so rainy in there.’
‘Good idea to take shelter. Were you cold in the night?’
‘No. The lady put her arms round me to keep me warm.’
‘What lady?’ I noticed he was fiddling with something he’d pulled out of his pocket.
‘The lady what give me this.’ He held up the item in front of my face.
‘Can I see?’ He nodded and I took it from him. A blackened piece of twisted metal, a couple of inches across. I turned it over and realised it was a brooch, its pin broken off. It was in the shape of a Celtic knot. ‘Where did you get this?’
‘The lady give it to me,’ he said, again. ‘The lady what cuddled me in the night. I don’t want it, so you can keep it.’
‘Thank you.’ I felt a shiver as a scene from last night’s dream came to me – the red-haired woman telling me she would not let another child die, tending to the sick girl, holding the child-me in her arms. And that brooch – where had I seen something like that before? So many questions, so much to think about, but now was not the time.
‘Do you want a cuddle now?’ I asked him.
He regarded me silently for a moment, then nodded. I held my arms open and he climbed onto my lap, snuggling his head against my chest. His thumb sneaked into his mouth. I realised I had never held a child like this before. I’d held a couple of my friends’ babies, but never an older child. I couldn’t remember Jackie ever cuddling me like this. And yet it felt so right, just as in my dream being held by the red-haired woman had felt: a connection. His warm little body gaining comfort from mine as we waited for his parents to arrive. I realised he was not the only one being comforted. I could feel his little heart beating against my chest, and his free hand was absently stroking my fleece jumper. I bent my head until my chin rested on his hair and I could breathe in his scent – earthy from his night outside. So this is what motherhood might feel like. It wasn’t at all bad.
I realised then that while I was descended from Jackie I had the choice not to be like her, but to be like my more distant ancestor Kitty – the kind of mother who would do anything for her child. And that was what I would be.
Jackie had experienced such loss. I felt a pang of pity for her. I had the choice too, to try to forge a new relationship between us. An adult one, of forgiveness and understanding, and perhaps in time, friendship and love.
Sammy and I sat there in silence, cuddling, each thinking our own thoughts. I had the brooch in my hand still, and I turned it over and over, pondering. Presumably he had found it in the ruins of the cottage. Where had I seen it before? I was tired, from the early start and lack of sleep, not to mention lack of breakfast, and my brain was not thinking straight. It was just an old brooch, lost long ago. Sammy’s talk of the kind lady who’d kept him warm – well, he’d been dreaming, of course. Or hallucinating. Who knew.
The sun was well above the horizon now. The sky was blue and clear, in total contrast to yesterday. We were beginning to feel some warmth from the sun, and Sammy shuffled in my arms as if he was too hot. So was I, but I did not want to let go of him to take off my fleece.
Something changed about the way Sammy was snuggled into me, and when I shifted a little I realised he was asleep. There was something very special about knowing this little person trusted me enough to fall asleep in my arms. I felt honoured. I raised my face to the rising sun, took in the view that I would never tire of, across the purple moors to the sliver of distant ocean, and felt myself to be blessed. I had a sudden, strange feeling that someone was standing behind me, her hand on my shoulder, smiling down at the sleeping child in my arms. Someone who cared for me. Kitty? Or Jackie?
‘Sammy! Maria!’ The shouts woke Sammy and roused me from my musings. I looked around and saw Sharon and Dave running ahead of the police towards me.
‘Mummy and Daddy are here,’ I whispered in his ear, and the spell was broken. He clambered off me and ran towards his parents. I watched as he stumbled across the rough track towards them. Sharon scooped him up and buried her face in his neck, and Dave wrapped his arms around the two of them. The two Gardaí who’d accompanied them stood grinning awkwardly at the reunion. I stood up, feeling a bit stiff as Sammy’s weight had sent my left leg to sleep, and hobbled over to them.
‘Good work, miss. We’ll need a full statement when we get back to town. We’ve a car waiting at the bottom of the track. Where did you find him?’
I pointed at the remains of the cottage in which Sammy had been curled up. One of the policemen frowned and went over for a closer look. ‘That wall looks dangerous, so it does. Could fall at any moment, the way the stream has undercut it. We’ll need to get it made safe before some tourist gets hurt.’ He came back over to join the other Guard and me. ‘Praise the Lord that the wall didn’t fall on that young man while he sheltered there last night.’
I shivered. Yes, it could all have been an awful lot worse.
‘Well, thank you, miss, and we’ll catch up with you back in town. You’re staying at O’Sullivan’s, I think?’
‘I am.’
‘Fine pint of Guinness they do there. Grand place to take your statement, it’ll be.’
I smiled, and began the walk back down the hill. I didn’t get far before Sharon caught up with me. Sammy was now in his father’s arms.
She flung her arms around me and squeezed me tight. ‘Maria, I can’t thank you enough. How did you find him?’
‘I don’t know. I woke early this morning, before it was light, and just had a feeling it’d be worth coming up to check the village.’ I didn’t think it worth mentioning my strange dream. She’d think I was going mad. In my pocket, I closed my fingers around the ancient brooch Sammy had found. There was definitely something familiar about it.
At the bottom of the track, we climbed into the two police cars that were waiting there, for the short journey back to Ballymor. O’Sullivan’s once again seemed to be the centre of operations and I wondered if the Gardaí even had a police station in the town at all. There was quite a crowd awaiting us – all people who’d come to join the search party this morning. They cheered as we walked in. Aoife was doing a roaring trade in teas and coffees. As soon as Sharon, Dave, Sammy and I entered, she waved us to a table near the window and brought out full Irish breakfasts for each of us. Nathan and Kaz were already there; Kaz hugged her little brother tightly and Nathan ruffled his hair, grinning. I was pleased to see Sammy tuck in to his breakfast and wolf down his sausages, fried potato, bacon and egg, liberally covered with tomato ketchup. He needed that after his night out in the wild. He pushed his black pudding off onto his father’s plate. Too spicy for a little one, I guessed.
I found it hard to eat as people kept coming and slapping me on the back, congratulating me for finding the child. I hadn’t done much, I told them. The search party would undoubtedly have gone to the abandoned village today and found him. But I admit I enjoyed the attention.
When Sammy had finished eating, Dave began asking him questions – how had he found the cottage; had he been scared in the night; had he been cold. The little boy was tired and overwhelmed but answered as best he could.
‘The lady kept me warm,’ he said. ‘And I wasn’t scared when she was there.’
Dave smiled at me. ‘Once again, thank you so much,’ he said.
I was about to say something, to get Sammy to explain about the other lady he’d mentioned, when I heard my name shouted from across the busy bar.
‘Maria, the hero of the hour!’ Declan arrived, leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. ‘Well done, you.’
I blushed, and put down my cutlery. I’d more or less finished the breakfast and Declan was someone I needed to talk to. ‘Do you have a minute?’
‘Sure,’ he said, and led the way to a snug at the back of the pub, which was a little quieter than the main bar.
He sat down on a stool, I sat opposite, and blurted out: ‘Do you believe in ghosts, Declan?’
His eyes widened and he leaned away from me a little. ‘Well, sure I believe in the Holy Ghost, of course, but I’m after guessing that’s not what you’re referring to?’
I told him then of my dream, and how I had the distinct impression Kitty had come to me to tell me where to look for the child.
‘And Sammy says that he was kept warm by a lady who cuddled him all night. He said she gave him this.’ I reached into my pocket and pulled out the Celtic knot brooch. Suddenly I remembered where I had seen it before. ‘Declan, some of the Kitty portraits show her wearing a brooch just like this to pin her shawl in place.’
‘Maria, it’s a lovely thing to believe that our ancestors are able to speak to us in our dreams and help us out, but . . .’
‘I know. You’re going to say it can’t be true. That Sammy must have found the brooch, and hallucinated or dreamed the lady cuddling him. And that I dreamed of Kitty only because I’ve been obsessing about her recently. We’ve no way of knowing if the cottage he was in was even hers.’
‘Someone was certainly watching over Sammy during the night,’ Declan said, quietly. ‘I prefer to believe that it was our Father in heaven. But there is a lot we don’t know about what happens to our souls after death. Whatever it was that made you have your dream and decide to check out the ruined village, we should give thanks for. Sometimes we must accept there is no earthly explanation.’ He smiled.
I smiled too, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to accept what he so obviously believed – that God had led me to the village and had protected Sammy. I wasn’t sure either that I wanted to believe in Kitty’s ghost. I’d always prided myself on being rational, scientific, down-to-earth. But my dream had definitely led me to Sammy; more than that, it had helped show me what a mother’s love felt like. And cuddling Sammy had taught me I was capable of giving that love, too. I glanced down again at the brooch I still held in my hand, and gave it a rub with a tissue. It looked like it could be made of copper. Could it really be the same one Michael McCarthy had painted on all those portraits of Kitty?