Page 219 of The Missing Sister

‘Ally, you’ve been here quite often in the past year. When did you last look at the armillary sphere?’

‘Um... I don’t know. I do sometimes take Bear to sit in Pa’s garden, so maybe a couple of days ago?’

‘I mean, looked at it really closely?’

‘I don’t understand what you’re saying. Of course I’ve looked at it, but—’

‘You have to come with me. Now.’

‘Why?’ asked Ally.

‘Just come!’

Back downstairs, Maia collected a notepad and pen from beside the phone in the kitchen and the two of them ran towards Pa’s garden.

‘I hope this is worth only having two or three hours’ sleep for,’ Ally complained as Maia led her towards the armillary sphere.

‘Look, Ally, look at Merope’s band.’

Ally bent down to see what Maia was pointing at.

‘Oh my God!’ she said as she stood upright and gazed at her sister in shock. ‘Someone’s added a set of coordinates to it. But when?’

‘I don’t know, but more importantly, Ally, where in the world do they point to?’

‘Pass me that pad and I’ll write them down. My laptop’s on the kitchen table. Let’s go and see where they lead, shall we?’

Back in the kitchen, while Ally fired up the laptop, Maia paced up and down. ‘Ma must know when that inscription was put there, Ally.’

‘Surely if she did, she would have told us.’

‘She must know far more than she’s telling.’

‘If she does, she’s a very good actress. Ma’s the most honest and straightforward person I know, so I’d be surprised if she is keeping anything back from us girls. She’d want to help us in any way she could. Okay, so... here we go.’

Maia stood behind her sister and watched as Google Earth did its miraculous thing.

‘Oh, wow, how interesting, it’s not gone to New Zealand, it’s closing in on Europe, on the UK and... Ireland!’ Maia gasped.

‘And down in the south-west too, where the McDougals are now. It’s closing in on what looks like a lot of farmland oh! There we go. There’s the house.’ Ally picked up her pen. ‘Argideen House, Inchybridge, West Cork,’ she read. ‘So.’ Ally looked up at Maia. ‘It looks like our missing sister is Irish and not a Kiwi, which means...’

‘It’s Merry. It’s Mary-Kate’s mother! She’s our missing sister.’

That evening, Niall drove us up to Cross Farm in his taxi so we could all have a drink. As the taxi turned up the lane towards the farmhouse, I could see that the drive was already full of cars and a hubbub of laughter and conversation rang out through the valley from the open windows. As Jack, Mary-Kate and I stepped out of the car, John and Sinéad came out to greet us.

‘So now, I’ll be back to pick you up later,’ Niall said to us with a wink before driving off. As we entered the kitchen, the crowd in the room turned to look at us.

‘Merry!’ came a voice, and a plump woman with steel-grey hair emerged from the crowd. ‘Oh Merry, ’tis me, Ellen!’

‘Hello,’ I gulped as she engulfed me in her arms and hugged me tightly.

She pulled back to look at me. ‘You haven’t changed a bit and I’ve missed the sight of you,’ she said with tears in her eyes. ‘Do you still giggle like a mad thing?’

‘Yeah, she does,’ Jack put in, and so followed a chaotic round of introductions as Ellen and John guided us round the party. I was speechless to see my baby brothers Bill and Patrick grown into tall, burly men, like my father had once been, their dark hair now greying. Katie waved at me from where she was putting the finishing touches to a table groaning with food; the sights and smells of home-cooked cakes and bottles of stout, sparkling wine and whiskey laid out in a corner of the kitchen sent me falling back in time to my sixth birthday party.

‘... And this is little Maeve, my first granddaughter,’ said a red-headed woman called Maggie, holding a toddler in her arms. ‘I’m Ellen’s eldest daughter.’

Maeve reached out to grab a strand of my hair, and I giggled at the sweet child with green eyes so like my mother’s.