Page 7 of The Sirens

6

MARY

Mary had not known thunder could be so loud.

There were storms back home in Ireland, of course. She could remember the night sky cracking open with lightning, a smell of seared things in the air. The trees would bend like dancers at Lughnasa, the wind raking its fingers over the thatched roof. A fug of sweat and breath would fill the cottage, along with the goat’s frightened whinny, and she and Eliza would cover their ears at each growl of thunder, until Da, teeth clenched in a smile, would place the fiddle in the crook of his neck and play. After a while, the sisters would slowly take their hands from their ears, joining their voices to Da’s music. Both sang sweetly, but it was Eliza’s voice – like her heart, Mary sometimes thought – that was purest. All through the village, she was known for it. The girl who sings but does not see , they called her.

Those storms had frightened Mary. But home in the cottage, with their song fighting the shrieking wind, they’d been dry and warm. And safe.

This was different.

They had been taken aboard the ship so quickly that Mary couldn’t even be sure of where they were. All she knew was that they were below deck, enveloped in a dark heat, as if they’d passed through an animal’s ribcage and come to rest in its guts.

There were at least four score women and girls, two to each coffin-sized berth. Their irons had been removed, but chains clanked against each bunk, ready to ensnare them again. The wood was hard against Mary’s spine, with not a slick of turf or straw to soften it. The air was thick with whimpers and prayers, the ripe tang of so many bodies packed tight.

Now, as the ship bucked on the waves, she gave thanks that she shared a berth with Eliza. It was so dark that she could see only the pale globes of her sister’s eyes.

They had been in the hold for two days now, perhaps three, and not once had Eliza asked Mary to tell her what she saw.

She must have known that darkness had closed around them, that Mary had entered a world that Eliza was all too familiar with.

She tried and failed to put the thought of Da out of her mind: his face at the trial when the judge uttered that first awful word – guilty – and then the second – transportation . The way he had crumpled into himself.

‘ Mo chailíní! ’ he’d shouted, arms reaching for them as if he could wrest them from this fate. ‘ My girls! ’

But they’d been lifted away, the prison guard’s arms tight around Mary’s ribs. She’d squeezed her eyes shut, not wanting to look upon her father’s face and know it was for the final time.

Mo chailíní!

Guilt surged inside her.

There hadn’t been time to say goodbye. To say that she was sorry.

They were not supposed to have been at the stream that night. It had been Samhain, when the veil between the human world and the spirits’ stretched to its thinnest point. Da didn’t like them to go out at night; he liked them snug and safe, he said, in the pallet bed separated from his own by a curtain of old cloth. Nor did he like them to go to the stream, other than to gather water during the day. Even then, they were to take care to balance the heavy wooden bucket so that not a drop spilled on their skin.

Once, when Mary was very young and the memory of Mam was still strong in her mind, she had put her hand in a pail of water, just to see what would happen; if it was as dangerous as Da said. The water seemed to dance on her skin, fizzing and bubbling with joy, just as she remembered from before. But later, when her flesh cracked and peeled, she cried with fear at what she had done. Da had taken her hand in his and brought it to her lips, made her promise not to do it again. All that was over, he said. They left it behind when they came to Armagh. He would not see his girls endangered again.

For Da believed that water threatened not just their skin but their souls. And on Samhain night especially so. They might find the midnight washerwomen, their long spindly hands rinsing the shrouds for those who’d die on the morrow. Or else be set upon by an each-uisce ; the shapeshifter who lurks at the water’s edge, disguised as a horse, ready to drown those who dare to mount it.

Da was from Ard na Caithne in Kerry, where they’d been born, and where the wild ocean ate the shore. He knew all the dangers of the sea, of tír fo thuinn, the land beneath the waves.

It was Eliza who had first disobeyed Da, some months before Samhain. She had taken Mary’s hand in the night and whispered of an adventure, refusing to say where she was leading them. Mary had slipped over rocks and tree roots, while Eliza, sure-footed in the dark, had danced easily ahead, humming to herself under her breath.

The girl who sings but does not see.

‘We shouldn’t be here,’ Mary said, when they reached the stream, a bright ribbon in the dark. ‘Da wouldn’t like it.’

‘Da worries too much,’ Eliza had said, stepping closer and closer to the edge, where water churned against the bank.

She had convinced Eliza to come home, only to wake the next night to the sound of the cottage door creaking softly open. She had known, then, that she would have to follow her sister to keep her safe. Gradually, a compromise was formed: they would sneak to the stream in the secret dark of evening, but they would never let the water touch their skin. Mary grew to treasure their nights together. Sitting on the grassy rocks by the stream’s soft burble, they talked as they never did at home in the cottage, with Da in earshot. They talked of the future, the things they’d do. Mary told Eliza how she planned to marry – how she longed to birth a child and hold it in her arms, and never let it go. At those times, Eliza said nothing. ‘What will you do?’ Mary had asked. ‘When you’re grown?’

‘Find Mam,’ Eliza had said.

The words had hurt so much that Mary turned her face away.

Now, she wondered whether Byrne had been there all those times – whether he’d followed them on other nights, whether he’d spent months learning their habits, listening to the secrets of their hearts. Had he been biding his time until Samhain, when Da would leave them to their own devices? When the festival, with all its raucousness, might provide a cloak for his misdeeds?

If only they’d stayed at the cottage that night. If only Mary had not said the things she’d said, to drive Eliza into the dark and its dangers.

I’m sorry , Mary wished she could say to Da now. I never meant for this to happen.

‘Tell me a story,’ Eliza whispered. Her voice had a dry sound, like summer grass. It had been hours since they had been given any rations, and those had been only foul-tasting biscuits, tarry in their mouths.

‘What story?’

‘The story of Mam,’ Eliza said. ‘Mam, when Da first saw her.’

Mary didn’t like this story, didn’t like to think of Mam. But still, it was something she could do for Eliza. It was too dark for her to describe the women surrounding them, to say who was marked with the pox and who had seen too many summers. Far better for her to tell Eliza how Da had fallen for Mam.

‘Da was at sea one morning, on his currach ,’ she began, striving to be heard above the roaring swell. ‘He was watching the waves, waiting for the silver herring to leap from the sea. But none came, and as the red light broke over the water, he turned back to land, his heart heavy as his belly was empty.

‘But then he heard something – a note purer than birdsong, softer than morning dew. He turned. It was then that he saw the woman: she sat on a rock near the shore, singing just for him. Like she’d been waiting. The rising sun set her hair alight, her skin glittered with wet. Her eyes were round and dark as a seal’s; her hands soft and warm as summer air—’

But the words caught in Mary’s throat like thorns.

All she could think about was Da, and how she and Eliza had abandoned him, just like Mam had done. Now he had no one.

How Mary wished she could pull the past back to her as if it were string, could undo the knot of it.

‘Rest your voice,’ Eliza said now, her words soft and soothing, as if she were the first-born twin. ‘Try to sleep.’

Mary closed her eyes against the blackness, feeling her sister’s warm body pressed against hers. She tried to pretend that she was home in the village, on her pallet that smelled sweetly of straw, the air full of the goat’s nickering and Da’s soft snores. But the sea was too loud, crashing against the ship like hands that would tear her apart. The thunder roared and the women screamed. Mary squeezed her eyes tighter still, focusing hard on the picture of home in her mind, as if she might travel there in her dreams.