The sun had already set on May Eve as I walked down the lane. The night was damp, carrying a breeze from the sea, and I tugged my shawl tight around my shoulders. I was in a hurry to reach the Duffy house, where the fiddlers and pipers and singers and storytellers gathered in the sweetness of peat smoke. I had waited as long as I could for Tom Riordan, near the foggy crossroads where he might come through. He'd said he'd see me at the ceili tonight. But I couldn't wait any longer. Kitty had gone ahead without me an hour ago.
The Beltane fire sent up arrows of sparks on the hilltop above Duffy's cottage. Maybe tonight Tom would take my hand and leap with me over the flames, a sign that he truly loved me. Or maybe he wouldn't show up at all. I ran my fingers through my black hair to untangle the curls and pushed the door open into the music.
The room was filled to bursting with people along the walls and the musicians on low stools in front of the hearth. Pat Maloney's fiddle began the notes of a hornpipe, and three lads stepped into the center of the room. Their heavy bare feet thumped on the dirt floor, steps intricate, legs pumping energy.
I watched for a moment and then squeezed myself into a space along the far wall, next to Kitty Dooley. Her brother Michael was the star of the dancers, a great lad with a bright face. I was surprised to see him, since he and Tom were each other's shadows.
"Where's Tom, then, Margaret?" Kitty asked.
"Fighting to free all Ireland. Again and still."
"On Beltane Eve? Does he ever give it a rest?"
Kitty's hair was stuck all over with white flowers, wilting blossoms woven into the coppery strands. A faery queen, waiting for a human lover to fall under her bewitching spell.
"So tonight you're going to jump over the fire and go off into the woods with some fellow?" I whispered to Kitty.
"My brother says he'll murder me if I do. He says Father Martin is out there carrying his great cross, ready to swing at you before you can reach the trees."
"But you're supposed to do it, to fertilize the fields," I told her. "Granny said the lads and girls were always falling into the ditches together the whole month of May."
"Your granny? I never thought-"
I couldn't imagine it either. Was Granny ever sixteen, waiting for the right lad to look at her twice?
"She meant the ancient ones. The ones who were here before the British came. Back when things were right," I explained.
"I don't see how it could be right to go out in the ditches and fornicate."
Kitty's brown eyes were open in disbelief.
"Politically, I mean. As Tom says, before the people of Ireland were oppressed by the foreign invader."
I could recite the words by heart.
"And our Tom wouldn't turn down the chance at a ditch, would he?" Kitty pinched me at the side of my waist, my most ticklish spot. She'd been doing that all my life.
"How should I know? He wouldn't find me in it, or you either."
"You're in a black mood of a sudden, aren't you?"
Kitty knew me all too well. Free Ireland was the beauty Tom Riordan longed for. The first time a ceili had been held in weeks and Tom hadn't even shown up. The place was full of men old and young, but not the one who mattered most.
"Maybe I'll jump over the bonfire myself and see what's on the other side," said Kitty.
"It's only for couples." It was just like Kitty to ignore the basic rules, pagan or not.
"Then come with me. Just to see. Not to jump."
Kitty cast a glance toward her brother Michael, who was still in thrall to the fiddle.
Once we were outside, the bonfire, now barely alive at the top of a rise above the vegetable patch, seemed hardly worth the trouble. Kitty's flowers glimmered as she moved up the slope. I took my usual place, ever following Kitty, trying to see ahead for the both of us.
The gunshot took us by surprise. A booming roar from the woods that drove us both to ground, and a tearing clattering noise as a man on a huge beast crashed through the brush. I pulled Kitty toward me, away from the hoofs thundering too near our heads.
A man lodged his shotgun against his saddle and swung down off the horse. He stumbled as his boots met the dirt, swayed and cursed. As he lurched toward the fire, I saw that it was Mr. Speke, the English landlord's agent who collects the rents and oversees the property. The worse for drink, he muttered and fiddled with the front of his trousers. Then, disgusting creature, he stood up and aimed a stream of piss at the smoldering fire.
"Bloody pagan papists, all of you. Can't stop your pagan whoring all over the land-see what good it will do you when you've nowhere to go but to hell!"
His English voice was ugly. He belched.
Sweet Jesus, let him not see us here three feet away.
"Damn poachers. Shoot the bastards, I will. Got one tonight, God blast his hide."
Speke's stream ran dry. He kicked some clods of dirt toward the fire and cursed all the Irish again.
Got one tonight. The gunshot. Somebody was out there bleeding in the dark. Please God, don't let him die. It could be Tom.
The dust made its way around the fire. Kitty coughed.
Speke swung toward the sound, ever alert for a man with a gun. These were troubled times in Ireland. I saw him blink both eyes and focus on Kitty, a woman lying on the ground. A May gift, female, open to him at the pagan fire. A vision, a faery queen.
"Run, Kitty! Go!" My shove propelled Kitty down the hill, into the cabbage sprouts, and kept her going toward the light.
A vision of white flowers dancing in the dark. Edward Speke stared after it with slack mouth and stiffening cock. Then he spit a great gob on the fire and hauled himself up on his horse. The faeries were out doing mischief tonight. Best to leave it at one dead Paddy and go home.
I was already pounding up the hill to the woods. A man lay bleeding his life away. Not Tom, never Tom. Please never Tom.
The single blast from Speke's gun had seemed so close, but it was far into the dark trees before I heard a moan. Pale moonlight picked out the black blood that oozed from the man lying curled on the cold earth.
Down on my knees beside him. His hair was dark, not fair like Tom's, and I felt ashamed at my relief. I leaned closer and saw the white thin face of young Conor Maloney, eyes squeezed tight. Oh dear sweet Mother, that lovely boy. Not more than thirteen but tall, a man for someone looking to shoot. The son of the fiddler.
I peeled back the shreds of cloth on his upper arm. He had been hit just below the shoulder. Bone gleamed ghostly in the dim light filtering through the trees.
Staunch the bleeding first, I heard my granny say. Pressure, pressure, keep the blood in where it's needed.
The hem of my red flannel skirt tore easily. I folded the bandage onto the wound and pressed down hard, though it made the boy cry out in pain.
"Hush, Conor, my man, be a brave one. We're going to get you home soon enough."
Maybe not soon enough. The boy's eyes rolled back in their sockets. I kept my hands on the bandage, until they ached with the pressing, until the cloth was soaked through, scarlet seeming black.
However will I get him down to his father? How can he walk? I'm not a good enough healer to save his life by myself. I'll have to be singing a keen for him instead. The bones of the arm beneath my hands were shifting fragments, blown to pieces by the blast of Speke's rage.
I sent all my thoughts of healing into that mangled wound, begging the blood to thicken and clot, begging the body to defend itself. Speke's hoofbeats had long died away. I heard men's voices coming through the trees, calling my name.
"Here! Over here! We're here!"
"Christ Jesus," said Tom Riordan, standing over me. His blond hair shone in the moonlight, his face angled in shadows.
I looked up at him without moving my fingers from the bloody cloth.
"Conor's bad. Speke shot him for poaching. His arm is smashed."
"We've got to move him." Tom turned to the lads with him.
"Hugh-can you get your both arms under his right shoulder? Cradle the arm, there. And Michael, the other one? I'll take his feet. Poor lad doesn't weigh six stone."
On the count of three, they lifted the boy in their arms. I crowded in next to Hugh Sweeney, keeping the pressure firmly on the wound. In the dim light Conor's face was white. He was only a boy, like my brother Jimmy, who was home safe and sound, thank God. Hungry, but safe.
The people in the cottage broke into murmured prayers and angry curses when we brought the boy in. Kitty put her hands to her mouth.
Michael Dooley was tender as he placed him on the floor near the hearth. He supported the wounded arm until Mrs. Duffy wedged a scrap of wool blanket under the boy. Michael sighed as he let Conor's weight sag against the floor.
He wiped the blood from his hands and forearms on his trouser legs. The coppery hairs on his arm were matted together.
"This is no way to run a country. A young lad's life taken for hunting a rabbit or two."
"The rabbit is more welcome here than we are," said Tom. "That devil Speke sits awake nights with his gun to keep us off the land."
I heard the familiar anger in Tom's voice. I crouched at Conor's one side, Mrs. Duffy at the other. Pat Maloney stood stiff and silent, watching his boy's future drip onto the dirt.
"Do you think we should go for the doctor?" asked Willie Duffy.
"We should go for the bailiff and have Speke arrested for brutal murder," said Tom.
"You know it won't stick, Tommy. And the only witnesses being the two girls, Margaret Meehan and my sister Kitty-Speke will be out the door of the jail before he's ever gone in." Michael Dooley shook his head.
"The doctor won't come from Kilfenora at this time of night," said John Sweeney, Hugh's father. "Maybe the priest will make a better showing."
I spoke up loudly, so the boy could hear if he was conscious. "We don't need the priest. The doctor can take the shot out tomorrow, and Conor will heal up fit as a fiddle."
I prayed that I was right. The wound was a mass of ugly fragments. But the bleeding had slowed, and if he was kept warm, maybe the shock would wear off. I didn't sense the hand of Death hovering over the boy, ready to snatch him as soon as my back was turned.
In the morning one of the men could ask the loan of a horse and cart from Ned Geary, a local farmer, to bring the boy into Kilfenora. Like the rest of the families in our small clachan of Kilvarna-three dozen or so tenant cottages-the Maloneys had no money to pay the doctor and nothing to trade. Even the laying hens were eaten, after the blight on the potato crop last year left us hungry. But the doctor was a kind man and often stopped to listen to Pat's fiddle at the market days in town. Surely he wouldn't turn away a wounded boy from his door.
"I'll stay if you need me," I offered to Mrs. Duffy.
"Ah no, darling, I'll watch him like my own. If the pain gets too bad, I'll see if Mr. Duffy has a bit of poteen in the jug for him. I know he's been hoarding the last of it. Go on, your Tom's leaving. Walk out with him."
Tom leaned against the wall near the door. I could sense his edginess from here.
"Sit with him by the bonfire for a little. You could do with a few minutes of May Eve cuddling."
"I will, then." My voice sounded uncertain, even to my own ears. Then I saw Tom glance in my direction. I lifted my chin and nodded.
"We'll meet in the morning, lads. Tell the others," I heard him say to Hugh and Michael.
Another girl might have asked Tom what he was meeting for, but I knew better. What Tom kept to himself was less of a danger to everybody.
The night was black and starless as we walked up to the bonfire, a mere heap of glowing embers now. A shudder ran through me at the memory of Speke's words, and Tom put his arm around my shoulders.
I let myself relax against him, ever so slightly.
"Speke was after Kitty," I whispered. "After he shot poor Colin. I shoved her down the hill."
"A lot of boys would be after Kitty on May Eve," said Tom. His voice turned cold. "But I would kill Speke if he touched her."
A chill fear shook me again. The hatred ran so deep, like a river coursing through Tom's soul. Not just for Speke himself, but for all the British who kept the Irish people in poverty and hunger. I bit back the words that would tell him I was afraid for him, afraid of the rage and the violence. Instead I reached for his hand and held it tight in both of mine.
"It's May Eve, Tom. Let's not bring the darkness nearer."
I squeezed his hand and the heat flowed between us. I wanted to be young.
"Come on!" I pulled him along with me and together we ran straight at the embers, leaping at the last possible moment over the fire, sailing awkwardly above the warmth into the dark damp earth. I laughed, and then Tom leaned over and kissed me, a sweet lingering tingling kiss. I closed my eyes against the dizzy feeling.
"Now we go into the fields, my girl. It's our ancient duty to make the flowers grow."
"Just because I study the old ways doesn't mean I practice them," I said, but I didn't move from his arms. "It's one thing to learn the keens for the dead and quite another to do what you're suggesting, Tommy."
His long fingers were deep in my black hair, holding my face close to his. He kissed me again while we had the chance. Our time alone together was neither frequent nor long.
"Maybe next year," he said.
"Hope dies hard. Who knows what may happen on May Eve next?"
"I thought you had the Second Sight, Margaret Meehan. That's what the old gossips say."
"It's not like that at all," I said.