During my second night Timmy sank horribly. His skin burned with fever, his breathing was irregular, his pulse barely discernible. We thought for one terrible moment that he had died.
“If he goes,” said Cait, “I’m going with him.”
The finality of it chilled and angered me. “Don’t say that,” I blurted, slamming my fist against the wall. “We’re not losing anybody!”
She looked at me wordlessly, her expression unreadable.
The world shrank and was encompassed by the walls of that room, a world in which our resources consisted of each other. It was an emotional cauldron. We forged bonds there that linked us, in my mind, forever.
Timmy moaned, body writhing, intestines locked in agony, Cait crying with him in the worst times.
With daylight it seemed a bit easier.We went on.
It was hard to pinpoint the crisis. Only days later were we sure that the fever was subsiding and that the worst had passed. The danger of relapse, Unzelman warned, would be extremely high for at least another week.
It was about then that the ghost came.
Cait and I were drowsing, around three or four in the morning. An oil lamp gleamed dimly above Timmy, the only light in the room. I woke with a start at the sound of a branch striking the side of the house. Strange, I thought, for a storm to rise so quickly.
A high, thin wail escaped Timmy. Later I wondered if it were a cry of recognition, of welcome. But at the time, thinking the noise had frightened him, I rose and stepped toward the bed. At that point several things happened.
The lamplight dimmed to a tiny glowing point and disappeared.
I heard Cait say, distinctly and wonderingly, “A bird.”
“What?” I fumbled in my pockets for matches, wondering where to find more lamp oil.
“That sound,” she said. “It was a bird.”
Hell of a big bird, I thought; and then my mind flooded with recollections of ghostly winged apparitions. I said cautiously, “You see it?”
“I suppose I dreamed it,” she said. “But I think it was . . .”
Colm.
I became aware of loamy odors; tangible, heavy fragrances of green leaves and tree bark and earth. It was in the room, a presence emerging in the gum-spirit atmosphere.
“Tim!” Fear strained Cait’s voice.
I reached out to be sure he was still there. To my surprise he was sitting halfway up. I kept my hand on him and drew Cait close with my other arm.
He was there with us.
I didn’t think the room brightened, but I wasn’t sure. I saw a shape limned in light, a dark, familiar shape in a long military coat, one arm stretched to us, as if in greeting. Or beckoning. I couldn’t be more frightened than I was then. Cait sagged against me.
God, I thought crazily, if it is Colm, how must this look, the three of us, me with his family?
Timmy suddenly squeezed my hand with surprising force. Sitting erect, looking straight at the apparition, he mumbled something.
As goose bumps rippled over me the apparition turned slightly toward him, or perhaps it was just the outstretched arm that moved.
“NO!” Cait shrieked.
“Wait,” I breathed, holding her as she struggled toward Timmy.
We watched its other arm rise slowly, as if in benediction. Then the figure began to recede, slowly at first and building to a great rush. Just before it vanished I glimpsed tiny figures, humans, standing across a distant stream beyond him.
I found a match and lit the lamp. It held plenty of oil. Timmy lay supine, eyes closed, asleep. Cait and I looked at each other.
“Did you see the others?” I said. “At the end?”
She nodded, swallowing hard. “It was the Other Side we were seeing.”
“My God,” I said.
“I feared he wanted to take Tim.”
“Could you make out what Timmy said?”
“No, but I know it was Colm standing there for a certainty.”
She sounded more sad than anything. I wondered if she were still in love with him.
“Cait, I had this strong feeling he was trying to help.”
“Yes,” she said.
Several days later, when Timmy felt up to talking, I asked if he remembered any unusual dreams. Cait leaned forward tensely.
“Like what?” Timmy asked.
“Like, say, someone was here with us, a soldier maybe.”
“A soldier?” he said, eyes widening. “Here?”
“Yes,” I said, “like he suddenly came through the window or the wall, and—”
“Like the bird did,” said Timmy.
“What bird?” said Cait.
“There was this big soft-looking bird, all friendly, like he was my pal. He came to be with me ’cause I was sick. Least that’s what he said.”
“He said?”
Timmy laughed weakly. “Sounds wrong now, but it wasn’t then. It was real as life.”
I sketched on a piece of paper. “Did he look like this? A dove?”
“That’s it,” said Timmy. “The chest was puffed out like that, and the eyes were all warm, like they were lit up.”
Cait began to cry.
The quarantine imposed by the city consisted of a red warning sign posted on the front door. Nothing else. Andy and Johnny came and went freely, bringing supplies. Several times I asked Cait where her boarders were. Her answers were vague.
I began taking afternoon walks. One day I returned to find the illustrious Fenian hero himself, Captain Fearghus O’Donovan, emerging from the parlor. In the street, regarding me coolly from a carriage, were half a dozen other men. I recognized several from Cait’s.
O’Donovan faced me on the porch.
“Back from the wars?” I said.
“Wars?”
“The ones you’re trying to start?”
He gave me a long, cold stare. “Caitlin tells me you rescued her brother.”
“Yes,” I said. “Worse luck for you that Le Caron screwed up.”
“I’m not familiar with that person.”
“McDermott’s cutthroat. The one who did the
