‘Yri, you cannot tell anyone about this. I don’t know what it means, but... you cannot tell anyone. Whatever was done to her... someone thinks they can get away with it. If anyone knows what we saw, neither of us will be safe,’ I say. ‘Do you understand?’
Her eyes double in size then I wonder if she thinks I had something to do with Aoife’s death. Who heard us arguing this morning? Anyone?
Yri nods slowly. ‘Will you tell Mr Fitzpatrick?’
‘Of course. Send... no, it’s too late in the day, I don’t want anyone being caught near the salt marshes in the darkness. As soon as dawn breaks tomorrow, we’ll send one of the footmen. But for now... help me with her, Yri.’
She trembles even more as I take the box from her, and shake out the mermaid-tailed wedding dress. It’s mean, I know, but there’s some small satisfaction in this act. Yri has such tremors in her fingers she’s barely any use at all as I dress Aoife in the gown she intended for my sale. A wise woman, perhaps, would not be doing this, not after what she’d already experienced, with the threat of her grandmother becoming a heavy ghost. But if I were wise, I’d have fled when I had the chance. I’d have run away from Breakwater early that morning before the merfolk tried to drown me; I’d not have returned to the townhouse and foolishly believed my grandmother had my best interests at heart. I’d have stuffed my pockets with the shiny new jewellery and I’d have run before anyone thought to look for me. But now… now she’s dead and I’m free. The bargain she made with Aidan is broken.
When Aoife is properly attired – the dress is a little tight but it hardly matters, she’s not in a position to complain and soon enough there’ll be less of her – I brush her hair until it lies like an argent stream over one shoulder, reaching down past her waist.
‘Will... will... will...’ Yri tries to get the sentence to form.
‘I’ll stay with her, I won’t make you. You’ve seen enough. But go and get Malachi for me.’
When she’s gone I lean over Aoife, smoothing the bodice, stroking the sleeves, and I whisper meanly, ‘It was to be your wedding anyway. This suits you best.’
* * *
The grandfather clock in the corner chimes eight, and Malachi sits on the other side of the bed from me, puffing on the red-gold meerschaum pipe that used to be Óisín’s.
I thought he’d be nodding by now – we’ve been sitting for hours – but he’s alert, just very still. He blinks every so often, breathing surprisingly quiet. His hair is the same iron-grey as Maura’s and you can see her in the cast of his face; there’s granite-coloured stubble on his cheeks and chin, but he’s clean-shaven every morning. He rises early and is asleep mostly before seven rings at night. He told me, once, that’s what happens when you’re old: your bones want to sleep but your mind won’t have any of it except at the most inconvenient times because it knows you’re just pacing out your days unto death.
Malachi was married when he was younger, but Caitlin died in childbirth along with their daughter. Maura says he was never the same (and that’s when he moved into the big room above the stables), but that’s what people say, I think, when they get tired of another’s grief. Maura’s been impatient with him for as long as I’ve known them, and he’s been the way he is all my life; I’ve nothing to compare it to so I cannot tell if she’s exaggerating or not.
‘Did you know my mother?’ I ask, which is a stupid question because of course he did, living his life at Hob’s Hallow man and boy. What I mean is Did you know she was alive? But that’s equally stupid because if Maura knew then so did he.
He gives me a glance and gods know it’s one he might have learned from Aoife. ‘I know she’s not dead.’
‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ And to my annoyance I sound like a wounded child.
‘Did you ever go against your grandmother? Not your little defiances. In any way that counted?’ His grey brows rise and he looks amused.
I think of the wedding dress Aoife now wears like a dead bride; I think of my refusal to marry Aidan; I think of my stolen secret, the letters beneath my mattress once again; I think of my plans to run, so easily derailed.
‘No.’
‘Aye. No. If we’d told you we’d have been turned out of the home we’ve lived in since before you were born, missy.’ He nods. ‘She was afraid, I think, that if you knew you’d want to follow them. If you thought there was an escape.’
‘Did she know where they went?’
He laughs. ‘If she did, do you think she wouldn’t have had your mother dragged back here and your father drowned in the nearest body of water? No, she didn’t know.’
Isolde wrote to Óisín alone but she still didn’t tell him where she was.
‘Your mother... your grandmother had her plans and your mother had hers and they were never going to fit together. Isolde ran away then came back with that pretty boy in tow. He just followed her along like a pup couldn’t believe its luck.’
I think about the last letter from Isolde, three years after she left me, so twelve years ago:
Father,
We are settled, we are established. The silver mine is seeded and working, and she is once again producing. The estate is called Blackwater, north of Bellsholm, more or less, and I think it would make you proud to see it. I wanted you to know that I am safe.
