Rosewater and Soda Bread (34 page)

A second circular structure, made entirely of glass, peeked out from one side. It was filled with greenery, what looked like a system of hydroponics suspended from the ceiling.

It was a greenhouse, Marjan realized. From the stonework, it appeared to have been built in recent years, though it seemed to blend perfectly with the older round house.

Sean McNully opened the circular door, and they followed him in. After stoking the fire that roared in a large stone place, the old man settled into a wooden armchair near the hearth. Escher snuggled next to his boots and sighed contentedly.

Sean turned his icy blue stare on them. “Now what can I do for the two of you? You're not poorly yourself, Dara, haven't picked up something from the natives on your trip, did you?” he asked gruffly. “I might not have a vial of anything to treat that.”

Dara laughed. “Argentina was grand. No complaints or disease to report. Haven't come for a cure now. This lady here was asking about you at the Shebeen, that's all.” He introduced Marjan. Sean nodded cordially her way. “She was looking for Teresa, Sean.” Dara looked around. “Is she at the greenhouse?”

Sean's face turned stony. He looked at the fire for a few moments before speaking again. “Teresa doesn't live here anymore. Hasn't for a while now.”

Marjan remained quiet as she watched the older man. There was something very familiar about him; perhaps it was his sadness, something in him that reminded her of the girl Estelle had taken in. “What's happened, Sean?” Dara leaned forward in his chair.

The old man's blazing eyes looked away again. “I can't tell you.”

Marjan bit her lip, knowing it was her turn to offer her trust. She unbuckled the knapsack, unfurled its contents onto her lap.

“I wonder if this might look familiar,” she said, leaning forward with the fabric in her hand.

Sean's face crumpled at the sight of the dress. He choked back a cry, his knuckles gripping the arms of his hearth chair. “It belongs to Teresa. Where did you get that? What's happened to her?” He began to rise, anger sweeping over his wrinkled face.

“Now, Sean. Hold on there, now,” Dara interjected, also standing up. “Marjan here has been taking care of Teresa. She's all right, she's all right.”

Marjan stepped forward, handed the dress to Sean. “It's the truth. She was sick for a while, but now she's much better. I'm sorry, I didn't realize bringing this would upset you,” she said, stepping back.

“Why don't you say what happened, Sean? It'll do you the world of good,” said Dara gently.

Sean McNully stared at the black dress with its landscape of lilies, his bright blue eyes deep with regret. A minute passed before he looked up, his face no longer hard as stone. “Better put the tea on, so, if I'm going to tell you.”

“YOU KNOW YOURSELF, Dara, how it's like to live here. Peace and the freedom to do as you please, no land eyes on you, none at all. It's a grand way of existence, the kind of life my Mary and
I had envisioned for ourselves when we married. She came from Clare Island, like yourself, so it wasn't much of a trip one way or another to come to my family's plot. As long as we had our bit of land, our spot now, we were quite happy to stay by our own. With me and the greenhouse going and Mary doing her bit with her hands, it was too hard to stay on the mainland. We figured if they were wanting enough, if the healing was needed, then the people would find us out here. Not even when Teresa came along did we feel the urge to leave. Now I think to myself that it might not have been the best laid of plans. Maybe if Teresa had been amongst her own age, kiddies around since the beginning, she might not have done what she did.

“She was a wily child, our Teresa, always getting into scrapes up and down the shore. She had the gift, of course, but we let her do as she pleased for the first few years, knowing there'd be plenty of time for the serious work. Like her mother every way and bit. Same look to her, same coloring, same hands in the end. She was going the way of the hands, leaving myself alone to deal with the plantings.

“Now, Mary was delighted to have someone to pass the teachings on to. Her own mother had not been touched, but her grandfather had the gift, and it was from himself that she learned to heal the sicknesses. There was some talk of sending Teresa out to the Island for schooling, but as the seas get choppy on the best of days, there really was no point to it, we saw. Besides, all the teaching she needed was going to come from us.

“I began her on the course of weedings, all the way to the wrapping of poultices. Mary waited to begin her lessons, but the little one was able to look in on her sessions with the locals and the odd Yank that managed to find us. It was from these sessions that we made our living, and later, as you know yourself, Dara,
the vials came in handy. Sure the sale of one bottle of my
agnus castus
could tide us over for two months! So you see, there just wasn't any push for us to send our baby out to the wide world.

“It wasn't until thirteen years of age that Teresa picked up the rays. All of a sudden she was a woman overnight, growing tall and strong. And her hands, her hands were the hands of her grandfather. Stronger than Mary's any given day.

“Soon it was Mary who stood by at the sessions as Teresa took to giving the healings. I've seen her mend bones and the pink eye in minutes flat, that's how strong her gift was. We were proud as proud could be, but a bit fearful as well, knowing that we couldn't hold the world back any longer. The world can eat you up for a meal if it knows you hold such a talent. It'll spit you out just the same, to be sure. Human beings, we're a strange lot. We want so much to believe in the greater forces, that some of us are touched by the mighty beyond. But once such a person is found, the population gets a mighty fright. It hurts them all too much to see how true talent is meted, that not all of us are worthy of its glory, its pain. So we destroy that kindling, take it out before it takes us. Fear, no cure for it, Dara. No healing hands to mend its ways. All too human, that is.

“Fear came on our little world the year last. In all her days of curing others' ailments, it seems Mary had not taken her own hands to herself. Hadn't paid any mind to the hump of matter growing right on her breast. That bit killed her before the year was out. And there was no planting, no bark of wood I could give her to stop it.

“As much as I tried explaining so to Teresa, that she had no means for mending her mother's cancer, she wouldn't hear of it. Sure, there are times when the hands have taken out the strands of the disease, but those were the early stage kinds. Mary's was
incurable, even to the both of us. But Teresa would not understand the logic of it, not at all.

“She took to sitting on that pier come storm or not, shivering to the bone and looking out to the sea like she wanted nothing of this world. I was out of my wits to get her to come in most days, but she wouldn't listen. And when there was any boats around she would scamper off to the greenhouse or to the other side of the island, where our Mary's laid, God rest her soul. Some of them tourists still came for the vials, and looking for the hands, but Teresa stopped her sessions. Stopped coming in to lessons.

“Then, nearly six months back or so, time of the Saint Brigid's Day itself, here comes a fancy boat. A millionaire's yacht. And who steps off from it but the Minister of Health himself! The bollocks! That's right, Dara, that gobshite Willy Prendergast, that's who stepped off that yacht. I was thinking he's here for a feckin' cure, the bastard! Much good he's done for our health system, now he's devourin our true talents as well.

“But no, he wasn't here for a cure, was here to see about a bit of business, he said. Would you believe it now, he wanted to buy the island right off from under our noses! Wanted Inishrose for himself, for a bit of a retreat from the buzz of Dublin, so he says. I put the feckin' buzz on him—nearly pushed him off the cliff, so I did. Told him to get off my island or I'd put the eye of hag on him. Off he took himself, coward that he is.

“Now, Teresa had come in during the time that man was here, right here onto the hearth, but she had slipped out just as quick so I never thought a thing about it until a month later. I wake up to find Teresa missing and the currach gone. No note at all to tell me whether she was thinking of leaving this life or not. Had to take a bit of eyebright just to see clearly, I was so distraught.

“I waited and waited, and sure, at sundown who comes walking
in but herself. Would have none of my questioning. Locked herself in her room and wouldn't come out until the morning.

“Same occurrence every week, every Friday, and I not knowing what to make of it. Never thought of that politician, not one time. How can I have the touch of the plantings, how can I see things like this but not know my own daughter? How could I have been so blinded? You tell me now, Dara.”

Sean paused, his blue eyes afire. He took the heavy poker and rustled through the turf blocks, reigniting them orange. He stared at the fire for a minute longer before continuing.

“Haven't seen her now for a fortnight. Finally got myself to look in her room. Found a stack of napkins and matchbooks from different hotels up and down the coastline. One for the Aulde Shebeen even. Put two and two together and finally got my answer. The minister. The bastard. Now I've nothing. For not talking to her before, now I am alone for it. No Mary, no daughter, nothing but my plants, and what good are they to me now, Dara? What good are they? Nothing for this hole in the heart that won't go away.”

Sean finished, and the three of them sat silent. The fire crackled and rose to the wind funneling down the chimney. Escher sighed and rolled onto his back.

Dara was the first to speak: “Why didn't you tell me about it sooner, Sean? On one of my days out? I could have looked out for her.”

“ 'Tis a family matter. Not for anyone but ourselves,” replied the old man solemnly. “Truth is, I probably wouldn't have told you now, not to a stranger—no offense now, Miss—but for you bringing me her dress and all. And the weather. The brightening skies got me to thinking of my Mary. How I'd be glad to see her someday soon. Got me in a mood, so you did.”

Marjan cleared her throat. She lifted her gaze into the man's hurting eyes.

“Everything's going to be all right,” she said softly. “You have found your beloved. Everything's going to be all right now. I promise.”

THE MIST CLEARED as far as Clare Island as the three of them reached the pier. To Marjan it looked like the rising hull of Hy Brasil, that ancient land known as Atlantis. With the wind at her back, she turned toward the mainland and was greeted by that king of mounds, Croagh Patrick. Standing there on that island, she felt as though she was coming out of her own fog, suddenly could see the land she had missed.

As an enlivening spray brought the sea to her senses, Marjan awoke to what she had to do as well; it was something she should have done from the very beginning, from that day she left Gohid.

TERESA STOOD AT THE START
of the path, the circular garden bordered by powdery lavender. The kind Italian woman was inside, giving her room to be alone.