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How to explain? With four sisters and three brothers, I felt smothered. Especially since each and every one of them knew exactly what they wanted out of life. They had it all mapped out—the jobs, the marriages, the children, the life there in the Green. There were no unknown territories for them.

I only had the music, and while it was respected in our family, it wasn’t considered a career option. It was what we did in the evenings, around our kitchen table and those of our neighbors.

I’d tried to put it into the words before that day, but it always came out sounding like I was turning my back on them, and that wasn’t the case. I just needed to find a place in the world that I could make my own. A way to make a living without the help of an uncle or a cousin. It might not be music. But with a limited education, and the even more limited interest in furthering what I did have, music seemed the best option I had.

Besides, I lived and breathed music.

“I know you don’t understand,” I said. “But it’s what I need to do. I’m only going to Newford, and I won’t be gone forever.”

“But wouldn’t it be easier on you to live with us while you . . . while you try this?”

I’ll give them this: my parents didn’t understand, but they were supportive, nevertheless.

I shook my head. “I need the space, Dad. And there aren’t the venues here like there are in the city.”

He gave a slow nod. And maybe he even understood.

“When you do find yourself a place,” he said, “make peace with its spirits.”

I guess you might find that an odd thing for him to say, but we O’Neills are a superstitious lot. “Everything has a spirit,” Dad would tell us when we were growing up. “So give everything its proper respect, or you’ll be bringing the bad luck down upon yourself.”

The presence of spirits wasn’t something we talked about a lot—and certainly not in the mystical way people do now, where it’s all about communicating with energy patterns through crystals, candles, or whatever. It was just accepted that the spirits were there, all around us, sharing the world with us: Ghosts and sheerie. Merrow, skeaghshee, and butter spirits. All kinds.

“I will,” I told him.

He pressed a folded twenty into my hand—a lot of money for us in those days—then embraced me in a powerful hug. I’d already said my other good-byes inside.

“There’ll always be room for you here,” he said.

I nodded, my throat suddenly too thick to speak. I’d wanted and planned for this for months, and suddenly I was tottering on the edge of giving it all up and going to work at the factory with my brothers. But I hoisted my duffel bag in one hand,my homemade guitar case in the other. It was made of scavenged plywood and weighed more than the instrument did.

“Thanks, Dad,” I said. “Just . . . thanks.”

We both knew that simple word encompassed far more than the twenty dollars he’d just given me and the reminder that I’d always have a home to return to.

He clapped me on the shoulder, and I turned and headed down the street, where I had an appointment with a Newford-bound bus.

THINGS DIDN’T go as planned.

I’d set up a few gigs before I left home, but my act didn’t go over all that well. I’m not a strong singer, so I need the audience actually to be listening to me for them to appreciate the songs. But people don’t have that kind of patience in a bar. Or maybe it’s simply a lack of interest. They’ve gone out to drink and have fun with their friends, and the music’s only supposed to be background.

“You’re a brilliant guitarist,” the owner of the bar I played on the second weekend told me. “But it’s wasted on this lot.You should hook up with a fiddler, or somebody with a bigger presence. You know, something to grab their attention and hold it.”

In other words, I wasn’t much of a front person. As though to punctuate the point, he didn’t book me for another gig.

Worse, I knew he was right. I didn’t like being up there on those little stages by myself, and even though I knew nobody was really listening, I could barely