The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [18]
“I’ve been working on the cross for a year now, trying to get it perfect,” Emer responded. “I want to put it on a cape, but we haven’t any thread.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of thread now,” Old Mrs. Tobin said, producing a timber box about the size of a brick.
Emer stood up, speechless.
“I’ve saved this old box a long time.”
Emer opened it. Inside, there was every shade of dyed thread she could dream of, a dozen needles, and several spools of heavy thread, too. She threw herself into the old woman’s arms and cried for a second, looked back at the box, and then ran into her mother’s skirtfolds and cried some more.
“Emer, don’t be rude. Tell Mrs. Tobin thank you,” Mairead said, pushing her back toward the fire.
“I’m sorry,” Emer managed. “Thank you.”
The old woman smiled and patted Emer on the head. “That’s all right. It was time for you to have it.”
“Thank you so much, Kitty. It’s very generous of you,” Mairead said.
“We’re all family now,” she said. “We’re all one family now, girl.”
After a few brief words and several more thank yous, Emer and her mother started back toward the top of the road. From there, they could see the lookout man on the tower, giving hand signals to whoever stood at the Carabine Bridge. Emer wondered if her father would be home when they got there, and if her mother would finally let her start embroidering the cape.
As she pondered this, Padraig and Uncle Martin approached on a horse. They stopped, and Martin leaned into Mairead’s ear and whispered something. Padraig stared at Emer and tried to smile, but he knew too much to make it seem real.
“You can’t go back now,” Martin then said, loud enough for Emer to hear. “You best go back to Kitty’s place and gather the children in the church.” He rode off in the direction of the Tobins’ house.
“But—Daddy!” Emer cried.
“Emer, be quiet a minute.” Mairead stood still for a moment, watching Padraig disappear into the gray sky, and sighed. She crossed herself and muttered something beneath her breath.
Emer began to feel sick and sad again. Forgetting everything about her happy thoughts or her timber case of dyed thread, she began to cry. Her mother picked her up, brushing the hair from her face and speaking softly.
“We’ll keep going and find Daddy. Just hold on tightly.”
She began a slow jog with Emer trying to balance on her back, clinging to her neck, nearly choking her. As they neared the crossroads, they heard several explosions and musket fire. Emer felt a legion of horses pounding the earth, racing toward them. In her mind, she saw the dragon. She felt dizzy and blacked out.
She woke up in the back of the cluttered church, surrounded by familiar women and the rest of the village children.
“Mammy!” she shouted in a cranky voice.
“Emer! I hear it’s your birthday,” a woman said.
“Yes. Happy birthday! Don’t get up,” someone else added.
“Mammy!” she yelled again.
Mrs. Katherine Tobin appeared. She put her arm around Emer and half hugged her. “You were dizzy. You need to rest, girl.”
“Where’s my Mammy?”
“She and your father have gone to the bridge with the others.”
“Is Padraig here?” Emer asked, looking around for his familiar face.
No one answered. Emer jolted to her feet and put her hands on her hips. “I’m going to find my Mammy!”
Katherine pushed her down on the bench. “You need to lie down now.”
Emer was sick of hearing about resting and lying down. She looked around to see how many doors were open, and who stood by them. After young Mrs. Tobin had left to mind her own children, Emer waited until nobody noticed her anymore. Ever so slowly, she moved off the edge of the wooden pew and crawled to the aisle, where she could blend in with the sixty other children. And before anyone knew she was missing, she was on the ground floor of the abandoned castle, calling for her mother.
“Mammy! Mammy!”
Emer hurried around the ground floor but found no one. She placed her box of thread and needles on the window ledge and climbed the staircase to the tower. The lookout was empty, and when Emer dared peek out, she saw that