The Dust of 100 Dogs - A. S. King [27]
“What do you know? You’re just a little girl.”
“I saw the whole thing happen. Ask him.”
Her cousin looked at her skeptically. “Your mother fought?”
“I saw her kill two soldiers and steal their horses.”
“No you didn’t.”
“Yes I did. And I saw Padraig die.”
“You did?”
“I went to the top of the castle and watched the battle at the bridge. But then they burnt it down.”
“The bridge?”
“No, the castle, dummy.”
“Oh.”
“I miss Padraig,” Emer said. “He was killed when he attacked the first soldier he saw. Uncle Martin sneaked away like a coward.”
She got up and walked away. It was the first conversation she’d had in six months, and she felt like a traitor.
They came to the banks of the Shannon several days after they’d left the small Limerick farm in two sturdy traps. At O’Briensbridge, twenty English soldiers stood, letting the poor Irish pass once officials at the bridge entrance allowed them through. As they approached the long queue, Emer noticed that some people wore canvas shoes or none at all. Most were bundled in rags, begging for food. A man in front warned newcomers in Gaelic about the importance of producing papers. Two malnourished old women lay on the side of the muddy road, seemingly family-less, next to a makeshift grazing area for confiscated heifers and sheep. Emer couldn’t help but look for Mairead, but all she saw were the war-stained faces of strangers, who couldn’t do a thing to help her.
They waited three hours to get through, and eventually crossed the river into Connacht, the only territory left for the Irish. Her Uncle Martin smiled at the devilish men, and said something to them in English that allowed him to keep his horses and other belongings.
They reached an encampment after passing many rocky hills and valleys, where they settled in a tiny stick-and-stone structure and began their fight for survival. Many people died of starvation or disease during the winter. Food was scarce.
By Emer’s tenth birthday, three years later, she was so skinny her ribs poked out and her eyes had deepened. Her Aunt Mary had tried everything to make her stronger, but nothing had worked. To add to that, she had stopped talking completely. Even Uncle Martin stopped slapping her, he was so disturbed by her silence.
In 1656, Emer turned twelve. Life was still the same silent, horrible, uphill battle every day, but one thing had changed. Around Christmas that winter, a new family came to live in the growing encampment. They came from Tipperary, and knew of the battles fought in her valley. Emer listened hard as they spoke one night, during a visit to the hut. A mention of the Mullalys, or the Morriseys, details from the battle at the Carabine Bridge. Complaints about what they’d lost and who they would never see again. The worst of their troubles, they said, were with Sean, their mute fourteen-year-old son.
They spoke of him as if he were a helpless child, even though Emer could see for herself that he was no boy anymore. She found it impossible not to stare at him. Seanie Carroll was a young man with a handsome face, a rare sight in the west, where even the youngest of Irish men were aged with work.
After the Carrolls left, Emer went to the bed and lay down to think. She thought of the castle and Padraig. She thought of her parents. She tried to remember things her mother had said, repeating them in her head to etch them there forever. She imagined Padraig telling her to find happy thoughts. Since the day Mrs. Tobin’s gift was turned to ash by the dragon, Emer had been void of happy thoughts. But meeting Seanie Carroll changed that. That and the rest.
On Emer’s thirteenth birthday, she woke up cold. Each birthday since the dragon came was harder and harder—the memories of her home place, and of a life with people who loved her, seemed a strange old lie. With Uncle Martin’s family, there was no reason to speak, no reason to do anything other than what was asked: