eating the poisoned root. She looks for one that is familiar. The one she has been waiting for. She looks for Henry, for her mother or her sisters. She looks for Eve’s mother, Alice. She looks for Sean. But they are strangers. All of them.
Elizabeth wakes in the middle of the night and crawls from her bed. Her left hip hurts. She takes the book of lists off her nightstand and lights the candle Maggie has left on the chest by the door. She walks down the hall to her granddaughter’s room. She stands in the doorway, watching the child sleep.
Eve sleeps deeply with the blankets pulled close around her chin, so only her small face is visible, the pale hair floating on the pillow around it. Elizabeth comes closer. She blows out the candle and kneels beside the bed. Her knees ache. She feels through the blanket for the child’s hand and finds it curled in a loose fist by her side.
She sits there in the dark and whispers the stories to her. She can only remember them at night, and when she cannot sleep, she will come and hold the child’s hand and she will tell her that the place of stories is like the place of memory. It is like the place of the dead. An ether around them all the time. She tells her the adventures of the pirate warrior Grace and the trials of CúChulainn. She tells her the story of the cows who came up from the sea. She tells her of Oisin, who followed Niamh of the Golden Hair, and how, when he returned to Erin, he found he had been gone for hundreds of years. The land hadchanged. The church had come and the bog had risen. He could find nothing, no one, he had known from before.
“He was in love,” she whispers, “and the time had seemed so short to him.” The child stirs in her sleep. Elizabeth lets go of her hand.
She returns to her own bed. She pulls the chenille close around her chin. She can feel the window sash give under the pressure of the wind. Just beyond her, the curtains rustle in the darkness.
The following afternoon, Elizabeth and Eve sit together in the living room waiting for Charles to drive up from the garage with the car. They don’t speak. Elizabeth settles in one corner of the Hepplewhite sofa that has been reupholstered in ivory silk. As she picks at a stain on the arm—a bit of berry jam—she notices a prickling heat around the collar of her dress as if spiders have come to spin inside the lace.
She glances up at the child. The birdcage Windsor spokes of the chair fan up behind her like some queer tail. Eve keeps her small gloved hands folded neatly on her lap. Her white stockings crossed at the ankle dangle just above the floor. Her eyes are the color of soft water. She sits still, perfectly quiet and contained. Yet there is something unlatched about her. Something disturbing or disturbed. A vacancy that seems familiar.
On the crossing, Elizabeth’s father had carried a vial of the holy water from St. Fiechin’s Well. When he died, Elizabeth took the vial back to Skirdagh and kept it in the sea chest at the foot of her bed. She never opened it. Never unstopped the cork from its lean-necked end. Sometimes in the deep winter, she would take it out, unwrap it from its chamois cloth, and hold it in the palm of her hand. Over time, she had watched the water level drop, slowly evaporating through the pores in the cork until only the pith remained—a slight film of dust piled at the bottom of the glass. Now, studying the child across the room, she has the sudden chilling sense that what she sees in Eve is not, as she has always thought, the strange damage and the lawlessness of Alice but, rather, some quiet essence of Elizabeth’s own nature—an image of herself when she was young and her heart was free and wild.
“Do you know the story of the willow?” she asks, nodding to the tree outside the window.
The child shakes her head.
“The willow will sprout from just a branch pushed in the soil.”
The child doesn’t answer. One of her eyes is swollen at the edge. A
Elizabeth wakes in the middle of the night and crawls from her bed. Her left hip hurts. She takes the book of lists off her nightstand and lights the candle Maggie has left on the chest by the door. She walks down the hall to her granddaughter’s room. She stands in the doorway, watching the child sleep.
Eve sleeps deeply with the blankets pulled close around her chin, so only her small face is visible, the pale hair floating on the pillow around it. Elizabeth comes closer. She blows out the candle and kneels beside the bed. Her knees ache. She feels through the blanket for the child’s hand and finds it curled in a loose fist by her side.
She sits there in the dark and whispers the stories to her. She can only remember them at night, and when she cannot sleep, she will come and hold the child’s hand and she will tell her that the place of stories is like the place of memory. It is like the place of the dead. An ether around them all the time. She tells her the adventures of the pirate warrior Grace and the trials of CúChulainn. She tells her the story of the cows who came up from the sea. She tells her of Oisin, who followed Niamh of the Golden Hair, and how, when he returned to Erin, he found he had been gone for hundreds of years. The land hadchanged. The church had come and the bog had risen. He could find nothing, no one, he had known from before.
“He was in love,” she whispers, “and the time had seemed so short to him.” The child stirs in her sleep. Elizabeth lets go of her hand.
She returns to her own bed. She pulls the chenille close around her chin. She can feel the window sash give under the pressure of the wind. Just beyond her, the curtains rustle in the darkness.
The following afternoon, Elizabeth and Eve sit together in the living room waiting for Charles to drive up from the garage with the car. They don’t speak. Elizabeth settles in one corner of the Hepplewhite sofa that has been reupholstered in ivory silk. As she picks at a stain on the arm—a bit of berry jam—she notices a prickling heat around the collar of her dress as if spiders have come to spin inside the lace.
She glances up at the child. The birdcage Windsor spokes of the chair fan up behind her like some queer tail. Eve keeps her small gloved hands folded neatly on her lap. Her white stockings crossed at the ankle dangle just above the floor. Her eyes are the color of soft water. She sits still, perfectly quiet and contained. Yet there is something unlatched about her. Something disturbing or disturbed. A vacancy that seems familiar.
On the crossing, Elizabeth’s father had carried a vial of the holy water from St. Fiechin’s Well. When he died, Elizabeth took the vial back to Skirdagh and kept it in the sea chest at the foot of her bed. She never opened it. Never unstopped the cork from its lean-necked end. Sometimes in the deep winter, she would take it out, unwrap it from its chamois cloth, and hold it in the palm of her hand. Over time, she had watched the water level drop, slowly evaporating through the pores in the cork until only the pith remained—a slight film of dust piled at the bottom of the glass. Now, studying the child across the room, she has the sudden chilling sense that what she sees in Eve is not, as she has always thought, the strange damage and the lawlessness of Alice but, rather, some quiet essence of Elizabeth’s own nature—an image of herself when she was young and her heart was free and wild.
“Do you know the story of the willow?” she asks, nodding to the tree outside the window.
The child shakes her head.
“The willow will sprout from just a branch pushed in the soil.”
The child doesn’t answer. One of her eyes is swollen at the edge. A
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