Read Online Nory Ryan's Song by Patricia Reilly Giff - Free Book Online Page A

wide. “And a meal at the end of the day.”
    “The work is too hard for you,” Celia said. She scooped up the bones and put them into the pot for a broth.
    Granda leaned forward. “The money will help feed the three of you. It will buy milk or a piece of salmon if there’s any to be had in Ballilee. You won’t have to worry about me.”
    Not worry? Granda chopping up rocks, laying them out on a road no one needed?
    Celia stood up. She licked one finger and worked at a stain on her skirt.
    “Tell Granda he can’t do this,” I said, but Celia was looking at her feet. “I wish I had shoes,” she whispered.
    “Celia. What about Granda?”
    “I will give them a wash,” she said. “That’s the best I can do.”
    I was furious. “Will you pay attention to me!”
    “I’m off to see Lord Cunningham,” she said. “I’ll ask for a job in the kitchen. I’m a good cook. I wish I had thought of it sooner.”
    “You are a fuafar cook. And that’s a terrible …” I began to say “idea.” But it wasn’t a terrible idea. It was the best idea any of us had had in a long time. I thought of Maggie on the cliff the day she left. Celia is loyal and true .
    Celia went to the shelf for her piece of the comb. Broken in half, it hardly smoothed her hair at all. “How do I look?” she asked.
    “Like a goat. A little nanny goat.” I took the comb from her and gently ran it through her hair, teasing out the knots.
    Celia took a quick look at the closed door. None of us had ever been on the road after dark. We knew the sídhe were out there. She shook herself. “You are not to move from your place at the hearth, Granda. You will stay here, a stór , and I will cook up a mess of food at Cunningham’s, and bring potatoes in buttermilk for you and a sour little limpet for my sour little sister.”
    I raised my hand to my mouth. “I forgot them. Here we are starving and the limpets are swimming around in their pail behind the stone wall outside. They must think they’re arrived in a strange wee ocean.”
    Celia and Granda looked at each other, wondering, I guessed, if I had lost my mind.
    “The ones I left there.” I waved my hand. “I’ll get them.”
    I’d have to go out in the dark too.
    “A delicious treat,” I whispered to give myself courage.
    I said it to Celia’s back. She stood with both feet in the bowl on the floor, sloshing them up and down, looking at her toes. “I’ll never get the poor things clean,” she said, “not unless I spend a month in this spot.” She shook one foot, spraying dirty water around. “The sídhe will hate this water.” She tried to smile. She stood at the door for a moment, looking back at us. I knew she was afraid too.
    I nodded at her to show I thought she was brave, and then she was gone.
    “I will go for the limpets,” I said. I didn’t want Granda to know I was just as afraid as Celia. And I didn’t even have that far to go. Across the field and halfway to Anna’s house. I went to the doorway. There was no moon tonight and the fields were dark. I could see a tallow light at Mallons’ house, but none in Anna’s window. I shivered.
    “I will go to the road tomorrow even so,” Granda said as if he were arguing with me. “My hands are still strong, and my back. You will see. I will bring money home and we will last, the four of us, until your da comes home.”
    I didn’t answer him. I’d wait until Celia came home. The two of us would make sure he did no such thing.
    I stepped from the doorway into the dark world. For all I knew ghostly gray men were out there waiting for me. I had heard they made themselves into wisps of fog, ugly and unfriendly to humans. Or maybe I’d see a bean sídhe with her hair flowing, moaning because someone was going to die.
    Something moved in the field, and I began to sing Granda’s old war song for courage.
    I thought of Patch and pretended I was holding his warm little hand. I imagined we were out to gather stones for his