Chapter 78: A Wolf on the Moonlit Shore

The room above the hall was very quiet.

“Deirdre,” I said. “Declan’s mother. The woman who went off the cliff in 1981.”

“The woman who was pushed off the cliff in 1981,” my sister said. “And the woman who took the girl in 1975 and gave her to Eileen who was going to Galway. And the woman who took my boy in 1976 and gave him to a family in the north.” She put her hands in her lap. “I have been carrying it for twenty one years and I have never said it out loud. I gave my son to Deirdre because Deirdre was the only wolf in this village who had ever taken a child out and brought it up somewhere else and kept it alive. She took the girl in 1975 and the girl is in the north and she is called Eileen and she came down that shore road this morning. And she took my boy in 1976 and I do not know where he is and I do not know what he is called and I do not know whether he is alive.”

Ahern put his pen down.

“Then there is a thing about the record of 1975,” he said. “The parish record that was burned in the fire. The note on it said the child was given to a woman called Eileen who was going to Galway and who was to bring her up as her own. And there was a second note under it in a different hand that said the child was given a name and the name was Eileen. And there was a third thing on that page that I read this morning before the corner was burned and that I have not told anyone. The page had the name of the mother on it and the name of the mother was not Deirdre. The name of the mother was Eileen.”

The room went quiet.

“Eileen,” I said. “The woman in the north. She is not the daughter of Deirdre. She is the daughter of Eileen who was going to Galway and who named her after herself. And the note about Deirdre was a note that was put on the page to make the co-op believe that Deirdre had taken a child when it was Eileen who had taken her.”

“That is what I read this morning and that is what I have been sitting on since,” Ahern said. “The page was a forgery. The whole page was a forgery. It was written in 1975 by a wolf who wanted the co-op to believe that Deirdre had taken a child out of this village and that the child had gone to Galway with a woman called Eileen. And the wolf who wrote it was the Alpha, and the Alpha was Eileen, and the child who was taken was her own daughter and she gave her own daughter to herself in Galway and she named her after herself and she brought her up to be a claimant.” He put his hand flat on the table. “The woman in the north is not the daughter of Deirdre. She is the daughter of the Alpha who took the seat in 1961. She is Mairéad’s sister.”

The door of the room opened and Declan was standing in it with Cormac behind him.

“I heard,” he said. “The whole hall heard. The whole village is on the stairs.” He came into the room and stood at the end of the table and looked at my sister. “Siobhan. The boy. The child you gave to Deirdre in 1976. Do you know what family in the north she gave him to?”

My sister looked at him.

“She would not tell me,” she said. “She said it was safer if I did not know. She said the family were wolves who had left this territory in 1961 and who had gone north and who had taken children before and who would take another and bring him up and never tell him where he came from. And she said, if you ever go looking for him you will bring the Alpha down on him and on the family and on the whole north, and if you love him you will not go looking.” She put her hand over her mouth. “And I have not gone looking. For twenty one years I have not gone looking.”

Cormac came into the room. He came up to the table and stood beside his father and put his hand on the wood and looked at my sister.

“There is a thing about the family in the north,” he said. “My father has been in this village all his life and he does not know the north. But I have been on the boats since I was twelve and I have been up the coast to Donegal and to Sligo and to the islands and I know the families that left this territory in 1961. There were four of them. The O’Donnells and the Mac Carthys and the Ryans and the Flannerys. And there is a thing about the Flannerys that every fisherman on this coast knows. They took a boy in 1976 and they brought him up as their own and he is a fisherman and he is on the boats out of Killybegs and his name is Daniel.” He looked at my sister. “And there is a thing about Daniel Flannery that every wolf on this coast knows. He was in the water off Killybegs in 1994 and he shifted in front of a boat full of men and he has been a lone wolf ever since and he has not been in a pack and he has not been in a territory and he does not know what he is.”

My sister stood up.

“Where is Killybegs?” she said.

“It is a day’s sail up the coast,” Cormac said. “And there is a thing about the boats out of Killybegs. They come down this coast in the summer for the mackerel and they are in the harbor at Galway in August and they are in the harbor at Sligo in July.” He looked at the window. “It is the twenty eighth of June.”

I went to the window. The moon was coming up over the harbor and the whole village was on the shore road with lamps and the headland was black against the grey sky.

“Then there is a thing we have to do before nine o’clock,” I said. “We have to find a fisherman from Killybegs who is on this coast in June.” I turned round. “Declan. The boats in the harbor. Is there a boat out of Killybegs?”

Declan was already at the door.

“There is one,” he said. “She came in on the evening tide and she is at the end of the pier and she is called the Star of the Sea.”

I stood in the room above the hall with the moon coming up and the whole village on the shore road and the whole of it in front of me.

And then I ran down the stairs and out of the hall and along the lane to the pier with Declan beside me and Cormac behind me, and the Star of the Sea was at the end of the pier with her lights on and a man on the deck coiling a rope.

He was young, somewhere in his twenties, and he had fair hair and a broad face and he was not tall. He looked up when we came along the pier and he said, “The harbor office is shut. I have paid my dues.”

“You are out of Killybegs,” I said.

“I am.”

“What is your name?”

He looked at me for a moment.

“Daniel,” he said. “Daniel Flannery.”

And then he looked past me at my sister, who had come along the pier behind us with the moon on her face and her hair, and he went very still.

“I know you,” he said. “I have seen you before. You were in Killybegs in 1994 and you were standing on the pier and you did not say a word to me and you had the same face you have now.” He put the rope down. “You were the woman who watched me shift and did not run.”