Chapter 88: The Spark and the Shore

I stood in the wreck of my sister's kitchen with the note in my hand and the whole co-op in the lane outside and Declan in the doorway.

“The ring is not the only thing of hers that came back,” I read again. “Ask the woman in the north what she did with the child.”

“That is not from Kern,” Declan said. “Kern does not know about a child. There is not a wolf in Galway who knows about a child.” He came into the kitchen and stood in front of me. “That note was written by a wolf in this village who knows about the daughter and who knows about the son and who knows that your sister is on that headland tonight. And there is only one wolf in this village who knows all of it and who is not on that headland and who is not in that lane.”

“Maire,” I said.

“Maire.”

I went out of the cottage and along the shore road to the house with the grey plait and the door was open and the fire was out and the chair by the fire was empty and the photograph on the table was gone.

And on the table there was a page torn out of a notebook and it was in Maire’s hand and it said: “I have gone up to the headland. I have been carrying the vote that did not come for twenty two years and I am not going to carry it any longer. Tell the co-op that the wolf who went off the cliff in 1981 was not Deirdre and that the wolf who pushed her was Eileen and that I saw it and did not say it. And tell the woman from Dublin that the child she is looking for is in the north and that the woman in the north knows where she is and that the woman in the north has been keeping her since 1979 and that the child is called Mary.”

I put the page in my coat and went out and the whole co-op was in the lane with lamps and the moon was high over the headland and the fog had gone.

Declan caught my arm at the gate.

“There is a thing I have to say to you,” he said. “And I am going to say it now because in an hour we are going to be on that headland and there is not going to be time.”

“Declan.”

“I have been a man who did not say things for twenty years and I am not going to be that man tonight.” He turned me round. “I want a future. Not the seat and not the pack and not the rank. A future. A cottage on this shore and a boat and a woman with gold hair in the kitchen in the morning and a boy who comes in from the boats for his tea. I have wanted it since the first night you stood in that doorway with your hand on the flowerpot and I have been telling myself that a man with a broken mark and a dead woman on his conscience does not get a thing like that.” He put his hand on my jaw. “I am asking you. Not the bond. Not the co-op. Not the charter. I am asking you.”

The moon was up and the whole village was behind us and the sea was on the left and the wind was coming up off the water.

“I want it too,” I said. “I have wanted it since the rope walk and I have been telling myself that a woman who came to this coast to bury her sister does not get to stay.” I put my hand flat on his chest. “But there is a thing about tonight that I have to say before you ask me again. If we go up that headland and the woman who is not my sister wins that fight, there is no future. If Kern comes down that shore road in the morning with a letter, there is no future. If the hunters come with dogs, there is no future.” I looked at him. “So ask me again when it is over. Ask me on the shore when the sun is up and the file is closed and the co-op has a new Alpha. And I will give you an answer that is not a maybe.”

Declan looked at me for a long moment.

“Then I am going to hold you to that,” he said.

He kissed me. It was not the kiss on the pier and it was not the kiss in the cottage. It was slow and it was hard and his hand was in my hair and the other flat on my back and the whole of the co-op was in the lane behind us and did not look away. The bond in my chest opened up like a door and the smell came off the two of us and went out over the whole village and every wolf in that lane lifted their head and knew what it was.

We came apart and he put his forehead against mine.

“There is a thing about the mark,” he said. “It has been growing since the asking. It is nearly as dark as mine. By the morning it will be the same.”

“Then let it be the same by the morning,” I said.

We went up the track to the headland and the whole co-op came behind us and the moon was high and the fog had gone and the ring of stones was full of wolves.

Mairéad was at the flat rock with her silver hair down and her black coat off and her grey dress on and her hands at her sides.

My sister was on the other side of the rock with her grey coat off and her gold hair loose and her hands at her sides.

And between them, on the flat rock, there was a wolf I had not seen before. She was old and she was thin and she had a grey plait down her back and she was standing on the rock with her hands up.

“The vote that did not come,” Maire said. “I have been carrying it for twenty two years and I am not going to carry it any longer. I saw Eileen push the woman off the cliff in 1981 and I did not say it and I have been a coward for sixteen years.” She looked at the whole co-op. “And there is a thing I have to say before these two wolves fight on this rock. The woman who is standing on this rock in the name of Siobhan is not Siobhan. She is a wolf from the north who was paid to wear a grey coat and a gold head and to stand in a hall and make a claim in a name that is not hers. And the real Siobhan is in the north and has been in the north since April and the real Siobhan is the woman who is going to come down that shore road in the morning and claim the seat that belongs to her daughter.”

The whole headland went silent.

And then Mairéad said, “Then there is not going to be a fight.”

She picked up her coat and put it on and walked across the rock to the track and stopped in front of me.

“I am not going to fight a wolf who is not a claimant and I am not going to fight a fight that has no law in it,” she said. “I am going down to the hall and I am going to sit in my chair and I am going to wait for the man from Galway. And there is a thing I am going to say to you before I go. You have been in this village for a week and you have taken it apart and put it back together and there is not a wolf in it who is not going to remember you. But there is a thing about the morning that you have not thought of. Kern is coming with a letter and a paper and a wolf of his own and he is not going to be stopped by a co-op and a book. He is going to be stopped by a thing that a man in Galway cannot argue with.” She looked at me. “The heir. The heir has to be in that hall in the morning. And the heir is in Killybegs and Killybegs is a day's sail away and the moon is up and the tide is on the turn.”

I turned round and looked at the pier and the boats and the dark water.

“Daniel Flannery said he could have me there by four and back by eight,” I said. “And there is a thing about that which is worse than the sail. If I go to Killybegs I am not here in the morning. And if I am not here in the morning there is no one in that hall to stand in front of Kern and put the book on the table.”

“Then do not go,” Mairéad said. “Send the boy.”