Devil's Mountain Read Free Page B

York?”
    “Ah, love, I always know where my children are. Even those who have left me.”
    I said nothing. I stared at the ground, praying it would swallow me. But that would be too easy a fate for a Devlin woman. It would be bad tonight, no matter what I did now. I looked up.
    “You knew then?”
    “I knew. I’ve known for a while. How ever did Bobby find one of his own in a big place like New York? What are the chances?”
    My stomach dropped. So it wasn’t a coincidence, my Bobby falling in love with Nellie’s daughter. It had never occurred to me He would have had something to do with it. But how?
    Why?
    I feigned disinterest. “She’s a lovely girl. That’s all that matters to me.”
    “That she is. It makes me happy when two of my children find each other. I told your mother you’d have been happier with Seamus. With someone who understands, who shares the blood. You wouldn’t listen.”
    I looked at my cozy cottage, guarded by the foxglove. How I longed to be within its protective walls. I turned to the pucan . “No, I wouldn’t.”
    “You’re together now, in a way.”
    Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Seamus lumber over the back field. He must’ve seen me with the pucan , because he stopped, crossed himself and spun around.
    “We are, yes.”
    “My love, you must be tired after your long journey. Go in and rest yourself. I will see you tonight.”
    I bowed low to the ground, “Yes, my lord.”
    When I raised my eyes from the ground, He was gone.

    * * * *
    Only three days away and yet a hint of mildew still seeped through the cottage’s cold stone walls. Seamus had left me a stack of peat. I tossed two blocks into the ancient stove. A few moments later the fire sputtered to life, the tang of peat replacing that of the mildew.
    I filled the kettle and threw two tea bags into my mother’s chipped blue teapot. Later, I would drink my mother’s special tea, a combination of the fennel, nettles and borage I grew in the back garden. Fennel for strength, nettles for protection, and borage for courage and fortitude.
    It was the same recipe her mother drank and her mother before her. A poor arsenal against Slanaitheoir , but it was all I had. All any of the Devlin women had ever had. Strength and fortitude. I would need both tonight.
    Seamus had left a loaf of his wife’s brown bread on the kitchen table. I cut a thick slice and slathered it with butter. As I bit into its nutty sweetness, my stomach settled. The strong tea warmed me. Consoled me. I was home, and for the next few hours at least, safe.
    The mist burned off and a strong midday sun greeted me as I opened the cottage’s heavy wood front door. The birds had returned to my garden as had a few fat bees, which burrowed in the foxglove blossoms. Despite myself, I smiled. My years in Dublin had offered me freedom, respite from my fate, but at a price. Our four bedroom semi-detached in Rathfarnham, my husband’s pride and joy, had always made me feel closed in, cut off from God’s green earth. I guess I’m an old countrywoman at heart, for better and for worse.
    Seamus’s old cat was the only creature to accompany me to my car. I nuzzled his ears before I opened the boot and retrieved my bags. I brought them inside and hung the sensible navy blue dress I’d worn to Bobby’s wedding in the wardrobe. Next to Nellie’s sparkly mother-of-the-bride dress, I’d looked like a poor relation. But I hadn’t wanted Him to get suspicious if He’d heard I’d been shopping at Nolan’s Dress Shop in town. Fool that I am, I shouldn’t have bothered. I should have worn what I wanted. I’d pay the price tonight anyway.
    But despite Him, I escaped to New York to see my beautiful Bobby and his plain wren of a bride. Plain, but good-hearted. Unlike the mother. Please God, they’d be happy together. And safe.
    I wrapped the navy pumps in paper and placed them in an old shoe box. Those shoes likely wouldn’t go farther than Kilvarren town now. At