Deathwatch - Final (18 page)

"You goddamn cunt bitch," Tom said, advancing on the old woman, his legs moving swiftly with the purpose of the stalk. His hands found her throat, and he squeezed hard.

He was going to kill her. He was going to keep sinking his fingers into her thin flesh until her eyes bulged and her tongue shot out of her mouth, and then when she was dead, he was going to rip her stinking filthy head from her shoulders.

He heard her moan and hiss.

There was nothing he could do that would be bad enough. Nothing that could make her suffer enough. Nothing.

She flopped and struggled in his grasp, her arms and legs splayed out and thumped against the chair.

"Haaahhhhh."

He heard the choking whine pour of her. He pressed harder, and the chair went over and spilled them both. He held on, grunting, squeezing.

There was a sound of running feet. Someone shouted, and he heard a crack. He felt a sharp stinging pain. Another.

A pang of regret flashed through his mind: Oh, not fast enough.

A third crackle followed by pain.

He tumbled off the old woman and lay in the grass. His shoulder throbbed, his arm felt like it was on fire. He knew the trickling sensation was blood.

Cedric stood over him, and Tom looked up at the same time his father cocked the gun again.

He heard the old hag cough. Sure, I wasn't fast enough, he thought, she's still alive. He felt his father's boot nudge his side. Then he lost himself again.

- 4 -

"
W
hy'd you want to shoot yourself, huh, Tom?" Delia leaned over the bed. She was eating toffee, and Tom smelled the sticky sweet. His lids fluttered, and he closed them again. She had a tan ring around her mouth, where she'd licked her lips. She chewed, swallowed. He felt her poke the corners of his eyelids.

They'd told the girl he'd shot himself, he thought.

"I know you're awake. Open up." She tugged his hair. "How come you did it?" she asked, popping another piece of candy in her mouth.

"I didn't," he said. He was in his own bed, the ceiling seemed too close.

"Did it hurt?" Her jaws made a soft creak as she chewed.

"Yes." His shoulder felt like it was packed with ten pounds of dressing.

"Why'd you keep doing it then, huh?"

He smiled. "Never mind. Got any more candy?"

"No." She showed him the gooey piece in her mouth. "Bob gave me a half-sack all for myself. I ate it. It only took one morning, too," Delia said.

"It seems quiet. Where is everyone?"

"Up at the graveyard."

She must have died after all. He shuddered, and his injured arm throbbed when he flinched. He forced himself onto his side and looked into her eyes. "Gran?" He let the word hang in the air, held his breath.

"Uh-uh," Delia said. "Mother fell in a quick marsh. They stuck long poles all through it, they knew where because Papa found her shoe caught in the muck near the edge, but they can't find her. There's nothing to bury. They're just going to have the stone."

"Why aren't you crying?" He looked at this small, odd girl who was his baby sister.

She shrugged, saying, "No one is. You're not either." She pointed at him.

"It's the shock. I will though, later," Tom said. He knew it was the truth. "Why aren't you at the funeral?"

"They told me to stay here. Want some water? I'm supposed to nurse you."

"No thanks." He closed his eyes.

"Know what, Tom? Papa says I can have her room. Mother's room. I'm going to have all that room and the bed for myself."

He looked at Delia for the first time in a long while. She'd always been a little slow, and maybe that was why he thought of her as a child. But now he saw her face had lost the round baby look. She was taller. He couldn't tell under the long apron, but maybe she was developing breasts. He swallowed. Oh, Christ, not his sister. No. They wouldn't. Noreen was dead, there was no child from May. They would. Oh Jesus, Jesus. He moaned.

"Are you in pain, Tom?" Her eyes were round and serious.

"Yes." He closed his eyes and he wept.

***

He stood at the edge of the bog. His arm was in a black sling. It ached on damp days, which was nearly always, but it was healing.

Tom squatted, looking through the torn and matted grass. He was looking for something that might show there'd been a struggle. A man's heel dug in that little bit too deeply; something fallen--a fingernail paring. But there was nothing.

Was it an accident or suicide? Noreen wasn't the type to despair; that left the way clear for accident. But she wasn't the sort to wander distracted either. How had she fallen in? He'd never know. He stood up, using his good arm to help keep balance. His eye found the horizon beyond the green hills dotted with his mother's sheep. He'd never know for sure, but he guessed Rose set her finger on Noreen's life.

Cedric never said a word about the shooting or Tom's throttling of the old woman. Rose wrapped her neck in flannel and talked in a pain-blurred voice, but her dark brown eyes were as bright as ever.

He began to walk toward the hillside. He climbed the stile, carefully, and sat finally in a patch of clover, cradling the wounded arm on his lap.

The bullets had passed through, even the one that hit the bone had veered and gone out. The others had only torn muscle and flesh.

He'd gone to the rise and dug out the slugs. They seemed important somehow, not just because his father had done it, but because they made a change in him. Or maybe, they signified the change that had come just before: the vision of Ellen, the killing hate inside him. He took them from his pocket now, and tossed them lightly in his palm, catching them.

Three bullets, three lives, a voice spoke up in his mind. Ellen, his mother--he stopped. Ellen counted for two, he supposed, but no, that wasn't it. Did he mean his grandmother? Cedric? Aunt Margaret? Delia, dear sweet backward girl? Tom had called her "bunny" when she was a baby--it was how she seemed, helpless and soft.

He closed his fist around the lead balls.

He would kill Cedric if he touched the child.

***

Yes, I will, I will kill him if he touches Delia. Tom woke with his fist clenched, his fingernails embedded in his palms and those words spinning through his mind, uncertain if he'd actually said them out loud. He sat up warily.

Jack Cahill was lying on his side, one elbow crooked, his hand supporting his shaggy head. "Do you suppose there's a son anywhere in the world who hasn't wanted to kill his Dad?" He grinned.

Tom felt his face go red. "I talked in my sleep?"

"Heaps," Jack turned on his back. "Some was slurry o’ course, but the main thrust, I gather was a dream about sweet little Eleanor."

"Ellen."

"Girlfriend?" Jack sat forward, staring at him.

"My cousin," Tom said.

"Tssk, tssk," Jack clicked his tongue. "Want to talk about it?"

"No."

"Sure you do," Jack said, uncorking his gin bottle. "You talk about it, you'll quit living it every night." He polished the mouth of the bottle with his palm, swigged, wiped it again and offered it to Tom. "C'mon, it'll help the time pass."

Tom hesitated, then reached for the bottle.

"Gin," Jack sighed. "It's more than a breakfast drink."

Tom laughed, spluttering drops of liquid over both of them.

"Don't go wasting good booze, laddie. Drink up and tell your tale."

"What's the story of your life, Jack?"

"Mine? Christ, the facts--the interesting ones, anyhow-wouldn't amount to a fart in a thimble."

Tom snorted, laughing again; he found the image deliciously funny. "No really," Tom said.

"I'd rather hear a good tale than tell one--" He put his hand up to stop Tom's protest. "But I'll tell it, later. There's a promise." His eyes met Tom's. "What's the dirt on your Granny Rose."

"She's a witch--"

"That's the ticket, keep spinnin’ er out, laddie, I'm all ears." Jack lay back happily, one hand holding the bottle upright on his chest. "You take your time," he said.

And Tom told him.

***

He was in the kitchen, standing over Ellen's long, wooden table kneading bread when he had the feeling something like a shadow moved past the window behind him.

Tom swiveled. He heard a sliding footstep on the outside stairs, then saw Rose's leering white face framed in the diamond-paned lead window in the kitchen door.

He jumped as if he'd been stung, took three long running steps, and he was at the door. The blessed key was in the plate. Tom fumbled with it, then clicked it home.

Rose rattled the knob, and he saw her laughing.

Seconds later there was a sharp zzzing like the high whine of a saw on metal, the hot smell of ozone, and the door swung wide. Rose stepped over the threshold and stood on the broad planks of the kitchen floor.

"Thought you were done with me, eh, boy?" She grinned. Her white hair was a mare's nest of whorls and spikes that made her bony face seem smaller.

He didn't answer, he just lowered his eyes.

"May's not going to give yer dad a bairn. She's past it. Know what that means?"

"No. Only the nonsense you spout." He slung the dough into a bowl.

"If you'd get the sheila na gig, it'd be different. It's a powerful charm, boy."

"Get it yourself."

"I can't. It's buried."

"Can't? Why don't you witch it out of the ground?" Tom said. "I'll stay right here. Go ahead, call it up. Bring it right to the kitchen door." He slapped the table hard with the flat of his hand. "Put it right here."

"It wants a man to dig it out, it needs a sorceress to make it work," she said slowly. "A child is made by both." She stared at him, and he felt the power of her gaze. It was as if, with an invisible finger, she tilted his face up to look in hers.

"Hag," he muttered.

She snickered softly, and again he felt the tug of the unseen hand pulling him.

"A hag is a holy woman, a priestess. Yes, I'm a hag. But you're like the others with your puling breast-beating faith. Precious Brigit, the nun, the saint! She was Brigantia, a goddess!"

She stood straighter, and Tom saw a change come into the old woman, as if something shone through her, animated her. Was it belief? She had the look of someone...he moaned. Mary, mother of God, she looked like Ellen, an older more matronly Ellen--but her stance, her eyes, her voice belonged to his sweet cousin.

"Brigantia was three in one, she was the fount of the poets, her sisters were the patrons of healing and smithcraft," Rose said. She clasped her hands together, a look of ecstasy spread across her face. "Is she not worthy of your worship? Her shrine was at Kildare, her votaries were kelles--sacred harlots. In India she was Kali Ma, the bringer of life and death." Rose paused. "She made humans out of clay." Her voice went high with excitement. "Do you know what the sheila na gig is? The goddess revealing the mystery: the way into death is also the passage of life. Souls do not die, they pass into the bodies of the living, so said the old Celtic mothers, and so it is."

She sagged all at once. Her shoulders drooped, her breathing was heavy. "My soul will not die, but it's weary, boy, and it needs a place to rest." The eyes that peered at him were old, sharp with wariness, hooded with thick wrinkled lids.

Then as Tom watched, she seemed to grow paler and paler...and finally, fade. He would have sworn he saw her dragging up the stairs--he swallowed--it wasn't so: Rose had disappeared as easily as any ghost.

***

It was all gibberish. It was senility and maundering dressed up as myth, he told himself later that night. She's really gone round the bend at last, and I'd be as balmy as her to give any of it thinking room. He chewed one nail, wincing when he bit too deeply along the quick. He saw a thin line of blood well up and wiped his fingers on his pants.

He knew he ought to go up to bed; instead, he blew out the lantern in the kitchen and climbed the outer staircase. It was cloudy, there were no stars, no moon.

Tom walked to the top of the rise: if he strained he could make out the steeple of the old church. He felt safe just looking at it. Inside were the images of the saints, the Virgin, the Christ himself. The Church was a haven, a cradle for its dear babes swinging gently through life and into death.

Sure, we'll be burying Granny Rose soon, and I'll be the first to light a candle for her demented soul. He pictured the old woman lying in her coffin, a heavy silver rosary wound through her knobbly fingers. Dead is dead, boy, he told himself, and when she's gone, you'll be free of her. Let the devil listen to her trash and noise. He leaned against the broad trunk of a beech tree.

He saw the cross at the top of the church. Of course he knew the cemetery was alongside, and he knew the tales. He picked up a fallen stick, idly peeling the bark from it.

He caught the flash of a small blue light flickering in the churchyard. Tom chuckled at himself. Here were the heebie jeebies and old stories come to life. You're making yourself see it. And what do you think it is, the dead walking? He watched the light swing up and down, back and forth, tracing and retracing the same pattern.

He flung the stick aside and began to walk down the slope toward the dark misty light. But when he reached the bottom, he was surprised to find himself there. How long had he been standing here? He turned briefly and looked back at the huge beech on the rise. Just ahead he could see the door of the church, the low iron fence, the vague whitish shapes of the headstones.

He paused. There's nothing there, there's no such thing as a sheila na gig part of him argued.

Will it hurt then, to look
?
A voice spoke up in his mind.
Just to prove it finally?

He moved quickly, barely aware of his own footsteps. He forced himself to look away when he scuttled past Ellen's grave, and he didn't stop until he stood in front of the wooden church door, his eyes roving to the heavy rounded stones of the walls. Such a lot of work to build a church. A labor of love. Think of it, hauling the boulders, dressing them, mixing the mortar, building it higher and higher--all to make a shrine of worship.