The Dust Of 100 Dogs Part 7

They never turned the gas off, and I remember thanking G.o.d because it was the coldest winter I'd ever lived through. Between the snow and sleet falling outside and the chilly reality engulfing our life-appliance by appliance-I found it hard to believe in anything but blind faith until spring came.

Emer didn't sleep that night, as she lay curled in the cold den listening to the terrible noises of war around her. She could hear animals suffering, people screaming and crying, and wounded men moaning. Some of the injured were Oliver's and some were local men, but they didn't sound any different from each other. The gurgling of b.l.o.o.d.y throats all sounded the same.

By dawn, the village was silent but for the sound of hungry livestock and distant artillery. A c.o.c.k crowed. Emer wanted to look for her mother or father, but no one was moving yet on the knoll, so she lay for over an hour watching a dying blue bottle fly instead. It spoke to her, pushing tiny, barely visible circles into the dirt.

Bzzz. Bzz. Bzz.

On its back and helpless, the fly went round and round while Emer could do nothing but watch and listen.

Bzzzz. Bzzz.

Bz. bzzz.

zzz.

She felt as helpless as she had when Padraig fell, but this time, she watched until there was no more life left. She didn't pinch her eyes shut.

bzzz. bzz.

zzz.

zz. z.

A man appeared on the road in a fancy uniform and chest armor, smiling. In the dull morning light, Emer could barely see him, but she saw his large teeth reflecting the rising sun.

The man walked confidently to the tall castle tower and looked up its high, blackened wall. He turned to a smaller man in a less-fancy uniform. "That will have to come down," he said. Then, the sound of a giddy child playing. Emer looked out and saw a wandering little boy, no older than three, giggling to himself, seemingly oblivious. The armored man ordered him killed without a second's thought. "Nits breed lice," he said, and then walked out of her view toward the remains of the church.

Emer heard footsteps, and turned to see a pair of boots blocking her tunnel. Her heart pounded as she held her breath and stayed quiet.

"Emer?" someone whispered. Her heart leapt at the sound of a familiar voice.

"Daddy?" she said.

The man crouched down and looked through the tunnel. It was her father's brother, Martin, the serious one.

"How did you know I was here?"

"Padraig told me yesterday in case we got separated."

"Padraig is dead."

"Yes."

"Mammy and Daddy?"

He shook his head. "I'm so sorry."

"You're not," she said, pouting. How could this be? How could everyone that mattered be dead?

He beckoned. "Come on."

"No."

"But before the soldiers wake up, we have to get out of here."

"Go away."

He reached his thick hand into the th.o.r.n.y tunnel and swiped for her, but couldn't reach. She feared him then, and flinched into her corner even tighter.

"We have to go now or else we'll never get out of here. Your parents had a plan."

"They're dead. Besides, their plan was to have me burnt up in the church with all the others."

Martin sat down, hiding behind the well wall. "We didn't know."

"The man on the horse told you, long ago. I heard him. That's why Padraig and I agreed to meet here. You didn't let him."

"We thought it was best."

"Go away. Leave me alone."

"Emer, you have to come now, or else I'll leave you here."

She thought about it. How did he know for sure if her mother was dead? How did he know anything? And what was he doing still alive? Every other man was dead.

"Why aren't you dirty?"

"I'm not asking you again, girl."

"You're sure Mammy's dead?"

"Yes."

"You saw her?"

"I saw her."

"Will you take me to her if I come out? I want to see her."

"Of course. You can see for yourself."

She crawled from the den and through the tunnel. Martin grabbed her hand and dragged her behind a hedgerow where no one could see them, then delivered a slap across her blackened face. "Don't you ever disobey me again. I'm your guardian now, and you'll do as I say."

"What about Mammy? I want to see her!"

"Don't be silly, girl." He slapped her again, this time with his fist closed, and left a welt on her cheek.

Too shocked to answer, she followed along behind him and rubbed her face. They arrived at a small paddock with a horse. He mounted first and pulled Emer up by her right arm, nearly ripping it from her body.

"Ow!" she yelled.

He secured her in front of him, then kicked the horse and took off toward Cashel, where he had a small abandoned cottage already prepared. Her three cousins and Aunt Mary were waiting for them.

It took the whole day to get there, and when they arrived, Emer's bottom was sorer than it had ever been. She hadn't talked to Martin all day, not even when they stopped twice to eat and pee. He preferred it that way and said nothing. She relived that slap repeatedly, and she decided to hate Martin forever. Even when she arrived at a comfortable bed once in Cashel, she didn't utter a word. If it took silence until her dying breath, she vowed, she would make him understand that no man strikes a Morrisey woman.

As she fell asleep that night, it all seemed like a dream-the attack, the fires, the screaming, the killing, and the circling, suffering blue bottle fly-all in a far-away place where her parents were, where her brother was, where it was her birthday.

Cashel was already in the hands of the dragon. The walls and churches were in ruins, and each road was manned by soldiers in different uniforms. Emer felt owned there. She was sure no one was to be trusted. And she was old enough to know, when she caught Aunt Mary sewing the family's few gold rings and trinkets into the hems of different garments, that their future held more danger.

From Cashel, they traveled to north rural Limerick, where Irish people still lived in fear of attack. Emer felt the stares of villagers. She used to be like that, gawking at every empty survivor who pa.s.sed through. They settled for some time on a farm there, and then moved on west before autumn. She'd discovered in those six months that Martin slapped his own children, and Mary too sometimes, whenever he was in foul humor or they said something he didn't like hearing. She said nothing to her cousins, but lost respect for them since they never tried to do anything about it.

"Your mother was a bad woman," her cousin said one day, a week before they left the farm.

"Are you just trying to get me to talk or do you really mean that?"

"That's what my father says. He says she was a bad woman who didn't teach you or Padraig any manners."

"She fought at the battle more than your father did. If I were you, I'd be ashamed that my father can only hit women and children but can't fight for the freedom of his country."

"What do you know? You're just a little girl."

"I saw the whole thing happen. Ask him."

Her cousin looked at her skeptically. "Your mother fought?"

"I saw her kill two soldiers and steal their horses."

"No you didn't."

"Yes I did. And I saw Padraig die."

"You did?"

"I went to the top of the castle and watched the battle at the bridge. But then they burnt it down."

"The bridge?"

"No, the castle, dummy."

"Oh."

"I miss Padraig," Emer said. "He was killed when he attacked the first soldier he saw. Uncle Martin sneaked away like a coward."

She got up and walked away. It was the first conversation she'd had in six months, and she felt like a traitor.

They came to the banks of the Shannon several days after they'd left the small Limerick farm in two st.u.r.dy traps. At O'Briensbridge, twenty English soldiers stood, letting the poor Irish pa.s.s once officials at the bridge entrance allowed them through. As they approached the long queue, Emer noticed that some people wore canvas shoes or none at all. Most were bundled in rags, begging for food. A man in front warned newcomers in Gaelic about the importance of producing papers. Two malnourished old women lay on the side of the muddy road, seemingly family-less, next to a makeshift grazing area for confiscated heifers and sheep. Emer couldn't help but look for Mairead, but all she saw were the war-stained faces of strangers, who couldn't do a thing to help her.

They waited three hours to get through, and eventually crossed the river into Connacht, the only territory left for the Irish. Her Uncle Martin smiled at the devilish men, and said something to them in English that allowed him to keep his horses and other belongings.

They reached an encampment after pa.s.sing many rocky hills and valleys, where they settled in a tiny stick-and-stone structure and began their fight for survival. Many people died of starvation or disease during the winter. Food was scarce.

By Emer's tenth birthday, three years later, she was so skinny her ribs poked out and her eyes had deepened. Her Aunt Mary had tried everything to make her stronger, but nothing had worked. To add to that, she had stopped talking completely. Even Uncle Martin stopped slapping her, he was so disturbed by her silence.

In 1656, Emer turned twelve. Life was still the same silent, horrible, uphill battle every day, but one thing had changed. Around Christmas that winter, a new family came to live in the growing encampment. They came from Tipperary, and knew of the battles fought in her valley. Emer listened hard as they spoke one night, during a visit to the hut. A mention of the Mullalys, or the Morriseys, details from the battle at the Carabine Bridge. Complaints about what they'd lost and who they would never see again. The worst of their troubles, they said, were with Sean, their mute fourteen-year-old son.

They spoke of him as if he were a helpless child, even though Emer could see for herself that he was no boy anymore. She found it impossible not to stare at him. Seanie Carroll was a young man with a handsome face, a rare sight in the west, where even the youngest of Irish men were aged with work.

After the Carrolls left, Emer went to the bed and lay down to think. She thought of the castle and Padraig. She thought of her parents. She tried to remember things her mother had said, repeating them in her head to etch them there forever. She imagined Padraig telling her to find happy thoughts. Since the day Mrs. Tobin's gift was turned to ash by the dragon, Emer had been void of happy thoughts. But meeting Seanie Carroll changed that. That and the rest.

On Emer's thirteenth birthday, she woke up cold. Each birthday since the dragon came was harder and harder-the memories of her home place, and of a life with people who loved her, seemed a strange old lie. With Uncle Martin's family, there was no reason to speak, no reason to do anything other than what was asked: wash the clothes, fetch the water, do lessons and prayers with her youngest cousin, and help make meals. Aunt Mary was a warm woman, and outside the authority of Martin she treated Emer with a special regard, hoping that the child might one day talk again.

"I see you've been walking with the Carroll boy," Aunt Mary said that morning.

Emer nodded a little.

"I'm glad to see you've made a friend, Emer, but you just can't go around with a boy and not know the dangers."

Emer continued to wash potatoes in a bucket of cold water.

"Boys have powers you don't know anything about. And soon you'll be too old to have a boy as a friend."

Emer said nothing.

"There'll be no more going off in the mornings to meet him at the spring well. You probably didn't know I knew about that, but I know all sorts of things."

Emer frowned. She and Seanie had spent a few mornings beside the well and the adjacent river, looking at each other. He still wouldn't talk, and Emer didn't know if he was the same sort of mute as she was. Could he not talk at all, or was he only hiding?

"Your Uncle Martin will find a fine boy for you in time. You see what a good lad he chose for our Grainne, didn't you?"

Emer thought of her cousin's husband. He was very like Martin, but Grainne seemed to like him. Emer found him brutish and simple.

"Besides, Sean Carroll is dumb. You can't go marrying a dumb man. Especially you! That would be absurd!"

Emer looked up at Mary, who was pretty much having a conversation with herself. Why was she going on about marriage? Why hadn't she said happy birthday? Surely thirteen wasn't the age to start talking about marriage.

"You do understand what I've told you?" Mary asked, looking down at Emer. "Now that we've had this talk, you won't go off with him anymore, will you?"