I tried to speak, but my throat closed up. I wanted to tell them I’d come back, that I’d send letters, but the words were as useless as the bread on the table.
Mother wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron. “Your sisters will be home by nightfall,” she whispered. “Can you wait that long?”
“We’ll wait,” Sully said. He looked at me, and I saw what he meant. We would wait, because I needed it. Because I couldn’t leave without them.
We sat at the table, all four of us, as the soldiers moved from house to house. You could hear the shouts, the barking orders, the slam of boots on stone. Sully never flinched, never looked away from the door. My father poured himself a drink, hands shaking so bad he spilled more than he swallowed. My mother just sat there, silent, holding my hand.
I counted every step, every shout. At the house next door, there was a scream, then a woman’s wailing. I squeezed Sully’s hand under the table, and he squeezed back, hard. When the boots finally stopped outside, we held our breath as one.
A fist pounded the wood, so hard the lintel rattled. “Open, in the name of the King!”
Angus stood. He opened the door, back straight, eyes level. “What’s your business?”
The sergeant at the head of the line sneered. “There’s word of rebels in these parts. Have you seen any strangers, Mr. Dunn?”
Angus shook his head. “Just my own.”
The sergeant’s eyes slid past him, to where Sully stood, hands at his sides, every inch a threat. “And this?” He pointed.
“My son-in-law,” Angus lied, without blinking. “Back from the dead, as you can see.”
The soldiers laughed. The sergeant eyed Sully, weighing him. “He looks like a dangerous one.”
“He’s not,” I said, stepping forward. “He just wants to work the land. He’s odd in the head.”
The sergeant grinned, wolfish. “Maybe we’ll take him anyway. The army needs men with arms like those.”
Angus tensed, but Sully held up his hands. “I’ll go, if it keeps the peace.”
Mother made a sound between a sob and a curse. “He’s not for you,” she said, voice sharp. “He’s ours.”
The sergeant shrugged. “We’ll be back through, just in case you change your mind.” He spat, then turned on his heel.
The boots marched off. I watched them all the way to the crossroads, where they peeled off to search another house. When the door closed again, my mother sank to her knees, head in her hands. My father poured another drink, then set the cup down untouched.
I turned to Sully. “You meant it, didn’t you? You’d have gone.”
He nodded, silent.
I hugged him then, as tight as I could, and didn’t care who saw.
When the sun set, Maeve and Nora came through the yard, hair plastered to their faces from the rain. They stared at Sully like he was a legend or a curse, then hugged me so hard my ribs ached. We ate supper together, no one saying a word about the future or the past.
Afterwards, I walked the fields with my sisters, arms locked together. Maeve told stories about the old days, about the ghosts in the barn, about the night she thought she’d never see me again. Nora just hummed a song I didn’t know and let the wind carry it away.
I went to bed early, but couldn’t sleep. Sully held me close, his breath hot on my neck. I listened to the wind, to the silence, to the distant sound of soldiers calling in the dark. I knew we’d leave at dawn. I knew I’d never see this place again. But for one more night, I was home.
Catherine
The fire had burned low, a red eye in the black maw of the hearth, but Sully wouldn’t let it die. He sat on the floor with his back against the stones, legs splayed and feet bare, tending the coals with the poker like it owed him money. The rest of the house was a shroud—my mother asleep in the back room, my sisters breathing even and soft, my father out in the byre with the bottle for company. I could have gone to bed. I could have left Sully to his watch. Instead, I sat with him, knees folded, my back pressed to the bench, our hands close enough to touch but not quite.
He didn’t look at me, not directly. He kept his gaze on the fire, poking at the embers, shifting them until they hissed and glowed. Every so often, he’d wince, a half-flinch when the left arm twinged. The wound was fresh, the bandage already brown at the edges. I wanted to scold him for moving it so much, but itwould have been wasted breath. Sully didn’t take care of himself, and he liked it that way.
“What’s it like, then?” I said, keeping my voice low. “The world you came from?”
He didn’t answer right off. He picked up a stick, snapped it, and tossed the halves into the fire. Then he sat back, eyes squinting against the heat. “It’s loud,” he said, after a while. “So loud you can’t think straight. Even when it’s quiet, there’s always a hum. Always a screen, always a clock, always something chewing at your head.”
I thought of the church bells, the crows, the drunkards on market day. I thought of my sisters’ laughter, my father’s shouts, and the wind in the chimney. “Is it better?”