Nothing. Just the church yard.
Maeve shuffled out behind us, breath fast. “Where to?”
Sully pointed to the root cellar. “We’ll wait until the patrol’s past. Then we cut east through the Kelly’s field, loop back to the graveyard from the far side. They’ll expect us to run for the bridge.”
Nora went first, bare feet on wet stone, followed by Maeve and me. Sully lingered, scanned the yard, then slipped in and shut the door behind him. I heard the lock click, soft as a whisper.
The root cellar was black as pitch. I could feel the cold through my soles, the old smell of potatoes gone to rot. We huddled in silence, all four of us, packed tighter than a litter of kittens.
“In the name of the King!” a voice barked.
No one breathed. I pictured them inside, rifles up, ready to kill.
I pressed my palm to my belly, as if I could shield the whole future with one hand.
The boots moved off, slow at first, then picked up as they searched. Sully tensed, hand on the knife at his belt, his jaw set hard enough to shatter teeth.
After what felt like hours, the noise faded. A whistle, then the clatter of horses and the slow retreat.
We waited another ten heartbeats. Then Sully eased the door open and peered into the gray morning. “Clear,” he said.
We slipped out, knees knocking, and ran for the hedgerow. The mud sucked at my boots, and I nearly lost one, but Maeve caught my elbow and dragged me along.
We made it to the edge of the Kelly’s field before Sully stopped, doubled over, clutching his side. I thought he’d been shot, but it was just the pain, the old wounds, catching up. He wiped the sweat from his face, then straightened, the shamrock tattoo at his wrist livid against the white of his skin.
He caught me looking, and for a second, I saw through the tough bastard act. I saw the hollow under his eyes, the tremblein his hands, the way he kept glancing at the horizon like he was waiting for the world to end.
Maeve took the basket from me, hands steady now. “We go on,” she said, but this time, she didn’t fight. “We stay together, yes?”
I nodded. “Yes.”
Sully pulled me aside, just out of earshot. “You alright?” he whispered.
I tried to laugh, but it hurt. “Never been less alright in my life.”
He let out a breath, ragged. “I thought if I came back, I could fix it. That I could save you.” He looked at the ground. “Maybe I made it worse.”
I touched the ruined skin at his wrist, felt the heat there. “You’re here. That’s all that matters.”
He nodded, but I saw the doubt. “We run,” he said. “And we don’t look back.”
“Not ever,” I promised.
The others waited, silent, the morning brightening around us. I took Sully’s hand, and this time, he didn’t let go.
We walked on, the four of us, through mud and ash and the ruins of every old dream. The sky was the color of forgiveness, thin and blue and too bright to be real. Maybe we were cursed. Maybe we’d never get out. But for that moment, we were together, and the rest of the world could burn.
Toolie
The fields looked nothing like memory. Spring should have brought green, lambs, muck, and laughter, but now every footstep kicked up ash. The earth was blackened, churned by boots and hooves, littered with the crisped bones of last year’s harvest. We walked single file along the old dyke, the only thing left unburned by the English, heading for the graveyard with the sun at our backs and the future closing in.
I kept my hand on Catherine’s shoulder. She walked ahead of me, back straight, her free hand splayed over the belly where my child grew. She didn’t say a word—not to me, not to anyone—but I felt every shudder in her spine as we passed another cottage collapsed in on itself, smoke still leaking from the thatch. Maeve and Nora flanked her, the way birds circle a wounded thing. Declan brought up the rear, limping slow, his leg wound turning his black robes stiff at the thigh.
Nobody dared talk. Not after what happened at the church, not with the memory of it still drying on my shirt. I checked behind us every twenty steps, old habits dying slow. Nothing but fields, a few ravens picking over the corpses of last year’s hayricks. Not a Redcoat in sight. But I didn’t trust the quiet. There was no such thing as luck, not in this world.
The path angled down, skirting the Kelly homestead. Or what was left of it. The barn was a torched ribcage, the house just two standing walls and a patch of black mud where the children’s garden used to be. Nora looked, and her mouth went thin and hard, but she said nothing. Catherine didn’t look at all.
“Keep going,” I said, not loud, but with enough edge to push them forward.