By the end of May the waters of the Boyne were so low that one could see the stones laid centuries before as footing for the ford. The farmers were looking anxiously at the clouds blown by the west wind across the beautiful low sky. The fields needed rain. The brief showers that refreshed the air wet the soil only enough to draw the roots of wheat and timothy grass toward the surface, weakening the stalks.

Cat reported that the north track to Grainne’s cottage was turning into a beaten path. “She has more butter than she can eat,” Cat said, spreading her own butter on a muffin. “People are buying spells for rain.”

“You’ve decided to be friends with Grainne?”

“Yes. Billy likes her.”

Scarlett smiled. Whatever Billy said was law to Cat. It was lucky the boy was so good natured; Cat’s adoration could have been a terrible trial. Instead he was as patient as a saint. Billy had inherited his father’s “way with horses.” He was teaching Cat to be an expert rider, far beyond anything that Scarlett could have done. As soon as Cat was a few years older, she’d be on a horse, not a pony. She mentioned at least twice a day that ponies were for little girls and Cat was a big girl. Fortunately it was Billy who said “not big enough.” Cat would never have accepted it from Scarlett.


Scarlett went to a house party in Roscommon in early June, confident that she was in no way deserting her daughter. She probably won’t even notice that I’m not there. How humbling.

“Isn’t the weather splendid?” said everyone at the party. They played tennis on the lawn after dinner in the soft clear light that lasted until after ten o’clock.

Scarlett was pleased to be with so many of the people she’d liked most in Dublin. The only one she didn’t greet with real enthusiasm was Charles Ragland. “It was your regiment that flogged that pitiful man to death, Charles. I’ll never forget, and I’ll never forgive. Wearing regular clothes doesn’t change the fact that you’re an English soldier, and that the military are monsters.”

Charles was surprisingly unapologetic. “I’m truly sorry that you saw it, Scarlett. Flogging’s a filthy business. But we’re seeing things that are even worse, and they must be stopped.”

He declined to give examples, but Scarlett heard from general conversation about the violence against landlords that was cropping up all over Ireland. Fields were torched, cows had their throats cut, an agent for a big estate near Galway was ambushed and hacked to pieces. There was hushed, anxious talk about a resurgence of the Whiteboys, organized bands of marauders that had terrified landowners more than a hundred years before. It couldn’t be, said wiser heads. These latest incidents were scattered and sporadic and usually the work of known troublemakers. But they did tend to make one a bit uncomfortable when the tenants stared in the carriage as one drove past.

Scarlett forgave Charles. But, she said, he mustn’t expect her to forget. “I’ll even take the blame for the flogging if it will make you remember me,” he said ardently. Then he blushed like a boy. “Dammit, I invent speeches worthy of Lord Byron when I’m in the barracks thinking of you, then I blurt out some rubbish when I’m in your presence. You know, don’t you, that I’m most abominably in love with you?”

“Yes, I know. It’s all right, Charles. I don’t believe I would have liked Lord Byron, and I like you very much.”

“Do you, my angel? Might I hope that—”

“I don’t think so, Charles. Don’t look so desperate. It’s not you. I don’t think so with anybody.” The sandwiches in Scarlett’s room lowly curled up their edges during the night.


“It’s so good to be home! I’m afraid I’m an awful kind of person, Harriet. When I’m away I always get an itch to be home, no matter how much fun I’m having. But I’ll bet you I start thinking about the next party I’ve accepted before this week’s out. Tell me all about what happened while I was gone. Did Cat pester Billy half to death?”

“Not too much. They’ve invented a new game they call ‘sink the Vikings.’ I don’t know where the name comes from. Cat said you could explain, she only remembered enough to make up the name. They’ve put a rope ladder on the tower. Billy hauls rocks up it, then they throw them through the slits into the river.”

Scarlett laughed. “That minx. She’s been nagging me about getting up in the tower for ages. And I notice she’s got Billy doing the heavy work. Before she’s even four years old. She’s going to be a terror by the time she’s six. You’ll have to beat her with a stick to make her learn her letters.”

“Probably not. She’s already curious about the animal alphabet in her room.”

Scarlett smiled at the implied suggestion that her daughter was probably a near-genius. She was willing to believe that Cat could do everything earlier and better than any child in the history of mankind.

“Will you tell me about the house party, Scarlett?” Harriet asked wistfully. Experience hadn’t caused her to lose her romantic dreaminess.

“It was lovely,” said Scarlett. “We were—oh, about two dozen, I guess—and for once there was no boring old retired general to talk about what he’d learned from the Duke of Wellington. We had a knock-down-drag-out croquet tournament with someone taking bets and giving odds like a horse race. I was on a team with—”

“Mrs. O’Hara!” The words were screamed, not spoken. Scarlett jumped up from her chair. A maid ran in, panting and red-faced. “Kitchen . . .” she gasped. “Cat . . . burned . . .” Scarlett almost knocked her down when she tore past her.

She could hear Cat wailing when she was only halfway through the colonnade from house to kitchen wing. Scarlett ran even faster. Cat never cried.

“She didn’t know the pan was hot” . . . “already buttered her hand” . . . “dropped it soon as she picked it up . . . Momma . . . Momma . . .” The voices were all around her. Scarlett heard only Cat’s.

“Momma’s here, darling. We’ll fix Cat up quick as a wink.” She scooped the crying child up in her arms and hastened to the door. She’d seen the furious red weal across Cat’s palm. It was so swollen her little fingers were spread wide.

The drive had doubled its length, she’d swear it. She was running as fast as she could without risking a fall. If Dr. Devlin’s not at his house, he won’t have a roof over his head when he comes back. I’ll throw out every stick of furniture he owns, and his family with it.

But the doctor was there. “Now, now, there’s no need to be in such a state, Mrs. O’Hara. Aren’t children having accidents all the time? Let me take a look at it.”

Cat screamed when he pressed her hand. It tore Scarlett like a knife.

“It’s a bad burn, and that’s a fact,” said Dr. Devlin. “We’ll keep it greased till the blister fills, then cut and drain the liquid.”

“She’s hurting now, Doctor. Can’t you do something?” Cat’s tears were soaking Scarlett’s shoulder.

“Butter’s best. It will cool it in time.”

“In time?” Scarlett turned and ran. She thought of the liquid on her tongue when Cat was born, the blessed quick release from pain.

She’d take her baby to the wise woman.


So far—she’d forgotten the river and the tower were so far. Her legs were getting tired, that mustn’t be. Scarlett ran as if the hounds of Hell were in pursuit. “Grainne!” she cried when she reached the hollies. “Help! For God’s sake, help.”

The wise woman stepped out from a shadow. “We’ll sit here,” she said quietly. “There’s no more running needed.” She sat on the ground and held up her arms. “Come to Grainne, Dara. I’ll make the hurt go away.”

Scarlett put Cat into the wise woman’s lap. Then she crouched on the ground, poised to snatch her child and run again. To wherever there might be help. If she could think of any place or anyone.

“I want you to put your hand in mine, Dara. I won’t touch it. Lay it in my hand yourself. I will talk to the burn and it will heed me. It will go away.” Grainne’s voice was calm, certain. Cat’s green eyes looked into Grainne’s placid wrinkled face. She placed the back of her injured small hand against Grainne’s herb-stained leathery palm.

“You have a big, strong burn, Dara. I will have to persuade it. It will take a long time, but it will begin to feel better soon.” Grainne blew gently on the burned flesh. Once, twice, three times. She put her lips close to their two hands and began to whisper into Cat’s palm.

Her words were inaudible, her voice like the whisper of soft young leaves or clear shallow water running over pebbles in sunlight. After a few minutes, no more than three, Cat’s crying stopped, and Scarlett sank onto the ground, slack-muscled from relief. The whispering continued, low, monotonous, relaxing. Cat’s head nodded, then dropped onto Grainne’s breast. The whispers went on. Scarlett leaned back on her elbows. Later her head drooped and she slid onto the ground, supine and soon sleeping. And still Grainne whispered to the burn, on and on, while Cat slept and Scarlett slept, and slowly, slowly the swelling subsided and the red receded until Cat’s skin was as if she had never burned it at all. Grainne lifted her head then and licked her cracked lips. She laid Cat’s hand over the other, then folded her two arms around the sleeping child and rocked gently forth and back, humming under her breath. After a long while she stopped.

“Dara.” Cat opened her eyes. “It’s time to go. You tell your mother. Grainne is tired and will sleep now. You must take your mother home.” The wise woman stood Cat on her feet. Then she turned and went into the holly thicket on her hands and knees.

“Momma. It’s time to go.”