She heard Gavin speaking from around the side of the barn but she couldn’t understand his words. He must have been speaking to her, she didn’t know. She had been staring at the house for a good ten minutes before she realized it had started to rain. She’d lived in Ireland so long she hardly noticed the sudden downpours any more. She watched as the flames slowly died and the air turned to a thick, stagnant layer of black fog.
She leaned over the side of the wagon and threw up into the bushes.
In all her nightmares of worry back home in the States about what could happen to her child, she had never come close to imagining the terror and agony of what she had experienced in the last hour. And while she lived with hope that, as Gavin suggested, John was not in the burning house, the knowledge that that meant he was with the murderous gypsies was nearly as unendurable. She held the gun to her chest like it had the power to change things. She finished her prayers with the plea to God Almighty that He keep John safe, that He help him say and do the right things while the gypsies had him to keep him alive, and that He help Sarah navigate the rest of this unfathomable nightmare.
Gavin spoke to her again, this time louder and closer. He was saying something about the rain and how, Saints be praised, it had come at a divine moment. Sarah couldn’t take her eyes off the cottage. They were coming to a moment, she knew, when the rain would put out the fire completely and enable them to enter the cottage. And then they would know for sure.
…And then they would know.
“Missus?”
Sarah dragged her eyes from the smoldering building to look at him. He looked tired and filthy. His face was black from the soot of the fire and sweat and rain and created rivulets down both his cheeks. It made him look like he’d been crying.
“I’ve built a wee fire,” he said, indicating with a jerk of his head the backcourt on the side of the barn. “The root cellar’s not been touched by the fire so I’ll check to see if there’s anything we can use to eat. Is that alright?”
Sarah shifted in her position in the wagon to look back at the house.
John was hungry all the time, too.
“Fine,” she said dully.
“I’ve buried the old man,” he said. “And me Da will be here soon. Maybe in an hour or so.”
Sarah didn’t respond so Gavin turned to find the root cellar.
She bowed her head and finished her prayers. It was all she could do.
When she heard the shout, she stood up so fast that the gun dropped to the floorboard of the wagon. Instead of snatching it up, she left it there and jumped to the ground, facing the direction of Gavin’s shout.
Something inside her just knew.
He came running from around the corner of the barn. In the fading light of the day, she saw him run toward her, his arms pumping at his side, his head up, his eyes locked onto hers.
“Mom!”
And that was when she started to weep. When he launched himself into her open arms, she crushed him so tightly to her that he squeaked and still she cried. She kissed his tousled brown hair, his filthy, tear-streaked cheeks, his sweet little-boy mouth that was talking and exclaiming all at once.
Thank you, God. Dear Lord in Heaven, thank you, thank you.
They found Dierdre in the house.
John told them that Seamus had made him run and hide in the root cellar when they heard the gypsies come. He had one of the puppies with him but couldn’t find the other. Seamus told him he’d come for him when it was all clear.
“But he never came, Mom.”
Seamus’s plan was for Dierdre to hold them off with the guns from inside the house. Then Seamus was to provide a distraction outside, facing down the gypsies, so that John could slip out the back.
“You’re a brave lad, young John,” Donovan said, nodding at John. “You’re Da would be proud.”
John nodded solemnly, but Sarah could tell Mike’s words were a balm to him. Donovan had come not forty minutes after John was found. He’d brought with him ten other people, five of them able-bodied men and the rest women and children.
Donovan had wasted no time in clearing away the dead animal carcasses and bringing some order to the devastation. His men found what remained of poor Dierdre. They buried both her and Seamus that very night. Afterward, it was too late to do anything but build a campfire and create a bit of shelter against the night. His people pitched their tents in the paddock and set up their bedrolls in the barn. The women, silent as wights, prepared steaming pots of small-animal stew that simmered on flat rocks in the campfire.
Sarah could not take her eyes off John. She watched him hungrily as he walked the camp, staying mostly with Donovan and Gavin. Her preference would have been to keep him wrapped in her arms. Her terror was too newly lived to be discounted by the fact of his existence. She now knew the sharp agony of the terrible loss of him and it was even worse than she’d ever imagined. Her joy to have him delivered back to her was tempered by the knowledge of how vulnerable they all were.
David.
She closed her eyes in exhaustion and held her hands to her face. She jerked her head up to see where John might be and discovered that Donovan had quietly sat down next to her.
“Whoa, didn’t mean to startle you,” he said. He was holding out a metal cup in his hands.
“You didn’t,” Sarah said. “I just…” She shook her head and nodded toward where John and Gavin squatted near the fire. “I’m never going to feel safe again.”
Donovan held out the cup to her and she drank from it without thinking. It was some kind of homemade alcohol and burned all the way down her throat. The pain felt good and almost instantly she felt some of the edge of the day creep away.
“Nor none of us, that’s the truth,” Donovan said with a heavy sigh. “I am so sorry we didn’t get here in time.”
Sarah turned to look at him.
“What a nice man you are,” she said.
That made him smile and he took a pull from a flask he’d been holding in his hand.
“You brought all these people here to help us.” She took another sip and let the alcohol do its work. She closed her eyes, willing the drink to calm her and not open up the floodgates of emotion as was all too likely.
“Well, to be honest, we’re family, you see,” he said. “All of us related in some way.”
One of the women approached. She wore baggy jeans and a tired smile. Her hair was gathered back in a single braid down her back. She handed Sarah a bowl of stew and a dented spoon.
“You’ll be hungry,” she said.
Sarah glimpsed over the woman’s shoulder at John who was eating and laughing with Gavin. She shook her head in wonder and accepted the warm bowl.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you for everything.”
“Sure, it’s nothing,” the woman said. “I’m Fiona, Mike’s big sister.” The woman knelt down across from Sarah. “We’ve heard a good bit about you from Siobhan and the others. It’s a pleasure to finally meet you.”
“I guess we’re famous,” Sarah said. She spooned into the stew. “Those crazy Americans—coming to the remotest point on the globe so they can give up electronics and live the simple life.”
Fiona frowned. “Sure, I’m not positive we are the remotest point on the globe,” she said wryly.
“Sorry,” Sarah said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”
“Fi’s just giving you a hard time,” Donovan said, frowning at his sister.