The Angel. Carla Neggers
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was portable, allowing her to indulge her sense of adventure, was another plus.
“When I was here last,” she said, “I told you about a project I’m involved with—I’m working with an Irish professor who’s putting together a conference on Irish folklore next spring. It’ll be in two parts, one in Boston and one in Cork.”
“I remember,” her mother said.
“One of the emphases will be on twentieth-century immigrants to America. I’ve been working that angle, and I ended up deciding to put together and illustrate a collection specifically of their stories. I have a wonderful one Gran told me before she died. She was from West Cork—”
“I know she was. Keira…” Her mother’s eyes were pained.
“What’s wrong? I’ve been to Ireland before. Not the Beara Peninsula, but—Mum, are you afraid I’m going to run into my father?”
“Your father was John Michael Sullivan.”
But Keira was referring to her biological father. Her mother had returned home from a summer study program in Ireland at nineteen, pregnant with Keira. When Keira was a year old, her mother had married John Sullivan, a South Boston electrician ten years her senior. He was killed in a car accident two years later, and his widow and adopted daughter had moved out of Boston and started a new life.
Keira had no clear memory of him, but when she looked at pictures of him, she felt an overwhelming sense of affection, gratitude and grief, as if some part of her did remember him. Her mother never discussed that one trip to Ireland thirty years ago. For all Keira knew, her biological father could have been a Swedish tourist or another American student.
She debated a moment, then said, “A woman on your old street in South Boston heard about the folklore project and got in touch with me. She told me this incredible story about three Irish brothers who fight with each other and fairies over an ancient stone angel—”
“Patsy McCarthy,” her mother said in a toneless voice.
“That’s right. She says she told you this story, too, before your trip to Ireland. The brothers believe the statue is of one of the angels said to visit Saint Ita during her lifetime. The fairies believe it’s not an angel at all but actually one of their own who’s been turned to stone. There’s more to it—it’s quite a tale.”
“Mrs. McCarthy told a lot of stories.”
“Her grandfather heard this one when he worked in the copper mines on the Beara Peninsula and told it to Patsy when she was a little girl in Ireland. The village where the brothers lived isn’t named, but there are enough details—”
“To pinpoint it. Yes, I know.”
“And the spot where the hermit monk brother lived. You could make a stab at finding it, at least, if you know the story.” Keira waited, but when her mother didn’t respond, continued. “Patsy told me you were determined to find the village and look for the hermit monk’s hut on your trip to Ireland before I was born.”
“She’s a gifted storyteller.”
“Yes, she is.”
Her mother lifted a small, filmy sheet of gold leaf to the light streaming in through the window. The use of gold—real gold—was what distinguished a true illuminated manuscript, but Keira knew it was far too soon for her mother to apply gold to her work-in-progress.
“Do you know the difference between sin and evil, Keira?”
Keira didn’t want to talk about sin and evil. She wanted to talk about Patsy’s old story and magic, mischief and fairies. “It’s not something I think much about.”
“Adam and Eve sinned.” Her mother turned the gold leaf so that it gleamed in the late-afternoon light. “They wanted to please God, but they succumbed to temptation. They regretted their disobedience. They took no delight in what they did.”
“In other words, they sinned.”
“Yes, but the serpent is a different case altogether. He delights in his wrongdoing. He exults in thwarting God. He sees himself as the antithesis of God. Unlike Adam and Eve, the serpent didn’t commit a sin in the Garden of Eden. The serpent chose evil.”
“Honestly, Mum, I don’t know how you can stand to think about this stuff out here by yourself.”
She set the thin gold leaf on the pure white paper. Keira knew from experience that the gold leaf was difficult to work with but resilient, able to withstand considerable manipulation without breaking into pieces. Applied properly, it looked like solid gold, not just a whisper of gold.
“We all sin, Keira,” her mother said without a hint of a smile, “but we’re not all evil. The devil understands that. Evil is a particular dispensation of the soul.”
“Does this have anything to do with Ireland? With what happened there when you—”
“No. It has nothing at all to do with Ireland.” She took a breath. “So, how’s your work?”
Keira stifled her irritation at the abrupt change of subject. It felt like a dismissal and probably was, but she reminded herself that she hadn’t come out to the woods to judge her mother, or even for information. She’d come simply to say goodbye before flying out of Boston tomorrow night.
“My work’s going great right now, thanks.” Why go into detail when that world no longer interested or concerned her mother?
“That’s good to hear. Thank you for stopping by.” She got to her feet and hugged Keira goodbye. “Live your life, sweetheart. Don’t get too caught up in all these crazy old stories. And please don’t worry about me out here. I’m fine.”
On her way back through the woods, Keira resisted the urge to look over her shoulder for the devil and serpents. Instead, she remembered herself as a child, and how her mother would sing her Irish songs and read her stories. Every kind of story—stories about fairies and wizards and giants, about hobbits and elves and dark lords, princes and princesses, witches, goblins, cobblers, explorers and adventurers.
How could such a fun-loving, sociable woman end up alone out here?
But Keira had to admit there had been hints of what was to come—that she’d seen glimpses in her mother of a mysterious sadness and private guilt, of a longing for a peace that she knew could never really be hers in this life.
Her mother insisted she hadn’t withdrawn from the world or rejected her family but rather had embraced her religious beliefs in a personal and profound way. She viewed herself as participating in a centuries-old monastic tradition.
That was no doubt true, but Keira didn’t believe her mother’s retreat to her isolated cabin was rooted entirely in her faith. As she’d listened to Patsy McCarthy tell her old story, Keira had begun to wonder if her mother’s trip to Ireland thirty years ago had somehow set into motion her eventual turn to the life of a religious hermit.
Another mosquito—or maybe the same one—found Keira, buzzing in her ear and jerking her back to the here and now, to her own life. She swiped at the mosquito as she plunged down the narrow trail through the woods to the dead-end dirt road where she’d parked.
The story of the three Irish brothers, the fairies and the stone angel wasn’t about a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Ultimately, Keira thought, it was about the push-pull of family ties and the deep, human yearning for a connection with others, for happiness and good fortune.
Mostly, it was just a damn good yarn—a mesmerizing story that Keira could illustrate and tell on the pages of her new book.
“They say the stone angel lies buried to this day in the old ruin of the hermit monk’s hut.”
Maybe, maybe not. Patsy McCarthy, and her grandfather before her, easily could have exaggerated and embellished the story over the years. It didn’t matter. Keira was hooked, and she couldn’t wait to be on her way to Ireland.
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