Sean doesn’t want to attend this rally memorializing fallen “Provo” volunteers with his Aunt Angela. He wants to comb the nearby hillside for hidden creatures that might help him impress someone he cares about. The air is cold and still as a thick fog blankets the nearby stone church and oak trees. Masses of people gather round a podium set up in the middle of this old cemetery yard. They watch in silence as the speaker steps forward from a line of camouflaged guerrilla fighters assembled behind the podium. His face, like the others behind him, is concealed behind a ski mask. Sean’s mother is among them, somewhere in that line.
The boy looks up at his aunt, her hands pulling his jacket covered shoulders against her waist. She’s bearing a deep frown, glares steady brown eyes straight at one end of the line. Maybe that’s where Sean’s mother stands, arms behind her back, at attention. He asks if they can at least talk to her but Angela keeps staring and says, “Just keep your trap shut and listen. That’ll send your mother a message.” Sean disturbs some pebbles under his feet, he doesn’t understand his aunt’s logic. He tries pretending the hot clouds of breath he respires are ghosts disappearing into the open air, but it’s no good. He starts yawning.
***
Angela recognizes her younger sister, Ciara, among the volunteers. She’s the one on the left of the line, her brown hair braided into a ponytail that hangs beneath the mask. She still styles it the way Angela showed her when they were children. Otherwise, Angela may not have spotted her.
The siblings eventually make eye contact with each other, and Angela prays that her stare conveys the exact amount of frustration she feels towards her younger sister. Ciara moves her right arm to her side, out from behind her back, and flicks the subtlest of middle fingers Angela’s way. Neither Angela nor Sean were supposed to show up to this.
Angela reaches into her side pocket, one hand still holding onto her nephew, and draws out a makeup mirror for a quick look. Wrinkles streak across her face—her once red lips have faded into purple chapped crescents she calls a mouth, and there’s a dark spot on her jaw. She recalls her younger self—the one more slim and beaming, off to university with ambitions of becoming a certified social worker. But the only beams she spots now are her thinning strands of white hair reflecting slivers of daylight. They sprouted early, even for someone in their late thirties.
She flips the mirror shut, tries not to sigh too loudly. How did she come to this lot in life, a conformist like her dead father? She’s a woman who always followed the rules. She never pushed envelopes or boundaries, never bothered getting married, what with her hours of signing court documents, providing adolescent counseling and conducting crisis interventions keeping her busy. She certainly was never someone who harbored any desire of raising children alone. There were already enough youngsters in her work life to keep her exhausted. Yet here she stands, shivering in her olive coat and pressed khakis, caring for her sister’s offspring whom the church in its darkest of ages would call a vile conception of passion and sin. Oh Lord, how did it all come to this?
***
The masked speaker starts talking, his voice slow and hateful towards those responsible for adding more names to the bronze plaque on the nearby marble monument. Sean’s aunt calls them “Loyalists”. His mother calls them something worse. Doesn’t matter to Sean, he’s never met one.
Yawning again, the boy glances around the cemetery. A drizzling rain lightly sprays his face. Objects become faint shadows behind the layers of fog. He needs to get out there and explore. One of his friends from school, Liam, with a shaved head and amputated shoulder stub, says this is the perfect weather for creatures like the Merrow, the Dullahan or a Glaistig to appear. Though Liam admits to never meeting those things before, he’s always telling stories of close encounters with Cu Siths and Sluaghs whenever he intrudes into their rain-soaked woods. It gets him several giggles and claps from other students in Sean’s 3rd grade class.
Sean remembers interrupting one of those tales to ask, but what if I wanted to find something good, ya know, something that can help people? And Liam clucked his tongue while drumming fingers against his chin the way he always did whenever trying to look smarter. A Púca, he said, was Sean’s best hope. They were giant rabbit looking things with black fur thick enough to drown someone in. Helping people was a favorite pastime of theirs, but should one offer Sean a ride on its back it would be best to say no, or so Liam warned. Púcai were not known for minding their own strength.
Why look for one in a cemetery? was Sean’s final question. But Liam tapped Sean’s head with his knuckle, asked who needed help more than the dead and buried? If a Púca could make them happy, Sean would be pleased.
The increased drizzle gives the boy an idea of how he might escape for a bit.
***
“May I go and get the umbrella from the car? The rain’s going to get worse.”
“How do you know that? You’re not a weatherman,” Angela says, looking down at Sean.
“Please?” he asks. Angela looks in the direction of the cemetery parking lot. The gravel path is visible, but the cars in the distance are lost in fog. A tinge of regret swells through her; Angela knows Sean’s the only child attending this rally. He’s too sweet a lad to be mixed up in all this. Now how is that possible? For a child brought up in a world of revulsion and conflict to turn out as sweet as he has? Intelligent, too. Sean’s always been the little treasure hunter. Not one of those tykes who wander around pulling random trinkets from trash, no, at eight years old he’s already charting his own maps and labeling places he’s been in the neighborhood with color-coded ink for future investigations. Even Angela frequently relies on him for finding misplaced car keys or earrings whenever absentmindedness gets the better of her. The boy’s a natural. But then, he has been living mostly under her roof, her guidance. Can she really be surprised he turned out as perfect as he has?
She smiles down at him, ruffles his auburn hair, and says, “Alright, young buck. Go get the umbrella and be quick about it.”
Sean gives her a kiss and runs off, taking the car keys with him. Watching his agile figure fade into the white mist of drizzle gives Angela cause to gently rub her stomach. She wonders how she became so heavy, so doughy in the middle. It wasn’t even a decade ago she could fit herself into a two-piece bikini on holidays to Portugal and not much time passed since she could match Sean’s speed at running. She looks back at Ciara who’s still standing at attention, elegantly displaying those blue eyes through the ski mask like the ocean showing off its collection of pearls. Her camouflage army jacket fits snuggly around her toned waist. The clover green pants she wears model her trimmed legs. If one were to pull the sisters aside and guess which one was pregnant at one point, Angela knows they wouldn’t choose Ciara.
The speaker finishes giving his condolences for fallen Provos. Though he wasn’t part of the Republican movement, Angela and Ciara’s father receives an honorable mention. He’s buried in this very cemetery, but the grave is unmarked. The speaker now transitions into the part of the rally concerning future actions their organization will take against British and RUC forces. Angela shakes her head. The IRA may not keep every promise they dish out to their supporters, but when they do, they make sure the whole world knows they performed the nefarious deed.
***
Instead of continuing on the path that leads to the cemetery archways, Sean makes a left once he’s sure no one’s watching. The branch in the trail weaves him past more oak trees, through charted plots of graves and memorials. He can smell pine in the air as the faint echo of the rally speaker fumbles its way through the fog. All his senses make it clear: he’s on an adventure to nab a Púca.
Sean pulls out the car keys from his jacket pocket, pretends it’s a silver blade. He also pretends his mother is behind him, and that they’ve been cornered by a crouching Cu Sith on the road. The beast drips fungus-colored saliva from its fangs wreathed in moss, pacing to and fro, seeking a chance to strike.
“Stay behind me,” Sean whispers, “I’ll protect you.”
The creature swipes at Sean with its wolf-like paws. Sean swipes back with his sword. He mutters insults under his breath, daring it to come closer. Then the monster pounces with a howl, but Sean maneuvers and stabs the creature dead center on its crown. The Cu Sith whimpers, oozing orange blood onto the dew speckled grass. “Be careful,” Sean whispers as it runs away, “they sometimes come back.”
But Sean’s mother will pull him into a tight hug like she did the last time they were actually together. She’ll swing him back and forth, covering his face with kisses, and blow raspberries into Sean’s belly, making him squeal. Then she’ll tell him over and over again how much she loves him and wants to be his mother forever. She’ll tear up those rotten court papers that made Aunt Angela so angry the other night.
The boy jolts back to the real world when he accidentally walks into the metal gating surrounding the plot reserved for the unidentified tombs. There are all kinds of different stones erected in there. Most are the more common black granite markers, but the rest are special. Some are crafted as tall obelisks wrapped in bronze crowns of thorn. Others are modeled after Celtic crosses, weaving their strands together like a farmer’s basket, and a few are above ground mini houses for bodies waiting on the resurrection. Sean remembers his grandfather rests somewhere in there. But his grave, like all the others in this section, is nameless. Aunt Angela told him the story of why, once.
As a God-fearing Catholic who knows where he’s headed in the afterlife, Sean has nothing to fear from graveyards or their scary sides revealed around chimney fires. But as he continues his quest past more tombstones, many which have started sinking into the ground, he wonders: what would it be like to die unknown?
Would the person being buried stay happy enough to remain at rest? Sean didn’t think so. He figured they were still alive, under the earth, banging on the lids of their coffins for someone to let them out and give them a chance to do something worth an etching on their memorial signs. If they never got that chance, according to Liam, they’d rise from their graves as molting Sluaghs ready to devour anything that breathed. Sean shivers. If his grandfather did that in front of the Brits who buried him, they’d never return to this place.
Crows begin cawing from nearby branches. The fog is starting to lift its veil, uncovering more acres of land sprouting trees, bushes, and additional rows of gravestones. Sean stops to look at it all for a moment, reminding himself how large this place really is. He figures it’s best he turns back. The speaker’s echo is at its faintest, and Sean’s never been this deep in the cemetery before. But just as he’s about to leave, Sean hears thick footsteps and shuffling, notices a black bulk move from behind some nearby shrubberies to stand at the back of an oak tree’s trunk.
***
Angela pulls back her coat sleeve, looks down at her watch. She’s glanced around too many times waiting on Sean. Maybe he doubled back, returned the umbrella to the car. It did stop drizzling. She bites at her lip, swears under her breath as she walks toward the parking lot. Had it not been for that fight with her sister two evenings ago, Angela would never have brought the young buck to this place. Hell, she wouldn’t be here either.
But Ciara made a surprise arrival to their seaside house for the first time in months, wearing normal clothes—a long-sleeved beige sweater with jeans—and smiling. Sean’s cheeks burned from all the grinning he made when he saw his rightful mother, and Angela stood there in the background, smiling herself, and watching as her younger sister played with her son in the front yard.
For dinner, Angela served slow–cooked corned beef with two sides of colcannon potatoes and sugar carrots. They ate around flickering candle light by the living room fireplace, an old family tradition reserved for only the most special of occasions, and Sean told his mother all about school and the new friends he was making in 3rd grade class this year.
They shared slices of apple cake dolloped in whipped cream for dessert while also taking turns sharing old Irish folktales until the fireplace dimmed with crackling embers. Sean took up the most time with his stories, eager to pass on everything Liam had taught him. As the night drew on, Angela sent Sean up to bed, but before he left, the young buck wrapped his mother in a snug squeeze, whispering, “I love you.”
“Sleep well, sweetheart,” Ciara replied, rubbing his back.
Sean closed the wooden door connecting the living room with the flight of stairs to the second floor behind him. Neither sister spoke until the footsteps rising up and away turned silent.
“You want some beer?” Angela asked.
“Kilkenny, please.”
Angela brought out two bottles of suds, poured both into pint glasses.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked why I’m here,” Ciara said in mock curiosity.
“Can’t I be an optimist and assume it’s for some pleasant reason?”
Angela handed Ciara her drink, sat down in the love seat across from her sister. She poked the smoldering logs with the fire rod, took a sip of her beer knowing full well it’d brace her in vain for whatever Ciara was about to reveal.
“My unit received orders directly from the army council last week. We’re to represent the IRA at this year’s Easter rally.”
“Congratulations,” Angela replied, “I’m sure you’ll be a sight to inspire.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm.
“That’s not all,” Ciara said, taking a swig of beer, “they also want us to carry out a bombing attack.”
“No they don’t!” Angela sat up. She licked her lips and blinked, searching for the right words to dissuade. “Spreading propaganda and marching in the streets is one thing, but you’re not a murderer.”
“There will be phone calls made. Evacuations will be given. This operation isn’t aimed at killing anyone. Its purpose is driving home the message to England and Thatcher that we’re not to be taken lightly.”
Angela rubbed at her temple, felt her whole body shattering like beer bottles dropped on cobblestone streets. “Tell me we’re not speaking of this. The British government doesn’t treat militant Republicans as political prisoners. You’ll be thrown away forever if you carry that out in Belfast.”
“We’re not going to Belfast,” Ciara replied, drinking more beer and staring long and hard Angela’s way. A faint gasp escaped the older sister’s lips.
“My apologies, Ciara, I never knew you were that bold and stupid.”
“The Queen can watch our show from the roof of Buckingham Palace with some crumpets and jam. It’ll be a powerful message.”
“Yes, Ciara,” Angela said, rising, “her majesty waking up to a smoldering building would be powerful. But so would an earthquake, a volcanic eruption, a mother being a part of her son’s life. Now you tell me, out of all of those I just listed—which is the most powerful and morally right in this world?” Angela’s lip quivered a little. She didn’t mean for that last sentence to come out as loud as it did.
“I hate it when you spew that shit from your self-righteous gob. If our societies were surrounded by impartial guidelines, our father would have met Sean,” Ciara said, raising her voice.
There were pictures of their father hung up around the living room, black and white tintypes portraying a sturdy, mustached man in fisherman’s clothes. He held catches in some shots and his daughters on the knee in others. Sometimes Angela still touched the mullet oil staining his shirt when dusting those frames, still smelt the cigar smoke embedded deep in his whiskers. She never told Ciara but seeing his rods set up in the shed where he last left them made her sob into her pillow at night before falling asleep.
“No violence can resurrect what’s been lost. We just have to keep pushing on with what we have. You know that’s what he’d want.”
“Well I also know he wouldn’t want some other poor bastard falsely accused of committing terror, thrown away for months in some dank cell, and then succumbing to consumption without a fair trial.” Ciara finished off her beer, wiped her mouth by the sleeve, added, “Aye, and I haven’t forgotten those hyenas returning five years later, saying, well shit, guess we made a mistake in detaining your dear Da. Please accept our half-baked apology.” Ciara made a face of disgust, continued, “Least if they capture me, I can spit in their eye and say, well done,” she paused to clap, “you actually caught a real Provo this time.”
“And what will you tell Sean behind concrete walls, even if they let you see him? He needs you in his life, no one else. I can’t ever replace you.”
Ciara stared blankly before turning away to reach into her purse pocket, removing a document covered in fine print. She set it down on the coffee table to her right, her face losing some color.
“What’s this, now?” Angela asked, walking over.
She picked up the paper and unfolded it before skimming the content. A laminator’s golden seal asserted its legality. The words she gathered from within the technical font pierced into her stomach the way she imagined a bullet might pierce bodies.
Petition; Waiver; Surrender; Parent’s Rights; Child’s Rights; Full Custody; Angela Collins.
She kept reading and the words kept penetrating until Angela found herself sitting back down in the love seat, her now clammy fingers rubbing cold sweat against her temple. Neither sister spoke as time crawled on.
“I’ve thought this through,” Ciara finally said, “and our cause for Ireland is too great. It’s a life not suited for a child, and I can’t commit to both.”
“You never should have been a mother,” Angela whispered.
“It’s like you said, we have to push on with what we have, and Sean doesn’t need a fugitive parent fighting a guerrilla war in his life.”
Angela suddenly found the strength to jolt up from the love seat, crumpling the paper in hand. “And you don’t need the fucking IRA’s agenda getting you locked up or shot,” she screamed. “I’m bringing Sean to your Easter rally!”
“You’re doing no such thing,” Ciara muttered back.
“I am! He’s going to watch you stand there, in your rebel outfit, and you’re going to tell him that instead of being his mother, you’re going off to die so that you can be rid of the child you never wanted from the start!”
Ciara hit Angela in the face, wrestled for control of the document. Angela tried kicking at Ciara’s shins, but their scuffle was cut short by the wooden door leading upstairs banging closed again. Both sisters walked over, opened the door, and found Sean crumpled against the stairway wall. His red eyes went to the wrinkled document still in Angela’s hand, and he started crying.
***
Sean rounds the tree trunk and sees it’s not a black mass lurking behind the bushes and oaks. It’s a man. He’s got a round face with black sunglasses over the eyes and a long black, scraggly beard, the kind Sean’s only seen in picture books about Vikings. He’s wearing a black leather coat as dark as his boots. The only thing that is not black are his jeans which are torn slightly along the knee.
Sean still considers turning back, returning to the crowd. Aunt Angela’s very strict when it comes to not talking with strangers. But he figures someone who’s just driven off a Cu Sith and avoided Sluaghs shouldn’t be afraid of some man in a cemetery. Then it clicks. Of course, Púcai are shape shifters! Liam says they can become almost anything they want – a rabbit, a horse, a person— but they must always remain in black.
“Are you a Púca?” Sean asks, approaching.
“Say again?” the man asks.
“A Púca, forest spirits that help people?”
His beard is thick, runs down to his upper chest, but Sean sees the man’s mouth curve into a slow, pleased grin. “What can I do for you, young lad?” he asks, and Sean holds out a hand like Angela’s taught him. The Púca shakes it with a firm yet eager grip.
“I need you to make my mother love me again.”
The Púca removes his glasses, revealing wide eyes. “Oh?” he says, “and where is she?”
Sean points toward the crowd’s direction. They’re a distant cluster within the cemetery from this distance but easily visible now that the fog has completely evaporated. The sun is starting to dry what wet is left from the previous drizzle, replacing the smell of pine with a damp earthy one.
The Púca makes a humming sound, lifts his glasses and says, “Tell me, she wouldn’t happen to be one of those people in camouflage, would she?”
“You do know her!” Sean replies but his heart skips a beat when he catches, for a moment, the Púca’s face turns cold with an open mouth frown displaying pointed yellow teeth.
“Aye, lad,” the Púca says, “I’ve known her kind and their mischief for some time.” He puts his glasses back on, smiles down at Sean again. The boy relaxes. This Púca must know what good mothers do and don’t do. Surely he must be disgusted for what Sean’s mother tried to do to him the other night and therefore must know a way to win her over.
The Púca kneels down in the grass, opens his coat’s side to dig through a pocket filled with what looks like wires and other clumps of metal junk. Sean notices a collection of badges sewn above the pocket. He looks for the Irish tricolor but sees what appears to be a white flag with a red fist raising itself up towards a jeweled crown. Quickly, the Púca closes his coat before Sean can get a real good look at it. He continues to squat but now holds something shiny and metallic in his hands.
“Now I can’t go and speak to this dear mother of yours since she probably doesn’t believe in something like me.” Sean nods, she probably doesn’t. “But,” the Púca continues, “I can give you something that will capture her appreciation forever.”
“What is it?” Sean asks, brushing his fingers against the object’s slick body. The item reminds Sean of a pipe or flashlight but it doesn’t have holes like a pipe and there aren’t any bulbs screwed into the knobs at the end.
“What it is isn’t important. What it does is far more interesting,” the Púca says, holding up a finger. “As you approach your mother, give the knob a twist, hand it to her, and step back. Do this and heavenly light will shine over her, and she will love you for it. I’ve crafted this little dandy out of solid silver and blessed it with the Pope’s own holy water when I was last visiting children your age in Italy.”
“Will it really work?” Sean asks. “I mean, it’s kinda silly.”
The Púca shrugs, replies, “You don’t have to. But I can see the misery in those eyes. That’s some deep woe. Wouldn’t it be something if your Ma could wipe it all away with the love you’ve been wanting?” The Púca puts the rod in Sean’s hands. “I can make the dead sing with this, imagine what it will do for you and your Ma.”
Sean smiles, remembers what Liam said about Púcai and the dead, and starts running back toward the podium. A few paces in and he turns back to shout “Thank you”, but the Púca has disappeared, now nowhere to be seen.
***
Angela returns to the cemetery’s center, having searched the parking lot twice over for Sean. The rally has ended, but the volunteers continue to stand at attention. The rest of the crowd is starting to disperse.
Angela gnaws at her fingernails. She tries not to break down when she meets Ciara’s stare again. Her sister lifts up the bottom half of the ski mask, mouths: where is Sean, but Angela can only stare back. The feeling of sibling superiority she’s always maintained into adulthood slips away, and Angela no longer sees herself as the wise, older sister. She’s not the successful social worker justly exhausted by her own span of success and she’s certainly not worthy of bragging over Sean’s development as a responsible kid thanks to her efforts. Instead, she reverts back to how she actually felt when she arrived at college. She wasn’t beaming, smiling, or aspiring like memory suggests, but fidgeting, her eyes darting, a lone child naked in the dark that was an uncertain future.
***
Sean doesn’t bother following the gravel trail he used to get deep into the cemetery again. He runs up and through the fields of tombstones, wet grass sticking to his shoes. Occasionally, he worries this object he’s been given won’t do a thing to change his mother’s ways. He stops about halfway to the podium when he can’t shake off the feeling he’s being tricked any longer. So Sean takes up the silver rod with one hand and twists its knob at the end, waiting to see if heavenly sparks do fly out. The device makes a swirling, sputtering sound like lawn sprinklers going off. Its top starts spinning and, sure enough, lights resembling glow worms start popping out.
Sean holds the rod up high, its swirling top spitting warmer sparks around him. He starts running again, laughing at the show this small object is putting on like a holiday sparkler. Some in the crowd pause to look his way. There are even a few Provos turning heads in his direction. One woman starts running at him out from the mass of people, clearly Aunt Angela. Sean recognizes that olive coat flapping as she moves. But then Sean sees one of the volunteers break ranks and run his way, arms swinging, passing Angela in a solid sprint.
Sean knows that’s his mother. Who else could find the desire to run at him like that? The Púca’s gift has worked, and the boy will be sure to hold his mother close and offer forgiveness when she takes him in her own arms and covers him with those kisses he’s always wanted. But as he closes the distance between them, the rod’s top spinning at an incredible rate, shooting sparks out now like burning stars, Sean can hear his aunt and mother screaming like how he imagines a banshee might shriek against the wind. But why is that happening? According to Liam, who survived a car crash when his parents did not, you only hear a banshee scream when someone’s about to die.