A Cold Grey Dawn

Chapter Twelve
Twilight

Twilight, darkened day
Twilight, lost my way
Twilight, night and day
Twilight, can't find my way
Can't find your way
Can't find my way
Can't find your way
— U2, TWILIGHT

Cait sat in the window seat of the parlour, a mug of tea warming her fingers while the robe she’d wrapped herself in warmed her body and kept her cozy. She heard the creak of the mattress as Brendan turned over in his sleep upstairs and smiled to herself. Winter was coming, she mused as she sipped, but it would be mild, as the seasons usually were in Ireland.

Not like Canadian winters. She shuddered at the memory of them, at the recollection of the bitter slap of cold, of a wind so fierce it stung like a thousand devils and burnt your face just as their hot summer sun did.

Odd, she thought as she rubbed her free hand over her arm, the room’s temperature seemed to have dropped. Thinking to perhaps turn up the thermostat by a few degrees, she turned and swung her legs off the seat—and stopped dead.

The room was no longer as it had been moments before. The temperature had plummeted, leaving Cait shivering beneath her blanket as she looked around to take in the details, the small changes.

The wallpaper was newer, not as faded as it was now; a fire burned merrily in the stone hearth, radiating light but no warmth that she could feel; and here and there she could see little differences: a vase on the little ornamental table that she had never seen before, pictures on the mantel of people she and Brendan had met decades after their deaths.

This, Cait thought wildly, was what it looked liked in their time. This was how it looked to Michael and Cathleen.

The figure stood by the old fireplace with its back to her, tall and impressive in its crisply pressed uniform. Cait’s heart leapt into her throat as she realized it wasn’t the uniform of the Volunteers, wasn’t Michael O’Donohue, as she had assumed, but that of the British.

Another figure appeared, this one a stout, red-cheeked woman in a prim nightgown whose impressive chest heaved as she glared across the room at the soldier. Both she and the soldier seemed oddly indistinct: their outlines were blurred, as though they weren’t quite present.

Cait blinked, struggling to comprehend what she was seeing. When the woman swept forwards to jab a finger into the soldier’s face, her footsteps made no sound; and yet Cait heard her furious voice and its Limerick accent clearly.

What right have you to come into my home at this hour of the night, demanding to search my home? We have nothing to hide, and you come barging in at such an hour! Underhanded, that’s what it is!

The other figure turned with deliberate carelessness, apparently hearing the woman’s outraged voice as well, and the blood in Cait’s veins turned to ice.

The man’s hair was thick and fair, neatly brushed back from an aristocratically high forehead. He kept his hands clasped behind his back, entirely disregarding the weapon at his side for a reason Cait could understand all too easily. The only weapon he could possibly need in such a confrontation was his eyes. Cold, hard chips of pale blue ice stared out of a sculpted face that might, once, have been handsome, with its slashing cheekbones and firm mouth. But now it was only full of icy menace. The scar that slashed from his left temple down to his jaw puckered the skin at the corner of his eye, an eye turned milky by some long-ago injury, and drew the corner of his mouth up into a cruel little half-smirk.

If this is true, madam, said a cold, crisp voice that spoke of the finest English boarding schools, a brief inspection of your home should be no trouble to you. An eyebrow rose in question. You do not harbour rebels, I trust?

The woman barely reached his chest in height, but she drew herself up to her full height nonetheless, her eyes flashing fire. I do not. Any person wanted by the law of Ireland shall never be given refuge in my home.

The soldier smiled now: a thin twist of his lips, baring teeth. The left side of his face, disfigured by the jagged scar, didn’t move. Though both he and the woman appeared totally heedless to her presence, the smile chilled her to the bone. Cait shuddered.

Ireland’s law is Britain’s law, came the soldier’s coldly amused voice. Do you consider yourself a loyal subject of the Crown?

Ireland will always be her own country, spat the other voice. Then, as though abruptly realizing too much had been said, it fell silent.

The soldier’s eyes shifted, gave the woman a long, piercing look. You would do well, madam, to remember that so long as Britain’s strength in warfare exceeds this island’s, Ireland is a part of Britain. And any... citizens who attempt to overthrow the natural order of things will be punished. Surely the Sínn Féin Rebellion taught you that.

An expression of fury contorted the woman’s otherwise friendly face, and the voice Cait heard now was just as frosty as his. You are not welcome in this house, Major. I would recommend that you leave at once.

The major studied her for a moment longer, making Cait uncomfortably aware that he quite clearly held the woman’s fate in his hands. Then he barked an order for departure, and while the clomp of booted feet sounded throughout the house, he turned and began to walk across the room. His eyes seemed to meet hers for the briefest of seconds, but just before he walked through Cait, he vanished.

As abruptly as it had begun, the apparition cleared: the fire died; the air seemed to ripple as the room returned to how it had always appeared to Cait, with its slightly faded wallpaper and rich carpeting, the pictures of Cathleen and Michael O’Donohue replaced by pictures of the Devlin family—Cait as a little girl with solemn eyes, Colleen laughing up at her mother as a toddler, Patrick and Emily Devlin on their wedding day.

There had been a picture of a little girl on the mantel in the vision, too, Cait recalled unsteadily as she rubbed the heel of her hand over her heart. A pretty young girl with laughing eyes and a serious mouth.

Máire O’Donohue.

What did this mean? she wondered wildly as she slowly lowered herself back onto the window seat and, giving in to her pounding heart, dropped her head between her knees. Who was the woman who had defied the British soldier who’d wanted to search her home? She knew the British had searched thousands of homes after the Easter Rising, determined to see all the rebels incarcerated, but had known nothing of her own family’s home being searched, though she realized now that of course it would have been.

“They imprisoned more than one innocent person, in the first months after the Rising.”

Cait’s head snapped up. Cathleen Murray O’Donohue stood before her, hands calmly pressed together in front of her. Her eyes were chilly with disdain.

“Oh, for the love of God.” Cait dropped her head again.

“Oh, no, you don’t, girleen,” said Cathleen firmly as she stepped forwards, put one slim hand under Cait’s chin and lifted her head. Pale, she mused, but her colour was already returning. No matter what others saw or said, this woman had resilience. “There’ll be no hiding from what you’ve seen. Now, haven’t you any whiskey here?”

Mind still reeling, Cait pointed towards the kitchen and could only stare in stunned silence as Cathleen swept into the other room. She heard the clink of glass, then Cathleen was returning and pushing a short glass of whiskey into her hand.

“Go on and have a swig. You’ll feel better for it.”

Obedient as any child, Cait lifted the glass and sipped. True to Cathleen’s words, the burn of the Jameson’s spread through her entire body and stopped her hand from shaking; it also snapped everything she’d seen, and what she was seeing now, into place with brutal clarity. Her mind went to Brendan, still sleeping upstairs; her eyes flicked up, but before she could speak, Cathleen did, her lovely, clear voice flowing calmly over the words.

“He won’t wake. It was you who were meant to see this, not him.”

Cait nodded slowly, worked to accept that. Then blurted the next thing that came to mind. “You’re real.”

Cathleen’s mouth curved in amusement. “Have we not been over this path before?”

Cait sipped more whiskey, then set the glass aside and shook her head. “No, no, what I’m meaning is you’re more real than... them. Those two people. The room doesn’t change while you’re here, and... you’re not blurred, as they were. Nor did they physically touch anything, nor make sound. I ... I only heard their voices in my head.”

The other woman’s features warmed, and she nodded in approval. “Ah, so you noticed that, did you? I’d hoped you would. I would will such memories away from this house if it were possible; since it is not, I’ll tell you of it.”

In a rustle of skirts, Cathleen moved to sit beside her descendant on the seat.

“You noticed, I’m sure, that the British soldier had been injured once?”

Cait nodded.

“’Twas me who did that to him,” Cathleen remarked, her voice so unconcerned that she might have been commenting on a broken fingernail. “During the Rising. And the great pig was promoted for it, for bravery under duress or some such foolishness. Now that I think on it, he never did like our family after that,” she commented reflectively, and Cait laughed despite herself.

“How did you manage to hurt him so badly?”

“It was the day I was shot—the Wednesday, the same day James Connolly was shot. I was crawling through the streets, trying to make my way back to the GPO. The major—he was only a lieutenant then—tried to question me, to find out if I was a rebel or an innocent citizen, caught in the wrong place at the worst of times. I was glad I hadn’t worn my Citizen Army uniform, I’ll tell you that.” She smiled faintly. “But he found out which side I favoured soon enough when I raked my wedding band down the side of his face and then bolted as quick as I could.”

Her eyes had grown distant as she looked back into her past; the fingers of her right hand absently rested on the ring on her left. When she felt the other woman—who, Cathleen thought, was in a way both older and younger than she was—shudder beside her, she came back to herself and glanced to her side, her mouth still faintly curved.

“Are you shamed by my actions, niece?”

“No,” Cait replied honestly, cheeks glowing. “It’s only that I don’t think I’d be capable of doing what you did.”

“Oh, you would,” Cathleen assured her, and her voice was brittle. “You’ll do anything if you have to. I could see from the look on Coltraine’s face that he was dying to prove himself—the young lieutenant, his commission paid for by his father’s money, thirsty for more power. He was to be sent to the front in Europe, but his regiment was diverted to Ireland when they found out about the Rising. He would have been only too happy to capture or kill a rebel. I left him bleeding in the street and hobbled away as quickly as I could. My only regret is that I was unable to continue to fight.”

Cathleen was silent for a long time, studying her descendant critically. “You’ve done little, or you would know this yourself. I’ve grown weary of this half-life,” she remarked mournfully, her eyes scanning the room. “Yes, I have more substance than what you just saw. Those were not so much ghosts, however, as they were memories. Their bodies lie in rest, their souls sent to whatever dominion was meant for them. Mine lingers here in the present, as does Michael’s.” Her eyes snapped back to Cait’s and heated.

“Get a move on, girleen, or it’s a pair of irritated ghosts you’ll be facing.”

And just like that, Cait was alone in the room again, the glass of whiskey a dead woman had pushed into her hands sitting on the small table beside her.

She wasn’t sure how long she sat, staring at the glass of amber liquid while the voices she’d heard spun in her head. Cathleen hadn’t told her who the woman was, she realized now, and suddenly remembered the picture she’d seen on the mantel.

Máire O’Donohue, she thought again. Like it or not, she would have to disturb Brendan’s grandmother again.

She slipped back upstairs and cast the robe aside, slipping beneath the covers to curl into Brendan. He grunted and started when her feet touched his.

“Christ, Caitlín, your feet are like ice,” he muttered, then pulled her close to himself, eyes already beginning to close. “Went wandering, did you? And what did you find?”

Cait chuckled, feeling much lighter of heart now that she had made up her mind. “I’ll tell you in the morning,” she told him. “Sleep now.”

“Hmm, I could. Or....”

She was struggling not to laugh when he turned towards her in the dark. “Sleep, Brendan,” she ordered, but she knew better than to expect him to listen.

—

She had fully expected to find herself shoved to the edge of the mattress by morning, as Brendan didn’t typically share sleeping space. So she was pleasantly surprised when she woke and found herself in his arms, with her head resting over his chest. She drew back slowly and grinned at his sleeping face: the short, thick lashes swept over those high, knife-sharp cheekbones, the full mouth slack. Biting back a giggle, she wriggled out of bed, disregarded her robe in favour of Brendan’s shirt, and made her way downstairs.

She’d reached the bottom of the stairs before she stopped. It was different, stranger somehow, to see the glass of whiskey Cathleen had pushed on her sitting on the little end table in the light of day, as though it had been easier to accept everything she’d seen while cloaked by night.

Amadán, she scolded herself. She’d seen Cathleen in broad daylight, hadn’t she? She was being silly, she concluded as she resolutely crossed the room, snatched up the short glass and walked into the kitchen to empty it.

“Ah, now that’s a waste of whiskey. And what do you know, there’s my shirt.”

Cait turned and smiled. Brendan was standing in the doorway with his eyes dancing. He grinned, walked into the room and hooked an arm around her waist to pull her close for a warm, teasingly hinting kiss; then he drew back, pushed a stray curl behind her ear and frowned as he studied her. “What is it, alanna?”

A little startled that he could read her so easily, she moved her shoulders and turned away to prepare tea for herself and coffee for Brendan. He stayed silent, knowing she needed the time to gather her thoughts; when she turned back, chewing on her lip, he came forwards and clasped his hands over her arms, steering her into a chair and pulling one for himself up across from it.

“Tell me what’s bothering you, mo stór. Please.”

It was the “please” that did it. Cait sighed, shoved both hands through her tumbled hair, and heard herself spilling out the entire story.

“I need to go see your grandmother again,” she concluded, and despite the apology in her eyes, her back was ramrod straight and her voice was as unyielding as steel. “I know it won’t please her, and likely not you, either, but I need to know what happened, Brendan. Not just for them, for Cathleen and her Michael, but...”

“For yourself, as well,” he supplied quietly, and she nodded, grateful for the understanding.

“Yes. There’s nothing else about her in the journals, so those wouldn’t be a viable option even if I wanted to take that route. There’s only the one that ends with the second Cathleen saying that she thinks she would have liked her aunt, and then the rest is of her work in journalism, of the rest of her family, of dealing with her mother’s cancer. Nothing else about the Rising or Michael and Cathleen O’Donohue. It’s clear enough that Máire wouldn’t speak of it, and though she might have wanted to, Seamus’s daughter didn’t push her on it.”

Brendan studied her face for a long moment, noting the lifted chin, set jaw, and sparking eyes, then caught her hand in his and rubbed his thumb over the back of it as he said mildly, “She won’t get away with that now, I’m supposing?”

Cait’s eyes flared with heat. “No, she bloody well won’t.”

“Well, then.” He rose, pulling her to his feet with him. “You can dress yourself, and we’ll make a stop back at my place so I can be rid of the flaming monkey suit, and then we’ll go see her. Does that suit you?”

She didn’t bother to argue. He would be there whether she liked it or not. “Yes, that suits me,” she agreed, and reached up to press her mouth to his. It wasn’t long before her fingers were clutching at his hair, his digging into her hips, the only sound in the room their panting breaths when they pulled apart and watched each other carefully.

He saw flushed cheeks and gleaming eyes, lips curved with the knowledge that she knew damn well what she was doing to him. And couldn’t have cared less.

Brendan swore, then lifted her into his arms and made for the stairs. “Just once more,” he murmured as his mouth found hers and they tumbled onto the bed together.

—

Cait glanced at him as they stood on the stoop of Máire O’Donohue’s home and said without hope, “There’s no point in asking you to let me do this alone, is there?”

“None at all,” he confirmed cheerfully, then lifted the knocker and let it fall.

Lottie opened it, grinned at the sight of them. “Well, well, I’ll be damned. In you come, then, the pair of you, and before the wind follows you.” She stood aside to let them in, then shut the door with a snap and studied them through narrowed eyes.

“She’s in the parlour,” she finally said. “Should I bring tea in?”

Brendan followed her gaze and noted Cait’s eyes had darkened, her mouth firmed, since she’d crossed the threshold. “Not just now, Lottie, but maybe later.” He quickly pecked her cheek before she could ask what was going on and sent her on her way.

He gave Cait’s hand a quick squeeze and murmured “Relax, alanna, you were nowhere near this uptight earlier” in her ear before they stepped into the room, and contented himself with seeing Cait’s lips twitch—even as she rapped her elbow into his gut—as he opened the door.

“Ah, company.”

“Well, I hope we’re not a disturbance to you, Nana,” Brendan said with a grin as he crossed the room and let his grandmother embrace him.

“Pest,” Máire murmured fondly as she drew back from her grandson, then turned to give Cait a long, considering look.

“Brendan, why don’t you go charm Lottie?” she suggested evenly without looking away from the young woman in the doorway. “Heaven knows you’re more than capable of it.”

When Brendan lingered, the two women broke each other’s gaze to train them on him, and they each smiled in reassurance. Still it was only Máire who spoke. “Go on, now, lad, we promise to behave ourselves. Don’t we, girleen?” she added as her gaze flicked back to Cait.

It jolted her to hear the casual term come from Máire’s lips, but then, Cait reasoned, she had probably picked it up from the woman Cait herself had first heard it from—Cathleen. She looked back to Brendan, then walked to him, took her hands in his and squeezed. It was Máire’s turn to be surprised as she watched the young woman rise onto her toes and press her mouth against Brendan’s, then quietly murmur something that finally had him leaving the room.

Máire wanted to turn back to the fire and allow herself to think about what she had just seen.

Elizabeth hadn’t lied, then, she thought. The pair of them loved each other and had been intimate; it was plain to see if she looked hard enough. For God’s sakes, the woman’s hair was still tumbled as though by a man’s hands, and she’d seen the quick darkening of desire flit through her grandson’s eyes.

Oh, what a fool she was.

“Well. I’ll admit I wasn’t sure I would see you here again.”

Cait cocked her head. She knew it was an opening for a fresh start, but she saw no need for it. “Do you mean you weren’t sure whether you’d see me again, or that you would have preferred it that way?”

Máire’s spine stiffened ever so slightly. The girl had an affinity for cutting a person down to size, she admitted reluctantly. “Some of both, I imagine,” she replied. “Just as I imagine you’re here to ask me—again—about what happened to my mother and father in 1916.”

“I am, yes.” Cait’s voice was even. “Because I saw your mother’s ghost again. Last night.”

The older woman jerked, the crystalline eyes widening with the shock of a child. “What?”

There, that’s got your attention, Cait thought with satisfaction. “As I told you before, your mother’s ghost remains in my home, the home that was hers, and yours. I’ve spoken with her twice now. Just as Brendan’s spoken to your father.”

Now Máire’s eyes darted to the door, towards her grandson. “That’s impossible,” she said in a voice that wanted to shake and was instead rigid as steel. “My father died twenty-five years before Brendan was born.”

“Are you saying you don’t believe in ghosts? I could tell you your mother’s height, the way she seems to find amusement in the most horrible of topics, her sarcastic sense of humour.” She paused, one beat, then two. “Tell me, how would I know these things if I hadn’t met her?”

Máire’s mouth had gone dry. She swallowed hard, stared into the deep green steel of Caitlin Devlin’s eyes. Her mouth was firm and unsmiling, her spine straight, and her eyes fierce.

“Oh, dear God, you resemble him so much.” Giving in to the ache, she lifted her hand and pressed it to her heart. “I know I said it before, but just now... you look so like Seamus as I remember him. I was told that he was cheerful once, that he used to be the friendliest lad in Clare and could make all the young people dance to his flute. But when I knew him he’d been hardened by what happened to his parents. Cathleen—my mother—she rose above it and made herself who she was, but Seamus, he was swallowed by it. He was always such a grim, forbidding picture.” She moved to her chair, sat, then beckoned impatiently for Cait to stand before her.

“You’ve a daughter, your grandmother tells me.”

It shouldn’t come as news, Cait thought wryly, that her grandmother and Brendan’s were friends. “I do, yes. And she looks exactly like your mother.”

Nodding as though to herself, Máire dropped her gaze and stared into the flames leaping in the grate. “I’d like to meet her, if that’s permissible.”

Cait kept her eyes steady on the older woman’s. “If she has no problem with it, neither do I. You can find us at the pub most evenings, or at my home.” She cocked an eyebrow. “Certainly you know where both those places are?”

Máire laughed. “Oh, you’ve a knack for that disapproving tone of voice, that’s for certain. You must terrify your daughter at times.”

Cait resisted—barely—the urge to snort in disbelief. “Hardly,” she murmured, then glanced up as the door opened—and wasn’t sure whether to be thankful for the diversion, or sigh at the interruption when Brendan came in.

He shrugged, grinned when two unwavering gazes found his, and spread his hands. “I wondered, and I worried.” He walked to Cait and put his arms around her, his eyes moving back and forth between both women. “Everything all right here, then?”

Cait didn’t look away from Máire. “Oh, I think so.”

The older woman’s lips moved into a rueful smile. “Go ask Lottie for stories of your mother,” she ordered, “and let me speak with my grandson in private.”

Cait nodded, allowed herself to be turned into Brendan’s arms for a brief, tempting kiss, then left the room.

“You’ve seen them too? Ghosts?”

Because it wasn’t what he’d expected to hear, Brendan’s eyebrows rose. “Only one,” he eventually, almost reluctantly corrected his grandmother. “Michael O’Donohue.”

He watched his grandmother’s hands clench and twist in her lap, and could almost hate himself. “Nana, if something Cait said upset you...”

“She’s seen my mother,” Máire cut in in a voice that would have seemed harsh were it not shaking. “My mother, who’s been dead more than ninety years. It’s the type of thing that tends to upset a person, Brendan, but I’ll be all right. Understood?”

“I understand well enough. It’s only that we’re family, Nana, so I tend to worry for you.” When she gave no response, he put a hand over his grandmother’s, squeezed gently until she looked up. “You’ve both of them in you. Your eyes smile before your mouth does—that’s a trait from Michael. Your humour—that’s from Cathleen. But your strength? That’s from both of them.” He leaned in, kissed her cheek and left his hand over hers a few moments longer than necessary. “Come by the pub sometime soon,” he said easily as he drew back, as though he’d heard what Cait had said.

This time, when she’d been left alone, Máire didn’t pour herself tea or pick up the phone and call Elizabeth. She put her head in her hands and wept for the mother she’d lost nearly a century before, and for the father who’d been alone and lonely without her.

—

Yay me! Now, it’s nearly 1:30 in the morning, and I’m tired... so let’s just get the frustrating Irish translating out of the way so I can sleep.

Alanna—endearment, pronounced as written

Amadán—“fool”; pronounced om-ah-dawn

Caitlín—Irish for Caitlin or Cathleen; pronounced koit-lin or koit-leen

Citizen Army—short for the Irish Citizen Army, a movement of armed labourers and trades workers founded by James Connolly in 1913

Girleen—English, pronounced as written. Endearment.

GPO—short for the General Post Office, which served as rebel headquarters during the Rising of 1916

Limerick—a county of Ireland.

Máire—Irish for Mary; pronounced maw-ra

Mo stór—literally “my treasure”, also taken as “my darling”; pronounced moh store

Sínn Féin Rebellion—term used by some (ignorant) people to describe the Rising, attempting to blame it on the political party with that name; too bad they didn’t take into account that the party was strictly non-militant!

Hmm, I think that’s about it. If not, let me know and I’ll fill in the blanks. If I got them all, but you still have questions, ask me and I’ll tell you what I can—which is a considerable amount, if I do say so myself. Now, since I’m currently in Quebec City, I offer you a food invented in this province: POUTINE! Enjoy, as in, enjoy it enough to review and give me love. -grins-

Murphy

P.S. The song “Twilight” by U2 was around for much longer than Stephenie Meyer’s novels. Please don’t think I’m doing this in tribute to her—although I DO love the books. Haha.