Things remain uncanny in this chapter. Thanks to purple-roses-words-and-love for betaing!
Shelagh palpated her ankle and winced as bolts of pain sizzled along her nerves. She hissed as her fingertips pressed against a particular tender spot. Gently, she lifted her leg and placed it on a gnarly root. Her stockings had torn, and she'd lost a shoe. She supposed it didn't matter much; there was no way she could limp her way back across this uneven terrain even if she had two shoes; not without glasses. Would she not have tripped if she had taken the few seconds to locate them and place them on her nose before chasing after Angela? Would she not have tumbled down this steep slope she now sat at the bottom of if the world had been more than a combination of fuzzy shapes and blurred colours?
"Damn that blaigeard root," she cursed, very softly, picturing the root that had caused her to trip. She let her head fall back. It thudded against the tree she sat next to, the bark rough and reassuring.
Shelagh guessed she should feel lucky that she only had a wounded ankle and some bruises and scrapes. What if she had broken something? What if she had ripped her flesh open on a jagged rock? This thought was sobering but did little to distract her from her throbbing ankle, or her sore breasts. They had started leaking, and now her dress lay plastered against her skin, cold and wet and dirty. She had cracked her watch when she fell and the hands had stopped, but she didn't need a clock to tell her that Teddy's lunch was long overdue.
The wind rustled through the unfurling leaves overhead and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She shivered. The afternoon was drawing to an end, and with it the soft spring weather. The temperature was dropping rapidly, and she didn't have her coat with her.
"Stupid," she said out loud, hugging the knee of her good leg against her chest and slinging her arms around the limb, fingers curling in the soft flesh of her upper arms.
Tears prickled behind her eyelids.
"Stupid," she repeated.
It seemed almost days ago that she had woken from her nap, stretching and yawning, only to see a flash of red as her daughter disappeared into the woods. She'd shaken Patrick, and told him she was going after Angela before their girl hurt herself. He had grunted something, but she hadn't bothered to ask him to repeat whatever it was he had said. Instead, she'd quickly walked down the sloping hill, heart hammering in her chest.
She had called for her daughter, pushing away branches that hung low over the sandy path, caressing her cheek like slender fingers.
"Angela, come here, darling!" she had said, voice high-pitched, fuzzy eye-sight trained on the smear of her daughter's red coat as it bobbed and slipped between the trees.
Shelagh's progress had been slow, and she had lost Angela as twigs had tangled in her hair, in her dress, as if trying to pull her back.
"Angela?"
A girl giggled nearby, and a small hand touched Shelagh's arm.
"Angela, this is not a game!" Shelagh had snapped, trying to get a hold of the child, but her daughter had danced away from her, and she had to give chase again. The path had grown thinner, then disappeared altogether.
"You, young lady, are in so much trouble!" she had said through gritted teeth as a stray vine ripped her stockings. It was only when she had freed herself and looked up that she realised that the child she had been following could not be Angela.
The girl stood on a fallen tree trunk, head bathed in the slanting sunlight. Her hair was dark, not blonde.
Shelagh rubbed her eyes, and when she looked up, the child had gone.
She had shivered and huddled in her dress as the wind had picked up, fingers finding the stale crust of bread she had put in her pocket. It was superstition, she knew that, but she had not been able to help herself, slipping it in out of habit.
"It was a mistake to come here," she had whispered.
She had turned around and tried to make her way back, calling out to Angela all the while. Worry had gnawed inside her stomach, straggly and strong like a weed. It had distracted her, and she had not seen the protruding root, had not seen that the path curved away. She had stumbled, foot hooking underneath the root as her body fell forward. Pain had torn through her ankle as she fell, hands instinctively covering her head as she tumbled down.
"And now you are here," Shelagh said, resting her chin on her knee.
She hoped that Patrick and Timothy would come looking for her, but if they had, they had not been able to find her yet.
Had they found Angela? She hoped so. She could not bear the thought of her daughter wandering alone in this godforsaken place, these gnarled and twisted trees that framed the path tugging at her red coat and soft hair. If she had ever even gone into the woods, of course. What if Shelagh had just imagined seeing her, like she had imagined that other child, strange and fae?
Best not to think about that. It was the forest that did this to her, the strange strips of bark that clung to the tree and stroked her hair, the scent of pine and wet earth in her nose.
She was not a little girl anymore. She could not let fear for something otherworldly, something that may very well not exist, overwhelm her.
She had other things to worry about.
Teddy would be crying his head off by now, poor little thing. He must be so hungry…
She shivered, and moved a little closer to the tree. Should she try and shout, so they could hear her? She didn't think the sound would carry far, not with these earthen walls to swallow it, and the moaning wood to talk over it.
"Poor Patrick. Poor Timothy," she murmured.
They had tried so hard to give her a special day, a day in which she would not feel alone…
She remembered when Patrick had told her he would give her anything she asked for, her small foot and ankle – swollen with pregnancy, not with hurt – enveloped in his hand. She had not known what to say to the devotion she read in his eyes, couldn't think of any words that would adequately show how much she loved him. What could she possibly say to this gift of honesty, to the love and care he offered so freely, as if they were nothing but pebbles proffered to her cradled by a work-roughened hand?
She had cupped his face between her hands and kissed him like she had done so often before, like she would continue to do.
This picnic, this trip down memory lane, had been another gift for her, an answer to a question she had never asked out loud, but which he had heard anyway.
A tear slipped between her eyelids. She wiped it away with the palm of her hand, smearing the salty wetness over her cheek.
She was alone now.
Loneliness did not scare her. She had been a lonely child, and was still intimately familiar with the feeling, with this silent companion that had dogged her well into adulthood. One of the many attractions of joining a religious order had been the companionship of like-minded women. It had promised her a sense of belonging, a band of sisters and friends that she had always dreamed of.
Shelagh could not say that the order of St. Raymond Nonnatus had disappointed her. It had cared for her for ten years, and she had made friends there that would last her a lifetime. Still, being a nun had not completely solved that nagging, persistent longing in her to belong somewhere. She had been so much younger than the others, and that had set her apart somewhat.
She had tried to find what was lacking by speaking to her fellow nurses, but her habit had prevented any truly meaningful friendship from developing, as had her vows. She was not supposed to prefer the companionship of laymen to that of her religious sisters.
Quiet discontent and doubt had mingled inside her, growing like weeds. She had tried to pray them away, had tried to trample them and choke them, but they were straggly and strong, and she could not rip them out like she could have done if they had merely been plants.
Maybe that was what had attracted her to Patrick, and to Timothy: seeing that they were lonely. She was a nurse, and had made it her goal in life to heal and tend to the wounded and the sick and the hurting. What was loneliness if not an illness, if not a type of pain so persistent and sly that it could knit itself into the essence of a person's soul?
But to heal them, she had to show them she was a person in her own right, and that was something her habit and vows tried to make her forget. She had realised before that this aloofness did not suit her, but it had taken her many years to fully come to terms with this realisation. It had meant that she had to accept that she was still lonely, that she no longer fit in the world she had created for herself, and maybe never had.
She had tried to shed her identity as Sister Bernadette like a snake sheds the skin it has outgrown, and had stood before Patrick raw and pink like a new-born, her love for him clearly visible. It had been one of the scariest moments in her life. She had not understood in that moment that he had seen her love for him even when she had tucked it away. It was not until later in their marriage that she understood just how well he could read her.
Maybe none of this would have happened if he hadn't tried to do something nice for her, if he hadn't been able to see inside her as if she was made of glass.
"No," Shelagh whispered, wiping another tear away. None of this would have happened if she had been honest with him, and had told him about her childhood.
Her husband would not have felt the need to organise a fairy-themed picnic if she had explained how lonely she had felt, if she had not denied that her fairy friends had been a way of coping with the hurt of losing her mother and the subsequent loneliness.
But to tell him of that side of her childhood would be to acknowledge that she had been alone and smarting, would have forced her to accept that her father had not been enough, no matter how hard he had tried, and he had tried so very, very hard…
There were moments when she wished she could go back in time. She wanted to take his work-roughened hand in hers and squeeze it, wanted to look into his kind, blue eyes and tell him that she understood, now. She understood that he could not speak of his grief for his wife to her, because to talk about it would make it more real. She understood there was warmth in him, but that the armour he lived in could not let that warmth seep out and touch her.
They had both been lonely and hurting, only instead of sharing those feelings so they could diminish, they had locked them inside and tried to ignore them, hoping them would go away if they pretended they did not exist.
"Lady, are you crying?"
Shelagh shot up, crying out at the sharp pain that pulsed in her ankle. She sank down and hissed, armpits damp with sweat.
Something that looked suspiciously like a girl hung in front of her, feet curled around like a tree branch as if she was a bat rather than a human. Her hair was dark and curly, her eyes huge.
"No need to shout," the girl said, and dropped down, landing on her hands and then rolling over without so much as a grunt.
"You startled me," Shelagh said, smoothing her dress. Her fingers trembled.
"Did you fall?" the girl asked.
Shelagh nodded.
"Oh. That's unfortunate." She sat down in front of Shelagh, folding her legs. Shelagh could not be sure, not without her glasses, but the child's toes seemed very long, as if she had hands growing from her legs rather than feet.
"What's your name? I'm Ivy," the girl said.
"Sh… Sinéad." What was wrong with her? Why would she lie about something as inconsequential as a name to a child?
But a name is not a light matter at all, Shelagh thought. To be called Sister Bernadette or Shelagh Mannion or Shelagh Turner had vast consequences for how others responded to her, how they perceived her, how she perceived herself.
"Your dress is wet," Ivy said, snapping Shelagh out of her reverie.
"I'm nursing," she said.
"Where's your baby?"
"With his father, I think," she said.
"I have a baby brother, but there's no one to nurse him," Ivy said, scratching her head with one of her feet. Her limbs were pale and thin.
Shelagh suddenly wondered if anyone even bothered to look after this child. Why else would she be so willowy, and why else would she walk around without shoes and only dressed in what looked like a thin, filthy dress?
"Did your Mummy die?"
"Yes. My Auntie has been looking for someone to nurse my brother, but we haven't found anyone yet. She hasn't, in any case. I've found you now, of course."
Gooseflesh rippled over Shelagh's arms. She did her best not to shiver as everything inside her told her that something was wrong with this child.
"I'm sorry that you don't have a mummy anymore, Ivy. My mother died when I was still very young, too," she said.
Ivy shrugged. "Why don't you come with me and visit my home? You could be my mother," she proposed.
Shelagh felt the raw power of fear inside her. She smiled, but she was sure it looked tight, strained, unnatural. She forced that feeling down. What was wrong with her?
"I'm sorry, Ivy, but I can't. I have three children of my own I need to look after," she said. She reached for the girl and tucked a lock of hair behind her ear. Ivy's eyes were very large as she looked at Shelagh without blinking. Her skin felt dry and papery.
"That's not very nice," Ivy said.
"I'm sorry, but I would miss my sons and daughter terribly, and my husband, too."
"But they have each other. I have no one," Ivy said, scrunching up her face like a wet napkin. She sniffed. "I could make you come, you know. I could make your feet follow me all the way back to where I live. I could do that."
"Do you often make others do things against their will?"
"What?"
"Do you often force people to do things that you want them to? Because that isn't very nice, Ivy," Shelagh said. She would have sounded more stern if her voice hadn't been so hoarse, her throat hadn't been so dry.
Ivy blinked slowly, and folded her feet, toes interlacing. "No," she said, voice low.
"People don't like it when you boss them around," Shelagh continued.
"No, I don't often do that, because there is no one for me to boss around," Ivy whispered.
This time, it was not fear that throbbed inside Shelagh like a wound; it was compassion. This was just a little girl, neglected and hurting.
Lonely.
"Come here," Shelagh said, opening her arms.
Ivy blinked again and got to her feet slowly, taking a hesitant step forward.
Shelagh took the child's hand in hers and pulled her closer. The girl's skin felt like paper, her fingers like ice. She sat the girl down on her lap, trying not to wince as another bolt of pain sizzled along the nerves in her ankle.
"Ivy, listen to me," she said.
Ivy blinked again slowly. Shelagh could not focus on her face; her eyes kept slipping away from it, but she didn't know if that was because she missed her glasses or because she had trespassed on some strange litmus space, and the child she now held was not human.
"I know what it's like to be lonely," Shelagh started, "And I know how it hurts. I know it is easier to try and feel something else instead. Do you try and feel something else?"
"Anger," Ivy said almost immediately. "I feel angry a lot of the time."
"I felt angry too, sometimes," Shelagh said, remembering how her hands had yanked at raven locks of hair, how her fingers had wound around those tresses till they knotted.
"Not anymore?"
She shook her head. "No, not anymore." She thought of Teddy's reassuring weight as she cradled him, of Angela's soft giggles, of Timothy's slouching form as he helped her do the dishes. She thought of Patrick, and how he would tuck her under his chin when they embraced, enveloping her with his arms, his warmth, his scent.
"What made you stop being angry?" Ivy asked, sucking in her lower lip. She stopped ripping shoots of grass out of the earth with her feet, becoming still as a statue.
"Love," Shelagh said without hesitation.
"Who did you love?"
"My father, and God. The friends I made. My husband, and my oldest son. My daughter, and my baby boy." Tears blurred her vision even more. She smiled, and wiped them away with her sleeve.
"I could… I love my little brother," Ivy said, words slow and uncertain, voice rising on the final word, as if it was a question rather than a statement.
"You could," Shelagh said.
"He has very blue eyes. My Auntie says all new-born babies have those, but they are very pretty, like cornflowers. And he has a big belly button. If you tickle him, he gurgles, like water when you boil it to make tea. He has gills that flutter open and close if you blow on them. And he is warm, and soft, and smells like my Mummy," Ivy whispered. She smiled. "What is your baby like?"
"He has blue eyes, too. I had hoped they would be brown, like his father's, but they remained blue. I think my husband is very pleased about that, though. He smells of milk and baby powder, and loves it when you touch his hands. If you blow on them, they stutter open, and he smiles." She laughed. "He looks a bit like an old man when he smiles, because he has no teeth yet."
"Would he miss you if you did not come back?"
"He is too little to remember me now if I were to disappear," Shelagh murmured, fear sending prickles over her scalp, "But my daughter would miss me, and my son, and my husband."
Ivy suddenly threw her arms around Shelagh's neck and hugged her tight, bony form pressing hard against Shelagh's chest.
"I'll get milk all over you," Shelagh whispered, but she cupped the girl's skull anyway, and rubbed circles between the child's shoulder blades. They stood out sharply, like little wings made of bone.
"I know what it's like to miss your mummy. It is horrible," Ivy said.
"Does… Does that mean you will help me to get home?" Shelagh asked, heart hammering in her chest. She fumbled for the crust of bread in her pocket, unsure of whether to offer it or keep it safe. Ivy's strange foot curled over Shelagh's hand, stroking the crust.
"Do you want to go home?"
"Yes," she whispered.
"Then let's see what I can do."