1348 – Day 3 – Glennborough Farm
In the glen, where Elias and Ciara live with their daughters, the situation is a similar one, although in their case, their survival is a far more remarkable feat.
Aside from theirs, only two families live in the glen. Anyone could be forgiven for thinking that in such a sparsely populated place, the plague is sure to pass them by, like it does the Brophys. And yet, they would be wrong. Seón ó Brien, patriarch of one of the other families, has the ill fortune of travelling to town shortly after the pestilence reaches it, unaware of what has transpired. By the time he recognizes the danger, it is already too late. He discovers the first boils on his body a day or two after his return. From him, it spreads to the rest of his family, and then to the widow and her son that make up the final family of the settlement.
Ciara and Elias react quickly once they get a shouted warning from the ó Brien home, quickly enough to ward off the illness, or so they believe. They do not go beyond the bounds of their farm, they shutter their windows to keep out any bad air that could drift over from the pestilential houses, they burn herbs to cleanse their home of whatever impurities manage to slip through. They even forbid Órlaith from playing outside, much to her annoyance.
For three or four days, Ciara actually thinks that they did it. She feels terrible for her neighbours, but intensely grateful that they slipped the noose. But then, she goes to check on Gráinne one morning when her daughter starts wailing, and pulls her swaddling cloth aside only to discover a swelling the size of a quail’s egg on her neck.
At first, she doesn’t even know what she is looking at. All she heard was that people in town were falling ill in droves, and that nearly everyone who catches the pestilence dies of it. But then, her mind supplies something about black buboes. Her daughter’s boil isn’t black, but she pulls the cloth away even further, and discovers one under each arm. Gráinne is hot to the touch, too.
That is the moment she begins to scream. “Elias! Elias, come quick!”
Frantic, she turns to Gráinne again, nearly sure now that her daughter must have caught this mysterious illness. She is so small, less than a year old. If grown men cannot fight this pestilence, how should an infant? But most men do not have magic. Her husband does. He’ll know what to do. He’ll heal her. He must.
Elias arrives moments later, out of breath from rushing in from the field outside. Dimly, Ciara wonders how desperate she must have sounded to cause that panic-stricken look on his face. But she doesn’t waste time on that – instead, she lifts the cloth to show her husband their daughter’s predicament and stumbles over herself to explain her fears. “You have to help her”, she begs. “She’ll die otherwise.”
“I…I can’t.” Elias stumbles forwards to examine the boils. “I don’t know how.”
“There must be some spell!”
“If there is, I don’t know it.” He spreads his hands, his gaze riveted to his daughter’s marred body. He is shaking now, his voice almost pleading, though with whom, even he doesn’t know. “I was never properly trained.”
Unusually forceful as it is, Ciara’s tone stirs him into action. So he does something. He casts whatever positive spell he can on their tiny daughter, but although her crying stops and it seems to ease her pain, the boils only grow in the hours that follow, as does her fever. And before the next morning dawns, she is dead.
The worst part is, Ciara isn’t even surprised. She knew her baby daughter would die the moment she discovered the boils. But part of her, a foolish, stupid part, still hoped for a miracle. But why should her daughter be spared? They’ve been far too lucky far too long.
They bury her in the churchyard, danger be damned. To try to protect the rest of them, Elias casts some spells to make them more fortunate, hoping that this will let them avoid the pestilential air. When she hears this, Ciara wants to ask why he didn’t just cast this spell over them all in the first place, to ward off the evil that has befallen their daughter. Maybe if he had, Gráinne would still be alive.
She wants to, but she lacks the energy to fight with him now. It wouldn’t bring her daughter back, anyway.
(TW: somewhat graphic descriptions of dead bodies)
Even after Gráinne’s passing, Ciara, Elias and Órlaith stay clear of the other huts. They feel terrible for it, knowing that as good children of the Watcher, they should be trying to help their neighbours, but they know they’d likely die for nothing. They couldn’t save Gráinne, so what are they supposed to do for anyone else?
That resolve lasts until Elias hears the wailing. Over the last few days, the sounds of life from the two other inhabited huts have become fewer and farther between, but now, he suddenly remembers that the ó Briens have a young son, Domhnall, who is around four years old. The cries he hears are just young enough that they might stem from a boy that age, but horribly distorted, almost animalian.
The sound tugs at his heartstrings, but he forces himself to turn away and continue tending to the crops. Surely whoever is still alive in that house will see to him. Or maybe he is dying himself, afflicted by the same plague that took his father – and Elias’ daughter.
His resolve weakens as the crying continues unabated, and he tries to remember when he last caught sight of any of his neighbours. It must have been days. In the beginning, Reeba – little Domhnall’s mother – or one of his older siblings would still try to weed and water, but they must be too weak for that now. Or beyond caring about what is happening on their fields.
As darkness falls, he can’t bear it anymore. He simply runs to the ó Briens’ door, heedless of whether it is a good idea or not. He doesn’t even stop when the stench hits him. Nor does he try to call out to anyone. He simply wrenches open the door, eager to get this over with.
What he sees makes him stagger.
He has seen dead bodies before – his murdered sister and his too-young nephew the most gruesome of them, not to mention the mutilated body of his daughter. But even Gráinne’s sight pales in comparison to what is before him now. The ó Brien’s bodies are bloated and marked with the black sores. They must have been lying on their pallets and on the floor for days, rotting without anyone there to give them their last rites. The only thing more horrible than their sight is the stench, of rot, of vomit and of excrement.
And amidst it all he spots the wailing boy on the floor, unmarked by the pestilence, but filthy and beside himself.
Elias doesn’t even think. He simply snatches up the screaming toddler and runs, back to the safety of his home, where he prays the stench won’t reach. He knows it is cowardly of him, that he should give his neighbours the proper burial they deserve, but in that moment, fleeing is the only thought in his head. He can save their son, but that is all. Watcher knows if he’ll ever be able to make himself go back in there.
Surprisingly, when he tells Ciara about what happened, she isn’t angry about the risk he put them all under. She simply takes Domhnall, who is shaking, into her arms, saying that his parents would want them to look after him. There is a faraway look in her eyes as she speaks, but now that the true horror of what he saw is seizing upon him, Elias doesn’t press her.
Ciara doesn’t say as much to her husband, but silently, she considers him bringing Domhnall into their home as a gift by the Watcher. In the days since Gráinne’s death, she feels as if she has been going mad, but now, there is this small child who needs her, who has lost his parents and siblings just like she lost her daughter. It gives her a purpose to go on. Something that makes her feel less useless.
She has her work cut out for her, too; Domhnall doesn’t speak, has to be coaxed to eat, and often simply sits on the floor staring at nothing, unless he is trying to run outside to look for his Mamaí and Daidí and siblings. At only four or five, he cannot understand why his family is suddenly gone. Ciara isn’t even sure he remembers watching them die.
She can hardly wrap her head around what has happened herself. Only a few days ago, all of her neighbours were alive, and now? Now they seems to be the only ones left. Elias checked. The widow, Catriona, and her boy are dead, too. She cannot understand why the Watcher would do this. What have they done, any of them, to be punished like this? And how long until whatever struck the others down comes back for the four of them?
That fear is almost debilitating, and having Órlaith and Domhnall to look after is probably the only thing that keeps her from hiding in some corner. The grief for her younger daughter only adds fuel to that, and more than once, she finds herself wrecked by sobs once everyone is sleeping.
She doesn’t even know if anyone she knows and loves is still alive. They have had no word from town since the unfortunate Séon returned, but with things as they are, they are too afraid to leave the glen.
All they can do is pray, but when she looks at the other houses, empty of anything but ghosts, Ciara wonders whether there is even a point. She cannot believe that a Watcher who would do something like that would care to hear them.
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