Lake of Sorrows

Nora looked at the files, all neatly arranged and labeled in the same precise hand. She couldn’t help marveling at the time and effort it must take to maintain all this, and at the astonishing capacity of the human memory, to be so steeped in all this that you carried it around inside you. What she beheld was nothing less than a life’s work, and it was a humbling sight. Eventually paper records like these would probably be replaced by digital databases, just as the monks’ written annals had replaced the twenty years’ learning that the Druids had to undertake in order to qualify as high priests and judges. Faced with the whole wall of heavy files, representing as it did every fragmentary repository of human knowledge, she couldn’t help wondering at how transitory it all was, in the long run, and how necessary to existence to engage in this kind of gathering and hoarding of knowledge. She wanted to tell Michael Scully that she understood his fear, his need to see it all carry on, even without him. Instead she said, “There’s no need to talk if you don’t feel like it. You should rest.”

“I’d like to talk, if you don’t mind. There’s something I need to ask you.”

Nora pulled the Loughnabrone file out of the drawer and set it on the table in front of the sofa and sat, so that she could give her full attention to Michael Scully and his request. What could he possibly need from her?

Scully leaned forward slightly as he spoke, his grip on the chair arms occasionally betraying either social discomfort or physical pain, or both. “I hope you can understand a father’s apprehension. Brona is all I’ve got now. My wife died shortly after she was born and my elder daughter, Eithne—” He couldn’t go on for a moment. “Eithne wasn’t well for a long time, and disturbances of the mind are the most difficult to comprehend or confront. She suffered terribly, and nothing we did could help her in the end. Eithne drowned herself when Brona was just a child. I’m sure Cormac told you that Brona hasn’t spoken since that time. What I wanted to ask you was this: I have one sister who lives down in Waterford, and I don’t want her to interfere with Brona’s future. Now, it’s not that my daughter isn’t well able to take care of herself. Even though she doesn’t speak, she’s not in the least simple. But my sister cannot understand that, and treats her as if she’s somehow impaired. I’ve made all the necessary provisions in my will for Brona to have this house, as well as all my other assets, but I need to make sure that she has at least a few allies, just in case there’s any dispute about the provisions of the will after I’m gone. Evelyn McCrossan already knows everything that I’m telling you, as does Brona herself, but I wanted to explain the situation to you and Cormac as well, since you’ll have the cottage. I don’t know that anything would be required of you, and since Brona is more than competent there would be no legal arrangement, but it’s a possibility that she would from time to time need some…assistance, perhaps, in communicating with my lawyers or some other authorities. I don’t know who else to ask, besides yourselves and Evelyn. I realize it’s a rather strange and heavy responsibility, since it’s an unknown quantity, and particularly since you won’t be here most of the time. But as time passes I feel a greater urgency—”

“Of course we’ll do whatever we can to help,” Nora said. “I know Cormac would be more than willing as well. I’ll tell him. He may have some questions for you. We both may, as we think about it more.”

“Of course. Of course. It may be that nothing is required. I hope that will be the case.” Michael Scully looked as if a heavy weight had been shifted from him; the deep crease in his forehead seemed to soften, either because the painkillers were kicking in or because he’d been able, finally, to unburden himself. “Thank you,” he said, closing his eyes and letting himself sink back into the chair’s upholstered softness. He looked very frail and ill, and Nora felt the urge to take his hand and offer some gesture of reassurance or comfort. But as she reached forward she realized that Michael Scully was fast asleep, and she withdrew her hand, not wishing to disturb his rest.

7

Rachel Briscoe was awakened by the beating wings of a large bird flying only a few feet over her head. She opened her eyes and for a moment felt as if the earth were falling away beneath her, but it was only the clouds moving across the deepening blue of the night sky. She had fought sleep so long, resisted closing her eyes, to keep away the terrible vision that kept rearing up in her head. And was this slumber from which she had just awakened a real sleep, or one of those mysterious absences, a blank, a hole in time? She had no idea how many minutes or hours had passed since she came to rest in this thicket, or even how she came to be here. She had seen policemen out searching for something, and had run as far as she could in the other direction.