Lake of Sorrows

She didn’t dare come in contact with anyone, not yet, in case they heard the change in her voice and saw it in her eyes, that she was a person capable of shedding blood, of taking a life.

In her fitful sleep she had dreamt of a giant insect, its flattened eyes only reflecting what they saw, its sharp mandibles working. The thing had reached out to her, and she had opened her mouth to speak or cry out, but what had emerged was not words nor any other sound, but a warm torrent of blood. The memory of the dream made her feel ill. She could taste the blood in her mouth. Or had it been a dream? The line between what was real and what was dreaming had grown increasingly blurred over the past two days, since she’d found herself beside Ursula’s body, her hands covered in gore.

She was in a hedgerow, thick grass beneath her back and arching brambles in haphazard latticework above her head. She was burrowed in like an animal, and yet she had no recollection of how she came to be here, just a hazy memory of panic, of searching the perimeter of the field—was it this same field?—for a way out. And of weariness, of being worn down by noise, like metal on metal, in her head. Clanking noises, one, two, three. Always three. How long had she been here? How many days? Time seemed elastic here, seemed to expand and contract at will. The long drains glowed silver in the moonlight against the black peat. Her mouth was dry, but she dared not venture from the shelter to drink. The water here wasn’t safe anyway. At times she had been certain that she was being followed. Several times she had doubled back, but found no one where she was sure someone had been. She had no idea how far she’d traveled, but the short nights were a hindrance; she couldn’t get very far before it was light again. She pressed her face into the wet grass and tasted the dew, feeling no hunger, just insatiable thirst.

The field was on a little rise, and from it she could see all the bog she’d have to cross to get to the canal. A person could walk to Dublin on the canal. She’d plucked the idea from nowhere, it seemed. It was something that held together, when everything else seemed to be breaking apart. The night noises of animals, the sounds that had been her only comfort for days, seemed suddenly sinister. She heard rustling in the grass only a few inches from her head, and turned to find a badger baring his teeth at her, his black eyes reflecting the crescent moon. She scrambled backward, her clothes and hair catching in the brambles, imagining the sharp razor teeth biting into her flesh. There was no refuge from the blood. It would follow her, find her, punish her. She could see the stonelike forms of sleeping cattle in the field, the few stars emerging into the darkening night sky. If she stayed in this place, vines and brambles would grow over her, tying her down to the earth overnight. She’d never escape. Images and sounds traveled through her consciousness, her father’s eyes, brimming with remorse. Too late. And the clanging, metal on metal, never silent, and the searing pain behind her eyes. She gathered her strength for putting one foot in front of the other, counting each step, louder and louder, the pressure building, the blinding pain, louder when she closed her eyes, even louder.

All at once before her was a pasture gate. Again she wondered how long she had been trapped here; and now the gate had appeared. As she stood still for a moment, she felt darkness gathering in her, pushing her forward. She felt its presence like the wind, knew that it was getting into her head, seeping in there. Soon there would be no daylight left at all, only darkness and noise. She climbed over the gate and began running toward the blank darkness that was Loughnabrone Bog.

She tried to stop thinking about the tattoo beating in her head, but it was always there, waking or sleeping, sometimes just a soft thrum, sometimes a deafening din. Always the same pattern. One, two, three. One, two, three. She felt as though her thoughts were in danger of being drummed right out of her head. The one imperative that remained was to get home, back to Dublin, whatever way she could. She dared not close her eyes at all anymore; she had to keep moving, keep hiding so they wouldn’t find her. She could walk back to Dublin if she had to; she could find a way. Keeping out of sight was the main thing.

Whenever she closed her eyes, it came back—the blood, the spattered walls. Even with her eyes open sometimes she could see it, and hear the noise in her head again. She had not wanted it to happen that way. But when she had opened her eyes and seen the horror there, she’d dropped the knife and run. She looked down at her wet hands, expecting them to be covered in blood once more. She felt as though the knowledge of death would seep out of her; she imagined blood oozing from her pores like sweat.