Lake of Sorrows

A pile of yellowed newspaper cuttings had been tossed aside; Charlie picked up the top one, gone soft with mildew and almost illegible. It was a smudgy photo of two hurlers struggling for control of a ball, one gripping the other’s shirt, feet and ankles covered in mud, teeth gritted fiercely as they concentrated on the ball. He quickly pawed through the other cuttings; they were all about the Loughnabrone hurling club and the Offaly team. Beneath the cuttings was a polythene bag containing a few old snapshots. Most of the images were stuck to one another, the photographic emulsion turned sticky with age and damp. A single picture had been facing the polythene and was still intact except for slight discoloration at the edges. He edged nearer a hole in the thatching so that he could have a look at it in the light. A young woman stared at the camera thoughtfully, skirt pulled over her drawn-up knees. Charlie recognized the setting: it was the downstairs of this house, in better repair in those days. The photo was slightly out of focus, but not so blurred that he couldn’t recognize the young woman as his mother.

A faint buzzing noise arose as he tried to make out the expression on the face in the photograph. Without warning, a large, sticky drop of golden honey fell from above, directly onto the photograph. He pulled it out of harm’s way—too late—then looked up and watched another drop stretch from the ceiling and fall in the same place, onto a growing mound of crystallizing sweetness on the floor. The bees had gotten into the roof and recognized the dark, enclosed space between the beams as suitable for a hive. They’d have to be shifted, and a bucket put under the drip until he had time to do it. The bees, not knowing it was their own store escaping, would bring the honey back, one drop at a time, only to lose it again.

He looked back at the photograph, thinking how young his mother looked, and wondering if he could somehow rinse away the sticky residue without ruining it. Had this place been her retreat even then? But the suitcase was a man’s, he was almost sure of it. Charlie felt something hovering in his consciousness, unnamed, unrealized, an idea that had yet to take shape. He tossed the picture aside. He’d have to think about it later. Right now he had to know if Ursula had been here. If she had—

He cursed himself again for his stupid mistake, letting Ursula catch him looking at her maps. He felt his palms go damp, remembering how she had circled around him and blocked the door, not letting him out until he was shaking and covered in sweat. And then yesterday afternoon she’d stopped him behind the supply trailer. At least he hadn’t told her anything. She couldn’t know.

He dropped to the place he used for hiding things, a hollowed-out space under one of the flagstones near the fire. He’d hidden a biscuit tin there, to make a safe place for the things he didn’t want robbed. He used the poker to pry the flagstone up, and found the tin just where it should be. He’d looked in it only a few days ago, and everything seemed to be there. His eyes traveled over the familiar shapes: two fingerlike silver ingots; fourteen bronze rings—he counted to make sure they were all there; six coins; four bracelets, ends flared like trumpets; and a dagger, its greenish sheath graved with sinuous scrolls. Everything was exactly where he’d left it, he was sure. He glanced around, checking the windows and the door to see how anyone might be able to look into this protected space.

He couldn’t leave the box here now; what if she’d found it and just decided not to take anything? But where could he hide it? She could be watching now, to see what he would do. He was caught again. He had no way to know for certain whether she had been there. Everything was in the box, but maybe she’d taken something else, left something for him.

He searched the walls and windows for any mark, anything out of place. Then he saw it: the blank space on the wall where he’d tacked up the other beekeeper’s drawings. He started pulling down the remaining sketches, ripping them in his fury, heedless of the thumbtacks flying everywhere and rolling dangerously underfoot.

11

The long golden twilight was beginning to wane outside the bedroom window. Lying tangled in the sheets with Cormac, watching him sleep, was a rare luxury. But Nora felt her blissful, dreamy state dissipate as her stomach’s emptiness made itself known. She’d have to get something to eat.

“Cormac, are you awake? I’m starving. Do you want anything?”

He opened his eyes and looked at her a long moment, and not as if he was thinking about food. Finally he said, “I’ll come with you.”

They were foraging in the kitchen when the bell sounded, and Nora turned to see Liam Ward’s angular profile framed in the diamond window of the front door. “It’s Ward, that detective I told you about.”