The Good People by Hannah Kent Page A

boy ragged and skew the bones in his skin? It must have been a grave sin, to thwart a child in the womb so.
    But he had not been born this way, the widow had said.
    Perhaps something had struck him down.
    There was nothing for it, Mary decided. She could not go home. This farm, this valley – like a pock in the skin of the earth, sunk between the height of rocky mountains – was hers to know for the next half-year. She would have to bite down on her lip and work. She was earning real money for her family, and as long as she and David were out and gathering shillings, there would be no eviction. She could stand six months with a hard, contrary woman and a bone-racked boy. Then she’d be back on the rushes with her brothers and sisters, and her father’s low voice saying the rosary, and they would all fall asleep by the warmth of their fire and not even the whistling wind would wake them.

    Nóra woke with restless excitement. There was a stranger in the house. The girl, Mary. Throwing on her outer clothes, she dressed quickly and entered the main room.
    The girl wasn’t there.
    The settle bed had been turned back in so that it resembled a bench once more, and the fire had been raked and was burning high. In the corner of the room, Nóra saw that Micheál had been placed in an empty basket and that the heavy iron tongs from the fire had been laid across it, inches from his unmoving head.
    Mary was nowhere to be seen.
    The chickens were no longer in their roost, and Nóra reached a hand in for the eggs. There were four, still warm. Placing them carefully in the egg basket, she heard the creak of the yard door and spun around. Mary stood there, bundled against the bright cold of the morning, a steaming pail of milk in one hand, covered with a cloth.
    ‘Mary,’ Nóra gasped.
    ‘Good morning to you.’ Mary lifted the milk onto the table and began to strain it through the cloth into a crock.
    ‘I thought you had gone.’
    ‘Just an early riser, missus. Like I said. And you asking me to milk mornings and . . .’ Her voice tapered off. ‘Have I done something wrong?’
    Nóra laughed in her relief. ‘Never mind it. ’Twas only because of last evening and, well . . .’ She paused. ‘Where is the spancel?’
    ‘I couldn’t find one.’
    ‘You milked Brownie without it?’
    ‘I did. She’s a gentle dear.’
    ‘The spancel is here. In that corner. I keep it inside so no butter stealer can use it against me.’ Nóra pointed at the tongs resting over the basket. ‘I’ve not seen that for some time.’
    Mary reddened and picked them up, setting them back down by the fire. ‘They’re for the fairies, missus. So he isn’t taken. ’Tis what we do in Annamore.’
    ‘Well, I know what they’re for and ’tis the same here. It has been a long time since I had to be worrying about the fairies taking my child.’
    Mary pinked. ‘Micheál . . . Well, the doty child wet himself in the night. I wanted to clean him but there’s no water.’
    ‘I’ll show you the well.’
    The morning was clean and damp and filled with a brightness that glanced off the wet moss on the field walls, turning them a vivid green. It was cold, but the early sunlight was soft and golden, and lit the haze of smoke that drifted from the cabins. Mist pooled in the bottom of the valley.
    ‘The river is down there,’ Nóra said, standing with Mary in the yard. They had left Micheál in the cabin, walled in the potato basket, safe from the fire. ‘The Flesk, as we call it. You can go fetch water there if you like, but ’tis a long walk back with the pails and ’tis all uphill. Slippery too, in the rain. When the weather turns you’ll go there to beetle the clothes. ’Tis a longer walk to the well, but ’tis steady and kinder on my knees. All the women go to the well for their water. ’Tis clearer.’
    ‘Are there many that live in this valley?’ Mary asked.
    ‘Women? Just as many as the men, although there’s a few unmarried farmers.