Thin Places Read online

by her subjects and perhaps

  they buried her on the remote

  mountaintop of Knocknarea

  where her spirit could

  do no harm.

  I tried to envision this queen

  hoping that Rebecca would read my thoughts

  and comment

  telling me

  that women in Ireland rarely

  steal bulls

  anymore.

  But instead, I only heard the wind.

  Knocknarea

  The drive to Knocknarea was through

  an enchanted land:

  green fields

  and stone walls

  sheep and cows

  and old men sitting on benches

  looking like they were from another century

  and didn’t give a damn about this one.

  I drove with difficulty and shaky hands

  and Seamus talked.

  Finally as we pulled into

  the small parking lot at the base of Knocknarea,

  I interrupted him

  How do I find the girl?

  I asked.

  How do I find Rebecca?

  Maybe you don’t

  he said, smiling.

  Maybe she’ll find you

  if she’s ready.

  The trail was steep and full of rocks.

  Seamus sang

  In the merry month of May

  from me home I started

  Left the girls of Tuam

  nearly broken-hearted

  Saluted father dear,

  kissed me darling mother

  Drank a pint of beer,

  me grief and tears to smother

  and so on.

  A little way along I caught the smell of cow shit

  as earthy as I had imagined it.

  At that moment nothing could have smelled sweeter.

  The top was blustery and cold

  and before us was that giant pile of rocks

  each stone placed where it should be by human hands

  from Neolithic times.

  The cairn was a monument and a grave

  and considered by some to be sacred.

  The view was magnificent

  just as I had seen in the vision

  that Rebecca put in my head.

  Is this one of the thin places?

  I asked as I stared at the stones

  and let the wind whip my hair into a frenzy.

  Don’t get much thinner

  than this

  Seamus reported.

  And I expected any minute for Rebecca

  the flesh and blood Rebecca

  to walk from behind the cairn

  and take my hand.

  But she did not.

  Instead

  clouds slowly shifted in from the west

  and the wind increased

  and pelting cold rain

  fell from the heavens.

  We turned

  and clambered down

  the sides of Knocknarea

  breathing hard

  and fast

  as we hurried

  and stumbled

  on the never-ending stones

  once walked upon

  by the ancients.

  After Knocknarea

  On the subject of women Seamus was surprisingly mute.

  I was a smitten teenage boy

  in love (or at least believing he was in love)

  with the girl of his

  dreams.

  Literallycome to think of it.

  Days passed after Knocknarea

  and she did not appear.

  Ireland is a big place

  Seamus reminded me.

  She could be in Donegal or County Clare

  or Tipperary or Cork.

  He suggested I was in trouble though

  if she were to be living in Dublin

  but he wouldn’t explain why

  except to say he didn’t trust that dirty city

  or anyone in it.

  I asked him why he lived alone

  and why he had not married.

  This brought a faraway look to his eyes

  and at first I thought he wouldn’t say a word.

  But then the floodgates opened.

  Seamus Speaks

  I was a mere country lad meself

  and had not a care in the world

  except to work on McGonnigle’s farm

  mucking around with the cows and such

  and meeting up with me mates for a pint at the pub.

  And then I met Katherine.

  Long dark hair and fair of skin

  and eyes that would look into your very soul.

  Her father hated me

  as fathers do when a young man

  captures a daughter’s heart

  and I tried to convince him of my worth

  which was an utter failure on my part.

  She was Catholic and I was Protestant

  but if you had asked me to choose between

  God and the girl I loved

  it would have been no contest at all.

  Still

  these things

  these differences

  run deep in this country.

  Katherine had ambition and wanted to go

  to university.

  A rare thing for a girl from these parts

  in those days.

  But I was all for that

  and would follow her to the ends of the earth

  even to Dublin if need be.

  And then she got pregnant

  and she did not tell me.

  I knew something had changed

  but had no idea

  what must have been

  going through her mind.

  She went somewhere

  to Limerick I think

  and had the pregnancy terminated.

  Abortion was not legal, of course

  and had she told me

  I would have convinced her to keep the baby.

  We

  would have kept the baby.

  But she didn’t.

  Afterward

  when she came home

  there was an infection.

  She died.

  And a big part of me

  died with her.

  Her father tried to kill me.

  Once with a peat spade

  and once with an axe

  and he would have satisfied us both

  had he succeeded

  but in the end he couldn’t do it

  and we both fell to this very floor beneath you

  Declan

  weeping

  until the neighbours came.

  And after that

  well

  after that

  here you see me.

  There’s not much more to say.

  Paths to Nowhere

  After a few uneventful days

  Uncle Seamus said I should take the car

  any time I wanted.

  My driving by now

  had improved.

  I studied the road maps and found

  my way to other ancient places:

  Carrowmore

  and Carrowkeel

  with more piles of rocks and dolmans

  (stone tombs said to have passages to other worlds)

  but not a sign of Rebecca.

  Like Uncle Seamus

  I feltlikeI had lost

  the love

  of my life.

 
On my way home one day

  I stopped at the old church in the town of Drumcliff

  and found the grave of the Irish poet

  W.B. Yeats

  with its inscription:

  “Cast a cold Eye

  On Life, on Death,

  Horseman, pass by.”

  Towering above the graveyard

  was the mountain

  called Benbulben.

  I drove down a potholed single-track road around its base

  and hiked up into fields and forest paths

  to find a way

  to the summit

  buried in the clouds.

  Surely, there I would hear her voice

  or see her in my

  mind’s eye.

  But I failed to find a path

  allowing me a way up.

  And then

  all alone in an empty pasture

  a dark cloud descended

  the very sky

  dropping down on me

  like nothing I’d ever known

  and again I felt terribly alone

  and abandoned.

  Something had gone out

  of the world.

  Not just the sun

  not just my old familiar life

  but now

  I was losing hope I’d ever see Rebecca again.

  I felt hollow

  and weak

  and lost

  as that great malignant cloud

  first swallowed the top of Benbulben

  then settled on the field

  and swallowed me

  in midday darkness.

  Saved by a Horse

  I sat there on a great cold stone

  and thought I

  would cry.

  At my feet I noticed

  a small mound of sand

  as if something created

  by ants.

  But the sand itself puzzled me.

  When I looked up

  there was a horse.

  A pony, really.

  I would learn later it was

  a Connemarapony.

  It appeared coming throughthe mist

  walking my way.

  A pale grey-white creature with magnificent eyes

  walking straight to meas if

  I had called out to it.

  I reached outand was permitted to touch

  her headstroke her back.

  I imagined there was something spiritual

  about this beautiful creature

  who stood there beside me

  as if protecting mefrom something unknown

  or from myselfperhaps.

  But I still sank deeper into my gloom

  until the horse bowed its head

  and nudged my side

  almost knocking me off my stone perch.

  For unknown reasons

  I bent over

  and scooped some sand

  (no ants)

  and dumped it in my pocket.

  ThenI began to walk

  down toward where I had parked the car.

  The horse followed me to a fence

  and before I climbed over

  I saw that there was a single ancient

  standing stone behind me in the field

  a monument to what, I didn’t know.

  The horse watched as I placed

  my hands

  on the stone

  half expecting some message to come to me

  from another time.

  And then I heard a voice

  a whisper really.

  I looked around

  but saw nothing.

  Then I heard it again:

  Keep looking

  she said.

  I need you

  to find me.

  The Lonely Man

  He appeared to me again in my sleep

  standing by his stone hut.

  His eyes pierced me and frightened me.

  I woke up

  shaking.

  I must have screamed as well

  because Seamus came into my room

  and turned on the light.

  Lad?

  He asked.

  Are you all right?

  It was just a dream

  I said.

  Perhaps

  he said.

  This girl who’s haunting you

  perhaps

  she’s a witch

  and she is trying

  to do you harm.

  And then he told me about the eight witches

  of Islandmagee

  on trial in 1711.

  Hauntings

  On the peninsula of Islandmagee

  in County Antrim

  a widow awoke one night and found

  her sheets and blankets ripped off

  and folded into the shape of a corpse.

  Rocks were thrown at her windows

  and she heard voices telling her

  she would die.

  And die she did

  in awful pain.

  Later, the woman’s knotted apron was found

  by a beautiful eighteen-year-old girl

  named Mary

  who untied the knots.

  Immediately after

  she began to see demon horses in the clouds

  and saw a nightgown walking by itself.

  Mary had become possessed

  and vomited pins and buttons

  shouted and screamed hysterically

  and was seen floating above her bed.

  Eight women in the village

  were charged with being witches.

  They were later convicted

  and thrown into filthy dungeons

  in Carrickfergus.

  But they survived.

  The people of Islandmagee

  were convinced they

  were witches

  but not the only ones

  causing mayhem.

  Belief

  No

  I told Seamus.

  I don’t believe in witches.

  But you’re in Ireland, now

  he said.

  You already told me you came here

  looking for the special places

  where the spirit world is closer

  to the physical world.

  But it’s not like that

  I insisted.

  There is nothing evil about Rebecca.

  He gave me a funny smile

  as

  he so often did and said

  Well, we’re all glad of that.

  And I told him about what woke me

  not Rebecca

  but the man.

  Describe where he lived.

  So I described the stone hut

  and the boat.

  It’s called a currach

  Seamus said

  a boat made from a wooden frame

  with animal skins stretched over it.

  It can be rowed by one or more men

  out to sea for fishing.

  And then he added for emphasis

  Your friend

  he’s a fisherman.

  He lives by the sea.

  I was staring at the floor now

  and noticed the sand

  a small sprinkling of it

  on the worn floorboards

  that must have spilled from

  my jacket pocket.

  Beaches

  Seamus wrote me a list

  of all the beaches h
e knew of

  in County Sligo and beyond.

  He offered to join me in my search

  and seemed rather disappointed

  when I said I needed

  to go at it alone.

  I drove first south to Strandhill

  with its dunes

  true mountains of sand.

  I trudged to the tops

  and back down to the stony beach

  but grand as it was

  I saw no fisherman’s hut

  felt no presence of spirit.

  Before I left the town

  I stopped in a little shop

  called Shells

  run by surfers

  where I bought a piece of amethyst

  for my mother.

  It made me feel homesick

  for the first time.

  I missed her

  and my father as well

  and began to doubt

  why I was here.

  As I walked back toward the shore

  I heard my father’s clear voice of reason

  saying

  there was nothing here to find.

  I had followed a foolish notion

  to a foreign shore

  where I didn’t belong.

  The Coasts of Sligo

  But later that day

  my father’s cold logic faded

  as I passed green fields

  and sunlit lakes.

  I was getting good with the driving

  and following

  the map Seamus had given me

  marked with the coves and beaches:

  Rossnowlagh, Mullaghmore

  Raghly, Moneygold.

  Some of the beaches were in towns

  and some were tourist destinations

  and nothing felt right

  but I walked them all

  inch by inch

  waiting for her voice

  waiting for something.

  Call from Home

  It was my father.

  Your mother told me why

  you are really in Ireland

  he said

  his voice filled with anger.

  You are to come home at once.

  I would

  if I could

  I said.

  But I can’t.

  Put on your Uncle Seamus.

  So I handed Seamus the phone.

  I could hear my father shouting at him:

  Seamus, you old fool

  do one sensible thing in your life

  and put my boy on a feckin’ plane.

  Send him back home.

  And I could see Seamus getting angry himself

  but he held the phone away from his ear

  and said nothing in return.

  When my father’s rage subsided