Delaney. Part V

The morning following Delaney’s birth, Mary Eunice had brought the child to Mother Imogen to examine the bizarre markings.

“How perfectly odd.” She had said, turning the arm gingerly as the girl slept. “Clearly a tattoo. And you’ve been with this child since the birth?”

“Yes, Mother.”

“No one else has been with the child?”

“No Mother.”

“And what do we know of the girl’s mother?” She asked.

“Just another brothel worker, no different than any other. I’ve seen her before. This baby is her first so far as I know. There is nothing remarkable about the prostitute.”

“And the father?”

“Oh, who knows. Any one of dozens of men. I doubt the girl would even know who fathered the child.”

“These marks,” Mother Superior carries the sleeping child into the light of the window for a better look. She draws up close to the arm, “they’re so fine. So perfectly drawn. They look almost like runes. This is clearly no birthmark. I’d like for Brother O’Brien from the Franciscan Friary in Drogheda to take a look; he has knowledge in this area. Perhaps he can make something of them.”

“Oh, that won’t do!” Sister Mary Eunice does not catch her tongue before the words are heaved upon Mother Superior. The stately Mother straightens and stabs Mary Eunice with a look of indignation.

“I mean to say,” the Sister takes a more controlled tone. It would seem that the nun has become fixated upon the child, protective of her. “Is it wise for us to draw such attention to the child? I shouldn’t want to put the girl on display.”

“Brother O’Brien is no mere gawker, Sister Mary Eunice. He’s well-learned in the ways of the druids. Perhaps even knows of myths regarding babies born with markings such as these. I will send someone to bring him here to examine the child, and I’ll hear nothing more about it.”

“Yes, Mother.” Sister Mary Eunice gathers the child to her chest and makes for the office door.

“And Sister Mary Eunice.” The nun stops at the door and turns toward Mother Imogen. “You will take care to guard your tongue in the future.”

“Yes, Mother.”

It is this recollection that Mary Eunice recounts to Sisters Julian and Shannon after the visit of the invader the night prior.

“So, Brother O’Brien knows about Delaney?” Asks Sister Shannon with some surprise.

“Oh, he knows. Came to see Delaney two days after her birth. The man was clearly as baffled as we were.”

“Oh, my. I don’t think of Brother O’Brien as a man easily baffled,” said Sister Julien. “He is such a tidy man. And so well spoken.”

“Well I can tell you he had few tidy ideas to speak about the markings. Took a magnifying glass and studied every inch of her body. ‘I don’t know what to tell you,’ he said to us. ‘They are druidic runes; of that I am certain. But they are so small I cannot make them out.’

“But before he left, the brother did add something to his evaluation. There was a word he thought he could discern among the runes, and I daren’t repeat it.”

“Oh, but Sister.” Julian pleads. “Perhaps it will give us some clue so that we may better advise you. Please do tell. What did Brother O’Brien read?”

Sister Mary Eunice considers the request for a moment, and then in resignation she sighs, “Murder. The one word the Brother could read was ‘murder.’

“He suggested that we keep the markings from curious eyes. ‘No telling what sort of disturbance it might stir among the superstitious.’ He told us. And he himself pledged to not breathe a word of it to the other Brothers. But I fear there is no hiding the matter now. The druids know, and they will believe they have some sort of claim on the child.”

“Then we must keep Delaney hid here. We won’t ever send her out again as a chore maiden. We have plenty of chores to be done at the convent.” Sister Shannon is trying to nudge the conversation away from a conclusion which would ship the child off to some foreign land, or worse yet, to the sewing machines in the Murder Factory at Drogheda.

“We will see.” Mary Eunice responds. “Let us keep watch these next few nights, taking care to lock doors and windows, before we make any final decision.”

The following night all is quiet, but when the light of day peeks over the horizon there are strange drawings on the lawn outside the convent. They appear to have been made with blood, and the carcass of a headless dog is found just on the edge of the wood nearby. The Sisters hurriedly rinse the blood from the grass with pales of water before the children rise so as not to alarm them or set tales to spinning. But they decide to enlist the help of Dunleer’s Constable. He dispatches one of the town’s night watchmen to the convent, and in the days that follows there are no more incidents.

Then, on a night,a week after the blood markings, there is no moon and darkness arrives early. It is accompanied by a mist which hovers above the ground. The night watch is posted after the girls have been bedded.

“I don’t ‘spect I’ll have any trouble tonight, Sister.” The guard tells Mary Eunice. “T’was a one-off incident. I believe you can go on to bed in peace.”

“Thank you, sir, but I’ll stay up with you a while longer. The night air is good for my lungs.”

“As you wish, Sister. But I doubt any druids will come making sacrifices on the lawn.” And then he utters under his breath, “If ever they was in the first place.”

Sister Mary Eunice ignores the muttered comment. In fact, she is glad of it. Perhaps news of the markings on the arm of an orphan and stories of blood drawings on the lawn have not traveled far or not been widely believed. The two make small talk for a while until there is a sound from the wood and a flickering of torchlight. The night watchman’s sword is not fully out of the scabbard before an arrow comes slicing into his midsection.

“Oh my God. Oh my God.” The Sister is blathering over and over, frozen with fear and indecision. Finally, she is gripped by a semblance of reason and rushes to the convent, locking the doors behind her.

In a moment there are 30 hooded men and women on the lawn standing in a circle with torches. The guard’s body is bled out and the blood used to make their symbols, then he is placed in the center of their circle and burned. There is a horrid chanting and the nuns have roused the girls and gathered them to the center of the room shutting the curtains so as to prevent them from seeing the ritual burning of the night watchman.

After the incantations are finished the front door is broken through, and the company of druids has entered the convent and collected themselves outside the dorm room. They part to allow a solitary hooded figure to enter the room. Pulling his hood away Sinead sees that it is the bald man with the stripes running down his chin and neck.

The man scans the room expressionless. Delaney’s bed is empty. He steps to Sister Mary Eunice.

“The girl.”

“We have more than 20 children, all girls, and you can plainly see them standing here. And as you can also see, you are terrifying them, and I must ask you to leave at once.”

If Mary Eunice is scared, one cannot tell by her steady voice.

He places the tip of a bloodied blade inside her nostril and gives a flick, slicing through the cartridge and releasing a great flow of blood.

“Where?”

Now there is trembling in her voice and tears from the pain.

“I have told you, sir. All are here with us in this room.”

The man scans the frightened huddle. Each of the sisters has a cluster of children around them, a great many around Sister Shannon who has knelt down on the floor and brought several of the younger ones into her embrace.

The chief druid steps from child to child, looking them in the eye, pulling frightened arms out from behind backs to look upon them.

He comes to the rotund Sister. Sister Julian and she is shaking uncontrollably.

“Where’s the girl?” He asks, and she lets out a squeak. Then attempts an answer.

“As Mother has said. They are all here.”

He is too distracted by his seething anger to notice the small foot which peeks from beneath her ample tunic. He abandons the trembling nun and comes to Sinead, bending down to her level.

“You know, don’t you? Your friend doesn’t belong here.” He tells her. “Now, where is she. We will take proper care of her. She is meant to be with us.”

Sinead is whimpering and cannot help looking at the little foot poking out from Sister Julian’s tunic. The nun sees Sinead and looks down over the umbrella like gown at Delaney’s foot peeking out from her robe. She shifts her position so that the girl’s foot is swallowed by the gown as the Chief Druid turns to see what Sinead is looking at.

“Don’t look to the Sister, I’m taking to you. Look at me! Where is the child with the markings?”

But Sinead has become a blubbering heap of tears and the man resigns getting any sensible word from the girl, so he shouts in Gaelic at the company standing outside the room.

“Search the place!” And there is a great tumult as the convent is ransacked. Beds are upturned, cupboard doors opened, and the massive pots and many dishes thrown down. Even the holy altar is pushed over.

Finally, he returns to the room of cowering nuns and children.

“The markings tell a story,” he says drawing up just inches from the bloodied face of Sister Mary Eunice. “They lay out the map of the girl’s destiny. I think you know that she does not belong with the Christians. The girl is druid. Druid by birth and she has a path which will be followed.”

“All of us here will walk the path God marks out for us. Hard as our start may have been, we have a future and a hope.”

“The god who marked this child indeed has a future for her; of that you can be sure. But of hope? All I can say is that you had better hope we do not find that you have hidden her away. And don’t be fooled. You cannot change a destiny written out before birth.”

With this he turns, and the troop of druids disappear into the woods, the charred remains of the nightguard giving off a pungent odor and the ominous symbols written in blood on the lawn stare up at the convent walls.