The crows of beara, p.1
The Crows of Beara, page 1
Praise for The Crows of Beara
“As Johnson’s wounded, good-hearted characters sort inner truths along the mystical Irish coast, the personal decisions and missteps they make have consequences that reach around the world. A captivating tale of our yearning to belong and the importance of following this ancient call.” — Kathryn Craft, award-winning author of The Far End of Happy and The Art of Falling
“Like Ireland itself, The Crows of Beara pulls at something deep inside the reader and won’t let go. In this captivating and thoughtful novel, the enchantment of Ireland heals two damaged souls and reminds all of us that no matter how dark life may be at times, there is always hope.” — Kelli Estes, USA Today bestselling author of The Girl Who Wrote in Silk
“You don’t have to love rain or Guinness or wild, windswept coasts to be seduced by the delicate intermingling of Irish mythology, environmentalism, and love that are entangled at the heart of this novel; the juxtaposition with darker, harder truths of grief and addiction create a rich and reflective resonance. From France to Ireland, across centuries and oceans ... where will this author take us next?” — Jenny Williams, author of The Atlas of Forgotten Places
“Haunting, hopeful, and transporting. You’ll sink into this story of loss and redemption and be carried away from the very first page.” — Kelly Simmons, author of One More Day and The Fifth of July
“The Crows of Beara takes the age-old question of whether a book’s setting can be a character one step further by proving that it can be an emotion. Ireland is longing. Daniel is the lure. And Annie—well, she’s something special. A sumptuous book through and through.” — Scott Wilbanks, award-winning author of The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster
“Julie Christine Johnson swept me away from the first page ... I wanted to fly off to Ireland immediately and hike the Beara Way. Annie Crowe is that memorable character—flawed but vulnerable—who fails in fits and starts but engages the reader with her desire to rediscover life. Johnson writes with her pulse on the heart of the people who fly off the page. When she introduces Daniel, aching and shamed, she does not fall into sentimentality. Opting for truth, she creates depth, even when reaching back into Gaelic mythology to prove her point. Johnson writes music on the page with words. She is a lush writer who does not turn away from the heart.” — Julie Maloney, poet, author, director of Women Reading Aloud
“In this important novel, Julie Christine Johnson brings together a remote peninsula in the west of Ireland with environmental issues that threaten a local community and its attachment to the landscape…Written in a lyrical voice with honesty and authority on the environment, addiction and recovery, and the magic of the Irish landscape, The Crows of Beara is a passionate story of one woman’s recovery of her soul.” — Christine Breen, author of Her Name Is Rose
“Stirring and poignant, The Crows of Beara is storytelling at its finest—a heady mix of the familiar and new discovery. In her newest book, Julie Christine Johnson carries you on an emotional journey that you won’t want to end as you travel alongside her beautifully drawn characters from both the natural and the mystical realm. I loved this book.” — Amy Impellizzeri, award-winning author of Lemongrass Hope and Secrets of Worry Dolls
“A beautiful, powerful novel about the mystical songs of ancient Ireland, two damaged souls fighting for the hope of a second chance, the healing power of place, and the importance of listening to your heart. My heart ached for Annie and Daniel and cheered for their resilience. This is not a novel I will forget.” — Barbara Claypole White, bestselling author of The Perfect Son and Echoes of Family
The Crows of Beara
A Novel
Julie Christine Johnson
The Crows of Beara: A Novel
By Julie Christine Johnson
Published by Ashland Creek Press
Ashland, Oregon
www.ashlandcreekpress.com
© 2017 Julie Christine Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without written permission of the publisher.
ISBN 978-1-61822-047-9
eISBN 978-1-61822-048-6
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016951335
Cover design by Rolf Busch (www.rolfbusch.com).
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies,
events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For Jon
The Beara Peninsula,
southwest Ireland
March 2012
It is that nervous time between seasons, when chill winds skirr across faces upturned to the sun. Light spills over the eastern hills and dives into the valley, sparkles on the western bays. Two small crows reach with red feet and alight on the Hag. They dance along her spine with measured, delicate steps to the music of instinct. As one creature, the birds lift their heads to the bay and slice the air with their scimitar beaks. They affirm an unspoken request with an echoing ker ker before swooping up and careering off air currents that take them south and west to their fragile home in Ballycaróg Cove.
The crows leave behind the Hag, her sightless stone eyes fixed on a point far across Coulagh Bay where the silver-blue water roils across rocks and slips into the Atlantic. Her chiseled profile shows a long, straight nose falling from the soft curve of her brow. Gray hair streams behind her, caught in the forever wind that scours this small promontory, beating the grass down to a nubby carpet. Of her seven lives, she has been captured here in her prime, a woman full and complete, defiant in her solitude as she waits endlessly, some say for her husband, others for mercy that will return her stone body to flesh and blood.
Many travel far to lay a hand on the blade of her back, leaving tokens of gratitude or supplication at her feet, tokens that fade or are torn apart by the rain and carried away on the wind. Still others are born with the soul of the Hag—she who is the essence of Ireland—and carry her spirit into the world, seeking out those in need of her wisdom and lifting them to grace.
1
Seattle, March
Annie turned off the engine and rested her forehead on the steering wheel, gathering strength. Stephen’s SUV sat squarely in the center of the carport, forcing her to park the Jetta on the street. He’d always left the covered space for her. The house hunkered in silent rebuke, complicit in the denial of this small gallantry.
Burdened like a packhorse, her gym duffel strapped across her chest, a canvas grocery tote in one hand, laptop bag hanging from a crooked arm, she trudged past the Koshals’ minivan. The daffodils lining the sidewalk had bloomed with such eagerness just last week. Now they lay flattened against the cement, defeated by the day’s rain.
The back door was locked. Annie dropped the bag of groceries to the cushion of her toes and fumbled in her jacket pocket for house keys. Slamming into the house in a cursing, spilling bundle of exasperation, she tripped on the straps of the tote. The bag went airborne as she yanked her foot free, pinballing loose fruit, containers of Greek yogurt, and cartons of deli takeout into the baseboards. Taking two jump-steps forward, fighting for balance, she met the edge of the cooking island with her hipbone. Profanity did little to ease the pain, but it kept the tears at bay.
The lingering scent of onions sautéed in butter told her that Stephen had eaten already. His anger lurked, tight and dark, in the shadows beyond the kitchen.
She collected the scattered containers and bruised fruit, depositing them in the fridge. Peeling away the foil from a burst yogurt carton, she dipped a spoon in what remained and stirred the chunks of black cherry from the bottom. Dinner. After a few swallows, Annie kicked off her running shoes and tiptoed across the polished fir floors.
Their bedroom door was open, but no lights were on; only Annie occupied that room. Light glowed from underneath Stephen’s office door, and she wondered for the first time if he had returned to their bed during her weeks in rehab, or if he’d stayed in his office—spending nights on the long leather sofa, wrapped in a down comforter, watching ESPN. She rapped lightly with one knuckle and turned the cool brass knob.
He sat slumped on the otter-brown sofa, his feet propped on the coffee table, a beer bottle in one hand, balanced on the flat plane of his stomach. Annie had insisted he not deny himself alcohol because of her, but he’d cleared the house, hauling their prized cellar to a wine storage place down in SoDo. She hadn’t seen him drink since she’d returned home from Salish. Her heart thudded at the evident end of his solidarity with her.
“Hey,” she said to his empty stare at the muted TV. A sudden breeze tossed rain at the house, and the soft pattering of drops against window glass broke the silence. He flicked his eyes to her, then back to the blur of moving images. Annie rested her bruised hip against the doorjamb and pressed hard to sear the pain into her skin.
“Stephen, are you all right? Did something happen at the store?”
He exhaled a long breath from deep in his throat. She thought of the yogic breathing she used to relax her mind and sink into a pose: lightly in through the nose, audibly out from the back of the throat. But Stephen was not relaxed. Despite his slouched position, his knuckles were white and his legs were taut. The air around him hummed with an electric storm of tension.
“Okay.” She breathed, wrapping her arms around her rigid frame. “What did I do?”
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?”
“Find out what?” But she knew.
“Spare me the innocent routine, Annie. No more lies. After everything we’ve been through with you, after all I’ve done to get you back on your feet, you go and fuck some guy from your AA meeting. What a fool I’ve been.” His feet crashed to the floor, and he dropped his face into his hands.
“How did you find out?” She began to tremble. She’d seen her husband cry only when he won triathlons. This vulnerability frightened her more than his anger. But the worst was over. Admitting to her betrayal was the uprooting of an abscessed tooth: the relief of released pressure greater than the acute agony of opening the wound.
He rolled his forehead between his palms and laughed. When he looked up, his face was dry, but his eyes were rimmed in red. “That’s all you have to say? ‘How did you find out?’ What does it matter? I found out. That’s enough.”
Her cheek was beginning to stiffen with dried beer. Annie could smell the sweet and sour essence of orange and pine, thought of sticking out her tongue to taste it. She had to pee. She wanted to wash the barroom smell of the beer out of her hair and the gritty sweat from hot yoga off her skin. Maybe after a shower she’d feel less like she wanted to die.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“I can’t do this anymore. I thought after rehab we’d have a way to start over together, that you’d have something to build on.”
“It’s been only two months.” A protest, lamely delivered through her sludge of shame and regret, as if she had a right to be indulged because she was trying.
“That’s right. Two months supposedly into a new life”—supposedly; the bitter word pierced Annie, but her small gasp didn’t slow him down—“and you’re having an affair. With another alcoholic, as if you couldn’t wait to punish yourself even more.” His voice barely rose above the rush of wind and rain at the window. “It’s time for you to go, Annie. Go wherever you need to make you happy, or at least to get your life off the rails. You’re my wife, and I love you, but I won’t turn my life over to you.”
Too weary to counter the dismissal, Annie eased out of the room. The bottom of the closing door slid over broken glass, sweeping it into the hallway.
“Annie.”
She stopped just before the door clicked shut. Into the small sliver of light she said, “I’ll go. Give me a couple of days to sort something out.”
2
The faint patter of rain grew louder, finding perfect syncopation as it dripped from a loose gutter. Then the rhythm stuttered, and Daniel realized someone was rapping on his studio door. He yanked down the surgical mask that covered his mouth and nose.
“Entrez!” he shouted in mock-French. He pulled the mask back into place with one gloved finger and continued to gently stir sodium thiosulfate, concentrated nitric acid, and distilled water in a heavy glass laboratory flask.
“I can’t! My hands are full of tea tray,” Liam called back.
“For Chrissake.” Daniel plugged the top of the flask with a rubber stop and stripped off his mask and gloves.
“Why did you come out here in this mess?” He held open the door for his nephew, and Liam backed in with the tray, shivering in his soaked T-shirt. “And why aren’t you wearing a jacket?” Not that he needed an answer. Thirteen-year-olds didn’t wear jackets in the rain. He took the tray from Liam’s trembling hands and nodded to the line of coat pegs just inside the door. “Put on a sweater. There’s a towel on that hook there. Dry your hair, and I’ll pour you some tea.”
The tea tray went onto the counter next to the deep industrial sink. Daniel’s three-meter-long worktable was taken up by a thin, rectangular expanse of copper. Liam yanked on a stretched and torn wool sweater, wiped his nose on the sleeve, and ran the sleeve across his head in a feeble attempt to dry his dripping crop of red-gold hair. Daniel snorted as he handed the boy a mug of tea with a tiny spoon inside to stir the cream and sugar. Liam took it with mumbled thanks and grabbed a handful of shortbread and cream biscuits from the tray. “Mom said to remind you that Mort and Michael would be over for supper tonight, to talk about the mines and stuff,” he said through a mouthful of chocolate cream. Crumbs sprayed from his lips, and Daniel’s heart swelled with love for this sweet, awkward kid. “She says to be at the table by six and not a minute later.”
“Or we’ll both be in for it, eh?”
“That’s Mom for you.”
“Don’t I know it.” Daniel winked. Fiana could exasperate the hell out of him, but he was careful to show only respect or a teasing affection for her around his nephew and Liam’s older sister, Catriona. All that was good about his life he owed to Fiana and her children.
“What’s that for?” Liam nodded toward the copper sheet. He walked to the table’s edge and rubbed the flat of his hand against the lustrous metal.
“I’m not certain yet. The light will tell me its story.”
Liam peered at the windows. “What light?” Under overcast skies, the studio’s interior had dulled to pewter.
“Wait a few minutes, and I’ll show you.” Daniel placed a hand beside his nephew’s. His, mottled with light-brown freckles from hours spent outdoors as a hiking guide and marred by cuts from sharp tools and small chemical burns; the boy’s, still pale from the waning winter, hairless and delicate—a child’s hands, really, though his fingernails were chewed to the quick. Daniel prayed Liam had only girls and homework to worry him for years yet. “Any calls from Aoife?”
“Aine.”
“Right. Aine.” Daniel corrected himself, swallowing a smile. “So, she called you?”
“We text sometimes.”
“Ah, modern love. No one talks on the phone. They just text. Do you ever speak in person?”
“Daniel,” Liam whined. Liam and Catriona hadn’t called him uncle since he’d returned from Cork Prison. Fiana had insisted on the honorific, but Daniel told her once to let it go and they wouldn’t speak of it again. She’d set her mouth in a thin white line but held her protest.
“I never know what to say.” Liam blushed crimson to the roots of his orange hair. “I can hardly stand to look at her. She’s so fine.”
“She’d probably appreciate it if you did look at her every once in a while. Girls are like that. Any more thought of asking her to the Spring Ceilidh in Bantry?”
Liam hunched his bony shoulders, and his chest collapsed into a shrug. He crammed one hand into his jeans pocket and raised the mug of tea to his mouth, blowing apart the rising steam.
The light spared them both. Through the clerestory windows that ran in rectangles under the roofline of his studio, Daniel had watched as the snapping wind scraped the skies clean and the windows flashed with the late-day sun.
“There. Now we have a story.” He squatted down, bouncing lightly on his toes, until his eyes were level with the surface and motioned for Liam to do the same. “Careful—those edges are sharp,” he warned when Liam wobbled on his haunches and reached out to steady himself. But Daniel wasn’t speaking about the table’s edge. He had his eye on the corners of the copper sheet he’d picked up in Cork earlier in the day.
O’Meara’s Roofing rang him when they received a supply of scrap copper—the kind he most preferred—sheeting that had been cut, trampled on, or left in the rain until it was bent and scratched and oxidization had started. This sheet, though largely intact, had been salvaged from the site of a housing estate that had stalled in mid-build when the developers declared bankruptcy. Yet another victim of Ireland’s corroded economy. But this copper was a survivor. Daniel had a way with survivors.
