Nory Ryan's Song by Patricia Reilly Giff

Author:Patricia Reilly Giff [Giff, Patricia Reilly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780307538987
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2009-02-18T08:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER

14

The next day was Sunday. We walked halfway to Ballilee to the church for Mass. It took longer than usual. Now that we had the hunger, we moved slowly. On the altar, Father Harte moved slowly too. When he turned toward us, holding out his arms for the Kyrie, his hands trembled; his face was pale and thin.

We prayed for someone to help, prayed for the English to give up the rents this year, and then we came home. We made ourselves a meal of one poor hen. She was old and tough but we ate every shred of meat and sucked on the bones until they fell apart in our mouths. We made sure Patch had the softest whitest bits we could find. We didn’t dare look at Biddy and the second sister, who scratched around on the floor beside us.

“Do you think they know?” Celia asked.

“I don’t even care.” It was the first time my stomach had been full since the potatoes had failed.

But Granda said, “We can’t do this again.” He looked almost desperate. “We have lost an egg a day that would have kept us alive. We must keep the other two hens carefully, and find seed for them somehow.”

Celia and I nodded, ashamed because we hadn’t even felt sorry for the sister we had just eaten. We had been sorry only that she hadn’t had more meat on her bones.

Granda cleared his throat, looking up the way he always did. “They are building a road around Maidin Bay.”

“A road?” I sucked on the end of a bone, licking my fingers.

“For what reason?” Celia said.

Granda raised a shoulder in the air. “For no reason. The English will have us build roads that go nowhere. They will give us money but in the end they want nothing to be better.”

“We are going to build a road?” How could I ever build a road? I wondered.

“Not you,” Granda said. “Of course not you. How could you break up rocks and carry them?”

“Oh,” I said, relieved.

“Me,” said Granda.

Celia rolled her eyes at me.

“I will start tomorrow morning,” Granda said.

“No.” I swallowed a piece of bone, feeling the sharp edges in my throat.

Granda smoothed down his beard. “It is the only way.”

Celia bit her lips. They were chapped, so dry they were cracked and bleeding. I’d ask Anna what to do about it. She was trying to put every one of her cures into my head. A bit of boiled fish for sores. Garlic for sore throat. Egg white for … I couldn’t remember what. Even warm cow dung for burns. Fuafar.

Granda started again. “The rent will be due again soon.”

I closed my eyes. The rain was so much colder now and the damp seeped through our clothes. We hadn’t paid the last of the old rent, and soon the new one would be on us.

I pictured Da coming along the road, his pack on his shoulders, and felt a pain in my chest. He should have been here by now.

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