Emer shook her head no.

"Good. You're a good girl after all."

After finishing her ch.o.r.es, Emer walked to the spring well for more water. She couldn't help but look around for Seanie. No other person in their village really understood the communication between them. Mrs. Carroll once spied from her door, watching the two teenagers walking silently, holding hands, making words with their fingers. Emer loved holding Seanie's hand. It was like holding Padraig's hand, or her father's. She would squeeze from time to time, knowing that Seanie wanted to say something but couldn't. His face would go a shade of frustrated pink. She would squeeze then, and Sean would smile a little and let go of whatever was troubling him. His first two months in the west had proved dismal, like everyone else's there. He had grown slimmer and slimmer, and she could begin to see the shapes of his skeleton through his pale skin.

What Emer hadn't noticed was that she was growing into a beautiful woman. Her legs were long and her cheekbones jutted out under her large blue eyes. Her hair, though thin and greasy, fell down her back in a plait, and wisps of it framed her freckled face. She was becoming the same woman who she used to dream would model her cape, the same woman she used to imagine walking around her home place with her mother. Womanhood was something she'd forgotten about since arriving in Connacht; her daydreams of awaiting suitors had disappeared. But Seanie Carroll changed that. From the first time they met, Emer was convinced he was the boy for her. She just knew knew it. it.

On her thirteenth birthday, Emer got no tidings, no affection, and no gift. Her uncle's family never mentioned how fast she was growing or how pretty she was. There were no Candlemas celebrations in Connacht, aside from a dismal ma.s.s for the Blessed Virgin.

She let the entire day pa.s.s without finding Seanie. When night fell, she went to the bed she shared with her cousins. It was there she received the most precious birthday gift of all. Her mother spoke.

Emer, I miss you.

"I miss you too, Mammy," Emer imagined herself saying.

You are becoming so beautiful! I knew you would. You were a beautiful child, remember?

"I remember."

And clever! What mischief have you found in the west? Have you found a lookout? Is there a river to play in?

Emer silently replied, "Uncle Martin doesn't let us play. He hates me. There's nothing here but work and death. No mischief. No fun."

Emer, you know better than to have an att.i.tude like that. A girl like you can make such dismal things beautiful. Don't you remember your power? Your name?

"It means nothing here. No one has ever heard of us."

But what of the story of Emer? Do you not remember that day I told you about her? About Cuchulain?

"I remember," Emer answered. "But the six gifts mean nothing here, either. No beauty or sweet-talking can change this horror. In fact, I don't talk at all anymore."

What about Seanie?

Emer lay quiet for a second. "How do you know about Seanie?"

No mind how I know. What about him? Don't you think you can find something to say to him?

"Aunt Mary said I wasn't to see him again. That Martin has other plans for me than to marry a dumb boy."

She did? He does?

"Yes."

Emer, think about the story of Cuchulain. Think about Emer's evil father. Stop sounding so beaten! You've only just become a young woman and it's your duty now to make sure you're happy.

"Happy is a dream of the past."

Happy is what you feel when you're with Seanie, if I'm not mistaken, Emer, and you can't go ignoring that, no matter how bad things are.

"I'm not allowed to see him anymore."

Neither was Emer allowed to marry Cuchulain. You'll find a way.

Emer didn't answer.

Have you st.i.tched your great cape yet?

"I haven't made one st.i.tch since the fire burned all of our thread and buried the needles."

Not one st.i.tch? How do you expect to decorate your cape if you've had no practice? Promise me you'll find something to make pretty, Emer. It used to bring you so much joy. Maybe it will again.

"I'll ask Aunt Mary tomorrow."

Happy birthday, Mairead said, in a voice now gone sad in Emer's head. I miss you I miss you.

"I miss you too, Mammy," Emer answered.

She propped herself up on an elbow. Was that my mind, she wondered, or really my mother? Why did she sound so disappointed? What does she think I'm capable of out here in this barren wasteland of rocks and wind? How does she know about Seanie? And if she can speak to me now, and know these things, then does it mean she is surely dead? Though she'd given up thinking her mother might still live, Emer took this confirmation with much sadness. She thought again of Cuchulain, and tried to remember the whole story as she fell to sleep.

The next morning, she approached her aunt's sewing basket. Trying to draw attention to herself, she rattled it and then placed it on her lap.

"Don't touch that, Emer. Those are my things."

Emer beckoned and Mary came to sit beside her.

"What are you trying to say? You want to learn?"

Emer opened the lid and pulled out a bunch of thread and a needle.

"Careful now, you need to know what you're doing. That thread is valuable and expensive. Oh. You've done this before?" she asked, watching Emer thread the needle on the first try.

"I'll give you a small sc.r.a.p to practice on, if you want," Mary offered, pulling the basket from Emer's lap and digging to the bottom. "Try that one. And no more thread. You have to learn with one color. I don't want you wasting my thread on practice."

Emer made a few st.i.tches and then made a few more. Mary watched, realizing that the child had done this before.

"Emer! You're very good, you know. I tried to teach Grainne how to embroider when she was younger and she hated it. Said it was boring, poor thing. Whatever they say about us grown-ups being sent out here to suffer, I think it's the children who've suffered most. My own child telling me that making pretty things was wasteful. Imagine!" she babbled, still watching Emer st.i.tch. "Why didn't you show me this before now?"

Emer shrugged and continued pulling the needle in and out of the sc.r.a.p of fabric. Soon her aunt could make out that Emer was making the cross.

"Mary, where's the d.a.m.n girl now?" Martin yelled through the door. "The b.l.o.o.d.y trough is empty!"

"I'll send her now," Mary answered, taking the sc.r.a.p from Emer's hand and hiding it in the basket. "Go and fetch the water."

Emer threw her a look, as if she were about to cry.

"I'll let you st.i.tch when your ch.o.r.es are finished. Just do as I say."

She got up and secured the two buckets on her shoulders. Pa.s.sing her uncle on the way out, she looked at the dirt and braced herself for a slap that didn't come.

When she arrived at the narrow river next to the spring, Seanie was there and he gave her their secret signal-two fingers raised in a wave. He smiled and she could feel herself melting. He was just so handsome! How could her uncle and aunt not want her to be happy? Her mother was right! The minute she saw him, she knew it. He was was the one, and there the one, and there would would be a way. be a way.

He shuffled over to stand next to her and brushed his fingers across her hand. He helped her fill her buckets and lifted them onto her back. Emer returned to the house and filled the trough, but abandoned the buckets by the door and walked back to the well.

She and Seanie had a secret place, a shallow cave beyond the rocky hill. It wasn't a big spot, but it was private. Other kids knew of it, but there was a myth of a monster who lived there and how he ate children, so no one bothered.

They sat for a while, silent as usual, and held hands. Seanie looked out over the small valley, and Emer focused on the rock face beside her until she found the courage to do what her mother wanted.

"You're my best friend," she whispered. Seanie jumped a bit, startled.

He looked at her. She was mortified-now he would hate her for playing mute.

"You're the only boy I've ever liked, aside from Padraig, my brother. He's dead now."

He continued staring at her, not frowning or smiling, but just staring.

"My parents are dead, too. That's why I'm stuck with Martin and Mary. Mary told me yesterday that I wasn't to spend time with you anymore."

He smiled.

"She said that I can't marry some dumb boy."

"I'm not dumb."

They stared at each other, wide-eyed.

"I knew it!" she squealed. "I knew it!"

He looked serious. "I just don't have much to say. Well, I didn't."

"Me neither."

"Until I met you."

"What will we do? Will we tell them now that we can speak and that we're in love and that we'll marry in spite of what they say?"

Seanie laughed, and Emer felt stupid for saying such childish things.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I'm just scared because my uncle wants to marry me to whoever he chooses. I know you probably don't want to marry me."

"I do."

"You do?"

"I do."

"Well, what will we do, then?"

"We're too young now. No one would believe us, anyway. The people here are so busy with work, they don't believe in love anymore. That's what I think."

"I believe."

"Me too."

They sat in the cave for an hour holding hands and exchanging looks and a few words. Before they got up to leave, Emer leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm so glad you're not dumb like they said," she said.

"I'm glad, too."

As they walked back over the small hill, Emer felt like her mother. It was a small feeling, not yet filled with the confidence of a grown woman, but it made her feel happy and beautiful.

One morning two weeks later, while working on her small embroidered sc.r.a.p, Emer spoke to her aunt.

"I think I'll need another sc.r.a.p. This one is full up."

Mary stared.

"I've done my ch.o.r.es and my lessons. Can I have another bit of twill?"

"I can't believe it."

"No, really, come and look. If I st.i.tch this piece any more, it will fall apart in my hands."

Mary sat beside her and hugged her. "I can't believe it. You've come out. You've come out! Martin!"

"Shh," Emer hissed. "Don't tell him. He'll only start hitting me again."

Mary hid her shame and went to the door. Martin was nowhere to be seen.

"What brought this on?"

"Things."

"What things? It was the embroidery, wasn't it?" Mary was already inventing a bragging story for her friends about how she'd cured a mute girl.

"Yes. And something else."

"What?"

"I can't say."

"Why not?"

"If I told you, you'd get very angry."

"Then you should tell me now and get it over with."

Emer thought about it. "Okay. It was my mother. She talked to me in my sleep."