CHILD OF WAR The New York Times Book Review called Child of War, “an earnest first novel.”  (March 17, 1985 Sunday issue) Named a Notable Book in Social Studies by the National Council of Social Studies and Children's Book Council.

All verse found in this novel is taken from the book Irish Fairy and Folk Tales, edited by  W.B.Yeats, and used by permission of Random House, Inc. Copyright © 1984 Mary Ann Sullivan All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America Second Edition Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Sullivan, Mary Ann. Child of war. Summary: The war in Northern Ireland becomes a bitter reality for thirteen-year-old Maeve when her little brother is killed and, urged on by her militant schoolmates, she determines to seek revenge.    [1. Northern Ireland__History__1969__Fiction. 2. War--Fiction] I. Title PZ7.S9532Ch   1984    [Fic]     84-47832 ISBN  0-8234-0537-0

CHILD OF WAR



Come away, O human child!
To the woods and waters wild,
With a fairy hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping
             than you can understand.

                                    W. B. Yeats
                                    "The Stolen Child"



CHAPTER ONE

            It was dusk in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and a cold, damp air moved through the streets as Maeve walked with her younger brother, Brendan.  She felt her cheeks redden from the cold and moved briskly to keep warm.  Several steps ahead, her brother played.

          "Maeve, watch!  I'm doing the boogie!" Raising his hands and shaking his hips back and forth, Brendan jumped on a small curb.

          Maeve smiled.  She needed Brendan's happy pranks.  "Behave yourself!" Maeve said, still walking.

          Brendan stopped dancing and ran to his sister.  "Can we stop and see Old Fra?  Please!  Please!"

       "Sure.”

            They walked the next block in alert observation.  On Sundays their father, after he had a few drinks, always took them through Fra's alley to see Fra: the oldest man in Belfast.  Fra told tales of leprechauns, fairies, and ghosts.  He also told tales of war.  Every Sunday, Fra proudly dressed in his uniform, pinning medals on it that he'd earned in the Easter Rising of 1916 when the Irish Catholics fought to gain their independence from the British Protestants.  Old Fra was just a boy when he won those medals.  He had lots of stories to tell about how he ran as a messenger in Dublin back and forth from the post office to St. Stephen's Green.

          Maeve and Brendan hadn't seen Fra in weeks, not since the fighting broke out in his neighborhood.  When they turned down Fra's alley, it was not the same.  Brendan laughed nervously and ran ahead a few feet.  A startled brown mongrel dog jumped out from behind a metal trash can and darted away.  Scores of unattended cans smelled like garbage.  Broken glass and spilled red paint, left over from a street battle, littered the alley.  There was blood on the ground.  Maeve walked over to her brother, put her arm around his shoulder, and guided him away from that part of the street. 
            But Brendan playfully pulled away from her and sang as he kicked along a piece of glass toward the one thing in the alley that was unchanged: Fra.
             In his rocker on the street, Fra wore his uniform. "Children, you be running home now!" Fra shouted when he saw them.  "Noel Connors killed a soldier this morning, and they'll be wanting blood for it."

Neither brother nor sister had heard about a killing that day; but there was an unusual silence in the alley, and Maeve, having seen the blood, did not doubt Fra.  She walked faster.

A dog yelped in pain.  The sound pierced the street.

"What was that, Maeve?" Brendan asked, taking his sister's arm.

"Go home, Maeve Doherty!" a voice warned.  It seemed to come from the top of one of the buildings.  "And take your little brother!"

That was Bridie's voice.  Maeve moved even faster.  She decided not to stop and speak with Fra.  Their grandmother would be angry if she learned Maeve had taken Brendan through this back street.  Maeve would have to swear Brendan to secrecy.  Hurriedly, she pulled her little brother through the trash and rubble.  When they reached the end of the street and turned the corner, they saw the barricade.  They saw the brown mongrel dog bleeding by the wall, its tail cut off.

"Maeve, I want to go home," Brendan said, his face pale with horror.

Maeve took her little brother's hand and turned away from the roadblock and the hideous animal.  They would have to go back the way they came.  Maeve was scared, but she was responsible.  She was the oldest.  "Come on, Brendan." Maeve ran back with her brother.  She knew about these kinds of fights.  She had often seen the Protestant constables and Protestant British soldiers shooting their guns on the streets of her neighborhood.  Passing Fra again, she and her brother stumbled through the debris.  She wanted to be out of there, fast.

Just then, five British soldiers turned into the small street, followed by an armored personnel carrier and a Land Rover filled with armed security forces.  Maeve grabbed Brendan and pulled him from the street into the open doorway of Fra's home.  It was hard to see at first, since the room was dark, cold and damp.  Once oriented, though, Maeve took her brother to a back corner of the room and made him crouch down with her.  From where she sat, Maeve could see Fra outside the door sitting in his chair.

"Do you think the soldiers saw us, Maeve?" Brendan whispered.

"Yes, but I think they're looking for someone else.” Maeve stared at Fra as she spoke, wondering if she should try to bring the old man in from his chair.  It was too risky.  What if the soldiers saw her again?  Then they might come in and get Brendan too.  Gazing around

the room, Maeve examined their options for escape.  Fra's one-room home had two chairs, a table, a radio, and a kitchen sink with two towels hanging above it.  Nothing else.  There were no other exits, only the door and a window to the same small street.  Maeve planned to stay in the comer, then, all night, if necessary.  She felt her little brother's muscles tighten and looked closely at him for the first time since they entered the room.  Terror flared in Brendan's eyes.

       "The dog." Brendan began to cry.  "They cut the dog's tail off!"

       "Shhhhh.  It's all right, Brendan.  Don't cry." Maeve rearranged her position so she could embrace him.  "Shhhh," she whispered in Brendan's ear to soothe him, stroking his hair.  "It's all right.  It's all right." She cradled her brother back and forth, wishing it were over, wishing they were home.

       "Fra, get inside your house or you'll be burning"

       That was Bridie's voice again.  A bottle crashed in the street and a petrol fire slid across the pavement, advancing toward Fra's house.  Orange-blue flames be­gan to move around the old man as shooting echoed from the street into the small chamber.  Maeve saw Fra stand up from his chair and raise his arms.  He was shot and fell to the ground outside the doorway.  Maeve watched as his uniform caught fire.  She could smell the burning cloth.

       Hysterical, Brendan pulled away from her and ran around the room frantically.  "They're going to kill us!" he screamed and cried at the same time.

       "No, Brendan!  Come here!" Maeve caught her little brother and pulled him close, embracing him again.

       Maeve herself felt numb and nauseated, unable to withstand the smell of Fra's burning body.  Maybe they should try to run through the flames.  But how could they get through without being burned?  She looked around the room again.  "Brendan, you have to do what I say." She brought Brendan to the sink.  "We're going to take our clothes off and soak them in the water." Maeve began to undress.  Brendan cried as he imitated Maeve.  They thoroughly saturated their clothes, then quickly dressed again.  "Now dunk your head under too, Brendan!" Maeve pushed Brendan's head under the water, took the two towels that hung on the wall, wet them, and wrapped one around Brendan's head, the other around her own.

       "Now stay with me, Brendan.  Don't leave me." En­couraged by her idea, she took Brendan's small hand and walked him to the doorway.  She was convinced they would escape unharmed.

       "Let's go!" Maeve ran, pulling her brother through the flames.  There was a burst of shooting, and Brendan tripped and lost his balance.  Maeve dragged him for a few feet, then picked him up and held him.  Running with Brendan in her arms, she stepped through and over the rubbish, she passed the rows of trash cans.  Finally, she ran out into the main street.  They made it!

          A crowd of people stood around, their eyes on Bren­dan.  Breathing heavily, Maeve held her brother closer as she saw their shocked faces.  She looked down.  Her brother's head was shot and bleeding.  Her brother's side was bleeding.

          "No!"

 CHAPTER TWO

Maeve lay on her bed watching candlelight move in waves around her unkempt room.  Edges of the long beveled mirror across from her, catching beams, spar­kled blue, red, green, and yellow around a reflection of her wavy brown hair.  Her dark eyes and pink lips were swollen from grief.  Three weeks had passed since Brendan's death, and Maeve couldn't forget the fire, the blood, or the smell.  She had spoken with no one.  Father O'Brian prayed over her, Dr. Michael took her temperature and pre­scribed fresh air, but she preferred the sanctuary of her room.  She cared for nothing.  She listened passively as the noises on the street floated to her second-floor window.  She cried silently, wondering again and again: What if they hadn't run through the fire?  She wished her mother were still alive. 
            Rain pelted on her window in a steady, firm rhythm, and it comforted her as her mind, weary from grief, jumped to childhood fantasies: trooping fairies were at the window tapping and smil­ing, calling her to their caves, singing in wondrous tones.  But there was another sound at the window, not rain, not the fairies, a sound that was repeated at odd moments.  Maeve sat up and looked over, yet saw noth­ing.  She stood and walked quietly to the window.  On the outdoor sill, shaking water from its feathers, a sparrow brushed its wings against the pane.  Maeve bent closer to the small bird.  It did not startle, but continued gently brushing its wings.  Beyond the bird, two stories below, puddles formed, large puddles reflecting lights from the homes all around.  Maeve stared down at the sparkles in the puddles, mesmerized.

          That's when she saw Fra, wearing an old raincoat and hat, on the street in front of her building-one of the poorest high-rise structures in the slums of Belfast.

          Immediately, Maeve dressed in warm clothes, put on her raincoat and rubbers, and ran from her room, through the kitchen, to the cold cement hallway, down two flights of stairs, and into the rain slicked street.  She could see Fra ahead, walking up Falls Road.  Maeve's whole neighborhood was called "The Falls" because Falls Road was so long.  She ran at first, but then slowed her pace and followed at a distance of about twenty feet.  Was Fra a ghost?  Was Fra offended because Maeve hadn't tried to save him?  Maybe the aged Fra was playing a trick.  Finally, at one of the small brick buildings, the figure climbed a stairway; and as he stood getting his key to open the entrance door, Maeve saw his face in the light.  It was not Fra.  It was just some other old man.

     Of course it wasn't Fra.  He was dead.  His wake had been on the same day as Brendan's.

Both had closed coffins.  Maeve stood in the rain and watched the old man slowly opening the door, walking down the hall, climbing the stairs.

     Then there was nothing.

            Nothing but dim lights and the pelting sound of rain.

       Alone and drenched, Maeve began walking to Fra's street, repeating the route she and

Brendan had taken three weeks ago.  Water soaked through her raincoat into her shirt and jeans.  Her rubbers squeaked with each step.  She could taste bitterness in the wind as her body shivered.  Again, some inner compulsion and de­termination drew her toward Fra's home.

          When she turned the corner, it was gray, black, abandoned and solitary.  Burned out.  Soot covered the brick buildings on either side of the alley. Her eyes hunted for clues as her body moved toward Fra's home.  Wooden scraps, probably left over from the rocker, lay outside the home, which was completely destroyed inside.  Obviously, the entire room had been consumed

by fire and smoke.  There was neither kitchen table nor chairs.  Ashes and soot had settled everywhere; some glass and melted pieces of plastic and metal from the radio were visible through a mound of ash.  Maeve turned away slowly, her innermost question answered: if she and Brendan had stayed in Fra's home, they would have both died.  But still, she felt responsible for her brother's death.

Two dogs barked in the distance, almost a warning, as Maeve stood in the doorway of Fra's home.  She stepped into the rain again and walked toward the bar­ricade where she and Brendan had seen the small tail­less dog.  There it was!  Dead!  Floating in a puddle of water, the dog's body had partly degenerated.  Instinc­tively, Maeve removed her saturated raincoat and then her sweatshirt.  Kneeling, she gently scooped up the dog with both hands, laid it carefully on her sweatshirt, and tied it in with the sleeves, making her shirt into a satchel.  The dog gave off a pungent odor.  She put her wet raincoat on over her undershirt and, picking up the bundle, turned back.  She would bury the dog in the cave.

Maeve had no notion of time, but as she walked through her neighborhood, she saw that most lights were out.  It was late.  No cars passed on the streets.  The rain was stopping.  High over Belfast, a strong wind was blowing clouds past the full moon.

Two blocks ahead, a faint light glowed in Lusmore's shop.  Lusmore worked long hours balancing his books and reordering supplies.  When Maeve reached his shop, she looked through the window and saw him in the back sitting at his desk, staring at the wall.  Lusmore did not have a wife, probably because he had a large hump on his back.  His small grocery shop was one of the busiest of its kind, because Lusmore kept his prices down.  Most of the Catholics shopped there instead of at the large modem super-market, which was in a Prot­estant neighborhood.  Catholics and Protestants lived in different areas and tried to stay away from each other.

       Maeve placed the dead dog on the sidewalk and knocked at the fly-specked window.  Lusmore stopped his staring, stood, and walked directly to the front.  When he saw Maeve, he smiled paternally and opened the door.

       "Maeve, wee lass, you're soaked as a white trout.  Come in and dry off.  What have you been up to that you're so wet?"

       "Do you have some matches, Lusmore?" Maeve asked, walking in and leaving the dead

dog outside. 
    "Maeve, I asked you how you come to be so wet!"
            "I've been walking."

              Lusmore sensed that Maeve was not in a talkative mood.  "I won't be asking you more then, wee lass.  I am sorry for your little brother and more for you, for surviving his bloody murder.  And you being only thirteen years old.  If it's matches you're wanting, take a box from the shelf then, by the coffee. Choose one of those pretty tins to put the matches in."

            "Thank you, Lusmore."

          Maeve walked to the shelf and picked up a box of matches.  Then, taking a few minutes, she chose a blue and green tin on which was pictured a scene of children playing in the street.  When she left the store, Lusmore was clicking his adding machine.

          Maeve picked up the dog again.  Carrying the remains in one hand and the small tin in the other, she pro­ceeded.  She knew a way to sneak by the Protestant neighborhoods.  The sky was clear now and the moon brilliant.  She walked for miles, with no sense of time or distance, down the street, by the river, past factories, over the tracks, through the outskirts of Belfast, toward the hillside and the waiting cave.  It was miles and miles away.  She smelled the wet earth and clay; she observed drops of rain on the grass, sparkling silver from the light of the moon.  Off the road, the dark cave was one mile up into the mountain.  Maeve's body seemed very strong as she stepped through the bushes and tall grass.  Only her arms ached from carrying the dog.

          Finally, Maeve arrived at her intended destination.  It wasn't a natural chamber.  It was formed from an old stone factory cellar.  The stones in one area had col­lapsed and formed a hollow cavity about seventeen feet wide and seven feet high.  Maeve and Brendan discov­ered it three years ago and called this special place their cave.  They built a little roof with spare wood and bricks.  It had holes and leaks, but they didn't care.  Brendan had been convinced that fairies lived among the rocks.  He had even sworn to Maeve that he'd seen them dancing lightly in the bushes.

Maeve crawled through the entrance, which was low to the ground and very narrow.  She left the dog outside since she knew the putrid smell would fill the small area.  Inside, she opened her tin of matches and lit one.

Candles that she and Brendan had played with were still on the walls, and she lit them.  In the corner there was some kindling and a pile of heavier wood.  She and Brendan had collected it just after they built the fireplace and created a flue. She took the kindling, which was slightly damp, and made a small tepee with it. Then she put about ten matches under her tepee to make enough heat to dry the moisture from the kin­dling.  The wood sizzled and steamed in protest at first, but soon began to crackle and catch fire.  Maeve slowly fed larger pieces of wood into the fire until she was able to add one of the huge logs.  Then she removed her raincoat, rubbers, socks, and jeans, and hung them on sticks.  Her skin absorbed the warmth as she sat on a smooth stone and watched the fire.  She had time enough to think about Brendan now, and as she stared toward the flames, her eyes caught the orange light glowing on the match tin, on the scene of children playing in the street. 
            Maeve was alone.

She cried.

After a while, she got on her knees and began to dig a hole.  She dug about a foot into the soft clay and sod.

          Then, without further thought, she crawled into the hole and cuddled the ground.  She felt safe in there.  After a while, she crawled outside, got her sweatshirt that held the dog, scrambled back into the chamber, and buried the dog quickly to cover the smell.

          The lowered fire needed another log; she placed one ­on it. 
          Maeve had been an insensitive and selfish girl lately, disregarding her father's and grandmother's feelings and staying in her room.  She would be good now and help them, like her mother wanted.

          She lay on her back over the dog's grave and looked up at the sky through the cracks in the ceiling.  She could see bits of the moon.

          The fire crackled, causing her to sweat a little as she began to drift off into sleep.  In those first tender mo­ments of slumber, she amused herself with thoughts of the trooping fairies dancing around the stones of the cave, smiling at her.  They knew where Brendan was!  She turned on her side, cuddled herself, and fell fast asleep.

          When she awoke, a lark was singing outside and it was early dawn.  Her body was cold and stiff, and her neck and upper back were cramped from sleeping on the ground without covers.  The fire was almost out; only cinders smoldered.  Maeve stood and dressed in her dry clothes and rubbers.  She decided to carry her raincoat, so she could feel the morning air through her undershirt.

She crawled out into a world covered by an unusually beautiful morning sky of pale blue, faint pink, and yellow.  There was a soft orange color where the sun fell on the green leaves of the mountain ash and the hawthorn.  Maeve tied her wrinkled raincoat around her waist.  It was a pleasant morning for her, and she walked as if her legs were a horse's, tramping at a pleasure trot through the hedges, down the mountain for a mile, until she came upon the road.

Maeve's face was red from the exercise, and she felt as if with every breath the grief she had for her brother was leaving.  Continuing at a rapid rate, she saw the river Lagan at morning time with sunlight reflecting off it.  Cars passed, but there weren't very many at this hour.  Mostly it was quiet, except for country sounds.

When Maeve did reach the city center, it was at the time of morning when workers are on the streets, wait­ing for buses, going to trains and walking to factories, warehouses, and stores.

 CHAPTER THREE

              Maeve's grandmother rushed over and hugged her.  "Maeve!  You're home!  You've come home!" She kissed Maeve's eyes, cheeks, and forehead.  She squeezed her tight again and again.  Then she stopped suddenly and stepped back to look at Maeve.  "Where have you been?"

Maeve knew she should explain everything about the dog and the cave and the fire.  She had promised herself she would be good to her grandmother and father.  But now, all of a sudden, she didn't want to.  It was too difficult.

          "What's all the noise about?" Her father entered the room and saw Maeve.  "Darling!" he stammered.  He walked over, put his arms around her, and snuggled his head against her neck.  "I was worried." His voice trembled and he started crying.  "I thought you'd been killed.  "

       Maeve felt his tears on her neck.

         "It's Brendan, isn't it, Maeve?" Her father spoke to her as he held her in his arms.  "You've been worried about Brendan."

            Maeve had only seen her father cry once.  That was three years ago, when her mother died.

       "Save the crying." Maeve's grandmother pretended to be tough and pulled Maeve's father away.  Then she spoke to Maeve.  "Now you sit right down and tell us where you've been!"

       "I can't tell you.  It's too hard!" Maeve was upset.  She could barely hear her grandmother.  She watched her father.  He closed his eyes for a moment and then turned away from Maeve.  He sat down in one of the kitchen chairs and began rubbing his forehead with his hand.

  "Just look at you, Maeve!  You're a sight for sore eyes.  Your hair needs to be combed.  Your face and hands are all covered with dirt.  Now wash yourself."  Her grandmother put a washcloth, a bar of soap, and a towel on the counter.  "I'll fix you some breakfast."

Maeve obeyed her grandmother and washed her face and hands and hair.  After she dried them with the towel, she walked to her room and closed the door behind her.  She felt different.  Her room looked a little unbalanced, although she didn't know exactly what was wrong with it.  The first thing she did was look into her favorite mirror.  Something about the cave and the fire and burying the dog had made her change.  She looked a little older than thirteen now.  While she was running home, she thought all the sorrow and guilt about Brendan's death were leaving her.  Now they rushed back into her stomach and head.  Maybe if she started to do ordinary things again she'd feel better.  She went to her bureau, opened a drawer, took out some clean clothes, and got dressed.  Her jeans were really too small for her.  The bottoms of them came to the top of her ankles.  It was embarrassing to wear them but she had no others.  She put on her white cotton shirt, then put a thick sweater over it.  She put on wool socks.  With an old horsehair brush, she began to brush the dirt from her shoes.

          "Maeve, can I speak with you?" her father asked, standing outside her door.

       "Yes, come in."

          Her father opened the door and slowly entered the room.  "You look healthy as a flower now.  Your grand­mother will be happy."

          "Thank you," Maeve said.  She put down her shoes, and leaned on the window ledge facing him.

          "You know, Maeve, last night while I waited for you, I thought of your mother." He sat down on Maeve's bed and patted the bedspread, indicating that Maeve should come sit with him.

   Maeve joined her father.  He took both her hands and held them between his large, rough palms.  "I loved your mother, Maeve.  More than anything.  For weeks after she was killed, I cried.  I didn't want to believe she was gone."

   "I remember you cried a lot then," Maeve said.  Her father looked like a little boy.  He had never spoken to her like this before.

   He continued to speak.  "Back then, I went to the grave every day.  I just sat there and listened to the birds and looked at the pretty flowers.  It was very peaceful there, with the trees and the water and the grass.  "

   More pain was growing inside Maeve.  Her father was being kind now, just for her.  He was telling her about his own suffering.  Maybe he could understand.  Maeve bent over and put her head onto his hands.  She wanted him to help her.  She began to weep.

   Maeve's father rolled her head gently onto his lap and ran his hand through her hair.  "Hush, now," he whispered.  Then he outlined her nose and ears with his fingers.  "What's the matter with my darling?" He picked her head up and held it between his two hands.

   Maeve's face narrowed.  "I miss Brendan too much!" she cried.  "I miss Brendan!  I'm the one who killed him.  It was my fault!"

   "Oh, Maeve." Her father put his arms around her and held her tight.  "Don't ever think that, Maeve.  You didn't kill him." He whispered very softly and then started crying.  He just kept holding and holding her and wouldn't let go.  She thought she saw a golden light surround them.  It made her feel warm and safe.

    "Darling," her father spoke.  "I have an idea.  Let's take Grandmother with us and go to the cemetery today!  We'll visit Brendan and your mother."

          Maeve moved away from him.  She was feeling very tired now.  But, she knew he must have a reason for wanting to take her there.  "OK," she agreed.

          "Good," her father said.  "Your grandmother should have your breakfast ready now.  After you eat, we'll all go." He stood up and kissed her on the cheek.  "Do you feel better now?"

          Maeve didn't know if she felt better yet.  She wanted him to hold her more.  "Yes, I feel better," she told him.

          "Good." Her father patted her on the shoulder, then quietly walked out of the room.

          Maeve only ate a small portion of her breakfast be­cause she wasn't very hungry.  When she was finished, she walked out onto Falls Road and up to the cemetery with her grandmother and father.

          People waved hello as they passed and said things like, "How are you?" "Sorry about Brendan." "Are you getting over it?"                  

          Maeve's father answered all their questions.

          It was about one mile up to the cemetery, and when they reached the gate, Maeve's father took her hand. "This is the hardest part, Maeve," he said.

          Her father was right.  As they passed through the gate, her heart pounded so much she thought her chest would burst.  It was hard for her to put one foot in front of the other.

     "Come on, let's not follow the path.  I know how to get there by walking up the hill and over a little bridge on the stream." He let go of her hand and walked a little ahead of Maeve and her grandmother, leading the way through trees in full bloom and grass that was plush and deep and green.  They passed a brook that purled through small rocks and pebbles.

     "There!  On that hill! Where that hawthorn is!  That's where the graves are!" Her father was excited.

     Maeve and her grandmother looked up to the top of the hill.

     "I'm running ahead," her father said.  He scampered forward like a young boy playing in the fields.

   As Maeve and her grandmother walked up the hill after him, Maeve thought she saw a blue ribbon tied in the hawthorn.  As they got closer, she saw that it was a blue ribbon.  It seemed that rain had fallen on it, and it was ripped by the wind.

   This was the section of the graveyard with no large monuments and few tombstones.  The poor people bur­ied their dead here.  There were only tiny little markers and small stones.

   Maeve saw her father kneeling by a grave and walked closer.  Her mother's grave!  Brendan was buried next to it.  Side by side.  Brendan's was a fresh mound of dirt in the shape of a rectangle, with grass seed scattered on top of it.  Her mother's grave was already overgrown with grass.  This was the first time Maeve had come to Brendan's grave since the funeral three weeks ago.

          Maeve's father stood up.
            "Look, on the tree there, Dad. There's a blue ribbon." Maeve tried to cheer her father.  She thought he might be sad.

          "I know, Maeve, I put that ribbon there last night.  When you didn't come home, I thought you might be here.  I was bringing the ribbon for you.  I know blue is your favorite color.  It used to be your mother's favorite color too."

          "So that's what you were up to last night?" Maeve's grandmother laughed.  She stood up and walked over to the tree and took the ribbon off.  "Playing with rib­bons in the cemetery.  That's a new one."

          Maeve knelt down at her brother's grave and made the sign of the cross.  Could Brendan and her mother see and hear her pray?  Father O'Brian said Brendan went straight to heaven because he was too young to commit real sins.  But her mother?  Maeve had heard so many different things from the neighbors and from other children.  She had heard her mother was a rebel and killed people.

       "Is Mom in heaven, Dad?" Maeve asked.

          "Not unless they take murderers into heaven, God rest her soul," answered Maeve's grandmother.

"Don't be saying things like that in front of Maeve," Maeve's father scolded.  Then, turning to Maeve, he said, "Yes, Maeve, your mother is in heaven."

"Don't you be telling me what not to tell this child." Maeve's grandmother was angry.  "She is thirteen years old now.  She is old enough to know the truth, so that she don't make the same mistakes as her mother.  So she don't make the same mistakes that you're making right now, being in the Irish Republican Army, the I.R.A."

"Don't say that.  " Maeve's father looked around to make sure no one was near.  "You know you could be arrested for saying the words Irish Republican Army or I.R.A."

       "Well, what would you have me say, then?"

       "Call it being a rebel like we always have."

          "All right, I'll change the word, but it's the same thing.  You're a rebel, Maeve's mother was a rebel, and Maeve should know the truth."

          "Yes, you're right." Maeve's father was angry now. "She should know the truth.  Look!  Our Catholic cem­etery!  Our dead!  For centuries we've lived with British Protestant rulers.  They took our country away from us.  That's why we need rebels, so we can win our freedom again."

          Her grandmother yelled back at her father.  And they continued to argue.  Their voices became more and more distant in Maeve's mind.  She wished they would stop arguing.  They fought like this a lot.  Her father was an I.R.A. rebel.  Her mother had been an I.R.A. rebel.  Maeve knew that much.  Maeve also knew that her mother was murdered, but she never knew why or by whom.  No one ever told her about her mother's secret life.

          When Brendan was alive, he had his own ideas.  He thought their mother was still alive and that she was a United States spy.  He was convinced their mother would one day come and save them from British Protestant rule.  Brendan thought that way because he never saw his mother dead in the coffin like Maeve had.  Three years ago, when their mother died, he was only two years old.

          Maeve remembered the night before her mother was murdered.  That evening, her mother came into Maeve's room and gave her some light blue fabric.  She said, "Make something beautiful with this, Maeve." Then she said, "Take care of Brendan."

          "OK," Maeve had answered.  She thought her mother was just going out for a few hours.

Then her mother said, "Take care of your father and grandmother too." When she heard this, she knew her mother would not return.

          Her mother walked out of Maeve's room and left the house.  Maeve couldn't stop crying.  It seemed the pain in her stomach filled the space around her.  And then it traveled outside her room.  And little Brendan started crying in his crib in the kitchen.  She walked from her room, took Brendan from his crib, and brought  him back with her so she could hold him.  She whis­pered the secret to him.  "Mommie wants me to take care of you, Brendan."

            Now, in this cemetery, Brendan was dead too.  He was under this soft ground, beside his mother.  Brendan had thought fairies played around the graves of little children to keep them company, like in cartoons, so the dead children wouldn't be sad or lonely.  Maeve looked around for hints or clues of the fairies.  There were tiny markings in the dirt.  Light markings.  She got down on all fours and began to crawl on top of Brendan's grave, looking for more signs.  She was get­ting dizzy and sleepy.  Gradually, she felt herself rise from the ground.  She rose straight up into the air!  She could see down onto herself and she could see her father and grandmother.  They were still arguing.  She rose even higher until she saw the entire graveyard and all the gravestones.  She gazed at the brook and lovely rosebushes and trees.  She scanned the people in Belfast who walked on the streets.  "Look at me!" Maeve shouted to them.  She did a turn in the air and a flip.  Then she began to float down to the earth again.  She saw herself below, lying on Brendan's grave.  Brendan was with her, crouching at the head of his grave.  He looked frightened, like he did that day in the alley.  He was alive!  Maeve wanted to lower herself closer to Brendan, but she couldn't.  She was stuck in the air; she couldn't get down.

       "Maeve!  Maeve!  Come on.  Get up.  Come on, darling.  Get up . Her father was holding onto each arm, pulling her up onto her feet.  "Are you all right?"

       Maeve was covered in dirt.  She must have fallen asleep on the ground.

          "Sorry we were fighting in front of you, Maeve," she heard her grandmother say.  "But you know your father and I always fight.  Don't put serious meaning to it."

       "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to come here," her father said, brushing the dirt off Maeve.

          They walked away from the graves and this time took the road out of the cemetery.  Maeve's grand­mother walked on the right and her father walked on the left.  They were holding her hands.  Maeve felt as if she were floating above the ground a little bit.  She was glad they were holding her down.

"Are you all right, Maeve?" her father asked several times.

"Yes, I'm fine, Dad," she told him.  She just wanted things to be normal again.

"She needs some hot soup and some fresh bread," Grandma said.  "She'll be fine once she eats.  She hardly ate any breakfast."

 CHAPTER FOUR

                The following weeks were not so easy.  Despite Maeve's determination to resume life as before, she couldn't forget Brendan.  Maeve depended upon fantasies to complete the daily tasks she and Brendan used to share.  In the morning, when she lugged fresh milk home from the store, she imagined she was an ancient Egyptian carrying jewels to the top of a pyramid.  Instead of being Maeve, who checked rat traps in the flat and hallway, she was the renowned Saint Patrick, capturing evil demons and casting them into the trash barrels.  When she swept the floor and rug, she was a primitive dancer swaying her arms back and forth to the tune of  ancient rituals. The daydreams went on and on.  She bathed like a dolphin playing in the water.  She did the dishes like a programmed robot.  Every task had an accompanying fantasy.  When her father, always with a hangover from drinking too many beers in the illegal pubs, woke up and left for work, she turned on the radio and opened her math book; then the musical notes on the radio became mathematical formulas and problems to be solved.

          When it was time to go to school, Maeve shut off the radio, closed her books, and kissed her grandmother goodbye.  The streets of Belfast wore a scarier face when she walked to school without Brendan.  They looked like history-book pictures of Germany after World War 11.  She hid her tears.  Everything was dif­ferent.  Maeve barely spoke in the classroom.  Sur­rounded by broken windows and smashed chalkboards, she counted the minutes until school was out.  Before, she had pretended there was really no danger, no war.  But then, her brother was shot....

          Now Maeve realistically saw the ugly city in which she lived.  And she did not like it.

  When everyone was dismissed from school, she ran to Lusmore's, where, stacking the shelves, she became an old woman counting her pickle jars in the basement.  Flattening boxes, she was a karate expert.  Lusmore paid her three pounds a week as he always had and asked no questions.  The kind shopkeeper was proud of Maeve's rapid recovery, just as her father and grand­mother were proud.  That's why Maeve had to be secretive-so they wouldn't be disappointed, so they wouldn't know she functioned in a make-believe world beneath which there were horrible dark images and emotions.

       Maeve stayed late at school to try out for the summer choir.  While singing the Ave Maria, she noticed Rory Friel enter the classroom, remove his hat, and sit down.

It wasn't until after the rehearsal that he approached her.

"Let me walk you home," he said.

       “No, thank you, Rory." She didn't want anything to do with him.  He had a sour reputation.  "I have to stop by Lusmore's shop and work for an hour."

"So I'll walk you to Lusmore's and wait around for an hour.  Then I'll walk you home."

       "That would be foolish.  " For some reason, Rory always reminded her of the old piece of leather nailed into the corner of her room that she couldn't pull up.  His only good feature was his soft light blue eyes, but even they were hardening and creasing around the edges.

       "It's dangerous to be walking alone on the streets so late!" Rory persisted.  "I'm walking you home whether you like it or not."

       "No!" A spurt of anger streaked out of her.  Maeve wouldn't let any boy imply she couldn't protect herself on the streets.

"All right, suit yourself, then.  " Rory put on his beret.

"Walk alone!" He bustled out of the room.

     Relieved, Maeve put her sheet music on the shelf, then walked slowly out of the chorale room and down the hallway to her classroom.  It seemed Rory left his anger in the hallway air.  He was tough.  Some people admired that in him.  They said he would be a protector of the Irish Catholic people when he grew up.  Others, including Maeve's grandmother, called him a young criminal and an outlaw.

          "Please shut off the lights when you leave, Maeve." Sister Therese Jude popped her head into the classroom for a second.

          "Yes, Sister," Maeve said as she tied a book strap around her books.

          When she shut off the lights and exited from the classroom, she still thought of Rory.  His father had been in Long Kesh Prison for ten years.  Last year, Rory and his mother moved into an abandoned building on Maeve's street.  No one asked them to leave.  You didn't ask Rory or his mother to do anything they didn't want.  Rumor claimed Rory's mother was a rebel.  Was Rory training to be one, too?

          Still split from a soldier's bullet, the front door to the school remained slightly ajar when Maeve closed it. She noticed a group of boys forming on the corner of the block ahead as she walked down the school steps.  She could tell they were not boys from her neighbor­hood.  None of them was familiar.  She continued walk­ing.  Maybe they would ignore her.  Moving closer, Maeve noticed the boys wore orange armbands.  British Protestants!  She stopped for a moment.  The boys formed a line across the street and held hands to stop her from proceeding.  There was really no other way for her to go but forward.  If she turned around, they would taunt her and call her chicken.  Maeve continued walking and tried passing through their arms.

"Where are you going, you Fenian?" one of the boys asked her.

     Protestants referred to Catholics as "Fenians." They didn't even know what "Fenian" meant.  Maeve knew what a Fenian was.  She learned in her history class that Fenians were a secret group of people who fought for Irish freedom from 1858 to 1867.  They lost.

       "I'm going home," Maeve insisted.  "Now, let me pass.  You shouldn't be in this area anyway." Feeling strong and protected in her own neighborhood, Maeve tried to force her way through their arms.

     One boy pushed her back.

       Almost losing her balance, Maeve realized they were stronger.

       "Oh, this is the wee slip who murdered her brother," said an older boy, pushing her again.  "I saw her picture in the Belfast Times."

       Why was he saying she murdered her brother?  She didn't murder Brendan!

       "That's what Fenians do," the Protestant boy con­tinued.  "They kill members of their own family.  I read about it in the newspapers."

       It was an accident!  A soldier killed Brendan by mistake!  Didn't he know?  Of course he knew.  He was just being mean.

          "Look, she's trembling.  The poor wee Fenian.  We'll let you pass, all right.  But first do us one favor." The boy opened his jacket and pulled out a piece of ma­terial.  It was the Protestant flag of Ulster.  The boy held the flag up at his waist.  "Kiss the Ulster flag!  We'll let you go if you kiss it," the boy added.

        Maeve bent down, closed her eyes, and kissed the flag.

       "Now, in the name of the Orange Order, get down on your knees and say you love it and want to kiss it every day," the boy continued.

       Maeve didn't hear what the boy said.  Not one word She saw his mouth opening and closing and there was a ringing noise in her head.  Hot and dizzy, she heard herself crying out loud.  Whistles were blowing, and she could see a group of young boys, wearing berets, approach.  Rory was with them.

       The Protestant boys ran off.

       "Go follow them!  Find out what neighborhood they're from!" Rory ordered.  His voice broke through Maeve's delirium.  "Willie, you stay with me," Rory called to one of his friends as he ran directly to Maeve.

       "Are you all right?" Rory asked, out of breath.

       Still quivering, Maeve wiped her eyes.  She didn't want Rory to notice her weakness.

     "Are you all right?  What did they do to you?"

     Maeve didn't answer.

       "I saw what they did!" Rory was very upset.  "They made you kiss an Ulster flag.  They'll be sorry they ever came near you!" He put his arm around her shoul­der.  "How do you feel now?
            Maeve pulled away from him.  She didn't mind that those boys made her kiss the Protestant flag of Ulster.  Who cared about flags?  Who cared if the British Prot­estants or Irish Catholics ruled?  What worried Maeve was that those boys said she killed her brother.  How could they say that?  She didn't kill Brendan, she pulled him through the alley to save him.  It was an accident.  It wasn't her fault.

          "I'm taking you home," Rory said.  "And I don't care what you say or do to me.  I'm escorting you to and from school for the next week."

CHAPTER FIVE

            The following morning, after doing her chores, Maeve sat at the kitchen table.  Fearful images had haunted her dreams throughout the night.  In the worst dream, the Protestant boys lined up, holding an enormous Ulster flag.  They held it like a net and looked up at the sky.  Something was falling.  They wanted to catch it in the flag.  It was falling very slowly.  It was Brendan!  He landed in the flag; the boys wrapped him in it and put the bundle at Maeve's feet.  "Kiss the Ulster flag," they said, one at a time.  Maeve could hear Brendan crying.  She bent down and embraced the flag.  When she woke, she thought she held Brendan in her arms, but she held nothing.  Nothing.

       It was only a dream from which waking gave no comfort.

       "Good morning, Maeve.  " Her grandmother entered the kitchen and hugged her.

  "Good morning, Grandma."

            Her grandmother stepped back, looking at Maeve.  'Maeve, I've been telling you to take care of yourself.  Look now, you haven't even combed your hair today and your clothes are untidy.  Is there something on your mind?" she asked.

            "No, Grandma.  " Maeve hadn't told her about the Protestant boys.  It might have frightened her. “There’s  nothing. "

            "Was that Rory walking you home yesterday?" Maeve's grandmother sat down beside her.  "I don't want You being seen with Rory.  He's trouble."

       Maeve felt her stomach turn nervously.  "I know, Grandma."

     Maeve's father came into the kitchen.  His hair was messy and his clothes were wrinkled.  He must have slept in them.  "Morning, my two wee angels.  " The smell of stale liquor filled the room as he walked over to the basin and splashed his face and hair with water.

          "Morning," Maeve said as she watched her father shake the water off his face and stick his fingers into the pickled egg jar.

          Someone was coming up the stairs.  There was a knock on the kitchen door.  "Maeve, are you ready?"  it was Rory's voice.                         

      Looking carefully at her grandmother, Maeve stood up from the kitchen table.  "Come in."

       Rory entered the room.  "I've got someone with me,"  he said.

Bridie walked in beside him.  She was the girl who yelled the warning in the alley the day Brendan died.

          "Hello, Maeve." Bridie walked toward Maeve. “I haven't seen you since that day in the alley."

          Maeve's body tensed, her heart beat fast.  She could see Bridie had a knife in her front pocket.  "I don't want to talk about it!" She glanced sharply at Rory.  She didn't want to walk with him to school, and she certainly didn't want to walk to school with Bridie. "Rory, I told you I don't need you escorting me to school."

            "How are you, son?" Maeve's father swallowed the last bite of his pickled egg, wiped his hands on his pants, and extended his hand to Rory.
            “ I’m fine, thank you, sir.  I've come to walk Maeve to school."

          "Maeve doesn't want you walking her to school." Maeve's father stuck up for her.  "Why do you want to walk her, when you know she doesn't want it?"

          "Didn't Maeve tell you about the attack yesterday?"

            "What attack?" Maeve's grandmother blessed herself as she spoke.  She turned toward Maeve.  "You didn't tell me about an attack!"

       "A group of Protestant boys stopped Maeve outside the school and made her kiss the Ulster flag.  There's  no telling what else they might have done to her if I hadn't chased them away with my gang.”

            There was a silence in the room.  Maeve's father looked at her grandmother; then he made the first move.  He put his arms around Rory's shoulders.  "You're growing into a brave lad, Rory.  I'm grateful to you.” 

            Maeve ' s grandmother walked over to the pickled egg jar and compulsively closed it.  "I never thought a day would come when I'd be thanking the likes of Rory Friel.  But you've done good by Maeve, and that deserves thanks." She moved toward Rory and kissed him on the cheek.

      Disgusted, Maeve gathered her books from the table and walked out of the kitchen to the hallway.  She descended the cement stairs.  They probably wanted  Rory to walk her to school now.  Didn't Maeve have any choice?

        "Wait, Maeve!" Rory yelled.  "Maeve, don't act this way!" He caught up with her at the bottom of the stairway.

       Maeve Stepped out into a damp and gray morning.

            "I want you to see something, Maeve.  That's why I've been trying to walk with you.  It's an excuse to show you."  Rory moved closer and whispered, "Bridie is going to bring us.  It's something you need to see ... about your brother, Brendan."

            Maeve raised the collar on her jacket, shielding her­self from their presence.  "You couldn't show me any­thing I don't already know!" She turned away, wondering what they wanted to show her.

"Maeve?" Rory said.

Maeve walked a few steps and then turned.  "What?"

"Come with us."

"Where are you going?"

"The police barracks near Botanic Avenue." Rory  sauntered off.

Maeve wondered what the police barracks near Bo­tanic Avenue had to do with Brendan.  "Well, how about school?" she yelled after him.

          Rory turned around.  "Now, I ask you, what's more important, school or your brother?"

Was it possible that Brendan was still alive?  It was a closed-casket funeral.  Maybe Brendan was still alive and everyone was keeping it a secret!  "All right, Rory." Maeve moved toward him.  "I'll go."


CHAPTER SIX

Silent hatred passed between Maeve and Bridie as the three of them walked down Divis Street to King Street and onto Royal Victoria Avenue.  Since the Catholics and Protestants insisted on bombing the city center, the police had set up checkpoints on the corners of major streets where they searched pedestrians, cars, and trucks for bombs. There were no checkpoints on the streets Rory and Bridie chose, so they wouldn't be searched. Not that Maeve had a weapon on her. She just hated being searched.
     "Well, we're not going to make it to school today." Rory was trying to break the tension between Maeve and Bridie.
     "I'm in no rush to be in that school." Maeve acted tough. "It's one of the last days before summer vacation, and Bridie doesn't even go to school anyhow. So I'm sure she' not minding."
     "There's only one thing I care about, and that's killing the lousy Prods." Bridie pulled out a six-inch knife and swished it back and forth in front of her, as if she were in a street fight.
     There were plenty of people on the street at this hour. When they saw Bridie with the knife, they crossed to the other side.
     "When are you joining the rebels, Maeve?" Bridie asked, stopping for a moment.
     Maeve wished Bridie would put the knife away. "I'm not joining the rebels, ever!"
     "Never?"
     Maeve hated Bridie. She hated the knife. She hated being reminded of war. Her stomach pained her, and her ears began ringing again, like they did the day the Protestant boys trapped her.  She was getting dizzy.  She shouldn't be with Rory and Bridie. She should go to school.
     "Maeve!" Rory spoke loudly. He made a gesture to take Maeve's schoolbooks from here. "Snap out of it!"
     Maeve pulled away.
     "Maeve, get ahold of yourself. You have to stay alert!"
     Ahead, a security patrol was walking down the street in triple formation. One soldier was watching the roofs of the building for snipers, another was watching the street, and the third soldier guarded the other two.
     "Watch." Bridie became alert.  "See how a real Irish lass treats the British," she said. "Hey!" she screamed ahead. "You orange Protestants! Down with the Queen!"
     One of the soldiers heard Bridie and stared over at them. British soldiers didn't like to hear words against the Queen of England.
     Maeve grabbed Rory's arm. "come on, Rory, we're staying until you see!"
     "You don't scare me, you bloody hun, for you don't know how to shoot a gun!" Bridie taunted as she picked up a rock and hurled it at the soldier who was watching them.  It hit the soldier in the leg.
     "Halt!" one soldier yelled. Another fired a warning shot into the air. Then the three soldiers began running toward them. Maeve wanted desperately to leave. She had nothing to protect  herself with.
     Having heard the warning shot, another soldier, pantherlike, appeared from a street behind them, and just as Bridie was ready to hurly more rocks at the advancing patrol, the soldier grabbed her. They struggled.
     "Bloody Brits!" Bridie hollered as she was wrestled down and cuffed at the wrists and ankles.
     The soldier kicked her in the face.
     Within moments, the three soldiers surrounded Maeve and Rory. Maeve noticed one of the soldiers was disfigured. One half of his nose was normal; but the other half was covered with a thin film of skin, and the left side of his face was badly burned. That ugly soldier moved close to her.
     "You dirty little girl," he said, holding his rifle in front of him.  "Are you carrying a knife?"
     Rory stepped between Maeve and the man. "Don't you come near here!" he said, grabbing Maeve's books and throwing them at the officer's ugly face.
     In a quick, professional move, the soldier retaliated by shoving his rifle into Rory's ribs.
     Rory doubled over and fell.
     "You Fenian!"  The soldier directed his words to Maeve.  'I've seen you somewhere before.  I'm going to give you something you won't ever forget.  I'm gonna frisk you.  You might have a knife."  He laughed.  "You three," he ordered the other soldiers, "go help take that other little brat from here.  I've got this situation under control."
      The other soldiers ran to aid in carrying Bridie away.
     "Don't you come near me!"  Maeve raised her voice.  She was afraid.
     On the ground, Rory opened his eyes, saw the ugly soldiers' boots, and without taking time to plan, reached over and pulled him down.
     The rifle feel from the soldiers' hands.  Rory grabbed it and hit the soldier on the head.  "Come on, Maeve, help me drag him.  We should put him out of sight."  He looked around.  "There!  In that alley!"
    It seemed Rory had done things like this before. It was all happening so fast.  Maeve helped him drag the body over to the alley. Then they ran back to where Rory had left the gun.
     "Pick it up," Rory ordered.
     Maeve picked up the gun.
     "If you can, sneak the gun back to your house."
     Rory was very excited.  "Now, Maeve, you must understand, I have to go tell the boys the Brits have taken Bridie. I have to tell her parents. I'll meet you at Lusmore's in a few hours. Please understand."  Rory took a few steps backward, then turned and ran.
     Alone, Maeve stared at the weapon in her hands. She knew all about his gun. Her mother used to bring guns home and show Maeve how to use them. "You never know when you'll need a gun." Her mother had said.  Maeve knew what was inside this gun too. NATO - North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- bullets. They were used  by many countries and could be loaded into lots of different guns. NATO bullets had killed Brendan.
     Maeve pushed a lever, releasing the magazine, allowing it to drop and clank to the ground. She could see bullets in it.  She stooped, put the gun down, and began to pick each pointy bullet out of the magazine, casting them one by one into the air, against the sidewalk, against the brick buildings. She hated those bullets!
     When the magazine was empty, she flung it into the street.
     There was one bullet left: in the chamber of the gun.
     Maeve picked up the wood and metal death instrument and yanked the bolt back,, making the cartridge drop silently onto a small mound of soil. The sight of that one last dark bullet released a torrent of emotion.
     "Why me!  Why did I end up with this gun?" she screamed and smashed the gun on the ground.  If she had gone to school instead of listening to Rory and Bridie, she'd be safe; she wouldn't have dragged a wounded soldier into an alley and taken his gun. She wouldn't have seen those NATO bullets -- the bullets that killed Brendan.
     Rory's hat had fallen and it lay beside the gun. Maeve picked it up. She picked up her books. Then, arms full, she followed the path Rory had taken back to their neighborhood.
     When she saw Rory sitting on the steps in front of Lusmore's' store, not speaking, she sat down beside him. Rory was happy to see his hat and took it and held it in his lap.
     "Maeve?" Rory asked.
     "Yes?"
     "Bridie and I sort of planned this whole thing. I feel responsible that they arrested her."  He put the hat on his head. "We didn't expect there to be a fight. Bridie just got out of hand. We only wanted you to see."
     "See what?" Maeve asked.
     "That soldier, the one without a nose, he's the one who killed your brother.  He always patrols the streets near the police barracks. That's why we brought you there."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Days passed unimpressively. There were no bombings, and school was out for the summer. There seemed to be a lull in the fighting in Belfast; people walked the streets with a safer and more independent air; some children were off to Cave Hill Park on day-camp expeditions designed to intermingle Protestant and Catholic children. The summer choir met every Tuesday night at St. Cecilia's School.
     Knowing that Father O'Brian wanted the curtains made for the presbytery windows, Maeve volunteered to sew them as a summer project.  It kept her busy. Ever since she saw who killed her brother, she needed to keep busy, for she constantly pictured the Protestant soldiers' disfigured face.
     Every day, after saying the early mass, Father O'Brian gave Maeve a colorful bag of sweet cakes made by the housekeeper. On this particular morning, while cutting fabric for the curtains that would hang in the foyer, Maeve saw Father O'Brian bringing the usual bag of pastries. When she accepted the bag, she did not simply say thank you. She asked Father if she could talk with him about an important matter.
     "Such a fine lass you are, Maeve, fixing the presbytery curtains, I'd have a full day for you anytime," Father said.
     "Well, Father, could we go somewhere more private, then?"  Maeve looked around, expecting the housekeeper to peep in at any moment.
     "Sure, we can go to a special place, to the sacristy behind the old altar."  The priest took Maeve's scissors from her hand and laid them on the sewing table.  He put his arm around Maeve's shoulders and led her to the kitchen, where he removed a large, red-plated key from the wall. He stared at the key for a moment in silent meditation and then led Maeve out of the presbytery to the old bombed-out brick church that had been officially locked up for two years, ever since some radical Protestants fired grenades into it.
     When father opened the front door to the church, an animal scrambled back in the direction of the altar. Maeve assumed it was a rat. She wondered how the priest could call this a special place.  It was damp, musty, and full of spider webs. It was dark and smelled of mildew and stale smoke.
     "Come along, Maeve. This way."  Father O'Brian encouraged  her to follow him into a little room behind the altar: the sacristy.
     Maeve was surprised. The sacristy seemed untouched by the grenades or the fire they had caused. It was clean, lit by four glass ceiling windows, and furnished with plush red and purple velvet chairs, couches, and cushions. Maeve recognized the two red velvet chairs on which the bishop and cardinal sat during high masses.
     "Have a seat," Father O'Brian said, smiling, indicating that Maeve should sit in one of the red velvet chairs.
     Maeve carefully sat down, honored.
     "What is it, Maeve? Are you needing a confession?" Father asked, opening one of the ceiling windows with a long pole.
     "Yes, Father."
     "Well, then, you should be starting it off in that fashion."
     The priest sat himself in another red chair opposite Maeve and attentively waited.
     "all right."  Maeve shyly blessed herself.  "Bless me, Father, for I have sinned."
     The priest made the sign of the cross with his hand.
     "It has been a while since my last confession, and these are my sins." Maeve looked up at the priest and raised her eyebrows. She was afraid to tell.
     "What is it, Maeve?" Have you been kissing some boys, now that you're of age?"
     "No, Father."
     "Is it your home life, then?  Have you been honoring your grandmother and your father?"
     "Yes, Father.  I'm very good to them."  Maeve didn't want to say she'd been hiding her feelings from them.
     Father O'Brian arranged himself in the seat.
     "It's my brother!"  Maeve said.
     "But your brother is dead."
     "I mean it's how my brother died."
     "In the alley?"
     "I know who murdered him!"  She immediately stood and turned her back to Father O'Brian, prepared to cry.
     "Maeve, remember this is a sacrament and take your seat."  Father spoke gently.
     Maeve turned toward the priest and, still standing, responded very quickly.  "Bridie saw him murder my brother!  And I know who he is.  I want to kill him.  I think of his face, it's very ugly.  I saw it one day when I was with Rory and Bridie. So while I'm making curtains for the presbytery, I think of how he murdered my brother and I feel that I want to kill him.   A picture of his hated face comes into my mind at night and it makes me want to see his blood running out of his body!"
     "Maeve, sit down and be calm now.  This is all very confusing to me.  What you have just said is serious.  Are you considering murder?"
     "Father!"  Maeve remained standing.  "He killed my brother, and there's no telling how many other Irish boys he killed or will kill."
     "Still, Maeve, that is not reason for you to wish to kill.  Murder can become an endless circle in that way. Someone has to stop the circle somewhere. Why don't you be the one?"
     "Father, it doesn't work like that, it's not so easy.  If I don't kill, then he does all the killing, and then it's just a straight line.  A straight line of unchecked murder!"
     The priest was silent.
     Maeve, exhausted by her confessions, sat down in the velvet chair again. Feeling fresh air on her face, she stared up through the overhead windows.
     Father O'Brian stood and walked to one of the doors that led to the basement of the church.  Maeve watched him take a brass key from a hook beside the door and put the key into the lock.  Then Father did something strange: he didn't turn the key or open the door. Rather, he removed the key and replaced it on the hook.  Apparently, Father was going to show something to Maeve, something in the basement, but then changed his mind.  The holy man returned to his seat. After a while, he spoke.
     "Maeve, do you realize what you have said is a sin?"
     "Yes, Father."
     "And are you truly sorry for this sin?"
     "I want to be, Father, but it's difficult for me."
     "This can't be an honest confession, Maeve, unless you are sincere."
     Maeve did not respond.
     "All right, my daughter, for your penance I want you to try with all your strength to develop the power within yourself to love the soldier who killed your brother.  Now you may say the act of contrition."
     As the priest blessed her, Maeve bowed her head and prayed aloud.  "Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended Thee."  She could hear an animal playing in the corner of the room.  "And I detest all of my sins, because of They just punishments, but most of all because they offend Thee, my God."  It distracted her.  "Who are all-good and deserving of all my love.  I firmly resolve, with the help of They grace, to sin no more and to avoid the near occasions of sin."  Eyelids low, she secretly searched for the animals.  

CHAPTER EIGHT

For a full week since Father O'Brian inserted the brass key and almost opened the church cellar door, Maeve had been curious. Not knowing where the light switches were, she first descended the stairway to the basement of the old church with a lit candle in her hand. Father O'Brian was to have brought her some curtain rods from there, but the priest had forgotten and was now in Derry for the entire day. Maeve had seized this opportunity to investigate. She had stolen the red-plated key when the housekeeper wasn't looking. It was dank and very dim in the basement. With the candle she could see only a small distance around her. Taking care not to disturb a large black spider stationed in its web between the railing and the stairs, Maeve cautiously stepped over a rotted wood step.
     She heard a faint, persistent trickle somewhere in the darkness.
     Curtain rods were stacked several feet away, and Maeve knew she should simple gather them and leave the basement. But she wanted to know what else was there. why had Father almost opened the door?  Holding the small candle high to increase her field of vision she ventured forth. Wood beam supports were rotting. The ceiling was low. The basement floor, composed of matted clay, was littered with small pieces of broken brick from the crumbling walls. The trickling sound echoed from what appeared to be a small room off to the left. Maeve advanced toward it.
     As she stood in the open doorway of the small room, she saw it was empty except for a few scattered pieces of newspaper stuffed into holes in the wall. There was also a rusty piece of metal in the center of the floor.
     The sound of dripping water continued.
     Maeve walked guardedly through the room and, bending, examined the rusty piece. It was an old gun bolt. After scrutinizing it for several minutes, she pivoted to her left. A long beige string dangled before her face. Looking up, she saw it was attached to a light. She pulled the string, and the room was illuminated. Now the source of trickling was apparent: water seeped into the basement from a corner of the ceiling. Near that corner and lower down, there was another dark doorway. With lit candle, Maeve slowly walked toward the entrance and, reminded of Christian catacombs, cautiously passed the threshold of this unknown room.
     In the center of the dark room, she lifted her candle and saw the shadows of about seventy rifles on wooden racks. Father was hiding weapons under the church! Maeve approached, slowly moving the candle over each gun in the center rack. They were standard automatic British rifles, FNs, like the one she had taken from the noseless soldier, like the one that had killed her brother. She didn't touch them. They were frozen poisonous spiders waiting to be warmed by her touch.
     On either side of the wooden rifle racks there were open metal cases that held guns five shelves high. Maeve immediately identified two tommy guns. She'd seen enough pictures of them in the hands of old and brave I.R.A. rebels; her grandfather had owned one. Maybe even her father owned one now.
     The trickling water in the next room grew louder. Each drop was like a leather beater sounding a large metal gong.  It was unnerving.
     Above the two tommy guns were other types of guns, ones with very wide barrels. Maeve recognized those as the kind the British handled when shooting plastic bullets into crowds of Catholics.
     The guns, stored as neatly and orderly as prized suits and shirts in a wardrobe, sickened her. Cans of calcium chloride mixed with a poisonous chemical were placed around the room to absorb moisture. They gave off a sharp odor that was nauseating. There was a dead rat in one of the cans. In disgust, hating the smell, the sounds, the inert wood and metal images, Maeve turned to flee from the room and abandon the basement.
    But just as she was passing through the door, her eyes caught sight of a singular, black metal submachine gun on a small gray metal table.
     The dripping water became cadaverously quiet.
     Like a crying child suddenly hushed by the sight of an unusual toy, Maeve found her distaste instantly turning into curiosity.
     She had never seen a gun of this nature before, and she walked toward it. The gun was folded compactly. Maeve lifted the weapon with her free hand. It wasn't very heavy. She had to put the candle down in order to unfold the shoulder piece. She carried the gun to the lighted room, blew out the candle, and, heedless, dropped the wax stub.
     Like a snake, a puddle of water slipped around her feet.
     The shoulder piece would not unfold. Impatiently, Maeve discovered a small button attached to a swiveling point between the butt and the extendable shoulder piece. She pushed the button, and the shoulder piece moved. She opened it out!  It was a much longer gun now, and she held it up to her right shoulder. Her right index finger on the trigger and her left hand holding the magazine, she aimed the black gun at the wall and squeezed.  It did not click.  Disappointed, she brought the weapon down from her shoulder and began to examine it more closely. She wished  her mother were alive to tell her how to use it. There was another button on the left of the gun. She pressed it and the magazine released, allowing her to examine the inside. There were no bullets in it; she snapped it back onto the gun.
     She pulled the bolt to a notch marked S, where it locked in place. That was the safety. She squeezed the trigger, but it would not budge. Unexpectedly, the bolt released, and her left hand, being in the path of the bolt, was pinched and caught by the metal. She tore her hand away, ripping the web between her thumb and index finger. It bled.
    "All right, against the wall!  I'm gonna shoot you!" Mimicking a soldier, ignoring her pain, she occupied herself with childish monologues. "Why did you kill my brother!  Why did you kill my brother?" She imagined that the noseless soldier was before her, and Bridie and Rory were with her. Bridie was flashing her knife; Rory pushed the soldier down onto the ground.
     Time passed unattended in that macabre tomb until, bored with her unloaded gun, Maeve folded it up. She replaced it on the small table in the dark room, relit her candle, and turned off the light. Then she carefully climbed the basement stairs.
     When Maeve stepped outside into the fresh summer air, she realized she had forgotten to get the curtain rods.  It was getting late, and she didn't want to go back.
     Instead, she entered the presbytery, disassembled her sewing table, neatly placed her material in the corner of the room, put on her jacket, and said goodbye to the housekeeper. She walked out onto the street. She would see if  Lusmore needed some work done at his store.

CHAPTER NINE

The Flannery brothers were secretly handing out rebel pamphlets and selling "freedom fighters" T-shirts outside Lusmore's shop. 
     "Hi, Maeve, how've you been?" John Flannery asked.  He was handsome, with dark black hair, and wore a three-piece navy blue suit.
     "I'm fine, thank you," Maeve said.
     "And your family is recovering from the death of your little brother?"
     "Yes."
     "I've some information here, Maeve, on the hunger strikers. Four of them have died already. Also, I'd be honored if you would take one of these freedom fighters T-shirts to wear at the march for the strikers in two week."
     "I'm planning to go," Maeve responded.
     "Well, then, take this shirt, Maeve, and wear it with us!"
    Maeve examined the shirt. Rory and Bridie had shirts like it too, and they looked very brave when they wore them.  Maeve wanted to be brave.
     "Maeve?"  John Flannery's voice pulled Maeve from her thoughts.
     "Yes?"
     "I don't know what I would have done if one of my brothers were shot."
     Maeve simply nodded and took the T-shirt. She pushed through the door of Lusmore's shop.  Smelling raw fish, she walked back to where the old shopkeeper religiously recorded data into his ledger.
     "Lusmore?"  Maeve's voice perforated the scene.
     "Maeve!  Good to see you, wee child."  Lusmore stood up and walked forward to greet her.
     Maeve embraced the old man, who was very warm and smelled of tobacco. When younger, Maeve had thought that if she squeezed Lusmore tight enough, the hump would jump off his back. There was a children's fairy tale about a humpback named Lusmore who sang so wonderfully in the woods that, one day, when the fairies overhead him, they magically removed his hump.

     Lusmore, Lusmore
     Doubt not, nor deplore
     For the hump which you bore
     On your back is no more;
     Look down on the floor,
     And view it, Lusmore!

     Maeve repeated the fairies' song in her mind as she held the deformed man close.
     Lusmore pulled away and walked toward his desk.  "How are you today?" I haven't seen you in a week now. Where have you been? Off with Rory and Bridie, I suppose, and helping the priest more?"
     Maeve smiled.  "Yes, I've been busy."
     "You know, I don't like Rory and Bridie," Lusmore said. "What's that in your hand, now?  A freedom fighters T-shirt?
     "John Flannery gave it to me, to wear during the hunger strikers march."  Maeve stared into Lusmore's warm green eyes.  "Are you going?"
     "No. I'll not be there."
     "Why?" Maeve had always trusted Lusmore's opinion.
     "Maeve, they were put into prison because they're rebels. They're hunger-striking because they want special privileges in jail. They want to be treated like political prisoners, not like criminals."
     "They should be treated better," Maeve said.
     "I agree," Lusmore said. "But, I don't like what they're doing."
     "What do you mean?"
     "They're starving themselves to death, Maeve!  Giving up their lives!  Four rebels have died in that prison from starvation already. It's not working!"
     "But they're heroes, Lusmore! They're doing it to show people in the world what's happening here in Ireland."
     "A sorrowful thought." Lusmore took a pocket watch out of his vest pocket and fumbled with it. "Would you go and lock the front door, Maeve. It's past hours."
     Maeve took the key from a hook on the wall of Lusmore's office and dutifully walked to the front door.
     Through the dirty glass window she observed the Flannery boys. She envied the way they were dressed.  Her old tattered gray jacket and gray pants did not compare with their fine new suits. Unlike Maeve's father, who was a milkman, their father was a respectable professor at Queen's University. Mrs. Flannery, their mother, was considered the most beautiful woman in Belfast, and she attended all the social functions; her picture was frequently in the papers. Maeve thought about her own mother. If she were alive, she would be more beautiful than Mrs. Flannery and would make beautiful clothes for Maeve.
     The Flannery brothers were laughing, punching each other on the arms, sparring. A small gun slipped out of John Flannery's pocket. Looking around to see if anyone had spotted it, he picked it up and replaced it inside the pocket of his navy blue jacket; then the brothers continued to play.
     Maeve walked back to Lusmore's office. "Lusmore?"
     "Yes?"
     "Do you know much about guns?"
     "Well, now, that's an odd questions for you to be asking. What particulars of information would you be needing?"
     "I was just looking at pictures of guns the other day, that's all, and there was one that interested me. I didn't know what kind it was. It's black, very small, and looks like a machine gun."
     "Why don't you bring the pictures in and I'll see if I'm familiar with it?"  I was a war volunteer. They wouldn't take me as a soldier because of my hump, so I carried food to the men and I handled guns. Although I'll never know as much as your mother did about guns."
     "Well..." Maeve stalled.  How could she bring in a picture that didn't exist?  She couldn't tell him that she found the gun in the basement of the church.
     "If I can't identify the gun, then maybe we can pick out the stamp on the gun with a magnifying glass."
     "The stamp?"
     "Sure, most guns are stamped with a number and code."
     Maeve didn't remember seeing a stamp on her gun in the church basement. But then again, she hadn't been looking for one.
     Lusmore opened the bottom drawer of his desk and removed a large old red leather photo album. "Maeve, come over here and look at these pictures."
     Maeve moved closer to the desk and looked down at the pictures in the album. There was a picture of Lusmore in a uniform dishing food out to the soldiers.
     "You look very handsome, Lusmore," Maeve said.
     "No, Maeve, I'm not looking handsome there, I'm looking ugly."
     Maeve turned the pages of the album, seeing pictures of other soldiers, and some very sad photos of half starved men and women.
     The edge of the black paper of the photo album sliced open the cut web of Maeve's hand as she turned a page. She hoped Lusmore didn't notice the sudden bleeding. She put her hand into her pocket.
     "There's no such thing as a handsome soldier, Maeve. All those young men back then joined the service to dress up in their colors and badges and hats. And the girls loved them for it and it made them feel handsome and important."
     When Maeve was younger, she had wanted to be a soldier and wear the boots and the beret and carry a fancy gun and knife.
     "But they're no handsomer than a shark's jaw when you think of what they do in those uniforms."
     "But Lusmore!"
     "And their flesh rots when they die in those uniforms, and their bones become as dry as the clay on your shoes.  It's death, Maeve. Death! Like your brother!"
     Maeve slammed the photo album shut.  "Lusmore, you have no right to talk to me this way!"  She began to walk toward the front of the store.
     "I don't mean to be so hard on you, Maeve. But you have to know!"  Lusmore walked toward her.  "It's not all just a dream of courage and braver and goodness.  It's war, Maeve, and war is death. And it's not noble. It's cheap and beggarly.  It's wretched and it's hurtful. And that's why you're hurting now, Maeve, Because someone killed your brother, and you are having trouble accepting it. Most of the time, you stroll around here acting like it never happened. I haven't seen you cry once since Brendan died. Face it, Maeve! He's dead, forever!  Death isn't something you can forget about whenever you want."
     Maeve never cried in front of Lusmore because she didn't want him to worry. She preferred him to think she was a grownup. But now her mouth trembled and her eyes brimmed with tears. Lusmore's words jarred her. Mad at the whole world, Maeve raised her arms to hit him. Terrible pictures flashed through her mind: the hot, burning alley, the wounds in Brendan's head and side. Lusmore was right. Maeve shouldn't fake happiness for him. She lowered her raised arm. How could she hit this gentle man?
     Lusmore stepped closer and put his warm arms around her. His arms were safe, like the cave.
     "Cry," he whispered. "Cry."
     Maeve began to sob for little Brendan until each tender pulse of grief swelled into terrible sorrow.

CHAPTER TEN

When Maeve finished crying, she and Lusmore separated silently. With regular motions, they began their usual chores, he making ledger entries, she stacking shelves. The routine, ordinary tasks tranquilized her as she piled the cans and bottles high and evenly. Lightheaded, she entertained herself with the company of delicate fairies. That's what Brendan had done when he was sad. He played good and bad fairies. On the shelf, in back of the cans, Maeve saw the good fairies. One was wearing a red cap with hundreds of white owl feathers. Another began to sing a song about the evil queen.

       She is so mean
       and slips unseen
       into our caves

     "Go to the door, Maeve. See who it is!"  Lusmore said without raising his head.
     The fairies became silent and stared at Maeve. They knew she had to go away. "Go, Maeve!" one fairy said. "Go!"
     Maeve stood, got the key from the wall, and went around to the front. He was young, blond Willie, Rory's friend, tapping on the window.
     She opened the door.
     "Maeve!" Willie was all excited. "Rory and Bridie asked me to come et you! They got more information!" He was talking fast.
     "What kind of information?" It wasn't easy to shift from the world of fairies to Willie's harsh reality. Maeve shook her head.
     "I don't know," Willie pleaded, jumping up and down. "They're on the steps at Rory's and they need you!"
     Maeve focused on Willie. What could be so important? More news about the soldier who murdered Brendan?  Her mind jumped suddenly. She had a freedom fighters T-shirt now. She could show it to Rory and Bridie! She could feel brave. "I have to get away first," she whispered to Willie. "Wait here!" She turned and walked to the back of the store. "Lusmore?"
     "Yes?" Lusmore raised his head.
     "It's Willie. He says Father O'Brian wants to see me."
     Lusmore closed his ledger and extended his arms, calling Maeve over to give him a hug. "OK, lass, you be on your way." He was smiling.
     Feeling a little like a traitor, Maeve hugged him back. But she had to lie, she told herself. She really did. She was facing Brendan's dea5th now, the way Lusmore wanted.  If there was something more to know about his murder, Lusmore would encourage her to find out.
     "You feel better now?"  Lusmore asked.
     "Yes." Trying not to reveal her sudden excitement, Maeve picked up the freedom fighters T-shirt from Lusmore's desk.
     "I'll lock up behind you," Lusmore said. He took the key and walked her to the front of the store. "Remember what we talked about, now."
     "Yes, I will." Thrilled, Maeve felt as she had in the basement with the gun. She stepped outside the shop and Lusmore closed the door behind her.
     "I'll show you the shortcut," Willie said, "come on!"
     As they hurried, Maeve's mind fabricated all sorts of reasons why Bridie and Rory wanted her. She felt important, like an exhausted soldier, who, after fighting for two days, had been chosen to run a message five miles to headquarters. She was honored that Bridie and Rory wanted to see her and include her in their plans. She glanced at Willie's face. He looked a little bit frightened.
     Noticing that Maeve was staring at him, Willie said, "I get scared when I do bad things."
     Maeve wondered why Willie, a fragile boy with delicate white skin and so unlike a criminal, associated with Rory and Bridie. She wanted to ask him, but this was no time to start a discussion.
     They reached Rory's tenement and ran up the cold, damp cement stairs.
     "Goodie!  Goodie! Come on, Goodie, be good!" Mrs. McBride's voice echoed off the walls as she called her cat.
     "Look!" Willie pointed.
     Preening himself, licking his front paw and rubbing his ear, the cat sat in the stairway.
     "Isn't he cute?"  Willie said, taking a moment to pet him.
     Maeve pulled him along. She wanted to see her new friends. Continuing up the stairs, they met with Rory and Bridie almost at the top.
     Both were wearing their freedom fighters T-shirts.
     Maeve trembled with anticipation as she tried to catch her breath. For a moment, she mistrusted her actions and wished she were safe again in Lusmore's shop, with the cans and jars. Why was she excited? Just moments ago, in Lusmore's store, she had been very tired.
     "Hi, Maeve," Rory acknowledged her. He tapped Willie on the shoulder. "Thanks, Willie." Then he turned his attention to Maeve again. "We were just talking about the boy who made you kiss the flag, Maeve. We found out who he is and where he lives.
     The boy who made her kiss the flag had said Maeve murdered her own brother. She hated him for that. She wanted to know all about him.
     "We're going to avenge you, Maeve." Rory spoke up. "We've got two plans. First we're gonna get the kid who made you kiss the flag, and then we're gonna get the soldier who killed Brendan."
     An abhorrent expression flashed onto Rory's face as he spoke. He looked almost like an ancient monster.  Maeve had heard a few days ago from other teenagers in the neighborhood that Rory killed someone.
     "First we'll take care of the flag boy. We'll steal a car, speed into his neighborhood, and toss a few petrol bombs at his house."  Rory smirked.  "Are you with me?"
     "I'm with you," Bridie answered and sat on the steps beside Rory, excited to hear more details of the plan.  She pulled out her knife and began playing with it, turning it around in her hands, grinning.
     "You're always with me, aren't you, Willie?" Rory asked.
     "Yes," Willie said.
     Maeve couldn't imagine Willie doing anything wrong.  He wasn't mean.
     Rory and Bridie turned their attention to Maeve. It was her turn to agree to the deed. That's why she came here, wasn't it?  Why she sped from her safe world, with her T-shirt in hand. To become one of them. Wasn't that what she wanted?
     "Remember how that boy made you kiss the flag?" Rory said. "Now he need to be put straight so he won't come into our neighborhood again or . . ."

     "Grow up to be a murderer like the soldier who killed Brendan!" Bridie finished Rory's sentence.
     Maeve did not answer. She knew she shouldn't do it. It was bad.
     "We're stealing a car from the university area . . . "  As Rory detailed his plan, Maeve stood and began walking down the stairs, away from them. It was wrong. She would get caught. Someone might really get hurt. Plus, Rory was a murderer.
     "It doesn't suit you, Maeve?" Bridie turned to Rory. "The stealing and bombing don't suit her!"
     "Well!" Rory raised his voice and began following Maeve down the stairs. "Well, it doesn't suit me that a Protestant boy made you kiss the Ulster flag! He can't get away with it!  Willie is with me and Bridie is with me!"
     Maeve turned around and looked up the stairs. Willie was nervously pulling his hair at the front.  Maybe Willie was feeling confused too. "The last time, we nearly got caught," Maeve said. "The time you showed me the soldier who killed Brendan."
     Bridie stood up now.  "I remember that time! Do you? The police kicked me." Bridie's face turned red with anger as she moved down the stairs. "Like a bag of garbage. I was taken in the police Land Rover and dumped in a Protestant neighborhood where boys pulled my hair and old men laughed at me, and I had to run as fast as I could to get out of there." Bridie raised her knife as if she were about to use it.  "But I'm not afraid of the soldiers for it. I'm mad, and more willing to harm them. We can't let them think they can get away with murdering us and degrading us!"
     "I know what we can do!" Rory said. "You don't have to do it with us, Maeve. Just watch u s!  Be the lookout!"
     "Yes, good idea!" Bridie nodded.  "Just watch! Be there with us, Maeve! It's for you we're doing it! You'll see!"
     "We'll make sure no harm comes to you." Rory moved closer to Maeve and turned her around by the shoulders. "Does it suit you now?"
     Maeve thought about it. Why was she afraid? Because her grandmother would find out?  If Maeve were the lookout, she would never be caught. What if Lusmore and Father O'Brian found out?  Well, Father O'Brian was hiding guns in the basement of the church; being a lookout certainly wasn't as bad as hiding guns. And Lusmore?  Well, Lusmore would never know.
     Maeve looked at Rory. "I'll go with you. But I'll only be the lookout."

     Rory smiled. "Good."
     "What's that in your hands? A freedom fighters T-shirt?" Bridie asked.
     "Yes." Maeve held it up in front of herself.
     "See, you are one of us, Maeve. We're a team! And wait till you see how good it feels."
     Maeve glanced at the top of the stairs. Willie sat nervously twirling the hair on the front of his head.
     "Goodie, come on Goodie, be good!"  Mrs. McBride still called her cat.


CHAPTER ELEVEN

Almost two weeks had passed since Maeve agreed to be the lookout. Now she stood across the street from Rory, Bridie, and Willie as they prepared to steal the car. "Watch only for security patrols," Rory had taught her, "scan the tops of buildings; attend the foot patrols; observe the traffic lights; follow the movements of the Land Rovers, the personnel carriers, the tank."
     Devising the plan thrilled Maeve. Excitement pumped into her body when they discussed stealing the car, tricking the security forces, and bombing the flag boy's home. But now that they were actually doing it, Maeve was disturbed. Would innocent people burn in the bombing? What if they were caught?
     "Once we begin, don't stop to think," Rory had told her. "Just do everything we plan. Don't think. Don't think."
     Maeve stopped thinking. it was too late to think now.
     A young woman with short purple hair and pointy high heels shoes stepped out of the self-service laundry, while an old man with a white apron stood in front of his fruit shop and women walked from expensive shops to beauty salons. None of them sensed the coming danger. They lived in a simple world that denied war and injury. A thousand-pound bomb could explode blocks away from them and they would continue their daily enterprises, unaware. Perhaps the tremble of the ground would stir a moment's fright, but these people were skilled pretenders. No war raged around them. The ground just shook a little every  now and then and the air just filled with smoke. No danger. As long as it wasn't their family or their neighborhood. Most of the bombs exploded in the city center or in the poor neighborhoods. Why should they care?|
     From the corner of her eye, Maeve watched Rory, Bridie, and Willie stake out a parked car. The driver was obviously a tourist. He had many suitcases in the back seat, and his wife was in the front seat beside him.
     In the car, the wife spoke loudly. Maeve could hear her from across the street. "It says on the instructions that the travel alarm changes. It gets louder if the person doesn't wake up and shut it off. I want to listen."
     Maeve could not believe it!  Did people really talk about alarm clocks?
    "Not now, honey." Her husband spoke loudly too.
     "Yes, now!" the wife insisted.
     "No, we're going inside."  The husband made his point. "We can listen to the alarm inside. You stay and watch the car. I'm going in to get the room and key."
     The husband got out of the car and went into the small boarding house.
     Now was the time. Maeve scanned the street again.
     Everything was clear. She nodded her head, giving the "all clear" signal to Rory.
     Rory returned the signal with a smile.
     Bridie made the first move. Holding her knife, she opened the wife's door and pulled her out by the arm.
     "JJJJooooeeeeeyyyy!" The wife screamed for her husband as she fell, unharmed, onto the sidewalk.
     Quickly, Rory jumped into the driver's side, and Willie, holding under his jacket the petrol bombs they had made, scrambled into the back seat.
    Maeve scanned the streets. Everything was clear. She gave them another signal by putting her hand on her head.
     Rory accepted the signal and drove the car at top speed down Botanic Avenue toward the old opera house.
     Maeve lost sight of them as they reached the opera house and turned left.  Alerted by the speeding car, two foot patrols stepped out of a restaurant. They were on their radios, probably calling for help. She hoped they were calling for help.
     Fearing what she would see when she reached the opera house, Maeve advanced toward the scene with small steps. They had done it by now. It only took a few seconds. It was over. She could smell the foul odor of petrol bombs, and a murky smoke rose above the building. Maeve's heart hammered fright. "God, please don't let anyone be hurt," she whispered to herself when she reached the opera house and looked up the street. A fire flamed wildly. The stolen car was gone. Her friends had escaped.
    Outside the burning structure, hurrying back and forth, scores of people swarmed in the street. Maeve saw the boy who made her kiss the flag. He was crying and holding a little baby in his arms. The baby was crying. All at once, Maeve realized the people appeared peculiarly small. About four inches high! The frightened crowd was composed of little play dolls! Maeve saw the flag boy again; he was a play doll too. He was crying and holding a baby doll in his arms!  It was terrifying. The play dolls were more horrible than real people! What was happening to her mind? Maeve shook her head and tried to rid herself of this ugliness.
     An armored personnel carrier passed her and turned up the street. Then a second one passed and turned up the street, another directly behind. They were large when they passed her, but as they approached the burning site, they, too, became play toys, machines with toy soldiers inside.
     Maeve watched as black smoke ascended and mingled with dark clouds that overhung Belfast. Why did it all look so unreal?
     The sky burst open and rain poured down. Maybe God was trying to put out the fire.
     "What are you doing in this neighborhood?" a policeman asked her. He knew she didn't belong there. Her clothes were too ragged, her shoes worn, her hair not styled.
     "Just watching the blaze, sir."
     "Did you see who did it?"
     "No sire, I only just arrived."
     "Well, move along, then. Move along. You'll be soaked. Go home now."
     Maeve began walking home, crying to herself as she relived her feelings about the crime: first excitement, then regret. And then the fire scene that looked like a surreal curio. What was happening to her? She had acted like a criminal. She had contributed to a bombing.
     Nighttime would reunite her with Bridie, Rory, and Willie. They would meet at the Andersontown Social Club, where they would drink soda, wear their freedom fighters T-shirts, and say not one word about what they had done, not one word to anyone.

    
CHAPTER TWELVE
    
It didn't take long for the news to travel through Belfast. It traveled from mouth to mouth, by phone and by messenger.  Everyone was talking bout the petrol bombing. The constables and soldiers were asking questions and knocking on doors. Maeve's neighbors were loyal. Even if they knew, no one would ay who threw the bombs or who was the lookout.
     Last night at the social club, Willie told some people about the bombing. And there were always informers at the club, waiting to hear that kind of gossip. The security forces would find out from the informers. They would know she was the lookout. They would watch her house. If only Willie hadn't told anyone.
     Frightened and very confused, Maeve lay on her bed. She could feel her grandmother standing in the hallway outside. she had been standing there for several minutes.
     "why don't you come in?" Maeve said. "I know you're out there."
     Her grandmother slowly entered the room. "I have a question to ask you, Maeve." Her grandmother knew about the bombing; she had found out from the neighbors.
     "What!"
     "How did it make you feel, Maeve?" she sat down on the bed with Maeve.
     Too ashamed to look directly at her grandmother, Maeve spoke to a reflection in the mirror. "When we were planning it, it felt good."
     "How did it feel good?"
     "It made my stomach feel excited because I was doing something back to the boy who made me kiss the flag." Maeve stood up, went to her bureau, and opened the bottom drawer. The beautiful light blue linen material and ribbons that her mother had given her were there, just waiting to be stitched.
     "Did you feel good when they stole the car and when they bombed the house?"
     "No, I felt worried and afraid!" Maeve answered quickly. she wanted to forget everything. She wished her grandmother would leave.
     But her grandmother would not stop asking questions. "What worried you?"
    "Being caught. All right? I was afraid of being caught. I was worried about the boy and his family too!"  Maeve put her elbows on her bureau and put her face into her hands. Why couldn't she just forget it all? Why did it have to ache in her stomach? why had everyone on the street looked like toys? she reached into the bottom drawer and took out the blue linen material and ribbons. She just wanted to forget everything and to sew as her mother had taught her.
     she had seen a beautiful satchel in a magazine at Lusmore's store. The design was simple. She would copy it. She unfolded the material and laid it on the floor. She would make the satchel.
     "You're not yourself at all, Maeve. I keep telling you, you're not combing your hair or washing your face and hands, you're wearing the same clothes every day."
     Maeve took a simple ruler and a pen and marked off dimensions on the material. Deliberately ignoring her grandmother, she drew lines neatly on the fabric. If her mother were here, she would hold Maeve. She would soothe Maeve. Make the hurt in her stomach go away. They would both forget about the petrol bombing. They would both sew together like they did when she was younger.
     "The sewing reminds you of your ma." Her grandmother walked to the window. "Does it not?" Her grandmother's voice was very strange now. Distant. Maeve looked up to see if she had really spoken. But she couldn't tell because her grandmother was facing the window with her back to Maeve. Outside, through the window, Maeve could hear trucks and cars passing. It was a clear day, not too damp. Rain clouds were forming in the distance.
     "I have to tell you something about your mother, Maeve."
     Was that her grandmother's voice?
     "All right," Maeve whispered. She wanted her grandmother to turn around so she could watch her lips.
     Her grandmother turned around. "Maeve, your mother used to get the same feelings of excitement that you were just talking about, when she did bad things." Her lips were really moving! "But your mother's feelings of excitement never went away. she never felt bad afterward. That is why she was killed. She had to keep doing more and more until finally . . ."
     "What?" Maeve raised her voice. "You've got to tell me what happened. Everyone in the neighborhood knows. They whisper secrets about my mother."
     "Well, your mother was a rebel. A famous rebel. A leader."
     "That's what you and Dad were fighting about at Brendan's grave."  Maeve remembered.
     "Two months before your mother was murdered, she and three men robbed the banks in Armagh. Two people were killed. No one knows what your mother did with the money."  Maeve's grandmother acted as if she were going to leave the room.
     "What else!"  Maeve wanted to know.
     Her grandmother hesitated, then said, "She was supposed to buy guns for the rebels with the robbery money. But she never gave guns to the rebels. So the rebels were mad at her. And the British were mad at her for robbing the banks. Both sides were after her."
     Maeve's vision of her mother splintered. Everyone hated her mother.
     "we don't know if the rebels or the British killed her. One good sign, though, the rebels didn't turn on your father. They let him stay on as a member and never asked him what your mother did with the money."
     "You lied to me!  Maeve began to laugh. "Lied!  and everyone else lied. Lusmore!  My teachers! Father O'Brian!"  Laughing uncontrollably, Maeve's eyes landed on the blue material, the fabric that had just reminded her of her mother. "Everyone knew but no one told me!" she began ripping the fabric, tearing the false connection she had with her mother while cackling like an amused animal.
     "Maeve! You stop this right now!" Her grandmother snatched the torn pieces of fabric from her and slapped her across the face. "I've asked Father O'Brian to come over and talk with you."
     "I don't want to see Father O'Brian." Maeve's laughter died down for a moment.
     "You need the help of God now, Maeve."
     "I don't need anyone's help. No one can help me!"
     Maeve put her face into her hands. she was laughing uncontrollably again. It was as if little people were laughing inside her and their voices were coming out of her mouth.
     "For the love of God, Maeve! Sit yourself down! Relax!"
     Maeve quieted the laughing people and sneered at her grandmother.
     "It was a sickness with her, Maeve, and it's a sickness with Rory and Bridie. I see it in them. I don't want you playing with them anymore."
    Maeve grinned at her grandmother.
     "They're the wrong kind of people."
     "They're not!  They're good people."
     Maeve's grandmother walked over to the bureau and opened the top drawer. She pulled out the freedom fighters T-shirt and held it up.  "Did Rory and Bridie give this to you?"
     "John Flannery gave it to me. He want me to wear it to the march for the hunger strikers, tomorrow."
     "You're not going to that march. There are going to be lots of police and soldiers there and they'll be noticing you because of your brother and because of your connection with the petrol bombing yesterday. You're staying home."
     Maeve spoke in one cruel, slow tone. "You're just afraid the security forces will come and search our house and arrest Dad and me and you."  Maeve knew the British arrested innocent people simply because they lived with rebels.
     Her grandmother's mouth turned downward as if she would cry. She left the room, slamming the door behind her.
     Alone, Maeve gazed at the ripped fabric on the floor. She wished she hadn't torn it. She would try stitching all the ripped pieces back together again. She threaded a needle with light blue thread and began.
     Her father hadn't come home yet. But Maeve knew her grandmother would tell him everything. He would be concerned. Not because Maeve had been bad and was the lookout, but because soldiers and police knew. Besides Brendan's murder, they had another link to the house. Their home would be under continuous surveillance.
     Maeve was sure her grandmother was wrong about one thing. Even if her mother had killed people, she must have had a good reason. Her mother couldn't have enjoyed being mean. At first, when her grandmother said those things, Maeve felt separated from her mother; that's why she had ripped the material. But now, as she thought about it, she loved her mother more than ever. They had something in common. something deep inside them.
     "Maeve?"
     It was Father O'Brian at the door.
     "What!"  Maeve did not want to be disturbed.
     "Your grandmother asked me to speak with you."  He opened the door and walked into her room.
     "I'm not talking to you, Father."
     "Why?"
     "Because I don't trust you!" Maeve said.
     "Why not?"
     Maeve didn't respond. She didn't want to admit she knew about the guns he was hiding in the basement of the church.
     "Your grandmother has told me everything."
     "Great."
     "Do you want to confess about the petrol bombing?"
     "No, I'm not sorry for doing it. I want to do more!"  Maeve looked for a reaction in Father O'Brian's face.
     He didn't react.
     Trying to show Father she was indifferent, Maeve picked up a piece of fabric and began to stitch it.
     "Your grandmother told you about your mother robbing the banks and the two people being killed?"
     "What about it."  Maeve was mad at Father. He had known about her mother too and hadn't told her.
     "And she mentioned that no one knows what your mother did with the money?"
     Maeve put the sewing down, stood up, and looked Father O'Brian right in the eyes. "Leave my room! Go!" She pointed to the door. "I don't have to hear any more bad things about my mother.  I love her, no matter what anyone says.  Go!" She hated Father O'Brian. He was probably a rebel too. Why else would he have those guns in the basement of the church?
     "Well, then," said Father, getting angry, "if you're going to be rude about it, I won't tell you about your mother. Not now, anyway. But I will tell you that you're not going to the hunger strikers' march tomorrow."
     "I am going." Maeve was determined.
     "What's wrong with you anyway?" Father tried to move toward her.
     Maeve walked away from him. "I'm not listening to you anymore, Father. Now go."
     "Very well, then. I can't help you if you don't want it."  Father walked toward the door. "Just remember, the hunger strikers march is going to have lots of fighting and will be very dangerous."
     So what if it is dangerous, Maeve thought to herself. She knew about fighting. Who did he think he was anyway?  He was just a phony priest, a criminal like everyone else in Belfast.
     "Too dangerous for a thirteen-year-old girl," Father said. He left her room and closed the door behind him.
     Good. Maeve hoped everyone would leave her alone. The blue material was very pretty and she began working on it. As if a code or a message were being transmitted to her, the sound of the needle and thread penetrating the fabric took on a high-pitched rhythm. At first she put the thread down, not wanting to hear the code. It was scary. But after a while she picked up the material and, again, began stitching the fabric. The needle and thread were talking! She concentrated on the words:

     We shall be there
     We shall appear
     We shall be there
     We shall appear

     Hearing the words over and over again, she mended the torn material. She wondered if her mother really loved to sew. She wondered if her mother really loved her. She felt she loved her mother more than she loved anyone else. Her mother was just like her. Her mother would attend the march for the hunger strikers if she were alive.
     Stitching, thinking, and listening to the words all night, Maeve created a beautiful satchel with light blue linen and trimmed with lace.
     Her father must have opened the door and entered very quietly, since then she finished her project, Maeve stood up and saw him sitting on her bed.
     "Dad?" she said. "How did you get in here?"
     "Maeve." He put his arms out.  "Come here."
     Maeve rushed to him. "They told me about Mom," she said right away.
     "Who told you?"
     "Grandmother and Father O'Brian."
     "There's nothing you need to know about your mother except that she was the kindest, most beautiful woman in Belfast." He hugged her.
     "Daddy?" Maeve whispered. Her head was on his shoulder. "There's something else. I mean, I made a mistake."
     "What's that?" he asked. He let go of her and let her speak.
     "Me, Rory, Willie, and Bridie did a petrol bombing.  Willie told the people at the social club, so the informers know. And the British know. And they'll be watching our house now." Maeve was afraid of her father's anger.
    "I know that already, Maeve." Her father wasn't angry. He was smiling.
     "Are you mad at me, Dad?"
     "No, Maeve. I'm not mad at you."  He held her again.  "How could I ever be mad at you?"


CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The next day, at the hunger strikers' march, Maeve stood alone on the edge of a growing crowd. She looked at her image, reflected in the dust-streaked glass of a large barbershop window. Her face was dirty, her hair uncombed, and her freedom fighters T-shirt was bagging out of her pants. Her grandmother was right. She was not herself anymore. She was a rebel child. Maeve saw others reflected in the window as well. Holding plastic shields out front to protect themselves from rocks, soldiers jumped from jeeps one at a time. Echoing notes off the buildings, kilted bagpipers practiced their music. As the Irish people formed vast, unarmed assemblies, British security helicopters flew overhead, and more armed security forces arrived in personnel carriers. Little Willie was reflected in the window too. He seemed insignificant compared with the enormous gathering as he stood in the crowd with his father, holding something unusual in his hands.
     "Maeve!"
     That was Rory's voice. Maeve turned away from the window and looked for him.
     "We're over here, Maeve!"  Rory and Bridie waved their arms high and motioned Maeve over. Looking very excited, wearing their freedom fighters T-shirts, they held their chests out like soldiers. A wild energy generated from them.
     Maeve pushed through the crowd.
     Bridie asked, "Did your grandmother find out about the petrol bombing?"
     "Yes, she did. And she didn't like it. She said I shouldn't march today, and she doesn't want me to play with you."
     "Such an obedient girl you are!" Rory laughed and put his arm around her and kissed her. "How about your father? I bet he doesn't mind."
     Maeve stiffened. Rory had no right to kiss her in public. He was not her boyfriend. Pulling herself away, she saw Willie approach. "How are you today, Willie?"
     "My stomach is hurting me lately." Willie pouted. "It hurts dreadful. My mother told me its' because I'm doing bad things."
     Maeve examined the object in Willie's hands. It was a plastic sheep mask. "Why the mask, Willie?"
     "My father is making me wear it. He thinks it's a good joke."
     "Willie, come here!"  Willie's father called. "Come here and do as I tell you!"
     "I have to go." Putting the sheep mask on his face, Willie lowered his head and made his way through the crowd to his father. People laughed and giggled behind his back. Maeve watched her young friend from a distance as his father gave directions and pointed to a large crowd. Willie followed his father's instructions and shuffled into the center of the crowd. He created a little arena for himself and began reciting aloud.
     Rory had been watching Willie too. "Come on!" he urged. "Let's go see Willie, the sheep. He's saying something." Rory, Bridie, and Maeve wiggled through the crowd to a midpoint where they could hear and see Willie's little performance of a poem that children learned in school:

     I heard the dogs howl in the moonlit night;
     I went to the window to see the sight;
     All the Dead that ever I knew
     Going one by one and two by two.

     Maeve wondered how Willie's face looked under the mask. Probably sad. The crowd snickered and whooped at Willie. Maeve scanned their faces.  Couldn't they understand that Willie was humiliated and that his father was forcing him to do those things?
     As she glanced around, Maeve saw an unexpected image that tightened her stomach and stiffened her jaw. Dressed as a civilian, the noseless, ugly soldier who killed Brendan was examining the crowd. His eyes captured each spectator like a camera. Maeve reached over to Rory and clutched his arm. "Rory, over there. It's the soldier who killed Brendan."
     "Where?" Rory whispered.
     "There to the right, behind Joe Connelly."
     "We have to tell the I.R.A."
     "Who?"
     "I can't tell." Rory acted important. "Bridie, you watch Maeve! I'll be right back."
     "Where are you going?" Bridie asked.
     "To get some rebel points." Rory laughed and squeezed to the outskirts of the crowd, where he could move more quickly.
     Bridie pulled Maeve toward the front of the crowd. "Let's go with Willie," she said.
     Maeve was reluctant. Her eyes remained steady on the noseless soldier as Bridie yanked her through the crowd into the open space Willie had created in the center. Maeve's anxiety peaked as she watched the soldiers' head slowly turn toward her. He stared at her face. Then his eyes dropped down to her T-shirt. He stepped backward and vanished into the crowd. Gone.
     "Come on! Let's act with Willie!" Bridie got down on her hands and knees with Willie, who was now crawling on the ground. The crowd recited the children's poem with Willie:

     Yet of all the dead, there was one, one only,
     Raised a head or look'd my way . . .
     How long since I saw that fair pale face?

     Maeve stood above Bridie and Willie and watched as Willie raised his masked face to her. Maeve understood his shame. He continued reciting the poem:

     Ah, Mother dear! Might I only place
     My head on they breast, a moment to rest,
    While thy hand on my tearful cheek were pressed . . .


A chill trembled through her body. She wanted to pretend she was Willie's mother. She would put her arms around Willie as he crawled on the ground, take him away from the march, take him to the cave where she would love him and feed him and show him all the birds and trees and fairies. There was a loud ringing in her ears and, slowly, the crowd disappeared. Only Willie was visible, in a haze. He was a real sheep. Gently tilting his head from side to side, he walked toward her, smiling. Somewhere in the background, she heard small voices. They were laggard, like a record on slow speed; but they got faster and soon she could understand them. It was the fairies! The same fairies that spoke to her in her room when she was sewing, the same fairies that wore red caps with feathers when they sang to her from the shelves in Lusmore's store.
     "Move, Maeve!"  Bridie stood up and screamed. "There's fighting!"
     Maeve looked around again and watched officers carry three men away from a fight.
     "Stay with me, Maeve," Bridie ordered.  "What happened to you? Were you daydreaming?"
     Maeve couldn't answer. She watched Willie's father pull him away from the scene by the arm.
     "Line up now! Line up!" Organizers of the march, with bullhorns, instructed people. "No drinking!" "No more fighting!"
     The bagpipers stepped to the front and marched forward.
     Bridie grabbed Maeve by the arms and shook her. "Stay alert, Maeve, or you'll be injured!"
     Maeve didn't care. She felt removed from the crowd in some way. Like a spirit, she could see people, but she couldn't speak to them.
     The crowd advanced to the sound of the pipers' funeral notes and the sound of one large drum, carrying Maeve and Bridie with it. The girls shifted forward in the march, step by step, like a prehistoric dinosaur.
     "Why did you move!" Rory screamed, squeezing toward them.
     "We had no choice," Bridie answered. "We're stuck in the crowd. When it moves, we move."
     "It took me long enough to find you! I've let the I.R.A. know about the spy." He was out of breath. "They're expecting a big fight today. The security forces are afraid."
     "Stop bragging, Rory." Bridie was jealous of his knowledge. "You learned that from our superiors."
     "What I'm saying, Bridie, is there's going to be fighting. We've got to be careful."
     "We've got a problem, then." Bridie indicated Maeve with her head. "She isn't all here."
     "What?" Rory was surprised.  He turned to Maeve.  "What does that mean, Maeve?"
     She didn't answer him.
     "It started when we were watching Willie."
     "Oh, God help us."
     Wherever Rory got his information, he was right.
     The soldiers and police were terrified. One soldier, near Maeve, aimed his automatic rifle into the crowd and looked as if he would pull the trigger if anyone came near him. Another soldier, eyes wide, held a plastic shield in front of him. Tension dominated the scene. The crowd entered the graveyard. Like an hourglass, it narrowed itself to pass through the gate, then widened again. It climbed up the main cemetery hill.  Scores of people and troops trampled the grass. They tore and crushed the tender petals. They pushed through the rosebushes. Tanks and jeeps ruined the brook and knocked down tombstones. Maeve saw people walk over Brendan's and her mother's graves. Clumps of new grass that grew on her brother's grave were being kicked around.
     At the top of the hill, Maeve surveyed the cemetery.  Like a large magnet, a podium in the very center of the graveyard drew the crowd toward it. As she, Bridie, and Rory were moved closer to the podium, Maeve saw the family of the four dead hunger strikers. Motionless, they sat in chairs on either side of the podium. Maeve saw the ugly-faced soldier again, scrambling behind the parents of the dead hunger strikers. Then she saw another face, one that Maeve had not expected to see at the march: Lusmore.
     "Maeve, if you can hear me," Rory said, "stay with us. There's going to be a fight. It's a setup."
     Neil Donovan, wearing a black I.R.A. beret, ran up to the podium. He picked up the microphone and began to speak. "We don't need marches to the cemetery. We need guns. We need soldiers and equipment to fight back against the British!"
     Soldiers rushed to the podium to silence Neil.
     "They're coming up here to take me away for talking against them!" Neil spoke quickly. "I'd rather die talking for our freedom than live like a slave!"
     Five soldiers grabbed him and dragged him away. Neil tried to break loose, screaming in Gaelic. The crowd understood him. They roared and swelled around the soldiers.
     "This is it!" Rory said. "Neil is the one who is supposed to start the fight. When he starts speaking Gaelic, that's the signal. Then a bomb should go off and then the fight will start!"
     Quickly, a soldier hit Neil in the head and knocked him out. Other soldiers fired into the air. Soldiers and police everywhere pointed their guns at the crowd.
     Silence.
     Not a sound could be heard now as the soldiers dragged the rebel away. It was as if everyone were attending the most solemn mass. As the soldiers placed Neil into a wagon, Lusmore stood up on the podium. "People! People!" he yelled. "I've got something different to tell you!"
     The crowd, even soldiers, turned toward the hum-backed man, as if he were the only one who could stop the fight that was about to begin.
     "You see that beautiful wall around this cemetery? Well, cemented on top are sharp razors and pieces of glass.  I anyone jumps over the top of the wall, they will be severely slashed. It frightens me. It frightens me more than the guns the soldiers carry, and more than the petrol bombs the boys throw. It frightens me more than massive bombs and plastic bullets." Lusmore hesitated for a few seconds. "Because the razors and glass are hidden, they are more horrifying."
     "So what are you trying to say, you humpback?" one person yelled from the crowd.
     The multitude grew impatient and began moving around.
     Lusmore continued. "It's not the guns or bombs that kill in Belfast. It's the hidden thoughts of the people. Their prejudices and their need for revenge are like the razors and glass." 
     "Did prejudice or a Brit shoot my daughter?" one woman yelled.
     "we don't need more guns, or more soldiers in Belfast. We need to change our ideas," Lusmore continued.
     "I'll give you an idea," one man screamed.  "My dead son."
     A bomb exploded somewhere outside the cemetery. Lusmore got down from the podium and began walking quickly from the scene. People screamed and ran. Mothers gathered their children together. Soldiers shot plastic bullets and tear gas into the panicked crowd.
     Maeve saw Willie run away, still wearing his sheep mask.
     "Come on, let's get in on the action!"  Rory tugged at Maeve's arm.
     "No!" Maeve pulled away.
     "Let's go," Rory said to Bridie. "Maeve's not one of us!"  The two of them ran toward the fight.
     Maeve stood alone. Stunned, she watched Lusmore hurry away. She watched Willie, frantic, run back and forth, almost in a circle. Where was his father? She hurried to help him.
     When she reached him, he was making noises like a wounded bird. "Come on, Willie. Come with me!" She took his hand and the two of them quickly ran with the rest of the crowd.
     When they reached the outside of the cemetery gate, Maeve found a bicycle lying beside a wounded man. She picked up the bike and turned around just once more to view the horrible scene. The surface of the graveyard was now like the ground beneath: rotten, eaten away by other forms of life. Dead. Maeve did not want to be a part of this destruction. She steadied the bike so Willie could get on. Then, mounting the bike herself, she pedaled away from the graveyard.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN


Many things passed through Maeve's mind as she pedaled from the graveyard battlefield. She wanted to be safe in the cave, to be away from everyone, to breathe, to live. Visions of the safe cave rolled through her mind. She would build a warm fire, light candles on the stone walls, and curl up with Willie.  All their worries would vanish when they stared into the fire. It would be quiet in the cave and peaceful. They would play make-believe and pretend they ran away from Belfast to live in the cave forever. They would have rabbits and birds for pets. No people. No more people. Just trees and stones and animals. As Maeve pedaled, Willie's warm hands squeezed her waist. Together, they passed the river, passed through neighborhoods, and ascended the hills until finally Maeve turned off the road and pedaled on the soft ground of the forest floor. Trees welcomed them. A young bunny hopped out of a bush and darted in front. They were there! She stopped the bike outside the cave and steadied it so Willie could get off.
     "Where are we, Maeve?" He was frightened.
     "A cave where me and Brendan used to play."
     Willie still had the sheep mask on. It was hanging down his back, attached to strings around his neck.
     "Come on." Leaving the bicycle outside the cave, she crawled in. "You can play with me."
     Willie followed her.
     The first thing Maeve did was open the tin of matches and light the candles. While she did this, Willie sat down in the corner, untied his sheep mask, and put it beside him on the ground. Candlelight flickered throughout the cave.
     "This is a nice place." Willie rubbed his arms a little because it was cold and damp.
     Maeve smiled. She had known Willie would like it here. "I'll fix the fire for you, Willie," she said. Taking the last pieces of kindling, she arranged them so they would ignite quickly. "sit on one of the blankets if you want. Make yourself at home." She lit the fire with a match and gradually fed larger and larger pieces into the growing flames. As a blaze of intense heat suddenly burst from the fire, a memory glared in her mind. On the night she had buried the dog and lain on  her back looking at the stars through the top of the cave, she thought she needed to forget Brendan; now she needed to remember him. She cried.
     Willie moved over and put his arm around her. "don't cry, Maeve." He spoke gently.
     She had a friend in the cave! Maeve wiped her eyes and looked at Willie. He was so much like Brendan, even though he was older. "Willie? Just for now, will you pretend you're Brendan for me, please?"
     "OK, Maeve. If it will make you stop crying, sure. What do you want me to do?"
     "Go outside the cave, then come back as Brendan." Finally, she had someone to play with.
     "all right." Willie crawled out of the cave and crawled back in. "Hi, Maeve. Grandmother sent me to visit you."
     "You're back! Oh, Brendan, I love you so much!"
     Willie went to sit in his place by the mask in the corner.
     "No, Brendan. Don't sit there. Come here and let me hold you." She extended her arms to her brother.
     He crawled over to Maeve and, weary from the march, the fighting, and the escape, he rested his head on her lap. Maeve ran her fingers through his hair until his face relaxed with a sweet, peaceful slumber. Then she rested his head on the ground and got a blanket. After covering him, she crawled underneath, beside her brother, and watched firelight flicker on the sheep mask, like sunlight on windblown leaves, until she fell asleep.
     A few hours later, in early evening, Maeve woke. Something was moving in one of the corners. Maybe it was an insect turning over a leaf. But then she heard a small tonal noise. At first, it sounded like a bee. Then it sounded like a human voice humming. Soon she distinguished words. It was the voices:

     We shall be there
     We shall appear
     We shall be there
     We shall appear

     Leaving Brendan, she crawled over to the corner for a better view of what was happening. There she saw three very small fairies by a stone. Enchanted, she looked down and saw tiny little women, about two inches in height. They had sparkling silver and gold wings, and they wore red caps and white owl feathers.
     The loveliest of the fairies spoke to Maeve. Her voice, not tiny at all, was full and resonant.

     Tender Maeve
     We love you
     We shall be here
     And when you are in trouble
     and need us most of all,
     We shall appear.

     Suddenly, there was a pounding on the ground outside the cave, as if someone, running, had just stopped at the cave entrance.
     "Maeve?"
     The fairies vanished.
     It was Rory's voice. Maeve didn't answer. She didn't want to see him. How did he know about the cave?
     Rory crawled in.  "I knew I would find you here. Why didn't you stay at the cemetery?  We threw at least fifty rocks at that noseless soldier!  Boy, was he mad.  He said he's gonna get back at all of us!"
     "Rory, don't talk to me about it," Maeve whispered. She checked to see if Brendan was disturbed by Rory's voice.  "How did you find me here?"
     "I used to follow you and Brendan, months ago. When I saw you bicycle in this direction, I thought this was where you'd come. You've been crying, haven't you?"  Rory asked Maeve.  "Your face is red and swollen." He moved closer.
     "I've not been crying. It's from the heat of the fire."
     "Maeve, you can't run from your problems like this. Come on. I'll take you and Willie home now."
     "No, you won't,"  Maeve screamed out loud.
    "What's the matter, Maeve?"  Willie sat up. He looked very sleepy.
     "Never mind, Brendan. It's OK. Just go back to sleep. Everything will be all right." She moved toward him and, making him lie down again, started stroking his hair.
     Rory grabbed her.  "Maeve, this is not Brendan!" He squeezed her shoulders tight.
     "We're just playing," Willie mumbled, adjusting his blanket and rolling over.
     "That's right," Maeve agreed. "Just playing."
     "You're sick, Maeve! There's something wrong with you! Come on. I'm taking you home to your grandmother and father." He tried to pull her away.
     "Rory, I feel like sleeping more. I don't feel like going to Belfast or talking about war. You can wait here if you want, or go." She crawled beneath the blanket with Brendan. "I'm staying here."
     "I've seen enough. I'm going." Rory crawled out of the cave.
     Very sleepy, Maeve heard Roy's footsteps run away. She curled and snuggled by the fire with her brother until she fell asleep. Everything was all right. Everything. All right. Everything . . .

     Sleep, my child! for the rustling trees,
     Stirr'd by the breath of summer breeze,
    and fairy songs of sweetest note,
    Around us gently float.


CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    
    
     Haste! for tomorrow's sun will see
     The hateful spell renewed for me.


  When Maeve woke in the morning, Brendan was still sleeping and the fire was almost out. She crawled from the cave to find more kindling. She'd have to look in the special places, in the safe places t the bottom of the trees and in other small caves where wood didn't et wet from the fog and dew. Birds sang playfully and the sun's rays pulled a chimerical morning mist from the earth.  It was a dream!  And Brendan could share it with her. She poked her hands into the small familiar crevices and clutched the dried leaves and pine needles that would make a big flame for their fire. Soon, holding a large armful of dry kindling, she crawled back into the cave.
     "Maeve, I'm cold." With this blanket wrapped around him, Willie sat in the corner. His body trembled beneath the blanket as he greeted her.
    "And the woods gave us these fire creatures to make us warm." Trying to comfort him, Maeve quickly threw the kindling onto the smoldering embers and blew on them to start a fire.  Little sparks flitted around the pine needles and caught on the small pieces of wood. Then a quick blaze gulped the kindling in one large bit.  It was time to add a log. The cave suddenly became warm. Like a child who listens to her mother repeat the same song over and over again and never tires of it, Maeve always enjoyed listening to the crackle of the fire. It soothed her.
     "Maeve, I think my mother is worried about me."  Willie was pulling the hair on his head.
     "It's OK. We'll go home as soon as the fire goes out." She crawled over, picked up the sheep mask from beside him, and snuggled close underneath his blanket. Staring into the burning fire, she let her mind relax and her thoughts roll. Living in a cave, using a fire to stay warm, they were almost like the ancient primitive people of the world. Those people didn't have big wars. She wondered why. Maybe because they sacrificed young animals to God for peace. Maybe she could bring peace to Belfast in a similar way! Brendan had already been killed, so she wouldn't have to kill him again. She just had to offer him up with a ceremony. "Brendan, will you put on the sheep mask and crawl around the fire like a sheep for me?"  Maeve anted to do the ceremony right now.
     "I'm not Brendan!  I'm Willie!  I want to go home!" He threw off the blanket and crawled out of the cave.  Maeve could hear him walking toward the road.
     Poor Willie. She had frightened him.  He wasn't Brendan. She should have known better.  She had tricked herself. Brendan was dead and buried in the ground. He wasn't coming back to play with her in the cave. Ever.
     Maeve gathered dirt from the floor of the cave and threw it onto the fire to kill the flames. Then she crawled out of the cave and looked around for Willie. He was out of sight. Picking up the bicycle they  had stolen, she mounted it and pedaled slowly in the direction of the road. she needed to calm him. It was still beautiful outdoors. Spider webs reflected orange sunlight, and she felt the fairies watching her from their caves. They would help Willie to understand. Whenever she was in the woods, they cared for her. Now they would care for her friend.
     Willie was up ahead, just a few feet away. She pedaled harder.
     "Willie, I'm sorry.  Come on.  I'll take you home."  She stopped the bike and held it steady so that Willie could get on.  "I was just playing. I knew you weren't Brendan."
     Willie looked at her.  "My mother is worried. I have to get home soon," he said, getting onto the bike.
     Maeve hopped in front of him and slowly began to pedal.
     "I'm sorry I got upset, Maeve, but my stomach hurts again."  Willie held her waist and rested his head on her back.  "I just want to go home."
     Dread gnawed at Maeve's stomach too as they rolled onto the paved road. Returning to the city revolted her. Yet, descending the hill, leaving the protection of the forest, the bike suddenly pulled her uncontrollably faster and faster, downward toward the crumbled buildings, the bombed-out streets, and the stale air.
     "Slow down, Maeve!"  Willie sat up, his body tightened.
     "I can't, Willie. The brakes don't work!"
     Out of command, riding itself, the bike impelled them downward. Only when they reached the bottom of the hill did the bike begin to slow. Eventually it slackened and stopped in some tall grass beside a large gully.  Relieved, both Maeve and Willie got off the bike. A large, booming sound pulsed up from the gully.
     "Look!" Willie said, pointing to the bottom of the crevice. About forty feet below, water rushed over an immense log caught between two boulders. Giant white air bubbles floated around the booming tree that teetered and slammed on the rock surface beneath whenever a heavy current of water rushed. The noise was amplified by rock gully walls.
     "Let's throw the bike down there," Maeve said. she never wanted to sit on that bike again. "That way, since it's stolen, we won't get caught."
     "All right,"  Willie agreed.
     Maeve thrust the bicycle over the edge of the crevice, and they both watched it fall to the water below. It bounced several times on the sides of the gully, then splashed straight into the stream.
     Booooooom! Booooooom!  Within the firm power of the current, the log continued to smack against the rocks as the bicycle lightly swept over it.
     Willie and Maeve held hands and walked from the thundering echo of the log. They traveled the rest of the way to their neighborhood in silence. In her mind, Maeve prepared a plan of action. she would drop Willie off. Then she would go home and let her grandmother and father know she was safe, before returning to the only safe place she knew, the cave.  Her grandmother and father shouldn't worry because she would visit them every now and then; besides, the little fairies would be feeding her magic food and would care for her.
     When they reached their neighborhood, the sound of garbage can lids banging on the ground filled the air. Women and children banged the tops of trash cans to signal the presence of soldiers and police. Walking nearer her home, Maeve realized the noise was right outside her building.
     "Oh, my God!" She rushed away from Willie.
    "It can't be them!" Willie screamed after her.  "It's probably someone else they're after."
     "Come on, Willie. Hurry!  Hurry!" She knew it was her grandmother and father. The security forces had been watching their home ever since she did the petrol bombings three days ago.
     "I can't come with you!"  Willie was frightened. "They might arrest me!" he cried.
     Without her new friend, Maeve ran swiftly to the entrance of her building and up the stairs to her home.
     Two soldiers stood guard outside her doorway.
     From the hall, she looked inside. The apartment was completely destroyed. The sink in the kitchen was torn out and the plumbing was broken. Water soaked the entire area.  In search position, at gunpoint, her grandmother and father leaned against a wall with their backs to her.
     Maeve slowly stepped back from the door.
    The noseless soldier walked out of Maeve's room and into the kitchen. "Well, Maeve." He saw her.  "That is your name, isn't it?"
     Maeve's father turned and signaled her to run out. she couldn't run. She was frozen in the hallway.
     The soldier hit her father in the back. "No secret messages," he said. Laughing, he handcuffed her father and grandmother. "I guess you know by now that I'm the one who killed your brother."  Standing over her grandmother and father like a cat with a caught bird in its mouth, he spoke to Maeve again.  "You've been pretty busy since then. Stealing my gun, bombing the Protestant boy's home, attending the hunger strikers' march." He walked over to his guards. "Take the prisoners down," he ordered.
     "Why are you taking them?" Maeve asked.
     He didn't answer.
    The soldiers pointed their rifles at Maeve's grandmother and father and made them walk toward her. When they entered the hallway, Maeve lunged forward and tried to hug her father. "I'm sorry!" she cried.  "I'm sorry!  It's my fault!"
     "It's OK, Maeve," her father said.  "It's not your fault."
     "Father O'Brian will take care of you," her grandmother whispered.
     The ugly soldier pulled Maeve away and threw her into the kitchen onto the wet floor. From there, Maeve watched the guards push her grandmother and father down the stairs.
     it didn't matter that her grandmother was innocent. They arrested the innocent too. Maeve knew what would happen next. They would hold her grandmother and father in prison for months until their trial came up. Then they would be tried without a jury, behind closed door. Her father would be sent to Long Kesh Prison and her grandmother would be sent to the women's prison in Armagh.
     On the floor, in the water, she felt as if she were the gully log that she and Willie had seen trapped between boulders. Unable to move. Powerless.
     "We were hiding upstairs in the hallway." Rory and Bridie slipped into the kitchen.  "We couldn't help you because the soldiers are after us too. How are you, Maeve?"
     Maeve blew bubbles into the water on the floor, like the bubbles that surrounded the snared gully log. That water was special. It might be holy water. She blessed herself with it.
     "Oh, not the crazy act again! Maeve, cut it! Can't you see what the Brits are doing to your family?  Don't you care?  They'll probably keep your grandmother and father in jail for years now. You've got to fight back, Maeve.  Fight back!"
     Maeve looked up at them. They seemed far, far above her, at the top of the gully.  "get out of here. Both of you!" Her voice echoed off the walls.
     They backed out of the kitchen and laughed hysterically as they ran down the stairs.
     Why were they laughing?  It wasn't funny.  Maeve straightened her body out like the gully log and let the water pour over her.  Controlling her, it rushed and swelled, causing her head to bank against the rock bottom surface again, and again, and again. The booming echoed off the gully walls. In her mind, Maeve was no longer in the kitchen. She was the log that she and Willie had discovered at the bottom of the deep gulch.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

When she finally regained her senses, Maeve surveyed the destruction around her. The soldiers had ripped open the walls, torn up the floors, slashed the furniture, and broken all the dishes. Maeve stood and walked to her room. It was destroyed. Ransacked. Broken pieces of her favorite mirror were scattered on the floor. In various pieces of the mirror, she saw many, many Maeves. Which one was real? One Maeve had played in the cave with Brendan; one had seen her brother murdered by a soldier. One Maeve had watched the soldiers take her grandmother and father away. Another Maeve played with Rory and Bridie. That Maeve wanted to fight back, wanted to take revenge on the noseless soldier.
     She knew what had to be done.
     Outside her window, Belfast was dark and cold. Maeve would have to dress warmly. She put on her sweatshirt and jacket, then rolled up one blanket and put it into her blue lace satchel. She walked into the kitchen, where she picked up candles, matches, and pieces of vegetables that had been thrown onto the floor by the soldiers. She put them into the satchel.
     Prepared, she stepped into the night and made her way to the old bombed-out church. When she arrived at the back door of the presbytery, she knocked.
     The housekeeper opened the door and spoke with a voice that sounded like a deep echo in a large hollow hall. "Yes?"
     "I need the key to the old church. I left some fabric down in the basement." Maeve looked into the housekeeper's green eyes. "Father said I could go in."
     "Come in, child. I'll fetch the key for your. Would you like a cup of tea?"
     Maeve stayed in the back hallway. "I'll just stand here while you get the key. I'm in a hurry."
     "All right, then." Keeping her eye on Maeve, the housekeeper took the key from the wall with one hand and commented, "Isn't that a pretty satchel!"
     "I made it myself."
     "Sure, you're taking after your mother with all her skills." She handed her the key.
     Without saying goodbye or thank you, Maeve hurried to the old church. After turning the key in the lock, she slowly pushed open the large oak door. Then she took one of the candles out of her satchel and lit it.
     With faint light, she viewed the inside of the vacant structure. Dirt, crumbled statues of the saints, broken pieces of stained glass, all seemed magnified by candlelight. In the front of the church, she examined the ruins that surrounded the altar.  A crucified Christ and a fragment of a canvas painting lay behind the altar on top of a charred heap. With the candle, Maeve bent over and studied the canvas fragment. A small Lamb of God was delicately painted upon the scrap, sitting peacefully within a patch of dark green grass. Fascinated, Maeve pulled the painting from the pile and placed it on top of the altar. A candlestick holder, probably left by Father O'Brian, remained on the altar. Maeve put her candle in it. Now both her arms were free. She could raise them up in the air like a priest.
     Pretending she was a priest, she whispered to herself, "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world!" She turned around and picked the crucifix out of the pile of burnt rubble and placed it on the altar beside the picture of the Lamb of God. She raised her hands again, but this time she spoke loud enough to fill the whole church: "Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace!" she commanded.
     Something was moving in the back of the church! What? Calming her fears, Maeve told herself it was probably just a mouse. She should get out of there though. Fast. Just in case it was something else. She snatched up the canvas fragment and put it into her pocket. Then she picked up the old candlestick holder and walked to the special room behind the altar. The sacristy was illuminated by the moon, which shone through the ceiling windows. Maeve felt something following her in the darkness she'd left behind. Something evil and scary was standing at the altar. She could feel it. She grabbed the key off the wall and opened the door to the basement. A chorus of voices hummed from the altar.

     Lamb of God
     Lamb of God

She had to hurry! Descending the old rotten steps, she quickly moved through the main basement room into the arsenal. On the small metal table, her machine gun rested. She placed the candlestick holder on a corner of the table, then opened her satchel and hastily put her gun into it. She would kill the soldier with it. She would be just like her mother.
    
The chorus of voices was whispering to her from the top of the steps.

     The drawer
     The drawer

     What drawer? She closed the satchel around the gun and picked up the candlestick holder. It was then that she saw the small drawer in front of the metal table. She put her satchel down and, with one hand, opened the drawer. It was filled with cartridges! Bullets for the gun. She put the candlestick holder down again and grabbed the cartridges and stuffed them into her blue satchel trimmed with lace.

     Rum fum boodle bo
     ---Ropple dipple nitty dob;
     Dum doo doodle coo,
     --Raffle taffle chitiboo!

     The chorus was on the basement steps! Maeve ran out to the altar and down the main aisle of the church. In her haste, she forgot to close the basement door. The slow voice of the chorus followed her.
     She ran out of the church and slammed the oak door behind her. The stale night air of Belfast was poor refuge.
     "Maeve!  Maeve! One minute!" The housekeeper rushed up and grabbed her by the arms. "Father is on the phone. He says you shouldn't have gone into the church. He wants to talk with you right now!"
     Maeve yanked away.  Accidentally, her heavy satchel hit the housekeeper's leg.
     "My God! What do you have in there that's so heavy, child?" The housekeeper grabbed for the satchel.
     "Don't make me hurt you!" Maeve held her heavy satchel as if she would hit her.
     The housekeeper stepped back.  "I'm going to the phone, and I'm telling Father O'Brian."
     Maeve turned and ran. She didn't mean to frighten the housekeeper, but she was forced to. It was necessary in order to escape.
     The moon shone, denying her the protection of darkness. Sneaking past the checkpoints would be difficult. Maeve had to be careful. If security forces saw her, they would search the satchel and find her gun. Father would be looking for her now. She had to hide out in the cave. The back way, through Fra's alley and then through the wealthy neighborhoods, was the only safe method of transporting the gun to her shelter. Fra's alley was just two blocks away.
     "Halt!" a voice yelled behind her.
     Maeve didn't take time to see who it was. Instead, she darted to Fra's alley and ran down to his home. She entered the charred doorway and hid in the same corner where she and Brendan had sought refuge only months ago.
     Moonlight illumined the alley with a strange foreign light. As Maeve watched and waited for her chasers to pass, the alley seemed like a street in a science fiction movie. The red brick walls looked deep purple, the road looked silver, and mounds of ash and rubble were glistening with fluorescent white light.
     Two foot patrolmen passed outside the doorway.
     "She's gotten away by now," one said.
     "let's go." The other was impatient.
     "I wonder what's in the bag she's carrying?"
     "Probably pajamas for an overnight. Now let's go."
     They walked away.
     Maeve was safe.
     She waited a good ten minutes and then stepped out into the moonlit street. The rest of the way would be easy. She cold slip into the wealthy neighborhoods and walk the shortcuts until she finally reached her forest. She had the gun now. She had ammunition. She had power.
     On the way, when Maeve reached the gully, she looked down. By moonlight she could see that the pounding gully log had been released.
     She walked on until she reached the woods and turned off toward the cave.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

It was very, very quiet in the forest. Maeve could only hear the hushed, still noises: the occasional dropping of a leaf, an animal scurrying, a branch falling. Full and high, the moon shone on the trees, creating magnificent shadows and lighting areas of the forest with pale golden light. The air smelled fresh, like the deep earth.
     Maeve's steps were gentle as she walked toward the cave.
     More than the ugly city, this earth, this moon, this forest, were her Ireland. As she approached, the cave lingered ahead, glowing with moonlight. Maeve left the satchel outside the entrance and crawled in. Moonlight flecked the floor and walls of the cave. She lit candles and prepared to start the fire; but she had no kindling. Big deal. She didn't need a fire to play with anymore. She had something else. She crawled out and, grabbing her satchel, pulled it into the cave. Then she carefully removed the machine gun and laid it on the ground in the center of the cave. She would practice with the gun. Then, tomorrow, she would kill the ugly soldier. Taking the bullets from the satchel one at a time, she laid them, side by side, in a circle beside the weapon. Together in a circle, the bullets looked like a very pretty brass necklace. She had an idea! She got the sheep mask from the corner and put it in the center of the necklace.
     "What a pretty necklace you're wearing, sheepie," she said playfully.
     "Father gave it to me for my first communion," the sheep replied.
     "Oh." Maeve liked this game. "Do you want to hear a sheep song I made up?" she asked.
     "sure," the sheep replied.
     Maeve let her fingers crawl over all the bullets of the sheep's necklace as she sang:

     Bah, Bah, sheepie
     have you any guns!

     Yes, Maeve. Yes, Maeve
      Whole rooms of 'em.
     And if you find them in the church
     What will you do?
 
     I'll steal one
     I'll steal one
     And then I'll shoot you!

     Maeve laughed hysterically. She began to pick up each bullet and load it into the machine gun until, at last, it was ready. She held it up in the air.
     "Now!" she laughed. She got on her knees and crawled outside the cave with her gun. Then she stood up, pointed the machine gun at the moon, released the safety, and opened fire. There was a large blast and the gun jerked to the right, pulling her down onto the ground. The sound of the explosion repeated in the forest again and again. She stayed on the ground for a long while, listening to it, until she heard vague whispering all around her. She had to crawl back into the cave!  They might be coming for her! She grabbed her gun and scurried back into her hiding place.
     As soon as Maeve got inside, she reloaded. But no one came. She held the gun in her hand and stared at the sheep mask, hoping it would talk with her again. It didn't move. it didn't make a sound. And still, no one came. She would have to wait until morning to use her gun. In Belfast, near the police barracks, she would shoot the noseless soldier.
     Suddenly something moved outside the cave!  "Who is it?" she asked.
    "It is I, Maeve." Father O'Brian crawled into the cave. "My housekeeper told me you went into the old church." He looked at the machine gun in her hand. "so you found the guns!"
     "Don't speak to him!" She pointed the machine gun at the sheep mask. "Don't say one word to that priest."
     "I had to track you down." Father spoke softly.  "Willie though you might be here. We took my car; he showed me the way. He's outside now."
     Maeve gave him a blank stare. She hated him. she pointed the gun at him now.
     "Do you think the guns belonged to me, Maeve?" he asked.
     "Yes.  You told me it was wrong to kill, but you had guns in the basement of the church."
     "They're not mine, Maeve. I've wanted to tell you about those guns ever since the day you had your confession in the sacristy. I wanted to tell you about those guns the day I came to see you at your house, after the petrol bombing. But it didn't seem like the right time. Your mother bought those guns with the money she got from the Armagh bank robberies. She gave them to me just before she was killed. She had a good confession. She repented. She was sorry. She wanted me to destroy those guns."
     Maeve looked emptily at him.
     "It's been three years, Maeve, and I haven't destroyed the guns. I guess because I don't know how to get rid of them without being caught. I'm afraid. I'm afraid too."
     Maeve lowered the gun..
     "Are you all right?" Father whispered.
     His voice seemed very distant. The fairies' voices were coming closer again:

     We shall be there
     We shall be there
     And when you are in trouble
     And need us most of all
     We shall appear

     "Do you hear them, Father? Do you hear them?"
     "Who, Maeve?"
     "The voice, Father. The wee folk."
     "No, Maeve, I don't hear them. What are they saying?"
     "They're saying they love me, Father. They're going to help me."
     Father carefully moved toward her. Putting one arm around her shoulders, he took the gun from her with his other hand. "Yes, Maeve. They are helping you. I can see that."  He pulled her gently by the arm. "Come on, Maeve." He placed the loaded gun on the ground.
     Maeve picked up the sheep mask and put it on her face. Then the two of them crawled out into the night.
     "What's wrong with her, Father?"  Willie asked as they stood up from the entrance.
     "She'll be all right, Willie. She'll be all right."
     "Is she crazy, Father?"
     "No, not at all. She's very sane. I'm sending her to Scotland. She'll live with nuns in a school there. She'll be all right."
     "They walked slowly from the cave.
     "But that doesn't solve the problem, Father."  Willie stopped. "The war will still go on. What about me? What about the rest of us children? You can't send us all away!"
     Father was silent for a while. He was staring at the sheep mask on Maeve's face.
     "You know, Willie, they offered the young for sacrifice in ancient times, for crops and wealth and war victories." He gently removed the mask from Maeve's face. "Sometimes I think it hasn't stopped."
     "It hasn't stopped."  Willie echoed his words with a whisper.
     Father threw the mask on the ground. "Now let's get started."
     Together, they walked on either side of Maeve, beneath the moon, until they reached the road and the parked car. Then, in the distance, just beyond the road, Maeve thought she saw the sparkle of a wing and the flutter of a feather.
     "Come away!  Come away!" she heard soft voices calling.
     Father and Willie helped her into the car and closed the doors. Then they drove her down the hill and over the river.


END