Free Scarborough Fair and Other Stories by Elizabeth Ann Scarborough Page A

I’m from County Galway originally, in Ireland,” and he showed her a picture in his mind of a small green country over a great water, an island country. “but me mam was widowed soon after I was born and remarried a man from Roscommon. When the Great Hunger came, I was seven years old and she and all my kin died.”
    â€œJust died? They didn’t get shot?”
    â€œNo, but they were starved to death by the blackhearted devil of a landlord.” And now she saw from him fields of blackened crops, people being put out of burning houses, much as her people had been.
    â€œLots of my people starved too,” she said in her mind. “We’re starving now, mostly.”
    â€œI know,” he answered in the same way and though his face was lost in shadow she felt the clenching of his jaw and heard the bitterness in his tone. “I can see that. I’ve not enough rank to do much about it. At least your granny looked after you on the trail and though she’s not much good to you now, you’ve each other.”
    â€œYes,” she said. “All of her people were killed too, she said. She’s not from our canyon.”
    â€œIs she not? Just took you under her wing did she and now you’re repaying the favor?”
    â€œYes,” she said, but sharing his thoughts took her away from her own problems and she wanted him to go on. “How did you come here?”
    â€œThe landlord had little use for seven year old orphan lads. So he took all of us who couldn’t work as hard as he wanted and put us on a rotting ship for America. Not many of us survived that. I was sick for a long time meself but I had to work anyway. As soon as I was old enough, I joined the army because they feed you really regular.”
    â€œBut they shoot people who haven’t done anything wrong!” she said.
    â€œThat’s not what my recruiter said,” he told her, smiling again as if he’d made a joke. “Too bad I couldn’t read his mind like I can yours, the bleedin’ whore’s son of a—the bleedin’ liar,” he changed his thought because she was a girl, and young, though she didn’t feel young anymore. She felt as old as the grandmother.
    Poor grandmother. She had lost everything coming here, even herself.
    â€œMaybe she didn’t lose it,” the soldier said. “Maybe it got taken from her. And I’d better tell you my name so you don’t think of me that way...”
    â€œWhich way?”
    â€œAs a uniform with a gun in one sleeve and a torch in the other. I’m Pvt. Liam O’Malley at your service, young lady.”
    â€œI’m called Horses Talk to Her,” she said. She would not tell a soldier, even this man, her real name. A real name would give him power over her and it was very possible he might be a witch since he could read her thoughts and she had never known any other human who could do that.
    â€œDo they now? And do you talk to them too? As we talk?”
    â€œI did,” she said, curling her arms back around her knees. “But your people shot them all.”
    â€œWell, I’m very sorry about that, Horses Talk to Her. I’d have done it differently myself if the government put me in charge. If it makes you feel any better, when that was going on my shots went into the ground. No Irishman worth his salt would harm a horse. Too bad this company has a lot of that kind of Irishman. But never mind. You speaking of the wind reminded me of something I was told by me stepda’s mam one time. She was a great one for stories, was Mrs. Donnolly. She was what we call a fairy doctor, was she. You’ll be wondering what that is. I heard you thinking about witches just now, excuse me for intruding, but I couldn’t help overhearing. We have witches in Ireland too but that’s nothing compared to what the fairies do to folk sometimes.”
    â€œWhat are fairies?”
    His mind produced