"For a child with a crippled leg? Or a boy who has blackened the eyes of half the lads in Wicklow town?" Sister Agatha sighed, shaking her head. "We might have a chance of finding a home for Shevonne. Truth to tell, I cannot fathom why she has not already been taken up by someone in need of a strong, willing girl. But as for the others—little Liam, or Renny or Meggie—"
Ash couldn't suppress a choked cry. "Meggie, too? Surely you couldn't send her away—from here. From me. She won't allow anyone but me to touch her. She'd be terrified if she were ripped away from me. She couldn't survive it. I know—"
Ash saw the old nun's eyes flicker away, the worry-creased face paling as Sister Agatha fumbled with the worn gold band upon her finger. "Ashleen, we have no choice. The workhouse is the only alternative."
"The workhouse is no alternative at all! It's so filled with fever the babes wouldn't last a month there!" Ash cried out, banging her fist against a cherry wood prie-dieu. "People die there by the score. You know it! How can you condemn innocent children to that—that hellhole?"
"Enough, Mary Ashleen!" Sister Agatha's voice cracked through Ash's tirade. "My first responsibility is to this convent. This order. The sisters here in my charge. Five hundred years has this order served these hills. We kept the light of learning alive while barbarian hordes swept Europe. We dwelt in caves, a sword's breadth from death when devil Cromwell drenched Eire in blood. 'Tis my sacred trust to see that we remain within these walls, to do God's will even after the famine that afflicts our land is but a nightmare to be forgotten."
"And while you are preserving this hulk of stone, will you be able to forget? The children's faces? Their eyes? Their laughter? Will you be able to forget the way they cry out in the night when they're frightened? Only in the workhouse there will be no one to comfort them! If that is God's will, I'll go joyfully to the devil."
"Mary Ashleen!" The voice that could be so gentle lashed out, hopeless. "Sixty years I have lived within this 'hulk of stone.' I was placed here when I was twelve years old—gave my life up to God gladly. Since then I have seen more suffering, more pain than I had ever imagined. I watched my brothers fall beneath English swords, four of them put thus in their graves. My father—a learned scholar—scarce dared teach us to read for fear that the Sassenachs would confiscate what few possessions they had left him. I have watched our people fade from conquered yet proud warriors to beaten-down curs. Now we starve—quietly, miserably—unable to muster enough strength even to stop the English from shipping grain from our shores."
"And you would add to the power they hold?" Ash challenged. "You will allow them to make us so afraid of starving ourselves that we turn children out to die?"
Sister Agatha made her way wearily to a plain wood chair and sank down upon it. "I do not tell you these things to excuse myself for this decision. 'Tis just that you are so young, Mary Ashleen. Right and wrong seem so clear when you are young. When you are old, child, the patterns blur. Even this horror that devastates our land will pass one day. And no one save you and I will remember the faces of these children."
"Sister Agatha, I'll do anything," Ash pleaded, her voice breaking. "Let—let me leave the convent in their stead. I—"
"So that you can starve as well?" The nun lowered her face into her hands. "My decision is final, Mary Ashleen. Sister Bridget has volunteered to escort the children to their... new quarters tomorrow morning."
"Sister Bridget?" Ash cried. "She—"
"And you—you shall go now, and pray. For the strength to accept God's will—and for the courage to leave your charges in His most merciful hands. While I"—the nun's voice fell to a whisper—"ask his forgiveness for what I am about to do."
"No... Sister Agatha..." A choked sob rose in Ash's throat as she went to the old nun, catching at the wrinkled hands in a desperate plea. But Agatha rose with majestic dignity, her eyes reflecting a resolve Ashleen knew would prove impossible to shake.
Withdrawing her withered hands, Agatha cupped Ashleen's cheek with one palm. "Go now."
The words were as final as a death knell.
Ash turned, running blindly from the room. By instinct she half stumbled down the narrow halls past faces of the other nuns, reflecting sympathy, regret. She wanted to bury her head in her pillow, wanted to convince herself her interview with Sister Agatha had been nothing but a cruel dream. But reality ground down upon her like a miller's stone, crushing hope, nearly robbing her of sanity.
Her children... her babes... Sister Agatha was taking them away.
Panic coiled about Ash's chest. The toe of her slipper caught in the hem of her habit. She tripped, her palms grating against stone, but she scarcely felt the pain. Her eyes fixed upon a stone archway at the end of the corridor. Wooden doors were flung wide, welcoming, the chamber beyond beckoning Ash like a chill stream in a land of endless fire.
Hot tears flowing down her cheeks, Ash rushed into the convent's ancient chapel.
Ashleen had always found succor and strength in these hallowed walls. When her father had died she had come here to grieve. And when Timothy Kearny had shattered her life, her faith, her trust, she had raged and railed, cried and mourned within this room.
It was as if she could always feel God's presence here, the comforting touch of that gentle, sacred hand.
She reached for it now.
Falling to her knees upon the stone floor, she gazed up at the aged crucifix that graced the wall. A thousand prayers, a thousand pleas dashed madly through her mind. "I cannot let them go," she pleaded with the tortured figure upon the cross. "You championed the helpless as well—ransomed their lives with Your own. I would give my life for these children if it would save them. Would give my very soul. But I cannot, will not abandon—"
Meggie with her sad dark eyes. Renny, so fragile despite his belligerent facade. Liam, who had so guilelessly offered her his crutch. And Shevonne, with a myriad of hurts buried somewhere beneath her preening smile.
"Please, God, help me. Sister Agatha bade me come to You, to pray for the strength to accept—accept Your will in sending them away. But I cannot believe it is Your will that my babes die in that evil place."
Ash turned her tearstained face toward the altar, its fine linen cloth draped across the marble slab like a shroud. Votive candles flickered at the feet of statues of the saints, each tongue of flame bearing a petitioner's prayer up to heaven. A chair of carved mahogany glowed in the multicolored fragments of light filtering through stained glass windows. Drapes of crimson velvet framed the gold crucifix nuns had managed to keep hidden from devil Cromwell two centuries before. Even the stone ledge upon the far wall glittered, holding a golden chalice encrusted with amethyst.
Ash struggled against the tears welling up inside her as her mind filled with images of the children that very morning, sitting next to her as old Father O'Hara celebrated Mass. Renny sat nearest the window, his whole body taut as he fought to keep from fidgeting, his eyes brimful with some adventure he was imagining. Shevonne had perched upon the bench so primly, Ash had been tempted to nudge her off, wondering what mischief the girl was plotting.
Liam had snuggled close against Ash, his eyes resting upon the priest as if he could truly see angels, while Meggie had curled up on Ash's other side, clutching her doll, her gaze, as ever, upon the glittery chalice.
As Ashleen sat among the children she loved, she’d offered up the most fervent prayer of her life, begging for intercession. Now, her stomach lurched, betrayal sluicing through her, her eyes burning as she glared at the scene that had always been so comforting. Suddenly she hated the tranquil rays of light blessing the pristine linen, setting the gold afire, oblivious to her pain.
