Page 52 of The Pirate Queen

“Please don’t leave me,” she whispers. “He won’t let me go anywhere or do anything if you’re gone. I’ll have to sit in that tower and learn to…to…knit.”

Gráinne spits the word out like it is the worst swear word she knows.

The door bangs open and their father strides out, hand above his brow to shield his eyes from the sun. But the sun is gone and he drops his arm in surprise at having lost track of time. Seven shepherds stumble out after him and down the steps. They shout their thanks and their goodbyes, then disperse along the beach, some this way and some that, each with their eyes set on a distant cottage, smoke streaming from their chimneys.

Their father doesn’t see them. That much is certain. He stands, back to the well, hands on his hips, shoulders bunched in irritation. Donal sees his head swivel as he searches the tree line.

“What took you so long, Da?” Gráinne asks, her voice soft and gentle and deceptively innocent.

Eóin spins on his heel and sees the children sitting cross-legged on the ground.

“Those shepherds have hollow legs,” he grumbles. “Any of them could drink me under the table. Not that I can let them know.”

He comes down the steps, swaying. Eóin reaches out both hands and pulls them to their feet, then stumbles back, off-balance. Laughs. He’s drunk and Donal is glad. Whiskey makes Eóin maudlin; it makes him softer. Aisling has always told Donal that the drink reveals who a man truly is. You cannot hide your true nature under its influence. Donal likes knowing that the man who made him isn’t always hard.

“Come on, then. Let’s get ye home to your mother.”

Maeve or Aisling. He could mean either child, either mother. Or both, perhaps. Gráinne and Donal follow him the few short steps to the dock where their vessel waits. Built right on the water, as is the O’Malley preference, Kildavnet is designed for easy access by sea.

The short two-mast yawl is Eóin’s preferred vessel when traveling with no crew and no cargo between islands. The children follow Eóin on board and take their seats as he unties the mooring lines and drops them to the deck.

“Shove off,” he tells Donal.

And so Donal pushes off from the small stone dock and the boat slips into the current.

It is fully dark when they enter the mouth of Clew Bay. A warm wind and taut sails guide them into deeper water. Their father lies down on the deck of the boat and puts his hands behind his head, looking for all the world as though he means to nap.

He yawns so widely his jaw pops. “Get us home, Donal.”

They are not quite in open waters, not with the blocky form of Achillbeg Island to their right. And in theory, all they have to do is sail straight across the bay to reach Clare. But the boat sits low in the water and Donal can barely tell wave from shoreline during the day. Now he feels utterly blind. He has always, happily, been the passenger on these excursions, but apparently Eóin expected him to pay attention all the while. To learn. And now he does not know what to do, with their father snoring at the bottom of the boat and his sister looking at him with those curious dark eyes.

Gráinne moves closer, positioning herself on the bench beside him in the stern. She slides the compass from her pocket and lifts it to her face, studying it in the meager light reflected off the clouds. Then she lays it carefully in her lap and reaches out to grab the tiller, pulling it slightly to the left until the needle on her compass adjusts accordingly.

She smiles at him and whispers, “We’ll do it together.”

Eóin likes being on the water with his children. He lies in the bottom of the boat, the sound of their whispers drowned out by the wind and water. When he tries to lift his head, it feels like a stone. The stars spin above him the moment he opens his eyes, so he gives up and lets his body float on this wave of inebriation. He wonders when he stopped being able to hold his liquor, when he got soft.

Maeve has been after him for a year to send the boy to fosterage, but he’s only gone so far as to choose a family. David Bourke—The MacWilliam—has agreed to take his son whenever Eóin is ready. But he keeps finding reasons to keep Donal close—Gráinne being chief among them. She adores her brother, and Eóin knows that some piece of her will be lost without him.

It had never occurred to him that his children might like each other, much less that they would become close. Different mothers and four years between seemed reason enough for enmity.

“When will you send him?” Maeve asks at least once a week.

“There’s still time” is always his answer.

But there isn’t. Not really. Time is a lie and Eóin knows it is quickly running out.

He’s…

He yawns. The part of his mind intent on staying awake and getting his children home safely slips into the darkness at the sound of their happy laughter.

Donal leaves his sister at the tower house. He walks her up the beach, then up the steps, and waits until she has closed the door. Then he waits a bit longer until he can no longer hear her boots move across the kitchen floor. Keep an eye on your sister, Eóin often says. And Donal always will.

Their father is still in the boat, asleep. It is moored safely to the dock, and isn’t going anywhere in the night. They tried to wake him. Shook. Poked. They would have slapped him too. But both fear him in the way that children are supposed to fear their father. Donal doesn’t want him awake if he’ll also be angry.

“Tell your mam he’s in the boat,” he told Gráinne on their way up the beach. “He’ll wake for her.”

Now Donal walks up the hill toward home, the sandy road a pale ribbon leading the way. He treads quietly through the village until he reaches the far end, where the last cottage sits, half carved into the hill. His mam must have been up late waiting for him—he can still see tendrils of smoke drifting from the chimney.