‘That’s as maybe, but it’s not our business and you don’t have any proof, Rosie,’ said Nola. ‘’Tis a difficult thing to complain to a mother when you haven’t had a child yourself. You wouldn’t understand, and Keeva might take offence. Leave it be for now and let me have a word with Granny Josie. ’Tis only a cake.’

An angry heat spread through Rosie. She’d stood and made the cake the previous evening, exhausted after having marked thirty-five composition assignments. She had been Finn’s mother practically since the day he was born, the day Sarah had died, and yet her mother-in-law always managed to make her feel as though she was on trial, and for one reason only: because she had never actually given birth herself and therefore did not have the wisdom that was apparently miraculously bestowed upon women in childbirth.

She banged the kettle down on the range. ‘See you do, Nola,’ she said in the sharpest tone she had ever used with her mother-in-law.

Nola sighed and raised her eyebrows to Bridget.

‘Don’t bother,’ Bridget said in reply. ‘’Twas definitely the faeries, and have I ever been wrong?’

A murmur of agreement rumbled around the kitchen. Now was not the time for Bridget to tell them who she thought it was. It would only cause alarm. She knew it was no coincidence that the night she’d seen in the tea leaves that Mary Kate was coming home was also the first night she’d dreamt about McGuffey. This could be her biggest challenge, and yet she felt her powers were ebbing away.

Rosie almost slammed Nola’s cup and saucer on the table in front of her and the women finished their tea in an uncomfortable silence.

Chapter 9

The final departure of Captain Carter from Tarabeg was a grand affair such as the village had never seen before. A few days after his passing, a Mass was held at the Scared Heart. The roads were filled with the cars of mourners who’d travelled over from London. They followed behind the captain’s body, which was transported from the church in a shiny black carriage pulled by horses brought in from Galway. Later, the coffin would be taken by car to the airport and returned to London and the family tomb.

Tarabeg’s main street was lined with families watching the cortège and paying their respects. The sight of the coffin perched precariously on the back of the carriage made the villagers gasp as it rolled past. They were less impressed by the mourners in the fancy cars, who, for all their finery, looked as if they couldn’t wait to get out of rural Ireland and back to England.

‘Would you look at that,’ said Nola as a car filled with women wearing black, their faces hidden behind veils, crept past at a snail’s pace.

‘Is it the car you are pointing at, Nola?’ asked Joe.

‘No, not the car, the women. Not one of them ever visited here before, of that I am sure. Although that one there’ – she half pointed to an old woman in the front of a passing car – ‘she’s the living image of the old woman, his mother.’