Chapter Text
He's used to the idle sounds in the house these days, with the cows and the horse all clomping about, making a nuisance of themselves when he's trying to swallow down his feelings like a good Irishman, Siobhan's latest letter in hand and Jenny's bell wrapped around two fingers.
She's alright, she says. She misses him, she says, but not enough to come round. Not enough to fill the empty space her absence created.
But what he's never heard is a horse using the bread knife. He tosses the letter aside and grabs his bedside candle, hand against the wall as he stoops forward through the doorway to investigate.
There's no one, excluding his horse, one of the cows. The little one, with her soft nose curiously nuzzling at a slice of bread that's been cut from the loaf. Pádraic rubs at his eyes with his free hand and blinks away the spots, but the bread remains in two pieces and the knife is not where he left it a couple hours ago.
Then there's a creak, a sharp one he's only heard when Siobhan is rummaging about looking for one of her books. Up in the attic, he guesses, and he takes hold of the ladder and pulls himself up one step at a time until just his eyes are above the floorboards. He scans the back of the room, then the front, and nearly drops the candle when he finds Dominic crouched down behind the spare chair and a box of books.
"Fecking hell! Am I being haunted now, is that it?"
"No," he shakes his head emphatically, forlornly, and hunches down further behind the books. "No one here but us books."
"Get out of there," Pádraic scoffs. Dominic hesitates, and then scoots out into the open on his arse and the heels of his palms. Like a crab might, scuttling about. "Jesus Mary and Joseph, you trying to give me a fright?"
Dominic shakes his head again, gentler this time. He curls forward, hands clutching at his ankles, threatening to roll away and out of sight. "I was hiding. I'm sorry."
"Why're you hiding?" Pádraic whispers. "How're you even alive? I'd heard you got fished out the lake two days ago."
"Wasn't me," he shrugs. "Found some poor knob, already dead," he insists, "but he looked enough like me to fool most. I didn't really think about how this would sound out loud. I should've been thinking about that. I had the time. It's too dark to read most hours up here."
"Dominic," he chides softly. A gentle little get on with it. "You're saying you didn't kill any boy."
"Right," he sighs, "right, so I switched us up, traded clothes. His smelled something foul, seeing as he's dead, but enough to get home and get something fresh. I even used soap, though I'm still against it on principle. But, but -" he stumbles forward before Pádraic can interrupt again "- I saw that young man who threw himself in the lake back in March, turned into some big, bloated thing. Couldn't hardly name him excepting his clothes. So, seeing as he's already a dead man and I am a live man, I traded us up and tossed him in the water."
"What about his family?"
"I don't know who he was," Dominic says. He flexes his fingers, twisting them around his pale, bare, knobbly bones and digging his nails into his skin. "Some sod from the mainland, I think. But I had to. And he wasn't in any position to protest."
"Why'd you have to, so?" Pádraic leans forward until his elbows touch the floor. He sets the candle down between them, watching the flame dance in Dominic's pupils. "Dominic," he calls him, snapping him from a daze, "come on, tell us. Why did you have to make people think you'd died?"
"Well, daddy was, he was just," he shrugs one shoulder, and trades his right ankle for tugging at the collar of his shirt. "Because."
"Because."
"Doesn't matter much now. I already did it, so there's no use scolding me." ("That's the whole point of scolding?") He huffs. "Where's Siobhan? I've heard you, and the cows, and the horse -"
"Mainland," he watches the way Dominic's lashes give a little flutter, how he won't look up from the scuffed knees of his trousers. "About a week now."
"A week. A week," Dominic sighs heavily, and lifts his weary head, "seems like I've lost my chance with her, so."
"Seems like," Pádraic agrees. "You're a bit young, I'd say. And the distance. And you know Mrs Reardon wouldn't be able to resist the letters. No privacy on an island."
"I've got privacy," Dominic counters. "I've got loads now with my name on a stone."
"I think it's wood, actually. A cross. Lovely grain."
"Would have made a better chair," Dominic scoffs. "Your candle's half gone."
"I was meant to be sleeping. Found myself a ghost in my attic. Dominic, I can't let you stay here."
"Sure you can," Dominic pouts. He rubs his right eye with his dirty thumb. "You can . Siobhan isn't here anymore, and a cow can't use a bed. And even if it could, I could sleep up here. I have been already."
"Even so."
"What?"
"Huh?"
"Even so what?"
"Oh, well, just because I can doesn't mean I should, you see."
Dominic looks like he may flee, but up here in the attic there's nowhere to go. He rocks forward and back, forward and back, digging his chin into his right knee and squeezing his eyes shut tight. Then there's the sound, a tiny, tinny little keen in the back of his throat.
"Come now, think of your dad -"
"If I wasn't thinking of him I wouldn't be in the attic," Dominic blurts out. "I'll not go back there, no sir. I'll stow away in a boat. Or swim to the mainland if I have to. I bet Siobhan would let me stay. I bet she'd tell you to let me stay."
"I shouldn't," he croaks.
"But you can," Dominic counters.
"Huh? No? Well, we established that I can," he trails off, eyes drifting to the candle, and a bit of wax threatening to drip. He's terribly confused and with no one to ask for advice. A letter would take ages, and Mrs Reardon - "you'll be cooped up inside."
Dominic shrugs. "I don't mind the animals, if that's what you're worried about. It's nice company."
"I agree," he breathes, resolve crumbling to pieces. The two village gobs, bunking together. A sight to behold. "Your father was always making you do house chores. Domestic things like press shirts. Can you bake bread?" Dominic nods. "What about porridge?"
"Done it loads of times."
"Everyone thinks I'm dull. Nice, but dull."
"You're not so dull. You're not so nice, either," he accuses. Pádraic winces, and looks in the direction of Colm's home's skeletal remains, and catches sight of Siobhan's books. A few are misplaced, stacked sideways rather than upright and tidy. "But if you let me stay you might seem nicer."
"Would I, so?"
"Nicer to me," he shrugs. "What will it be, so?"
"Huh? Uh, you see," he picks up his candle and watches the trickle of wax as it drips slowly down the side and pools in the well. "If you don't come down to bed you'll have to stumble around in the dark. I'll get out of the way, so."
"You'll barely notice me," he declares. Pádraic hopes against all hope that he's a liar. Hopes this helps mend the cracks that formed in his chest when he waved from the cliff side. He watches Dominic twist sideways and grab a book at random from the stack by Siobhan's shelf; a classic, because all her books are classics.
"Take care of those," he says. "She always took care of them. I'd hazard she'd go for them first in a fire, well before me or any of the animals."
Dominic nods, and cradles the precious thing to his chest as he follows Pádraic to the bedroom. The cow has grown bored with the tight space and wandered elsewhere. The horse mouths at the back of Dominic's head as he watches Pádraic resume his nightly routine; bell around two fingers and letter in hand. He pauses, face slack with confusion, when he realizes Dominic is still in the doorway.
“Dominic? Something the matter?”
He says nothing. Not when he sets the book on the pillow. Not when he removes his shoes and climbs in under the quilt. He doesn’t read the book; he holds it like one might cradle a soft toy.
“Nothing’s the matter,” Pádraic says to the stillness, warding away the uneasy feeling creeping in around them. He licks his finger and thumb, and pinches the flame out.