Bruar's Rest

then,’ she thought, ‘I’ll take to the road in the morning, get right away. Find Bruar without gypsy help.’

     
    As the women walked up and over the quarry edge, no one spoke. They just followed the youngster who knew where a young girl, with so much to live for, lay cold and motionless on the rough purple heather. A breeze swirled around them, who numbered a dozen or so. The wind prompted one to say solemnly, ‘She be round the corner, she be.’
    Megan asked Ruth what that meant.
    ‘Winter,’ came the reply.
    A small form could be seen ahead on the ground. It was Lucy, covered by a dirty blanket. ‘Oh God in heaven,’ screamed Lucy’s mother,  ‘Look at my innocent baby, my beautiful babba, lying in the heather like a lurcher’s discarded prey.’ She broke free from Ruth and Anna who were supporting her, falling and stumbling until she stood trembling over her daughter’s lifeless body. ‘My little, sweet flower. Why did you give yourself to the master of the moors? Plenty good gypsy boys, but oh no, you had to pick him. Now look where it got you.’
    She threw herself on top of the dead girl, sobbing uncontrollably. Then gently she lifted the lifeless body by the shoulders and cried with such depth of sorrow as only a mother can feel. It was pitiful. Megan remembered her own mother, Annie. Thinking of her lying in the woods of Kirriemor brought tears. She sat down gently and began to mumble. The gypsy women were silenced by astonishment; they’d never heard this before. Ruth sat down on a rock. Anna joined her. Then one by one the rest sat in the coarse heather and listened as Megan chanted the call of death. When, after several minutes, she lowered her head, the others asked her what it was she was chanting. ‘It is a simple call to Mother Nature. I asked that Lucy be at one with the earth, the wind, rain and sun; to be free to join her ancestors.’ She turned to Lucy’s mother with outstretched hands and said, ‘Now that she has climbed the highest mountain, she can dance the dance of freedom.’
    ‘Freedom from what?’ whispered Ruth.
    ‘From her limbs,’ came the simple reply.
    Anna, who had brought Lucy’s shroud, called out, ‘see what took the life from her!’ She was pointing at a cravat around the neck; a green and red scarf. ‘We all know who that belongs to.’
    Everyone nodded except Megan, who asked if it was Buckley.
    ‘That piece of silk belonged to Hawen Collins. He killed my girl, and for that his fate is well and truly sealed.’
    Soon the women with their burden of grief were back at the quarry campsite. Once they had all returned, Mother Foy called for Thamas. All eyes turned toward a wagon at the far end of the quarry, as the door slowly creaked open. A big man, wearing only an undervest and trousers, stepped down. He sat on the bottom step and retrieved boots from beneath the wagon, slipped them on and walked over to the women. ‘Thamas,’ said Mother Foy in her sternest voice, ‘Hawen Collins did strangle Lucy. Find and kill him stone dead. You know if the muskries find him before us, then he’ll escape his punishment.’ She went inside her wagon and came out brandishing a small, shiny dagger. ‘Stick it to the heart, one to the left side, then one to the right. Before he breathes his last, whisper young Lucy’s name to him three times. Now find Hawen Collins and kushti bok [good luck].’
    Thamas went to Lucy’s mother, laid a gentle hand on her shoulder and said, ‘Tis the grave that waits for him, not a muskrie cell in a warm, “eat-yer-fill” prison. Take it for truth, he’s a dead man.’ Then, after a shave and donning a coat, he walked silently off down the road. His eyes were fixed ahead.
    Megan watched in silence, as did everyone until Thamas turned the bend of the quarry road and was gone. She wondered what the words of the old woman meant, and asked her.
    ‘Hawen took a gypsy life, therefore only another true blood can take his. We believe that when first born, our heart turns in our bodies to meet the rising sun first to the left, then towards the right; to the setting sun. To whisper the victim’s name means that God hears it and will not allow the murderer entrance into heaven. So between the sun’s lights he is bound to wander the earth, never finding peace.’
    Megan walked away, and found solace by the peaceful water of the pool. She thought seriously on all that had taken place over a few short days. She’d not changed her