“There. If they be found, produce that and there remains a gold ring in it. Say your mother gave it ye as a wedding ring that had been her grandmother’s and it will buy you freedom. Let no one find any other of these.” We heard shouts. “Bar the door, Patience. Resolute, come here.”
Ma did the same to me as she had done to my sister, dressing me with a second quilted skirt, procuring yet another casket, smaller still than Patey’s, upon which I had never laid eyes ere now. “Quickly, wait still!” she said when I squirmed a bit. Another cannonball landed so closely that dust and rubble fell from the ceiling. “Wear this petticoat and never, never take it off, understand?”
“It is so warm,” I said. “Makes me drain sweat.”
She did not answer but opened the second casket. Though it was merely wood laid about in gold, it held eight gold rings, eleven silver coins, and a ruby necklace. These she pressed into slits in this new heavy skirt. Then, on her knees, she stitched up the folds and tucked the needle back into the seam. “You take care and you will have a needle. Thread can be found but a needle is a treasure. Keep it close by and oft oiled. If you get a chance to move it to a safer spot, do that, but until then, keep it there.”
“I am sorry we did not stay in the kitchen, as you told us,” I whispered. “Uncle Rafe—”
Ma’s face flushed dark. “There’s no fault in ye, bairny,” she said as she laid coins into the casket. She put two new pieces of eight and six shillings in it and closed the lid, fastening the hasp. She tied a brand-new pocket to my waist with the wooden casket in it. That was to buy my safety, too, I expect. That last, the name she had called me as a wee child, brought tears to my eyes. “Rafe MacAlister is no’ the threat what’s comin’ up the beach. Your pa’d have talked him doon like he done before. Now girls, go. Up the priest’s hole by the fireplace.”
Hiding holes and tunnels threaded through our house. Escape was always in our sights. The sounds of battle grew closer, and shouts followed the pistol fire. I heard glass breaking as Patience and I reached the fireplace. We nestled into the shadows. Fallen stones blocked the way up. I turned to see what had happened behind us. The leaded window lay in shards on the floor and from Ma’s raised hands a thundering bang deafened me. A man dressed in short breeches and a torn vest fell to the floor without uttering a sound. Ma turned to stone, her eyes locked on the blunderbuss in her hands. At that moment two men who had been kicking at the door with hard boots accomplished their task and the wooden door hung loose on its hinges.
Two more men clambered through the window opening and reached Ma. She had drawn a dagger, one I had seen lying in the shelf of books she kept in this room. One of the men smiled, his mouth a toothless cavern, his long cutlass waving in front of her. I would have screamed had not Patience’s hand covered my mouth and nose so that I could hardly breathe. Ma stepped backward, rotating the dagger from pointing at the intruder to pointing it at her own chest. I bellowed into Patey’s hand. I fainted, I suppose, for I knew nothing more but Patey crushing me to her bosom.
“Back to the new stairway,” she hissed, “behind the waterwheel.”
The bedroom seemed empty, and we stood in the open fireplace in perfect silence for the span of several heartbeats. “Where’s Ma?” I asked.
“Do not talk. Run.” We hid at the doorway until we were certain no one saw, and then pounded up the stairs. At the landing I looked down to see Uncle Rafe, Pa, and August, all fighting beside each other, holding four men back with their swords. Pa had blood on his shirt but he moved so boldly that I was sure it was not his. Patience pulled my arm nearly out of its roots as she forced me away from that spectacle and toward the armoire. Heavy steps came up the stairs behind us. She tugged the great chest forward and put me into the opening first, climbed through, and pulled at it with the handle.
Again, blackness enveloped us. I stood by my sister, motionless. I leaned toward her and whispered, “Where did Ma go?”
“Out the door.”
“Did she get away from them, then?”
She let out a tiny sob and said, “Be quiet. Shush.”
At first I thought a mouse had whimpered, then I heard the voices, speaking some foreign tongue—I knew not what—and the armoire rattled as its door opened and the drawers were pulled from their frames. Light came through the place where the slats in the back did not meet, and Patience leaned back so far she nearly fell on me. She tapped my shoulder and, when I did not move, tapped again harder. I took three steps down. This was more clumsy and frightful because I was leading. There was no one there to catch me. August was not waiting at the bottom.