His jovial face grew serious. “With a name like yours, you needed protection. Nanny needed some life in her cottage. It was a good fit for everyone.”
“What do you mean ‘with a name like mine’?” Fanny had noted her name, too. But so many strange things had happened since yesterday, maybe this was just a coincidence. Henry never spoke of fairies like Fanny did, so he couldn’t be teasing her about Sleeping Beauty, too. “Is it because I’m Irish and everyone assumes my da was a drunk and I’m a Catholic instead of a Protestant?”
Henry didn’t answer. Perhaps she’d misunderstood him. He’d always said he liked her name, and now here she was assigning him bad motives.
“Speaking of names.” Briar pulled out her letter. Flipped it over. Cleared her throat. “My mam had a sister who stayed behind. They lost touch and it was one of Mam’s life regrets that the family never found out what happened to her.” She gave him the letter labeled with as much of an address as Briar could remember, and he put it in his pocket.
“I don’t expect you to find her. But if you have the letter with you and as you meet people on your way…could you…ask if they know her? She wouldn’t want my mam’s family to be split up. She might be our hope to stay together.”
“Of course I’ll try.” He picked up an acorn and rolled it between his fingers. He handed it to her, like he did when they were kids and he collected them for her. “Is that where you plan to go when you leave the valley? Ireland? Even though you’ve never been there yourself?”
“Mam talked of it from morning till night: the green hills, the hunt for shamrocks, the music her da would play on the fiddle. She didn’t want to leave in the first place, but her people were forced to. It was all she ever wanted to do, go back and find her older sister. But Da would always pipe in with how skewed her memories were. He’d say it wasn’t as magical as she remembered. He focused on the potato famine that pushed both their families out. He only remembers starving.” She paused, smiling at a memory. “Mam used to tell Da that it’s easy to halve the potato where there’s love. She always won that argument because Da did love her so. Had they lived, I’m sure he would have found a way to return home, since the famine is long past.”
No matter how much Mam glossed over the lean years in Ireland, the stories of the potato famine scared Briar. Da spared no detail in telling how bad it got. How entire crops were destroyed by blight, a sick blackening of the plants and potatoes, leaving people with nothing to eat. How some were so desperate they ate grass and died anyway. How packs of dogs roamed looking for those not yet buried. And how much better things were for them in Sunrise Valley, despite the long hours and low wages. They ate. They were alive.
Until they weren’t.
Weakened already from the famine, many died on the crossing, others after they’d arrived. Briar’s immediate family was the only kin who survived the first full year in America.
She took a deep breath. “Mam had me promise that if I were able, I would set my feet on Irish soil. Try to find her sister who stayed behind with her husband.”
After all the walks they’d had together, Briar had never told Henry this before. At least, not in so many words.
“Hope is a powerful thing.” He looked at her with intense focus.
Henry was so earnest it broke Briar’s heart. Not the way her heart hurt over Wheeler, but in a bittersweet kind of way. Why couldn’t she be interested in Henry instead of Wheeler? Most of the time she couldn’t take Henry seriously. If she were any other girl, not an orphan responsible for her siblings, maybe things could be different. She wouldn’t feel like she was in a rush to settle with someone who was able to support an instant family. Besides, they were from two different communities. Some roots ran too deep to change.
He quirked a smile. “While I’m away, and if I were to do a feat of daring for you, what would you like? Take down a whale? Meet the queen? Build a railroad in honor of your upcoming birthday? I can do whatever you ask.”
“Henry Prince, can you be serious for two minutes?”
He grinned. “Not around you, Briar. You fill my heart with too much joy I canna contain it.” He attempted an Irish brogue that wasn’t half bad.
There was a reason girls swooned around the young Irishmen working at the mill. That accent would weaken any girl’s knees. Too bad Henry was such a flirt no girl could take him seriously.
As Briar looked up at the mountaintop, a strain of music settled into her mind. She had nothing else to give Henry but a proper Irish send-off. A peace offering, so he wouldn’t leave thinking she didn’t care.
She sang the notes of her da’s fiddle. “Dum da dim diddle laddie, dumble da diddle dum.” Starting off fast, she then repeated the song slowly and mournfully, ending twice as fast as she started.