Food. I rolled over, stretched, then furled back into a foetal position.

In that strange state between waking and sleep, I was conscious of food. The smell of it woke me, and I stretched again. My stretch revealed an empty bed that made me catapult upright. The room was open, with my uncles' beds neatly made and no Dermot to be seen or heard.

It dawned on me that it was dinnertime, and swinging myself off the bed, a sharp pain shot through my thigh, making me wince – Penman's pen caught up in my pyjamas, stabbed me.

Thankfully its stab was only superficial. I swiped the blood from my graze and placed the pen on Granny's dressing table. Something held me there, gazing at the pen with its encapsulated miniature boat. I felt it was symbolic. Of what, I didn't know. But I was happy it was found, safe and sound.

......

"There you are; I thought you'd gone missing again. Where were you?" asked Granny as she kneaded dough in a bowl.

"I was in bed."

"What, you're only getting up now?" she said, forming the currant- speckled dough into a ball.

"Yes."

"I thought you were up and out early this morning, with Maria and Dermot."

She threw the dough onto a tin tray, forming it into a round pattie took a knife and scored it, creating a cross that would define four equal parts when baked.

She used the knife as a pointer to the range, "Your dinner's there for you, but it should be breakfast you're having. Maria and Dermot have been and gone; I was waiting for you to come in from the fields." She put the knife down, wiped her hands with a tea towel, "What has you sleeping so late?" she asked with concern.

I shrugged, "Don't know," I said, not wanting to divulge my nocturnal ramblings.

Granny put the dinner of stew and potatoes down in front of me. "Are you sickening for something, pinning for England, maybe?" she asked, picking up her bowl and throwing in a handful of flour.

"No," I said, taking a morsel of meat on my fork.

"Well, it's not right, you should be out enjoying this good weather, not lying idle in bed." She added a pinch of soda, salt, and a glug of buttermilk to her bowl, her right hand moving rhythmically to amalgamate the ingredients.

I ate my food in silence, mesmerised by Granny's instinctual making of the soda bread that would sustain and supplement our diet in the coming days.

The combination of eating food while watching Granny make it induced in me sustenance that energised me. Finishing my plate, I asked, "Did Maria still have that stye this morning?"

"She did. It looked no better, she's still fretting about it," she said,

making my dread return.

I sat up, "Do you know where Maria and Dermot have gone?" I asked, wanting to go to Maria and assess the stye myself.

"They've gone out to the creamery with Tommy," she said, nestling her plain soda bread next to its fruity brethren in the heart of her range.

"Is it walking distance?" I asked, sliding off my chair. Granny took my plate, "Indeed it isn't. It's away out the Dublin Road." She was about to descend into the scullery when she noticed the sight of me and stopped. "You're still in your pyjamas." She pointed upwards, "Get up them stairs and dress yourself before anyone calls and sees the cut of you at this hour of the day."

......

Walking through Granny's room en-route to my clothes, a postcard of the Munster peeking out from underneath Maria's pillow caught my eye.

I paused, looking from postcard to Penman's pen. Maria had written on my postcard to Mam and Dad and put it into an envelope – Top Secret. Was this another secret? Who was she writing to? My hand stretched out to it but swiftly withdrew. I couldn't betray Maria's trust, even though she was possessed. I ran into the next room and quickly dressed to divert myself from peeping at the postcard.

......

The sun appeared from behind a cloud, welcoming me outside. 134

With one foot on the step, I waivered – go back and look at that postcard.

No.

I stepped up onto the road – it might reveal loads of secrets, go back.

Turning back, I stared up at the bedroom window – this is your only chance for a look at what's written on that card, go back.

A compulsion pushed me down the step; conflict pulled me back up. I stayed there, on the cusp of uncertainty, until I heard, "Caw. Caw. Caw." Crow's call compelled me to run from the house and follow him back up to St Pat's college farmyard, ensuring my prying eyes were far away from the postcard's reveal.

......

"Ahh, wee fella, how-are-ya?" asked the boy with Bruce lee hair, hosing off his wellington boots.

"I'm alright," I said through recovering breaths.

He looked at me with a friendly smile that somehow flattered me. I felt he liked me, "What has yous running? You're running after me, and that sister of yours is running away from me," he asked.

I quickly corrected him, "I wasn't running after you, didn't even know you'd be here."

He turned off the hose, "Well, your sister was. I said, 'Hello,' to her this morning, and she ran from me like I was the Devil himself. What happened to her?" he asked, hanging the hose on a hook.

"She's got a stye in her eye, and she's smitten, so that's probably why she ran away," I explained, happy I had an answer that wasn't the whole truth but wasn't a lie, either.

He laughed, "Is she smitten with me?"

"I don't know what smitten is."

"Then how do you know she is?"

"Uncle Michael said she is; that's how I know."

He took off thick rubber gloves, placed them on the windowsill and ran his hands through his hair. I watched with envy as silken strands slipped through his fingers with ease, falling back together to create a gloriously glossy face frame.

"What's smitten?" I asked.

He paused, pondered, looked at me and said, "I wouldn't know how to explain it. Ask Maria, she'll tell you, she's a great girl with words, so she is," he said, turning to enter the slaughterhouse.

I jumped forward, halting him, "I did ask her; she said it's like teasing."

He nodded, "That'll do, that explains it, now you have smitten," he said, slinking back inside, his hair shining like black silk in the grim slaughterhouse light.

......

I stood in the square and thought – some boys in my class in my 136

Manchester school tease me for my curly hair and looking like a girl. Now I knew, they were smitten with me.

So, I deduced that smitten was a bad thing, and my mood sank – my sister was possessed and smitten, things were going from bad to worse for Maria and me.

......

Back at the gate, I stood transfixed by The House in The Hollow. It was so near yet seemed so far. The compulsion to run came over me again. Needing out of the hollow and into height, I ran for the hills surrounding Aunt Margaret's house.

......

I sneaked past Margaret's house and climbed over the gate that led into rolling fields, beginning a steady climb upwards. All was peacefully quiet, and I felt the dooming content in my head reduce as I climbed higher. At the pinnacle of the hill, I stopped and looked down upon the rolling countryside, lush green fields occasionally dotted by a homestead that looked lonely and remote – like me.

......

Looking up at a clear blue sky, I began to sing my version of a song that now had a relevance I had not previously known –

"When I'm with her, I'm confused. Out of focus and bemused.

And I never know exactly where I am. Unpredictable as weather.

She's as flighty as a feather.

She's a darling! She's a demon. She's a smitten!" How do you solve a problem like Maria?"

Maria and me – this was our song, the one that kicked off the splendour of our Saturday nights. How I loved those times together in her small bedroom in our Manchester council house, surrounded by images of Bruce Lee with his inky black hair glistening in the cosy lamp-light of Maria's space. We'd sing along to the Sound of Music at the top of our voices while eating spoonful's of Butterscotch Angel Delight and slurping Carnation Cream straight from the tin between tracks.

Now alone, singing aloud atop a hill in Cavan, I longed for that sister back, the Maria that solved all my problems and everybody else's. At that moment, the words of the song became prophetic. I stopped singing and said out loud, – how do I solve this problem with Maria?