"Pins for the bones." "There's nothing to believe." "Threads for the muscles." "When you die, you rot." "Paint for the skin." "It's just stories, snake oil, but worse, because snakes are real." "Give me my fucking coin, dead wife." " Was it love?" " I suppose it is now." "I'm gonna reach up under those ribs, and I'm gonna pluck that coin out of you like a berry." "Take us to Kentucky." "I'll tell you where to find your jinn." "I'll tell you where to find a whole murder of gods, demi and otherwise, every goddamn one of 'em." "Irish Red Ale." "Brewed it just like the Franciscan monks in Kilkenny in 1231." "The well water was poison." "This beer saved lives." "It's past six." "I still have the cheek to do and the lips." "Well, he doesn't show 'til the afternoon." "We need the table." "We got two more coming in the morning." "A woman and a much younger woman." "No call yet." "They pass within the hour." " Lover's quarrel?" " Overdose." "We get so few lover's quarrels these days." "You want help?" "Mm-mm." "You have a story to tell." "Do I?" "I can see it in your fingers." "It is fine fiction that America was founded by pilgrims seeking freedom to believe as they wished, that they came to the Americas, spread and bred and filled the empty land." "In truth, the American colonies were as much a dumping ground as an escape, a forgetting place." "Lover's quarrel." "Shall I?" "I've got it." "Go on." "Ibis and Jacquel." "Mm-hmm." "Two females?" "In the days when you could be hanged in a London prison for the theft of 12 pennies, the Americas became a symbol of clemency." "Transportation, it was called." "For five years, for 10 years, for life, you were sold to a captain and would ride his ship crowded tight as a slaver's." "Off the ship you were sold as an indentured servant to the one who would take the cost of your skin out in your labor." "But at least you were not waiting to hang in an English prison." "And when your years of indenture were complete, you were free to make the best of your new world." "Of the New World." "Essie MacGowan?" "I am reminded of the life of Essie MacGowan." "As a young girl, she was not a hard worker, forever slipping off and away to listen to stories and tales, tales of the trouping faeries and the shape-shifting púcas." "Of banshees wailing in the night, foretelling a death, and best of all, tales of the leprechauns." "You waiting for your Pa's ship to come in, hmm?" "Oh, well, he'll get back soon enough." "Maybe a merrow in seal-skin's got caught in his nets and he's convinced her to give up her plunder from the shipwrecks." "Ah, plenty of hidden fortune to be had above the waves, hmm?" "See that hill?" "A fairy mound." "A door to the world of the Aos Sí." "And if you're lucky, you might catch a glimpse of the little folk as they pass through at twilight." "They're merry folk, and full of music." "Oh, except for the leprechauns." "Oh, the leprechauns." "They are so busy guarding their gold that they've no time for anything else at all." "Why do we leave them a gift?" "Because we want their blessings, so we better." "And when she was no longer a young girl, curved and billowed like the swell of the green sea, it was she who kept alive the old practice, and she who told the tales." "We leave a meal for the fair folk if we want their blessings." "We don't skimp, neither." "The cream from the milk, the softest crumb you've got at hand." "For it's favor on one side of the coin, and wrath on the other." "Ballybogs, no doubt, they can be reasoned with." "Leprechauns, oh, they're a different story altogether." "Help you with your troubles one day, and bite your eyes out the next." "It's true." "One night, the kind that chills you to your inner bones," "I was walking to the lighthouse to bring me father some pigeon stew and bread." "And that's when I heard it:" "boom!" "Boom!" "Like a hammer." ""Who goes there?", I ask." "No answer." "I think about turning back, then my curiosity gets the better of me." "So I go towards it, only the closer I get, the farther away it goes." "Finally, I turned around and I'd wandered so far into the moors, that I can't find me way back." "Three hours, I wandered in the dark, and not a thing familiar, but then I remembered what me gran told me about the leprechaun." "So, I swallow my hunger and I take my bread, and I put it down on a mossy stone, and I lay down to sleep beside it." "And then you'll never believe it:" "when I woke up, the bread was gone." "And there was the lighthouse, the one I'd been looking for." "It was only a spit away." "So you see, the faerie folk may be small, don't let that fool ya." "They can make real trouble unminded." "Intelligence has never been uncommon among women." "And beauty is had by all of 17." "But Essie possessed a rare token of ambition." "She had paid close attention to the tales." "She knew what the moment wanted." "It was all the money she had in the world." "There were many silks and lace she coveted, and she'd never once been full of white bread or syllabub." "But she knew one does not ask favors of a leprechaun without a kindness of gold." "It was first time for neither, a fact neither felt worthy of mention, for this sensation was new to both." "Gonna forget me, aren't you?" "You go off to Oxford, gonna meet some society lady." "Gonna forget all about me." "It had been a gift from his grandfather to his grandmother when they had courted, and Bartholomew placed it in her hand with the promise to marry her upon his return at Christmas." "But, as Essie warned, the Fair Folk are a fickle lot." "Me pa told the merrow that he wouldn't give her back her seal-skins until she took him to the land under the waves, shows 'em where she stowed the treasure." "It was easier for the mistress of the house to believe Essie capable of being a thief than seducing her son's affections." ""Did you give this to her freely?"" "his mother asked." "The answer required was implicit in the question." ""You must hang for this, girl," said the judge." "Perhaps noticing her age or her eyes, he paused." ""However, as charity breeds charity," "I offer an alternative."" "Essie was sentenced to seven years transportation." "She was transported on a ship called the Neptune under the command of one Captain Clark." "Headed for the Carolinas where she would serve her sentence." "Though hunger gripped her belly with both hands, she never neglected to leave a small crumb for the leprechauns." "As luck would have it," "Essie conceived an alliance with the Captain, and prevailed upon him to return her with him to London where no man knew her." "The journey back, when the human cargo had been exchanged for tobacco, was a happy time for the sea-faring lovers, who were as butterflies courting, in constant contest as to who could be the most grateful," "each insistent their life had been saved by the other." "Upon their return to London, the captain opened his home to his new bride." "Eight weeks later, the Neptune, its human cargo, replenished, readied to set sail again." "The captain swore to carve the most from the wind and return to Essie's hands faster than any man has ever crossed an ocean." "Her world branded Essie MacGowan a thief." "So a thief she became." ""'Tatanka Ska', a white buffalo"" "believed sacred by the Lakota, was born here on the ranch of Derek Arnold Jr., on June 10th, 2008." "Thousands came in pilgrimage to see it." "Sadly, both Derek and the calf were killed by a lightning strike" ""a year to the day after its birth."" "What you get for putting a god in a petting zoo." "Why'd we stop?" "I need to pray." "You just prayed!" "How many times a day is this gonna be?" "Tell me you don't do the full load." "I do." "I pray five times a day." " Oh, God is great." " I'm having a piss." "You can join if you like." "I can show you." "I'm just watching." "So do you love God?" "Or are you in love with God?" "Hmm." "I hadn't thought of it that way." "Yes, I suppose it's so." "I do love my God." "Fuck off." "I will eat you." "I'm on my way to Wisconsin, per the arrangement, which I have kept my end of." "He doesn't like it?" "You tell that one-eyed gowl..." "You tell..." "Fuck you." "That's what you tell him." "Talking to the birds?" "Christ." "Can a man get a moment alone with his prick?" "I think we should let Salim go." "No, we should fucking not." "We can make our own way from here." "From here is from nowhere." "I got business after your business." "Pack up the rug, back in the car, we got ground to cover." "We're near enough, we don't need him anymore." "I'm only taking this detour for you." "You and that coin in your belly are the only reasons I'm not driving straight to House On The Rock." "Christ." "Think a girl on the way to her own resurrection might be keen on getting there as soon as possible." "No, no, no!" "House On The Rock, Wisconsin." "That's where they're going." "That's where they're all gonna be." "Why would you do that?" "I'm releasing him." "You are released from your bargain." "Fuck off." "Go find your man." "Your God, your jinn." "You are an unpleasant creature." "Hello?" "Can I, uh, help you with something, ma'am?" "Yes, I've always wanted to steal a car." "So I'm gonna steal yours." "Uh, well, it's not mine, it's my boss's." "Okay, well, then, I'm stealing his." "I don't know how much is here, but you take that, you tell your boss that you were robbed, which you have been." "My boss is never gonna believe me if I look like this." "No, you look fine." "You look great." "No, he means without having a bit of a tussle." "He wants me to punch him." "Whoa, you could kill me." "Can she do it?" "Trust me, you don't want this one hitting you." "Malice draped in pretty can get away with murder." "Essie MacGowan had no incline to murder, but she had long since stopped thinking theft as sin." "Over the following years, Essie became an accomplished shoplifter, her wide skirts capable of concealing a multitude of sins." "Though the work was not honest, she lived by her own labors and owed thanks to no man." "She saved her thanks for the creatures she had been told of as a child whose influence, she was certain, extended as far as London." "Unfortunately, the more abundant the blessings, the more we forget to pray." ""You are charged with returning from transportation and you are charged with theft."" "Essie was taken to Newgate Prison where it was only a matter of time until she would face the gallows." "Don't eat what's in the bowl, unless you like shitting yourself dry." "Stick to the bread." "Pretty girl like you don't belong here." "How do you know what I look like?" "I can hear a voice hadn't had its fill of screaming." "Well, I most definitely do not belong here." "I was just at the pub for a cup of ale." "Good lad." "I was even gonna pay for it, when some flange cuts in front of me like fucking King fucking George." "So I give him a good chock, just a warning." "And he topples head first into a broken bottle." "Lost the eye, they tell me." "Plenty of flanges do well with just one." "What of you, Miss, you take an eye?" "Lace." "Not too dear." "Reason to hope on transportation, then." "I'm past that hope." "I had my opportunity." "Doesn't seem right, just giving you the one." "Well, the world don't operate on right." "That it doesn't." "To hell with them and their gallows." "Give them a good, long piss as you dangle." "Make a mess for them to mop after." "So long as you don't go easy." "So, you sailed the boat prior, then?" "Made it far as Carolina." "Musha!" "The Americas!" "How was it?" "I don't know, didn't stay long enough to see much before heading back to London." "I didn't give it a chance." "Shame." "I hear there's chances there." "You could try a bribe." "Warden would free his own heart from his chest for a bit of gold." "Just ran out." "Would I could give you some of mine." "You've got gold?" "Had." "Quite a bit." "Held it in keeping." "Drank my share but delivered the balance on time where it was meant." "To who?" "The King." "We're in prison, love." "All we have to do is tell tales." "You've told your share, I wager." "I met an Indian woman there." "In the Americas." "She had an apple cart." "Sold pound cakes in the morning." "Skin like a brick." "I asked her name and she said, "Susan."" "A woman like her called "Susan"?" "I said, "What name were you born to?"" "And she just said, "I'm Susan now."" "In the Americas, anyone can be anything they insist upon." "New name, new life." "That's a place a body could be happy." "What the fuck is happy?" "Fucked if I know." "I think I knew when I was a little girl." "Sitting on the shingle waiting for me father's boat to return from sea." "Now I'd be content to be content." "A home, a tree." "Someone kind enough to be by me." "Not too kind." "I've been living on my boots and out of my pockets long since I can remember." "You could get lucky." "You'd do all right there." "The fuck would I do in the Americas?" "Deliver gold to their king." "They don't have a king." "Not yet." "Everyone needs a king." "Is it this cold in here every night?" "The condemned never know when the hangman has coiled his noose." "I, uh..." "I got this food myself, from the kitchen." "Fresh bread, fresh fruit." "Meat pie." "Such a shame, to let you go to waste at the gallows." "Hmm." "The Warden of Newgate then made three factual statements:" "that it would be a good 12 weeks before her case would be heard, that she was, to his mind, a very pretty thing, and that there was a way that she might, luck smiling," "escape the gallows yet." "Ah!" "Ah!" "Ugh!" "When her turn came, Essie shocked no one by pleading her belly." "The town matrons who assessed such claims, which were usually spurious, were surprised when they were forced to agree" "Essie was indeed with child." "Her sentence of death was once more commuted to transportation, this time for life." "In her days ever after, she would have nightmares of her time in that hold." "The Sea-Maiden landed at Norfolk in Virginia, and Essie's indenture was bought by a tobacco farmer named John Richardson, for his wife had died of fever a week after giving birth to his daughter, and he had need of a wet nurse and a maid" "of all work upon his small holding." "And along with her milk, the children as they grew, drank Essie's tales." "Quit it, you fucking baby." "We're not all hanger steaks." "Have at it." "Seeing as how my stomach is sewn shut and not connected to the organs of digestion," "I think I will pass." "You'll be eating again soon enough." "If your resurrection guy can do it." "Can and will, for a favor." "Not for gold." "How much gold do you have?" "How much is in a hoard?" "What the fuck is a hoard?" "Why do you have one?" "I was a king, once." "Okay." "I was." "Then they made me a bird." "Then Mother Church came along and turned us all into saints, and trolls, and faeries." "General Mills did the rest." "So what's the appeal?" "What's Wednesday selling at this god-fest that you've got to get a ticket?" "War." "I went to war once." "Or was meant to." "Long time back." "On the eve of battle I looked into the fire... and I saw my death, sure as Sunday." "I saw." "I knew I would die that day if I stayed." "Put on my boots, and dropped my sword, and I flew." "I owe a battle." "You're following Wednesday so that you can fight in his war and die, and for that, you run his errands?" "I done worse than that." "Dying worked for me." "Everyone should try it at least once." "Seems like you've walked the earth a couple hundred years in those boots already, so, you're due." "The night of Samhain, the spirits can spill freely into our world, but if you wear a disguise, like that, then they'll take you for one of their own." "Horsies coming!" "Yes, your daddy's home." "But we have to pay special mind of who?" "The lep...?" "Prechaun." "Leprechaun, that's right." "So we just leave a small ration from our harvest." "'Cause if they so choose, they can lead you off the path you've trod a thousand times before." "She told them all these things and they believed because she believed." "Sorry." "I just finished up, sir." "Well, goodnight, Master Richardson." "Wait." "Master Richardson." "I never realized... that you took me for..." "Essie told him how shocked and hurt she was, a poor widow woman to be asked to prostitute herself for a man whom she had so much respect for." "An indentured servant could not marry, so how could he think to torment an ill-starred transportee girl, she could not fathom." "A poor transportee girl who's got feelings for you." "Feelings that you can't possibly return." "Essie..." "John Richardson found himself going down on one knee and proposing an end to her indenture." "Until he had taken her hand in marriage," "Essie did not so much as kiss Master Richardson." "But when he did, she did, and from that day on, she called him John." "They called their son the same." "When the children went off to school to learn their letters," "Essie made sure they each of them carried a little salt in one pocket, a little bread in the other, to make sure they came safely home once more." "They always did." "John Richardson loved her kindly." "They had been married a decade when Essie swore she heard a banshee keen in the night." "A week later, the fever carried him off." "There were good days and there were bad in the usual balance, but there were many." "The farm flourished under the eye of the Widow Richardson, as she was ever after known, when not "Mum", or, in time, "Gran"." "Oh, thank you, my dear." "Of course, you must never fall asleep by a stream." "No, for the alp-luachra might crawl into your mouth and make his home in your belly." "For that joint-eater will take the good out of your supper so no matter how much you eat, after, you'll never be full up, never." "Never." "Never." "Never." "Oh, oh." "Mother, that's enough." "There seemed no room for the spirits of old in Virginia, so Essie no longer told her tales." "She kept them in her heart, where they warmed her like her father's stew on a chill night in Bantry Bay a lifetime ago." "Essie MacGowan?" "Ugh... uh." "Ah!" "Oh!" "Tell him." "Tell him it's done." "Créd as co tarlaid an cac-sa dam?" "Nach lór rofhulangas?" "Is lór chena, níam olc!" "Níam!" "Fuck!" "Oh, f..." "Fuck." "Don't look." "Ugh!" "Come on." "Move it." "Essie MacGowan?" "Do I know you?" "You might say that you know me." "Oh, you're an Irishman." "That I am." " A man of the mounds." " Oh." "Or rather, that I was." "But now I'm here, in this new world, where nobody puts out ale or milk for an honest fellow." "Or a loaf of bread come harvest time." "If you are who I think you are," "I have no quarrel with you." "Nor I with you." "Although it was you that brought me here, you and a few others like you." "Into this land with no time for magic, no place for faeries and such folk." "I... you have done me many a good turn." "Good and ill." "We're like the wind, we blows both ways." "Aye." "Oh..." "Will you take my hand, Essie MacGowan?" "She was still warm when they found her, although the life had fled her body and only half the apples were peeled."