Page 115 of The Bone Season

‘Take Paige home, now!’

‘There’s no one home to look after her, Kay. I’m not missing this for the world,’ Finn said hotly. ‘If these bastards get in, we’ll never get them out.’

‘Finn, she’s six! This could get violent.’ Kay grasped my hand. ‘Sandra would be ashamed of you, exposing her to this. Come on, Paige—’

‘No.’ Finn snatched my other hand. ‘I want her to be here.’

‘Finn!’

My cousin knelt in front of me and pulled off his peaked cap. Beneath it, his hair was tousled. Finn was the spitting image of my father, and now he was just as serious, his hands tight on my shoulders.

‘Paige,’ he said, ‘do you know what’s happening?’

I shook my head, holding on to Kay.

‘A bad man has come here from over the sea,’ Finn told me. ‘A man named Mayfield.’

‘Is he from England, like Mammy?’

‘Yes, from London. He wants to bring other bad people here, to lock us up in our city and hurt us. We won’t be allowed to speak Gaeilge any more, or watch the films we like, or go outside Ireland. They’ll rip down our buildings and burn our books, take everything that makes us ourselves,’ Finn said, his voice roughening. ‘And people like you, Pip – they don’t like you.’

I looked into his eyes, knowing what he meant. Finn had caught me staring at invisible people. ‘Why does Molly have a bag over her head, Finn?’

‘Because the bad people do that when they hate other people for no good reason. They put bags over their heads and ropes around their necks, to kill them.’ He pulled hard at his own collar. ‘Even little girls, like you.’

‘Finn, you’re scaring her,’ Kay objected. ‘Let me take her to—’

‘This man, Mayfield,’ Finn said, ‘we’ve come here to tell him to go home and take his notions with him. We don’t want to be part of Scion.’

‘SCION OUT! SCION DOWN!’

My eyes hurt. A bubble filled my throat, but I refused to cry. I was brave. I was brave, like Finn. I didn’t want the bad people to hurt us.

‘SCION OUT OF DUBLIN TOWN!’

Finn put his cap on my head. ‘We have to stop them, Paige.’ He smudged a tear from my cheek. ‘Are you going to help me stop them?’

I nodded.

And then came a sound I had never heard – a sound like a drill, louder than all our voices put together. Kay turned to look as a scream rang out. I saw her lips form my name. Her dark eyes widening in fear.

The sound came again, and she fell to the ground.

And then my world exploded.

I woke with gunfire echoing in my ears.

My skin was slick and cold. I lay as if paralysed, my heart pounding like artillery. I could still hear the screaming, thirteen years later. I could see Kay – and Finn, howling as he tackled her killer, bare hands and rage against a rifle. The crowd had devoured them, leaving me alone.

I never saw my cousin again.

It had taken me years to understand what happened that day. The day of the Dublin Incursion, otherwise known as the Imbolc Massacre.

TheCourierhad broken the story. Cathal Bell, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, had invited Inquisitor Mayfield to Dublin. Bell had long advocated for Ireland to join the Republic of Scion. According to the article, their meeting would be held at Iveagh House on St Brigid’s Day.

Mayfield had never been in Dublin. Bell had planted the story himself, luring his most outspoken detractors – activists, students, celebrities, even his fellow politicians – to the streets around St Stephen’s Green.

The night before, while my aunt tucked me in, Scion had been sending warships into Dublin Bay. The next day, agents of the anchor had destroyed our phone masts while armed soldiers infiltrated the protest.

---