The Bone Clocks

LORELEI HELPS WITH the milking while I feed the Knockroe chickens. Then we walk home along the shore, gathering a bag of sea spinach. Sandhoppers ping off my exposed shin, and oystercatchers pick their way between stones and bladderwrack, stabbing the mud for lugworms. A gray heron fishes off a rock twenty feet out and the sun emerges. The wind’s swinging around to the south, brushing up stragglier clouds, like sheep’s wool caught on barbed wire. We find a big bough of bleached driftwood that should keep the stove fed for a couple of days in winter. Below the cottage we find Rafiq fishing off the pier, a favorite sedative of his. We give him the edited gist of Max O’Daly’s story—he’ll hear it sooner or later anyway—as he helps us lug the driftwood up to the cottage. Mo is snoozing in Eilнsh’s old chair, with Zimbra lying on her feet and a biography of Wittgenstein on her lap. Perhaps she’ll move into our granny flat now her own bungalow has no electricity at all. I had it built when I learned Aoife was pregnant so that she, Цrvar, and the baby could have a bit of privacy when they visited, but over the years it’s become a storeroom.

Zimbra gets up when we walk in, Mo wakes, and Lorelei makes us a pot of green tea with leaves she fetches from Mo’s polytunnel. I begin by telling her about Seamus Coogan’s death, then the rest of Max’s report on the massacre. Mo listens without interruption. Then she sighs and rubs her eyes. “Martin Walsh is right, unfortunately. If we want a quality of life higher than that of the Middle Ages ten years from now, we need to act like soldiers. The barbarians won’t turn on each other twice.”

My clock says five. Rafiq stands up. “I’d like to catch another couple of fish before it gets dark. Is Mo staying for tea, Holly?”

“I hope so. We ate her out of house and home at lunch.”

Mo thinks of her unlit stove and the useless lightbulbs in her bungalow. “I’d be honored. Thank you. All three of you.”

When Rafiq’s left, I say, “I’ll go into town tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure how wise that’d be now,” says Mo.

“I need to speak with Dr. Kumar about insulin.”

Mo sips her tea. “How much do you have?”

“Six weeks’ worth.” Lorelei keeps her voice down. “One more insulin pump, and three packets of catheter nozzles.”

Mo asks, “How much does Dr. Kumar have?”

“That’s what I want to ask.” I scratch an insect bite on my hand. “Yesterday’s convoy brought nothing, and after today … I don’t think there’ll be anymore. We have water, maybe we’ll be okay for food and security if we can act like a socialist Utopia, but you can’t synthesize insulin without a well-equipped laboratory.”

Mo asks, “Has Rafiq raised the subject?”

“No, but he’s a bright kid. He knows.”

Through the side window, a screen of late afternoon sunlight is projected onto the wall. Shadows of birds flit across it.

Some shadows are sharp, some shadows are blurry.

I’ve seen them before in another time and place.

“Gran?” Lorelei’s waiting for my answer to a question.

“Sorry, love. I was just … What were you saying?”

THE RADIO’S STILL dead. Mo asks Lorelei if she’s up to playing a tune on the fiddle after a day like that. My granddaughter chooses “She Moved Through the Fair.” I wash the sea spinach while Mo guts the fish. We’ll fry the puffball in butter at the last minute. If I was younger I’d be in town helping with the grisly business, but I wouldn’t be much use there at my age, digging graves for makeshift coffins. Father Brady’ll be busy. Probably he’s claiming the salvation of Kilcrannog was a case of divine intervention. Lorelei plays the ghostly refrain beautifully. She inherited her dad’s musical flair as well as his fiddle, and if she’d belonged to my or Aoife’s generation she might’ve thought about a musical career, but I’m afraid music will be one more nonsurvival pursuit that the Endarkenment snuffs out.

Rafiq makes us all jump as he barges open the door; something’s wrong. “Rafiq,” says Mo, “what on earth’s the matter?”

He’s panting for breath. My first thought is diabetes, but he’s pointing back down to the bay. “There!”

Lorelei stops playing. “Deep breaths, Raf—what is it?”

“A ship,” Rafiq gasps, “a boat, and men, and they’ve got guns, and were coming closer, and they spoke to me through a big cone thing. But I didn’t know what to say. ’Cause of—of what happened today.”

Mo, Lorelei, and me look at each other, confused.

“You’re not making a whole lot of sense,” I say. “Ship?”

“That!”He points out at the bay. I can’t see, but Lorelei goes over, looks out, and says, “ Jesus.” At her astonishment I hurry over, and Mo hobbles behind. At first I see only the bluish, grayish waters of the bay, but then see dots of yellow light, maybe three hundred meters out. “A patrol boat,” says Mo, at my side. “Can anyone see a flag on it?”