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Declan Lynch is distracted by the sound of his parents' voices drifting up the stairs.
He creeps as close as he dares to the banister, dropping his pillow to his side with a whush, and listens. They're using the words they only use on each other. The almost song-like ones that makes Declan's head swim as he struggles to understand. They will sometimes use a phrase here and there with Declan and at different points they've both discussed the possibility of teaching it to him.They speak to him normally, which is to say as they speak to everyone else except each other, and Declan can't help but feel like this is a bit of elaborate pretend for his benefit. There's a liveliness to Niall and to Mór when they're using their preferred language, like the real true versions of themselves can't exist otherwise.
Declan thinks he can understand the spirit of their conversation, though. They're speaking low and rushed and urgently in the kitchen, the sounds moving as they track around the room. That's the other thing about his parents as a pair, a grouping, a couple. Together there's always a sense of motion that slows whenever they're apart.
Ronan. Ronan. Ronan.
Declan understands that well enough. Niall says the name repeatedly though Mór speaks over him in a rush. Declan gathers up his strength and leans forward, ignoring the dark drop to the first floor. His hands are tight on the wooden posts. When he can't understand a word they're saying, he tries to pick out his own name from among their conversation but neither his father nor mother uses it once.
The door in the kitchen, the one that leads out into the back of the house, slowly creaks open and the entire house sighs on the cool night air. Declan pulls away as their voices fade away and he gathers up his fallen pillow and continues on his way to Ronan's room. He nudges the door quietly.
"Ronan?" he says quietly.
There is no answer and so Declan enters. He first throws his pillow up onto the bed then clambers up, pulling himself up with his arms.
Ronan is asleep on top of the covers, lying the wrong way on the bed with his arms and legs all sprawled out, his mouth hanging open on sleep. This is why Declan had brought his own pillow. The last time they had shared one Ronan spent all night drooling on it and Declan didn't enjoy that one bit.
Declan tugs and pulls at the blanket, Ronan wriggling around in his sleep, until it comes free from under Ronan, who makes a gugrling gasping noise once before turning over onto his belly. Declan fluffs his pillow close to the wall then slides onto the bed beside his brother, pulling the blanket over the both of them. He makes sure Ronan is covered and that Ronan has his mouth nowhere near Declan's pillow. Ronan is facing away from him, fidgeting even in his sleep. He kicks Declan only the once. Declan shoves Ronan in return but doesn't wake him and, satisfied, Declan closes his eyes to drift off to sleep.
Sometimes Ronan will pretend to be asleep even though his eyes are open. Declan has nudged him and called his name when this happens, but Ronan will just stare unmoving for a few breaths before suddenly breaking into a smile or laughing. Secrets always come out to play when this happens.
But the next morning, when Declan sits up and checks, Ronan is still lying heavily in the bed, one arm thrown over his mouth, sitting in a pool of his drool, and his eyes firmly closed. Declan slips out of bed and walks carefully to his parents' room at the end of the hall. He tries to avoid the noisy creaking planks but his feet seem to find every last one. He makes it to their room and he knocks quietly on the door. Usually when he sees them awake and up in the middle of the night they can be a little grumpy in the morning.
He waits patiently but there's no answer. He presses his ear to the door to try to pick out the sound of Niall snoring or Mór pacing around the room. When he hears nothing, he gets on his hands and knees and tries to spy under the crack in the door for any feet or blocked shadows.
There's nothing.
Ronan will be awake soon and Declan knows his brother is prone to fussing and whining without something to play with or put in his mouth. Declan summons up all of his courage and stands at the top of the stairs. It's dizzying to see the stairs in the early morning, with their steepness and never ending steps. But he thinks of Ronan and he grips the wooden railing with both hands, feeling the curves and dips of the pattern sticking into his palms, and stretches one foot down. It feels like an eternity, like he's already falling. But then his toes find the solid wood grain and he plants his foot firmly before bringing down the other down beside it. He shifts one hand to the railing closer to him and then the other.
Stretch, step, step, rest. Stretch, step, step, rest.
All the way down the stairs. He doesn't stop to give himself time to be afraid.
If his parents aren't in their room, then Declan expects to find them passed out together on the couch. It wouldn't be the first time.
Sometimes he'll come down in the morning and when he arrives in the big room downstairs he'll see Niall stretched out with most of his limbs sprawled over the couch. Except for one of his father's arms which will be wrapped around his mother's waist. Mór with her legs tangled in Niall's and her cheek on his shoulder, her forehead tucked close to his neck. They often look rumpled in their day clothes, like they fell into sleep without bothering to brush their teeth or put on their pajamas first.
Declan wonders why and how they can fall asleep like that when it looks uncomfortable, painful for both of them to be stacked together.
The couch is empty when Declan makes it down the stairs. The rest of the house, too, it seems. Declan rubs at his eyes like maybe they're not seeing everything but no one even answers when he calls out. He wanders into the kitchen, wondering if maybe they left something behind in their rush to leave last night. It looks the same as always. The house clicking and creaking around him as usual.
Declan yawns big and wide as he pulls out one of the dining table chairs and then pulls himself up to check on the table for something for Ronan to snack on when he wakes. He finds only the usual fruit bowl and he carefully scoots over to the edge, pausing briefly when the table lightly trembles beneath him.
There are three bananas, soft and pungent and spackled a light brown. Declan holds his breath because he doesn't like moldy, rotten bananas like these no matter how often Niall tries to share with him. Beside the bananas is an apple and he reaches for it to inspect.
Once, Declan had been at the table, sitting on Mór's lap while she held an apple in one hand, a knife in the other. He watched with fascination as she sliced it easily into small, thin pieces. She had told him to keep his hands safe and to not reach or risk hurting himself and so Declan had kept his hands under the table as he watched her work at the apple. She sometimes handed him a piece and he loved the rapturously sweet burst of flavor they held.
One piece, this one a little larger than he usually got which already was absurdly exciting for Declan, had a slight crust of grit near the top. The apples, Declan knew, came from the tree outside and Declan also knew that dirt was a thing that thrived outside. It still didn't strike him as completely right. He held out the piece in the rounded palm of his hand to show Mór.
"It's dirty," he said.
To his utter horror, his mother plucked the piece from his hand and ate it.
"Mm, delicious, thank you," she said to him. And she set the knife down because the apple was already in so many pieces.
Declan was aghast, beside himself with panic. Mór sometimes did silly things that he didn't agree with but this was far too much. He froze. Unsure how to tell her, what to tell her, quickly wondering if there was anything to be done, if she could saved (whether from her lunacy or the apple, Declan wasn't sure, but he would take either).
Mór must have sensed his impending spiral. She wasn't the kind of person to laugh. Only when Niall was around did something like a laugh bubble up out of her and even then it was like she was trying to hold back. She didn't laugh now but it was a very close thing as she pulled Declan closer to her and smiled into his hair. She kissed his cheeks and her breath smelled of apples and morning tea.
"I'll rinse them next time, okay?" she said. And Declan, feeling himself come down, nodded even as he clutched desperately at her shirt.
The apple Declan is holding now has a ring of dirt around the stem. He rubs at it with his thumb but the only thing that does is make his hands dirty. He gingerly sets the apple beside the bananas and wipes his hands on his pajama pants.
The last thing in the fruit bowl is an orange. And it's perfect. Declan himself doesn't know how to peel open an orange but he figures Ronan could probably figure it out. At the very least he could gnaw on the bitter skin. The orange doesn't fit in his pocket and he can't figure out a way to stuff it in his shirt without it rolling away. Going up the stairs, an all hands and feet affair, would be impossible while holding it. Even getting down from the table would be hard enough.
Declan is frustrated. Irritated not that his parents would leave in the middle of the night, that happened often enough, but that they wouldn't come back by morning. They always came back by morning. He exasperatedly expects Mór to not keep her word, but Niall, too? He is frustrated. Irritated. Angry. Upset.
But not afraid. Never afraid.
He shuffles carefully off the table empty-handed and grumbling. It's still quiet upstairs so at least Ronan hasn't woken. Niall and Mór still have time to return before things go horribly wrong. Declan braces himself for the worst.
As he's crawling up the stairs, almost halfway up, he hears the sounds of people coming up to the door and then the door swinging open. He looks over his shoulder and he is relieved at first to see his parents walk in. They are walking side by side, arms wrapped around each other, a breeziness to their movements, which isn't unusual by itself, but Declan feels something is wrong. It doesn't look right the longer he stares.
He catches it when Niall pulls his face away from Mór's and he spins her around in his arms. Her hair is longer, silky golden strands of it flinging out everywhere, and she's wearing a blue dress Declan's never seen before that twirls and catches in the sunlight. Declan wants to shout but he stops himself. That is, until he sees her face. The easy smile. The glittering look in her blue eyes. But most disturbing of all is her laugh and how the air is filled with its melody.
Here he is, stuck on the middle of the stairs, empty hands pressed into the wood grain, Ronan about to wake up hungry and alone any minute, dirt on his favorite pajamas, and his mother happy and smiling and laughing until it's the only sound he can hear.
Declan cries then.
She looks at him, this strange smiling version of his mother. His mind is whirling, smoking with the urgency of wanting to move move move but his hands and feet remain plastered in place. She's at the bottom of the stairs. Swiftly up two, three, four steps. Niall is doing nothing to stop this. Declan cries harder when she swoops him up in her arms and carries him to the top of the steps.
In the middle of his big gulping gasps, Declan can smell her. Niall and Mór usually return with a stink of mud and sweat after their long nights but this woman smells like the plump red flowers that had sat on their kitchen table all summer. Declan had loved the smell of them. He'd even pressed his cheeks into the bouquet and breathed in deep before realizing that, though the petals were velvet soft and fragrant, the stems were stickled with sharp points.
"Oh, my darling, what's wrong?" she asks him as she holds him close her, and he's too overwhelmed to move. His eyes are blurred by tears and he can't get a word out around his sobs.
He hears it then. A desperate cry pealing through the house and when Declan has calmed himself enough, pulling to escape from this woman, he realizes it isn't himself that he's hearing.
"Oh dear," the woman says, looking in the direction of Ronan's room.
Declan will do anything to keep her out of Ronan's room. He wants her as far away from Ronan as possible. He tries to hold her in place but she sets him down easily on the floor as she crosses the hall making a line for Ronan's room. Declan wobbles to his feet, though his entire body is shaking, and he can only think how she has to be stopped.
He's too late. She slips into his room.
Niall is beside him then, sitting on the ground with his arm outstretched to Declan. In his hand is a segment of orange and it stokes Declan's panic all over again.
"Ronan, Ronan, Ronan," Declan says desperately. Niall looks at him for a moment, chewing on a piece of orange, and then he nods.
"Oh? Ronan?" he says, swallowing, "He'll be okay. He's probably just wondering where everyone is."
That's exactly the problem, Declan wants to tell Niall. Why can't he see that that is exactly the problem?
"Come here," Niall says as he pulls Declan in for a hug. He puts an orange segment into Declan's hand and Declan sucks on it contemplatively. He sniffles a little bit but he can feel the ground settling beneath his feet. When all the juicy flavor is gone, he spits the webbed fibery part into Niall's expectant hand.
"Why don't you get your shoes and coat on?" Niall says, "It's almost time to feed the animals. Ronan is tough. He'll be alright."
Declan takes a deep breath and nods. Niall isn't always the most reliable but he tries. As Declan shuffles forlornly to his room, the woman steps out of Ronan's room with a vibrant, laughing Ronan in her arms. He's smothered with what looks to be cake frosting complete with sprinkles and he's laughing triumphantly as he curls his fingers in the woman's long blonde hair, smearing the strands with frosting. Mór would have never allowed it. But this woman is smiling and cheerful as she bounces Ronan in her arms.
"Love," she calls out, looking around for Niall. She smiles at Declan, though he keeps his face blank, before looking over his head to Niall. "He's gotten himself a bit messy. I'm going to give him a rinse. You and Declan will have to go feed the animals without us."
The very last thing Declan wants is to leave Ronan alone with her but he himself doesn't want to be anywhere near her at all. It's a distressing conundrum. He'll have to trust Niall's judgment because if Niall thinks it's okay then it will have to be okay.
Declan finds his coat and pulls it on then searches around his room for his shoes. He finds them under his bed and he reaches to drag them out one by one.
Over the summer, Niall had shown Declan how to put on his shoes and how to tighten them so they don't fall off. It took Declan some time, but he finally figured out the getting his foot into the shoe part. He still has trouble with the straps.
He's in the middle of his room, bending down on one knee, his other foot pressed down hard like Niall told him. The poky underside of the straps scratches against his fingertips and the soft fuzzy part of the strap tickles his knuckles. This, he knows, is correct. What he can't quite figure out is how to make the two parts meet. His fingers get in the way of the strap, and his knee gets in the way of his line of sight. Every time he shifts his knee his foot ends up too far away, but when he brings his foot back he can't see around his knee. The coat is pinching his shoulders back and it feels like he has to fight it to move. The room suddenly feels very hot.
He tries and he tries and he tries and he tries and
"Hey, hey, it's okay," comes Niall's voice. Declan looks up and his face feels hot and stinging.
"Do you want some help?" Niall asks, kneeling down. Declan nods his head furiously. It takes Niall no time at all to get the straps all fastened. This close, Declan can see the dark puffy bags around Niall's eyes. His father doesn't usually look this spent unless he's been avoiding making more secrets.
"There. Tell me if it's too tight." Declan shakes his head, sighing heavily, and Niall sighs too in agreement.
Niall walks ahead when they get outside but he keeps his pace slower than usual, enough for Declan to keep up without having to catch his breath. They come to the cow house and Niall calls out good morning to the cows as he usually does. Declan calls out good morning, too, and the cows shake their bells and moo happily in return as they totter out to the sound of their voices.
Niall picks up Declan and sets him on a wooden crate just beside the fenced in area. From here, he is just over the fence enough to watch but far enough away from curious nips from the cows. Some of them come up to Declan sniffing and nuzzling in his general direction. These cows are younger, newer. The older cows all wait by the barn door where they know Niall will emerge with buckets of hay and dried grass. Declan extends a hand that he knows will never reach the cows. Maybe if he leaned forward over the fence but he doesn't want to risk it so he stands there, still and careful, one hand out in front of him, and he watches them slowly lose interest.
Declan knows these cows will all eventually be taken to the slaughterhouse. He's been there before many times with his father.
The first time they had gone, Niall explained where they were going and what was going to happen. When he'd heard about it, Declan thought he understood. It wasn't until they arrived that Declan fully grasped the meaning. But he was quiet and he didn't make a fuss as he stayed in the car and watched as Niall brought two of their cows to a man in a sweat stained shirt. He was still quiet when Niall returned to the car and to his surprise Niall didn't badger him with questions.
Somewhere on the drive back, by this point Declan could feel his head drooping with sleep, Niall pulled the car someplace they'd never been before. He gently shook Declan into waking and helped him from the car. It was too soon to already be back home and when Declan looked around he saw they were someplace with a few shops all facing out to the street. Niall guided him to one with a few colorful, sagging balloons attached to a wooden sign. Declan didn't know how to read yet at this point but he clearly saw the picture painted in bright colors.
Niall ordered something called "chocolate chunk" and when Declan bit into it he found it bursting with sweetness, his mouth almost immediately numb from the cold. He'd never cared much for chocolate and he cared even less for the hard pieces that were mixed in. But Niall had given it to him and so Declan took another bite.
"How is it?" Niall asked.
Declan had a mouthful of those pesky crunchy pieces and he worked his tongue to make them small enough to swallow without chewing. A bright pain struck him behind the eyes and up to the very top of his head. He wanted to tell Niall that it was fine, that he appreciated the gesture but it wasn't his thing. But his mouth was cold and the way Niall was looking at him was almost completely, all the way sad. Declan had seen his father in various states of sadness, but this was more than Declan had ever known. He knew how much his father loved the cows.
"It's good," Declan lied.
"It is?" Niall asked. Declan offered him the spoon as proof and Niall took a bite (Declan had wished he had taken a much bigger bite). And then Niall agreed that it was good.
They traded taking bites back and forth until the whole thing was gone. Declan never really developed a taste for ice cream but every time after they went to the slaughterhouse, Niall would bring them here and they would sit beside each other on the high stools facing the street, sharing a bowl. Declan thought it was the least he could do to keep Niall from becoming completely, all the way sad.
Niall is beside Declan now, leaning against the fence from the inside while Declan remains standing carefully still on the crate outside.
"Are you ready to go back to the house?" Niall asks without looking over at Declan.
Declan does not want to seem too eager to get back to Ronan, but he also does not want to have to face that woman. He thinks it over for a minute before shaking his head.
"Do you want to stay here, then?" Niall asks when he notices. Declan shakes his head again.
"Will you tell me what you want to do?" Niall asks after giving Declan a searching gaze. Declan shakes his head a third time.
The cows have eaten through the pile of hay Niall provided and it's nearly time for them to be let out to roam the pastures for the day. Some of them have already begun to line up by the far gate they know Niall will eventually open. He stays there, though, beside Declan with his arms crossed against the cool morning.
"You didn't seem so happy when we got back," Niall says slowly, still looking out at the cows. "Did anything happen last night?"
Declan doesn't say anything because it's not a very good question. What happened last night and what happened this morning have nothing to do with each other. Niall waits and when Declan doesn't answer, neither by word nor by movement of his head, he turns around and props his arms up on the fence, resting his chin over his hands.
"Can I tell you a secret?" Niall says, looking at Declan directly.
Declan had been so caught up in his worry for Ronan, in his fear of that smiling woman, that he hadn't even noticed the very big, very bad thing. Usually he's so attuned to Niall and his secrets, especially new ones. He waits quietly and listens because he knows Niall is going to tell him anyway.
"Your mom and me," Niall begins, "we were talking about some things and - "
Clarity falls over Declan like the sun beams in spring. He remembers watching from the window as the clouds rolled by, bringing rain and gray with them, then blowing off into the distance while the sun took its turn, only for the clouds to come back later. It hits him like that. A sudden burst of bright, warm light. He doesn't need to hear Niall explain it because he's seen it.
The smiling woman is the secret. The secret is the smiling woman.
With her skin that smells like flowers and her hair like sunbeams and the overjoyed way she easily wears Mór's face like a costume.
Declan is struck by the vision of one day leading this woman down to the slaughterhouse like all the other living secrets. Like the cows mingling restlessly by the gate and all the other secret cows before them that Niall had let Declan see, and touch, and name. He vividly imagines the complete tilt of sadness that will overcome Niall. A bowl of ice cream won't be enough.
He makes a decision there, standing still on the crate, that he will gaurd not only his heart but his father's too. He makes a note to think about what he can say, what he can do, in the horrific eventuality that his strange, secret mother will one day be given away.
"It's good," he says suddenly, nodding emphatically. He reaches out a hand to put on Niall's shoulder. "It's good."
Niall pauses whatever it is he had been saying and looks Declan over with that same searching gaze from earlier. One of the cows nudges Niall with its head and he breaks his attention away. When he returns from letting the cows out Niall doesn't seem eager to pick up the conversation and for that Declan is glad. He doesn't much want to talk about it either.
With one hand, Niall pushes open the small gate in the fence, and with the other her lifts Declan from the box. Declan wants to be sure that Niall knows just how fond Declan is of him and so he locks his arms around his father's neck, and squeezes his legs around him. Niall chokes on a gasp.
"Not so tight, Declan," he tells him, but he doesn't drop him. Niall closes the gate with one hand then shifts Declan so he isn't drooping perilously to the ground.
He carries Declan back to the house and all the while Declan fights with himself. He wants to make Niall promise that they will not take his secret mother to the slaughterhouse but doesn't want to put the idea in Niall's head if he hasn't already thought about it.
"When did you get so strong?" Niall says. "You'll be heavier than the cows before you know it."
Niall laughs and Declan can feel his chest rumble with it. He chooses then to be quiet. He chooses to not mention it. And he chooses to trust that Niall is not planning to and has never thought to bring his secret mother to the slaughterhouse.
Because Declan hears Niall's words for what they mean.
Such a good boy.