Wolfhowl Mountain

Wolfhowl Manor Part 1

Prologue

1851: How the Blight Came Upon Port Braseham

As he tried to remember how that quiet, wistful tune went, Eamonn Callaghan's mind wandered to sweet Alva. He had been so hard on her these last several months. He pictured her in his mind, standing limply, her petite body slouched around her swollen belly and her thin arms hanging at her sides. She stared at the floor, dark thoughts swirling in her eyes. So much had changed in such a short time. So much... Eamonn watched her heart break in her eyes each time he raised his voice toward her, each time he huffed into his moustache and stomped angrily from the room. He didn't mean it, but didn't she know? Couldn't she see? It was all for her, for the baby.

But no, Alva did not understand. How could she? Eamonn had kept so many things from her that she could never understand the truth. But he had only wanted to protect her and the baby. Alva had become so delicate and he didn't want anything to jeopardize her health with the baby coming. He did not want Alva to worry. And there was certainly no shortage of worries.

The strange storm that whipped the coast early last summer destroyed everything they had worked for. Eamonn could not pay his workers on the trawler or on their land because there had been no fish and no crops since the storm. He could not afford to repair the damaged and unfinished east wing of the house, and Alva had wanted so badly for it to be ready for the baby. Rather than explain to her that they were losing money, rather than admit he was relying on his cousin Seamus for their necessities, Eamonn let her spend freely on the baby and the nursery. It made her happy and he so desperately wanted her to be happy.

It was true that Alva had asked what was wrong many times, but Eamonn was a proud man, so he lied. But the more he lied, the more curious Alva became or the more money she spent on the baby so that every time he looked at his wife, Eamonn's head reeled with resentment. It was Alva who had wanted this land and this house, and who constantly asked when it would be finished. It was Alva who was so desperate to fill the house with their children. It was Alva who spent the money they did not have. His resentment would build and build until he exploded at her, berated her and ordered her around. Nothing she did was enough to quell his growing bitterness.

Yet Alva did not complain. She went about her duties as wife and future mother much as she had before. But the circles beneath her eyes grew darker and the red blush of life drained from her cheeks. Her rich, dark brown hair faded and was slowly being taken over by gray. She looked weak and sick, sometimes too exhausted to even hang the laundry on the line.

Eamonn told himself that she was just exhausted from the housework and her pregnancy, from all her hard work in trying to please him. She was so exhausted in fact, that she had started to have bouts of delirium, talking to herself or some invisible presence. He heard her sometimes in the nursery, or up in the library, talking as if to an old friend. "He does not know what he is saying," she would say. "He is a proud man and things have been hard for him since the storm. Things have been hard on everyone since the storm. Things will be better once the baby comes. Things will be better. When the baby comes." It was not until Alva accused Eamonn of hating the baby, of not wanting her or their child that he realized just how cruel he's become. She'd screamed at him, hot tears staining her cheeks as she threatened to throw herself into the Atlantic from the cliff behind the house.

Eamonn took her in his arms then and whispered, "Hush, Alva. Of course I want you and the baby! Of course. I love you both. I love you." He rocked her back and forth, telling her that he was sorry, that things would be better. He would be better. He promised her everything would be alright.

But the labor came, and then the baby, and... and nothing changed. The fish had all but disappeared from the coast and still no crops would grow on their land. Alva sunk into a deep depression and left the baby, constantly crying, alone in the nursery while she retreated to the library for hours at a time, and Eamonn did not interfere. Although Alva refused to speak to Eamonn or spend even a moment in the same room with him, there was no shortage of whispered words from her lips when she was in the library. So Eamonn spent as much time as possible in town looking for work as a handyman, and to get away from the oppressive sadness that now infected the house like a pestilence. However, if he was honest with himself, what really frightened Eamonn was that sometimes it seemed that Alva's voice wasn't the only one he heard slipping through the cracks in the walls. Sometimes he thought a voice whispered back...