This is the second book in The Lorn Trilogy. Kirsty believes she has found perfect love until an unpredictable event shatters their shared idyll.
In the aftermath of disaster Kirsty connects with a girl named Eileen. An unlikely friendship blossoms between the them as they join a group of united voices fighting to for adopted people to have access to their personal history.
A legacy continues to exist in Ireland and the USA which affects millions of people. Some things cannot be ignored.
Re-enter Kirsty’s world in the second part of her quest for identity.
Can lies be justified?
EXCERPT
Located on the outskirts of a small town is a place unknown to most. There sits a house with character, home to a little black rain cloud named Peg.
The postman was the first to christen Peg ‘the little black cloud’. He felt it appropriate, for more often than not reaching this uninspiring road, it rained and the sole inhabitant never smiled. Peg did not mind what anyone called her. Why would she? Eccentricity is rooted in not minding. It was in a fit of madness she’d painted the woodwork orange in a county otherwise considered green. The two bedrooms upstairs became purple and the kitchen cluttered with possessions, mostly useless, never seen by anyone.
The chapel was her sanctuary. She wasn’t united with the rest of the congregation nor had she a liking for the priest or any of his kind. She craved the other quality the building offered. Vigils and rituals did nothing to impress. No one saw her at gatherings dictated by the church calendar, Easter, Christmas or Sundays, God forbid she be found there on the Sabbath.
Candlelight and solitude is what she craved. The uniting with a greater power which could not be understood acted as a magnet which found her return day after day, week after week, year in year out.
Every visit she sat on the third pew back from Our Lady’s altar. The Mother of Christ looked benignly upon her. Mary and she were similar, excluding the Immaculate Conception. Christ’s mother had been fourteen, they said, Peg had been fourteen, a fact. An angel came down on Mary, whereas Peg had an animal who tried to pass for a man come down on her. A holy man, he was not. The dog collar failed in executing conviction. The angel she imagined would have been soft, gentle, Mary would hardly have known the result until her belly started to swell, but these two women from different eras still shared elements from the past.
When Peg gave birth the infant was wrapped in swaddling clothes. One day the priest came to take her baby. The brides of Christ, who adored the priest, willingly swallowed his manipulative lies. Gone for adoption, they said, to a better life. Dear sweet baby Elaine was renamed Eileen and was never to be seen again.
The nuns dealt with it, as only they knew how. The archbishop took control and moved the beast to betray trust generated by feasting on new girls. Peg, who was returned to normal, should be grateful for their favour and accepting of castigation for her foolish ways. The wider community whispered and smirked wondering what became of the bastard she bore. Even now, late each night, she hears the echoes of an infant’s cry.
It wasn’t much of an existence; compassion was not something she’d encountered at all. From this she learned to hate everyone and everything.
She supposed kindness was the way she felt towards the stray cat which wandered into the kitchen one day and set up home. It seemed content, purring when she fed it scraps and it sat on her knee during cold winter nights.
Mary the mother of Christ wasn’t married either, but because of an angel the child she bore was not labelled a bastard. Peg wondered if the difference came in being betrothed. Catholic priests did not qualify as angels or betrothed.