The Pig Goes to Hog Heaven (28 page)
Kitty, Kieran at her side, looked down at the snout ring in her hand. She felt, across her shoulders, the lightest touch, no more than a passing breeze that had chosen to go no further, as if a weightless mantle had descended upon her. She made no move to shrug it off.
Her voice, uninflected but firm, said, “There was a runt pig given by the Widow Colville to a youth named Taddy who had cut her winter turf. Faithfully the piglet was nurtured, fed with food meant for the young man himself. It grew healthier by the hour under his tender care. A secret gift known to no one but himself, it was to be given to a fair young maid named Brid, then given back to him at their marriage, the dowry her family could never afford. But the two were hanged, and on that day, at that moment, the pig disappeared into the wild. From then on, its descendants, now ghosts themselves, like the fine youth and the fair maid for whom the nurtured pig had been intended, whenever there was a confluence of the full moon and the ancient celebration of Lughnassadh, the Festival of Bread, would appear on the western slope of Crohan Mountain, a sign to Brid and Taddy that they, too, were waiting for the distant day when they would all be freed from the ghostly bondage decreed by the ghastly hanging. That day has come. They'll come no more: not Brid, not Taddy, and never more the pig.”
Kitty fell silent, keeping within her heart another bit of revealed truth. From the angle and the direction of the march the exultant pigs were taking, it was apparent that they were headed, as had been so many other Irish before them, for a city in the United States of America called Boston.
W
ith this publication of the third book of my trilogy, I want to take particular note of Delphinium Books and its publishers, Cecile Engel and Lori Milken, and of their marketing director, Carl Lennertz. In contrast to the innumerable corporate houses that rejected these books with their honest admission that they “didn't know how to market them,” Ms. Engel, Ms. Milken, and Mr. Lennertz took on the risks that had so affrighted their craven competitors and made possible the book you hold in your hand. To them, many thanksâwhich I hope is commensurate with their self-assured audacity. Also, and not for the first time, I express my gratitude to Noelle Campbell-Sharpe and her Cill Rialaig Project in County Kerry, Ireland, where I was given hospice and experienced a sustained inspiration. Similar privileges and sustenance were provided by Yaddo and the MacDowell Colony. My gratitude gives a measure to infinity. My agent, Wendy Weil, and her incomparable associates, Emily Forland, Emma Peterson, and Ann Torrago, define the words
tenacious
,
faithful
, and
encouraging
. My appreciation is as unbounded as is their continuing dedication. Help and encouragement also came from friends: Van Varner, Daniel D'Arezzo, David Barbour, and Candace Wait. The librarians of the Saratoga Springs Public Library and the Peterborough Free Library gave eager and generous assistance. Then there is Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, whose depth of involvement as editor was as rare as it was welcome. As the beneficiary of all this needed help, I consider myself the most fortunate writer I know.
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Joseph Caldwell
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ISBN: 978-1-4532-0657-7
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