Chapter 39: Rake Over the Ashes

4 months earlier

She stood erect. As her long curly red hair danced in the wind and rain, she pushed back a strand stuck to her forehead. She placed both hands on her hips, she stared straight at the government force taking aim at her and sang:

Proudly the note of the trumpet is sounding;

Loudly the war cries arise on the gale;

Fleetly the steed by Lough Swilly is bounding,

To join the thick squadrons on Saimear’s green vale.

On, ev’ry mountaineer,

Strangers to flight or fear,

Rush to the standard of dauntless Red Hugh.

Bonnaught and Gallowglass,

Throng from each mountain pass.

On for old Erin, “O’Donnell Abú!”

She picked up the sack she had dropped. Meticulously, she gathered up every cartridge that had fallen on the ground. She made her way forward as another bullet, the fourth one, missed her. Ashe sung:

Princely O’Neill to our aid is advancing

With many a chieftain and warrior clan.

A thousand proud steeds in his vanguard are prancing

’Neath the borderers brave from the Banks of the Bann:

Many a heart shall quail

Under its coat of mail.

Deeply the merciless foeman shall rue

When on his ears shall ring,

Borne on the breeze’s wing,

Tír Chonaill’s dread war-cry, “O’Donnell Abú!”

Piercing the night sky, a fifth bullet came her way triggering a third verse:

Wildly o’er Desmond the war-wolf is howling;

Fearless the eagle sweeps over the plain;

The fox in the streets of the city is prowling--

All who would scare them are banished or slain!

Grasp ev’ry stalwart hand

Hackbut and battle brand--

Pay them all back the debt so long due;

Norris and Clifford well

Can of Tirconnell tell;

Onward to glory - “O'Donnell abú!”

And this went on for a while: gruesome scene yet poetic. Prowling on the front line, Ashe stricken by bullets. That smile on her face echoing an obscene enjoyment. She was the hunted haunting the hunters. Singing a new verse for every empty casing. She was their aim, yet over and over again they failed to connect. But they too, found delight in their gaucherie. It sparked joy, in a most inhuman way.

Ashe went on, crawling down, standing up, disappearing behind the rubbles of a tent. She went on, sack in hand and stood up to the enemies. If her friends had seen her, they would have been mortified.

The weather was still ragging, Ashe was singing.

he was no ordinary being, certainly not just a woman. She held power, she was power, she was ephemeral invulnerable strength. She was a million women. Bullets were running after her, she was elusive: playing a hide and seek game with death.

A bullet, with intention, finally reached the woman. She spun unto herself and collapse in the sleet. It looked like the end had come for her, yet the fire ragging within burned ever stronger. Ashe had fallen to the ground, only to erupt once again. She stood up, a trickle of blood running down her face. She raised both arms to the sky as the clouds parted way. She looked around, looking for the owner of the bullet and from her parted lips came yet another verse:

Sacred the cause that Clan Connell’s defending-

The altars we kneel at and homes of our sires;

Ruthless the ruin the foe is extending-

Midnight is red with the plunderer’s fires.

On with O’Donnell then,

Fight the old fight again…

She did not finish. Another bullet came her way. Face first, she landed at their feet.

I was never meant to grow old anyway, she thought, as immobile she laid in the sleet.

The fire had been quelled.

And as she gently bled…

All had been said and done.

The girl finally had her fun.

And for last testament, Ashe became the ground.

There had been no use for her to pick up the cartridges; merely living off a litterature fantasy. Her work had been done earlier; the task that really mattered. She could die with no fear, it had all been worth it. She could finally die. She could finally leave this place.

Growing up wasn’t for her, life had been painful. Stripped of all rights, snatched from her family, no children she would bare, not in this reality. She wouldn’t marry, she wouldn’t have love. She wouldn’t carry on the generational trauma. It would all end here, it would all end with her. It would end with a bang, with her youth’s vigor.

Growing old just meant she would have had to renounce desires. She had seen enough to know; she didn’t want to face that fact. She had done well, many years counting. Everyone has a role to play, she had said. And played she did well. Some of us are supporting characters, she had explained. But she was glad, it was finally the end.

She needed not pick up the cartridges, she needed not die. But still she did…

For the first time, she finally felt in full control of her own destiny.