"Eamon!" Catriona Gallagher called, standing in the door of her house. She shaded her eyes as the wind whipped her skirt and apron around her legs. "Eamon Gallagher!" She called again. "'Tis time for supper!"

A young boy appeared out of a grove of trees. "I'm not hungry!" He trudged up to the house, dragging a stick behind him.

"I know you're thinking you're not hungry," Catriona replied, "but you've got to eat anyway. If you don't eat, you'll be skinny when you grow up."

"I'm already skinny," Eamon grinned suddenly.

"No, you're not." Catriona squeezed his cheek. "What've I told you about bringing sticks in the house, Eamon?"

"Ah..." Eamon fidgeted and drew circles in the floor with the stick. "You told me not to."

"So I did." Catriona looked down her nose at Eamon. "Take it outside, now."

Eamon grumbled and shuffled outside where he threw the stick down, then walked back inside. "What're we eating?"

"The same thing that we had last night - stew." Catriona began to ladle stew out into bowls.

"'Tis sick I am of stew!" Eamon poked out his lower lip and rested his arms on the table. "We never have anything else."

"Eamon!" Catriona frowned at her nephew. "You'll eat what's put in front of you!"

"Yes, aintín," Eamon grumbled. "Is there meat in it?" He asked a minute later.

Catriona sighed. "Yes, there is. Is there anything else you'd like to be asking me?" Her voice was calm and still.

Eamon heeded the warning in his aunt's voice. "No, aintín," he mumbled, pushing his dark hair off his forehead and picking up his spoon.

"Good." Catriona put her spoon in her bowl and looked at Eamon expectantly. He looked puzzled for a moment, then dropped his spoon and bowed his head. Catriona prayed, "Our Father in Heaven, bless this food and bless us as well. Amen."

"Amen," Eamon echoed. He and Catriona both crossed themselves before beginning to eat. "Aunt Catriona," he said as he ate his stew, "I saw another boy today."

"Did you talk to him?"

"No, he was riding a horse."

"A boy on a horse!" Catriona exclaimed. "Eamon, are you telling tales again?"

"No, he really was!" Eamon insisted. "He had a blue coat and tall boots. May I have a pair of tall boots?"

"Eamon...boots are too dear for us," Catriona said gently. "And so is the blue coat," she added.

"How did he have them?" Eamon demanded.

"His family must either be rich, or they're Britionach. Or both," Catriona answered. She set down her bowl. "Finish your stew, Eamon. Then I need more peat for the fire."

"Yes, aintín." Eamon scraped his spoon around his bowl, attempting to get every last drop of the stew. "Meat makes everything better," he murmured, rising from the table. He took a spade from beside the door and hefted it over his shoulder. "I'll be back," he called, disappearing into the growing darkness.

He walked a little way from the house to a small peat bog. "Sure, you had to wait 'til dark to be telling me that," he grumbled to himself, thrusting the spade into the packed ground and cutting a rectangular shape. Then he carefully levered the piece of earth out of the ground, placed it on the ground, and set to work cutting another peat square.

It was near a quarter of an hour later when Eamon let himself back into the cottage, struggling to hold the spade with his arms full of peat squares. He set the stack of dried earth on the hearth with a huff and leaned the spade by the door.

Catriona looked up from her knitting. "Go raibh maith agat, Eamon. Would you put some peat on the fire?"

Eamon knelt by the hearth, curling his toes up in his leather shoes. He took a square of peat in his hands, placed it carefully on the fire, and watched as the flames ate sullenly at the compressed earth and leaves. "Aintín, someday I will have a coat as fine as that boy's."

Catriona chuckled softly. "And someday I'll be the next Gráinne Mhaol." She began humming a tune about the brave woman known to the British as Grace O'Malley.

She laughs at me today. But I will have a coat like that someday. Eamon stared into the flames and felt his eyes closing. He opened them, felt them closing again, and pressed his fists against his eyelids.

He felt Catriona's arms sliding around him, lifting him up off the dirt floor. She carried him over to his bed and tucked him in. "Sleep well, Eamon." Catriona kissed him on the forehead and Eamon let his eyes slide shut.