Saint Mercy House

Ireland, 1964.When Father Michael Byrne is sent to Saint Mercy House, a remote institution for orphaned children and unmarried mothers in rural County Cavan, he understands that the posting is intended to give him something he badly needs: a quiet place to put the mistakes of his past behind him.At first, the house appears to offer exactly that, but Saint Mercy House has its own ways of keeping quiet.Children whisper a strange rhyme after dark, names disappear from registers without explanation, and young women leave suddenly for new lives nobody can quite account for, while questions about those who have gone are met with the same careful assurances and closed doors. Then Michael begins hearing something inside the walls, three faint knocks followed by a pause, repeated patiently in the darkness.The more he tries to understand the place, the more he finds himself drawn into a history nobody in the surrounding village seems willing to discuss, and towards the unsettling possibility that the silence surrounding Saint Mercy House has been maintained for far longer than anyone is prepared to admit.Yet Michael has kept silent once before, when speaking out might have cost him everything, and he has lived with the consequences ever since, so this time, walking away may prove harder.Because some houses keep secrets, and Saint Mercy House has had a long time to learn how to keep those who discover them.