Hollow Oaks

by Paddy Kelly

  Gernaud shuffled his chair across the carpet, so close that his spicy after-shave wrapped me like a scarf. "One of them said their name? They never tell me their names. Can I meet it?"

  "Her. And no. But if you didn't talk to Ishbéal, how do you know all that stuff?"

  "How?" He leaned back with an innocent shrug. "I hide recorders in the places we are to meet for trading. I come late, they talk while waiting, and I retrieve the recorders after."

  It took a mouthful of sweet tea for that to settle in.

  "Wait, what? You're spying on the fairies?"

  "Yes. And save your angry looks. They interest me. Their culture and history. It does not interest you? Even a little?" My blank face was his reply. "You see, this is the amazing thing. You have dealings with Tara for centuries, and none of you seem curious about who live there. Small humans, with a culture and history of their own. All ignored."

  "What's to learn? They're small people in a wood with a queen and loads of gold."

  "Unbelievable. No sense of curiosity, not a spark—"

  "At least we don't work at making them our enemies, like you seem keen on doing."

  "Oh, you don't say? At least no enemy of mine has tried to burn my house down."

  A ringing silence settled between us. A few seconds in, Gernaud sighed.

  "McCullough, I am not sure if you are the arsehole here, or if I am. But you are a mess today, I see that. So if you need a bed, there is my extra room. It is yours."

  A flicker of gladness in the damp rag that was my soul. I weighed his offer. Tempting, but … but no. I couldn't trust Gernaud, not all the way. I couldn't trust anyone.

  I jammed my feet back into my boots and stood. "Look, thanks for the booze, and the tea. But I need to sort this out myself. It's not your problem."

  Laces trailing, I strode past him to the door. It opened to my angry yank, and I stepped out.

  "What will you do?" I turned and he was behind me. "You have some plan?"

  "I don't. But I'll get one. After I lie down and cry a bit. See you later."

  I strode up the short hallway, inhaling dust and the smell of bike oil, and descended the stairs — clomp clomp clomp — finally reaching the front door and out.

  In the world outside, it was late as hell, and the air had a chilly bite to it. I strode past rubbish bags and parked cars, with all my thoughts piled into one corner of my head.

  The thing was, I'd lied — I did have a plan. It required tracking down a few things, and making a trip to a portal oak. And annoyingly I couldn't start until tomorrow.

  Too tired to walk to my hotel, I flagged down a taxi. And after I'd climbed in, shut the door, and spoke my destination, a thought hit me so hard it made me gasp.

  Gernaud hadn't seen me in a long while, maybe five years. Before the hormone therapy, before my voice had dropped, before my face had gained hair and new angles. And he hadn't commented on the change at all. Not a word. Not even a raised eyebrow.

  Monsieur Gernaud, it was becoming clear, was not the bastard I'd assumed. And sitting there, drinking his booze, bitching about my plight … maybe it wasn't the worst way to spend an evening.

  I spun that thought, but only for a second. Because the answer was still no. People couldn't be trusted. None of them. They always let you down, one way or another.

  I lay back in the seat, to the hum of the engine, the drone of the radio.

  Return to my hotel, get some solid sleep, that was the plan. And then, to work. I could pity myself, or I could stand up and do something. And I wasn't the pitying kind.

  So let this shitty day run its course. Good riddance to it. All I could do was see to it that the one coming after would be the one where I started putting everything right.

  And if luck wasn't going to help, then I'd just have to go it alone.

  Nine in the evening, and a whole day spent running around, calling in favours, trying to collect what I needed. And now cold air nibbled my nose as I crunched my way across the frosted grass of Marlay Park, trying to not look like a person on their way to a tree.

  Apart from the yells of far-off kids, this corner of the park was quiet. I reached the portal oak, and ducked inside, exhaling in cloudy spurts. My hand slipped into my right trouser pocket, feeling for the fur ball of the anchor, the one tuned to Tara. I found it, grabbed it.

  A kick against my fingers, a flash of purple, and a jagged shift. Then, on the next breath in, came warmer air, laced with forest floor. Outside, the sudden chitter of insects, the gobble of the night birds. Out I climbed, and up I stood. In Tara.

  No moon yet, although stars peeked through the canopy, trickling down light. I gave my eyes a few minutes, and as soon as I could see the ground, I took a careful step.

  The first thing I did was trip on a root. "Shit," I rasped, as I staggered a few steps across rock, and paused for a few big breaths to find my balance.

  "You are lucky I am not a wolf," said a voice from the dark to my left.

  Heart-clenching panic as I spun around and saw, five metres away, the long shadow of a fallen tree. It took some seconds to make out Ishbéal sitting on it, her fur glowing a faint silvery blue. On the mossy rock below the trunk, its front paws out, sat her hare.

  "Some warning would be nice next time," I muttered, stepping closer.

  An angry grunt from the hare when I was two steps away, so I stopped and squatted down.

  "I did not expect you so soon," Ishbéal said. "Have you already succeeded?"

  I sat with a sigh and folded my legs. "I wish. No. There's been trouble."

  I told her what had happened. From the trees came a sound like somebody scratching on a washboard, ending with a nasal honk. When it had faded, she spoke.

  "So you have solved nothing. You have just created more problems."

  "Excuse me? Someone burned my house down. My stuff, my money, everything. Including a bunch of craft items I was ready to sell to you lot. All that work—"

  "You are certain the craft items were burned? Or do you blindly assume?"

  "The house was torched, wasn't it? They took my damn safe."

  Ishbéal shook her tiny head. "Daoine mór. They stole your craft items, the ones we seek, as they stole your gold. Which means you have added to their pile. If it had burned, it would be better. But now the anam is diluted even further. You have helped them."

  I stared. Damn, she was right. Fuckers robbed me then burned the house to hide it. Since items charged on Earth would only be useful to crafters on Tara, unless they had contacts among the small folk the only reason would be to further jam up the flow.

  I pulled out my ciggs, and paused. "Ah. Is it okay if I…? It's been a shit day."

  "It is fine," she said. "Blow some smoke this way. I enjoy the smell."

  I paused in my lighting up. "You do? Do you get a lot of smokers over here?"

  "The other one, with the strange name, he brings the cigg sticks to trade."

  I blinked at her as I sucked in the flame from the lighter. "Gernaud brings you cigarettes?"

  "We use them in ceremony. And the queen has a taste for them."

  I exhaled with disbelief, blowing it towards the fairy. So Gernaud was trading tobacco with the small folk. Fucking hell. What was next? Guns? Tanks? Submarines?

  "Anyway," I said. "Let me show you why I came."

  I reached around and lifted off my backpack. From it I pulled a leather satchel which I opened out on the dark ground, revealing three small bowls, one of beaten copper, one of silver, one of hollowed-out bone. From a pocket in the satchel I removed three silver spoons, and three stoppered glass vials containing, respectively, blood, piss and saliva.

  I felt Ishbéal's big-eyed stare in the dark. "You want a scrying?"

  "We need info on the bastards who burned my house, and right now the vibes are fresh and the trail is hot. So we ask the aether, and we hope it delivers answers."

  Ishbéal dropped from the trunk and walked towards the objects I'd put on the ground, as the
hare warily watched. They were human sized, so to Ishbéal the bowls were like woks, the spoons like trowels.

  "I am no expert at scrying. We should fetch one who is more skilled—"

  "And that'll take what, days? The trail's cold by then. We do it now, while there's still vibes, and maybe we can stop it all here and now. Think how thrilled your queen would be."

  Silence, as she considered it. Insects were taking a liking to my hands. I flapped them off and took a few pulls on the cigg, it apparently being okay to smoke in front of the fairies now.

  "The door to each vision opens only once. If you scry now, you may be wasting—"

  "I know. Call it a calculated risk. Now let's go before that piss turns cold."

  She reached down to arrange the bowls in a line, placing a spoon beside each one. "Fresh blood must be used. Hair also. And still-warm skin. You did not bring any of your teeth?"

  "Just the ones I'm using. Do we really need them?"

  "It will work without. And a source of anam. I assume you have that?"

  I pulled a skinny blue jar from a pocket in my rucksack. I'd bought it from my customer, Maud, who'd also provided me with the scrying kit. Or, more correctly, rented it.

  Opening the jar, I tipped out some eggshell fragments. They'd been charged up in Maud's frame. I felt their slow tingle. From the leather satchel I slid a small silver scissors. The fairies hated steel with a passion so tools here had to be made from other metals.

  "In there," she said, pointing. I crushed some eggshell, and sprinkled it onto the copper bowl. Following her instructions, I clipped some hair into the bone bowl and trickled out the saliva I'd gathered earlier. It poured like clotted glue.

  She indicated the silver bowl. "And here, blood and skin. Both warm."

  After I'd clipped off some skin from around my fingernails, I drew the blade across the finger and squeezed six drops of blood into the silver bowl. She mixed it with the skin.

  "Now," she said. "Be ready. Make your mind as calm as it can be."

  Shapes darted overhead, possibly bats, as Ishbéal mixed everything back and forth with the silver spoons, before combining the lot into one dirty brown mess on the silver bowl.

  "Your hand." I held it out. She painted a circle with the goo on my palm, then scooped a handful, disturbingly, into her mouth.

  "Centre the one you wish to know of," she said through the mess. "Expel all else."

  The one I wished to know of. Which was, of course, the tricky part, as I'd no idea who had torched my house. But I had one suspect — the fella with the sunglasses.

  I'd no idea if he was involved, and Crafters Lodge wouldn't even give me a name. But I had fuck all else to go on. So I tried to recall his scent, the way he carried himself, the face behind the shades. And I made him expand to fill my head.

  The fairy's small hands, pressed to mine, grew cold, then stung, as if thorny. I bit my lip, keeping the man centred in my mind, holding on, riding out the building pain—

  A small orgasm unfolded in my head, followed a warm calm, like a head-rush in a sauna. I basked in it for a second, then opened my eyes, and looked down.

  Ishbéal lay on the ground, staring up, as if stoned. "Jars," she slurred. "Some against a wall, others broken, around a square hole. A human, wearing a dark hood. She is kneeling by the hole, with a rope of beads. And a lake, its waters black as oil."

  I waited for more, but no more came. "Is that it?" I said.

  "Yes." She sat up. "A dark lady, a square hole, perhaps a well. And a dark lake."

  I shook my head. "Then we're fucked, because what use is any of that?"

  "The jars I saw were blue. So I was correct — somebody is collecting items of craft. That is useful, surely. And a rope of beads … is that not in your nailing-up-the-man religion?"

  "Ah, rosary beads! Sure. But you didn't see this dark lady's face? Or where this well is?"

  "I told you all that I saw. A scrying does not give meaning, only sight. But I can take your visions to the queen's scryers. Maybe they can explain it better for me."

  I thought about that, staring into the shadows shifting behind her.

  "Fine," I said. "Do that. Guess it can't hurt."

  She stood, wiping her hands on her fur. "The way is far. It will be midnight tomorrow before I return. Be here then. And start looking in your world. We need to find them."

  I nodded heavily, feeling like I'd wasted an evening as well as the day before it. I might not be back at square one, but I wasn't too many squares away from it.

  Ishbéal strode to her hare, and climbed on, settling into what I now saw was a saddle.

  I waved. "Thanks for trying, anyway. And have a good—"

  The hare took off, a furry streak into the murk. They were headed north, probably across the Liffey and on to wherever the queen was located. I remained sitting after they'd gone, feeling the soft pulse of my finger where I'd nicked it, turning the scrying over in my head.

  A woman with rosary beads. In fucking Dublin. Throw a stone and you'd probably hit two. The square well, then. At least that was googleable. Maybe I'd start there.

  I took my time cleaning up the scrying gear, using water from my bottle, and tucked them away. The trees creaked around me, full of sounds — the mraoow of a cat-thing, the clatter and chik of insects. I had another cigg, then slid the pack onto my back and stood.

  I considered taking a stroll, to find something to fill the now-empty charging jar in my pocket. Maybe not a great plan, thinking back to the last time. There was always the lepp burial caves, a few kilometres away. Hard to beat teeth from a fresh body.

  But no. I promised the fairy to start looking for leads, so I crossed the small distance back to the portal oak, and slipped inside. Squatting, I grabbed the anchor in my pocket, feeling the kick, awaiting the flash and the shifting across … but neither came.

  I pulled out the anchors and prodded them in the dark, first the one for Tara, covered in fur, and the Earth one, wrapped in suede. Again, a kick, but I remained where I was.

  The first nibble of worry. I scanned the ground, in case something was sticking into the opening of the tree, a branch or an animal, screwing up the connection.

  But no. The only thing in the oak was me.

  I climbed out and studied the tree in the starlight. Nobody had cut a chunk from it. And the sun hadn't popped up a few hours early to close it off either. Weird.

  Back in I slipped, panic starting to bubble and thicken. I spread my fingers around the anchor, held my breath, then one, two, three, grab. But nothing, beyond the tiniest of kicks.

  I remained crouching, staring into the darkness, bent legs starting to tremble.

  It wasn't the anchors. They'd worked a few hours earlier. It was those bastards who'd burnt my house. They'd followed me to Marlay Park and, after I'd slipped through the tree, they'd stuffed it with bricks or branches. Enough inert mass, whatever it was, to jam the portal.

  Squatting there, with numbness spreading up from my feet, I felt like a prize idiot. Why hadn't I asked Gernaud for help? He could have watched the tree while I'd gone through, made sure it stayed open. Maybe caught the ones I was after, or at least seen their faces.

  But no. I'd been too proud to let him get involved. Too greedy for fairy gold.

  I tried once more, getting the same result, then hammered the tree with a fist until it stung. I had to face it — I was stuck in the wrong world. And when the fiery sun passed the horizon, and its terrible rays broke through the trees, I'd be burnt to screaming, selfish cinders.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The time was half past three in the a.m. and I was running in a panting panic through the woods, in what I hoped was the right direction to save my life.

  Yelling and waving my torch around hadn't brought Ishbéal back. She's gone too far on that furry rocket of hers. So I'd cooked up a desperate plan — reach the other portal oak, about nine kilometres away and across a wild river. It was unreliable, it lay in a swamp, and maybe it ha
d also been disabled by the ones who were, it now seemed, out to kill me.

  But it was my only option. At least I was relatively sure of the way, having a small laminated map of the area, or the Earth version of it, showing the two portal oaks, as well as the river, along with a compass. So things weren't entirely hopeless. Not yet.

  The river would be an issue. But Ishbéal had mentioned crossing it, which meant, maybe, a ford. I also knew that Cormac, years back, had nailed a few reflectors to that tree, and to the one I usually used, for a situation just like this. So if I got to the general area, I'd be able to find it by sweeping a torch around. It would attract every last bug, but I'd find it.

  And if it didn't work? I'd take that then. For the moment, priority one was running.

  The woods fought my progress with snarled bushes, face-slapping saplings, fallen trunks. My breath was soon in shreds, and when the moon slid up, it didn't help much, as all I saw through the trees were more trees. But I pressed on, daubed with sweat, encircled by hot bars of pain. And I was so focused on my own pity that I missed when the ground suddenly stopped.

  I tumbled with a shriek into a depression, slamming down onto my front. For a moment, I kept still, waiting for the screaming sting of something broken.

  But no. All I felt were the dry leaves under my hands, and damp ground beneath them. I looked up and saw I was in a gully. Over a metre deep and maybe three across, it stretched east and west, an overgrown gash winding through the woods.

  I stood, breathing in grunts. A fairy road? An old river? Either way, it didn't go the way I was going, so I scaled the opposite bank, checked my compass again, and kept moving.

  Insects nibbled at my neck as I ran, and unseen things grunted at my approach, before crashing off into the bushes with a heavy-hoofed clamour. I ran on and on and finally heard the rumble of the river. I sped up, scattering dead leaves, the taste of blood in my mouth. One last squelch through mud, a scramble onto a boulder, and I staggered to a halt.

  Past the edge of a boulder lay the Liffey, and she was raging. Fat roils of water, sooty silver in the moonlight, roared eastward towards the sea with a power that made the ground shudder. Wide and powerful and no fucking way was I getting across.