Hollow Oaks

by Paddy Kelly

  The thing jerked its head up from the apple core, with a hiss. I froze, my back to the wall. It chomped down the apple core, then came at me in a scrabbling sprint.

  I darted out from the wall, sweater raised to cover my face. My good foot swung back, to a burst of agony from the other, and I swung a powerful kick into the onrushing beastie and felt it connect. The blow sent it rolling. I snatched a glimpse, dazed and scrambling, and knew I had one chance. Onto its wriggling form I threw myself, sweater out, slamming down. It clawed and hissed beneath me but I fought to hold it and thrust my knife, eyes closed, stabbing and stabbing through fabric until the movement ceased and my knife clinked on stone.

  A backwards crawl, gasping, until I was stopped by a wall. I crouched there, eyes closed. Dear sweet goddess, don't let it have sprayed me. But nothing sticky on my face, only sweat. A knife hand slick with blood. A heart that still seemed to be still beating.

  Eyes open. A dark stain of blood was spreading across the floor, stained the packed dirt. The basilisk feebly twitched, and I felt sorry for the thing, and angry at the shits outside who had probably goaded it into attacking. But they might have another one, so I needed to move, even if they were hoping I'd do exactly that.

  I left the sweater where it was, pulled on my rucksack, snatched up the torch. My foot shrieked, sending hot agony bolting into my groin as I hobbled towards the pillar.

  Outside, I met the coolness of a clear-sky evening. The cleft in the rock stretched a few metres ahead of me. After that lay the gully, with a sprawl of ferns and bushes and trees behind. Overhead, the final glints of sunlight were lighting the clouds peach and pink.

  Movement from the ferns. Lepps, in hiding, preparing their next attack.

  I needed a plan. I couldn't walk to the portal oak, not in this state. But for Ishbéal to find me, I had to advertise my presence. Therefore — get higher up, to a place where I could see and be seen.

  The slope! I hopped a few steps, then turned to peer up the uneven ramp of boulders and bushes into which the cave and the cleft leading to it had been dug. It looked like a flat plateau at the top, where at least one big tree grew. Up there was where I should be.

  I limped forward, then turned to tackle the slope. Every step I took ended in a whimper, and my foot glowed white hot on the bottom of my leg. I hopped and grunted and sometimes crawled, and by the time I reached the top, every joint was trembling.

  Panting, I scanned the plateau — moss-speckled rock, ankle-high bushes, and the dark form of two large oaks, one near, one on the far side. A wind, lapping the sweat from my face and neck. With darkness solidifying around me, I hobbled to the nearest tree and had pulled out my torch to find a way up when a sudden thud made me flinch.

  I turned to see a stone rolling to a halt. Another thud, directly in front. I swung the torch beam to the stone lip of the plateau, ten metres away. There they were — five or six dirty grey figures, giggling behind a low bush. Another stone arced through the air.

  Keeping low, I hopped around the oak. Those lepps didn't have to miss. They were playing with me, dragging out the game that would end in one way only.

  "Shit," I rasped, examining the tree, its branches and stubs and folds. I was good at climbing, but this particular wall had unpainted grips, no ropes, and nothing soft to break a fall.

  Movement to my right. Two lepps, trying to manoeuvre into a better rock-throwing position. No choice, I had to scale that tree, and now. So one two deep breath climb.

  Five minutes later I sat trembling against bark, my foot an unravelable ball of agony, muscles like quivering tubes of jelly. But I was up, and the perch I'd found, two fat limbs in a V-shape, three metres off the ground, was pretty decent. For now.

  Below me, the lepps were hiding, maybe deciding what to throw next. Or maybe they'd understood that they wouldn't need to. Because if they waited long enough, I'd have to eventually abandon tree, the hard way or the easy one.

  I hugged my rucksack to my chest as I stared through wintery leaves, at a sky where stars already glittered. Exhausted, I closed my eyes, soft breeze on my face. And I drifted.

  Crack. My eyes jerked open to a branch breaking. A mist had gathered around me, silver in the starlight. I heard the slow creak of the tree, the shush of its leaves.

  But also, a soft thud.

  Lepps. They were planning something, so where were the little—

  Another thud. I turned, straining to peer beyond the curve of the trunk. And I froze, all except for my fingers, which gripped the limb beneath, to keep me from toppling off.

  Something parted the mist and stepped onto the plateau. Elephant large, but shaped like a muscular cow — brown hair, enormous chest, thick neck. Protruding from its head were huge, flattened antlers, with multiple points, like weaponised shoulder blades. They were so big, connected to a thing so large, I couldn't believe they were real. Maybe a trick of the dark—

  Then it turned its head. Its face was bull-like, with a broad nose and pointed ears. From both sides of that face, the bladed antlers stuck out like an enormous pair of bone wings. It stared, and I stared back, as it finally dawned on me what I was seeing.

  An Irish elk, a beast gone from the Earth for ten thousand years. It shook its head, sweeping the vast constructions of its antlers. And it kept looking, wrapped in a wet mist.

  "Hey," I said, voice trembling. "Hey there, gorgeous. Look at you, aren't you a big one. Don't mind me, I'm just sightseeing over here, I'll be—"

  A hiss came from the horns, and a figure hopped into view on one of the many spikes. Another one appeared above it, standing there casually, as if leaning against a wall.

  Fairies. I couldn't make out their colour and clan, and I couldn't say if they were telling the elk where to go, or just following along for the ride.

  The beast took a few steps, then stopped where the branches of the two trees got in the way of its antlers. It looked left and right, sniffing the air.

  "Oíche mhaith," I said to the fairies in its antlers. "Cad is ainm—"

  The fairies hissed, like a pair of snakes. I heard a hard tapping, like rock against bone. The elk turned, head held high, and trotted to the back edge of the plateau, stubby tail swinging. One last look around before it headed down the slope, the antlers the last part to vanish.

  The mist closed behind it. I stared after it, all aglow at the world and its wonder.

  And then the lepps attacked.

  First a hail of stones, not big ones, but sharp. "Shit!" I raised my rucksack to shield my face, as they clattered on the tree and on my legs. When a pause came, I pulled out both my torches, and turned them on. Still cowering behind the rucksack, I made some sweeps, and heard angry growls. I lowered the rucksack, and directed my searchlight, a solid pillar in the mist, at whatever moved below me.

  Monkey-like shapes scattered into fog and darkness. I raised the beam again, swinging it high into the air. "Ishbéal," I yelled. "I'm over here! Help, anyone! Heeeeelp!"

  A few stones came, badly aimed, then other, softer things, that flattened against the bark. I snapped the beam to the nearest one. Brown, misshapen … I slapped a horrified hand to my nose. They were flinging shit at me, squished up into throwable turdballs.

  I kept swinging the beam, to hold them back, and up too, signalling into the sky. The lepps kept up a rain of objects and I ducked it as best I could, jerking the beam around and yelling for help until I was dappled with faeces, until my back and buttocks felt like concrete, until my foot pulsed like an angry god, and the minutes piled up into what felt like hours.

  Then a flash of movement beneath. I swung the beam down, catching five hares darting into view, a fairy pressed flat on each. Two spears flew, and a frantic clamour erupted, howls and spits and barks. The hares burst into the bushes, where things squealed and other things barked and the bushes rattled as if in an earthquake, all blurred by mist.

  A minute later, the furious shrieks of the escaping lepps had faded. The fairies, on their hares, ha
d gathered a few metres away below me. They had a quick discussion. A single hare hopped forward, one small person sitting proudly on its back. She looked up.

  "I might ask," Ishbéal said, "why you are in a tree, far from the place we arranged?"

  "Stand back," was my answer. "I'm not spending another fucking second up here."

  I dropped my rucksack, watching it thump down in an explosion of dry leaves. I took a breath, hung from my hands, and dropped down after it. Ram-rods of agony bolted up through my bad foot as I landed. I squealed, and rolled over, and lay still, sucking air through my teeth as I stared up into mist-fuzzy darkness.

  "I could ask you again," Ishbéal said, now dismounted and standing over me, "why you were in another place, and causing all this trouble?"

  "Blocked … the tree," I gasped. "Couldn't get out. So I came here and … a cave."

  "A cave?" she said sharply. "What cave?"

  I told her about the helpful lepps, the shelter, the wall I'd pulled down. She stared as I spoke, and after I'd spoken, and even as I sat up with a groan. "What?" I said.

  Ishbéal dashed over to the other fairies. They talked, low and fast, as I poked at my bootlaces, trying to ease the daggers in my foot. Maybe they were going to fix some urges or unguents, to help with the pain. Although that, it occurred to me, would be pointless. Fairy urges, made with anam collected and charged on Earth, would be useless on me. Just as anam collected in Tara would be useless on the small folk. Fuck, though, it hurt.

  A minute later, she returned.

  "We will help you. There is another dair, an hour south, by your clock."

  "Really?" I knew of six portal oaks in Ireland — two in Dublin, one in Donegal, one in Galway, one in Cork and one near Lough Derg. But none where she'd said. "You mean an hour on the hares?" She nodded. "But that's five hours walking. This foot would never take me that far in one night."

  "We know. We will go to there and fetch help and bring it to you. But as soon as we have brought someone to aid you, we must leave. We have other things to deal with."

  "Aid me? Who's coming to aid me, exactly?"

  "The owner of the place where the tree is. I have never met her."

  "But if you've never met her, how do you know she'll do it? And what if that tree is blocked too, or they block it while she's over here? Then we're both trapped—"

  "We will deal with that if it occurs. You will wait in the cave while we fetch her, and two of my people will wait outside, to keep the dirty ones away. They will not go inside."

  "Why? What's wrong with that cave? Is something there, in the passage—"

  "No discussing!" she said. "Bren McCullough, as of this moment, we are your only friends, so please do as we say and you may just survive."

  "Okay, fine. Just tell this person to bring food and medical stuff. Weapons wouldn't hurt either. And a crutch if she has one. A thing to walk on when you're—"

  "We do have bones. I know what a crutch is." Ishbéal looked back and gave a whistle. Her hare hopped up, eyeing me warily. The other small folk watched me from their own mounts. "Now," she said, climbing up, "we leave. So get inside. The hour is late."

  "And I definitely can't go down into the cave? What if I need to, for shelter, or—"

  "I am not listening." She lay flat on her hare and off it shot, over the rocks and down the far side and gone. Two of the five sprinted after her, leaving two with me.

  "Right." I stood, putting all my weight on the good foot. A short hop back to the cave, I could manage that. I just hoped the expired basilisk didn't smell too bad, and that nothing else happened before I could get the help Ishbéal promised, and transport my arse back home.

  I nodded to the fairies, who darkly watched me. "Let's move."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  In the dismal wee hours of the morning, a breathy "Hello?" slipped in through the opening of the cave. Already half awake, thanks to the hard floor and the merciless throb of my injured foot, I sat bolt upright, knife grabbed and torch pointed in a quivering grip.

  "Who's there?" I barked, and then realised how stupid a question that was. There was only one person who could be there, the one Ishbéal had promised to fetch.

  "It's Debbie," the voice said. "And I'm totally shattered. Are you decent?"

  "I was born decent. Come in. You're hugely welcome."

  I stood and hopped across to meet her at the entrance. By the time I'd made it, the woman who called herself Debbie had already slipped inside, a large and sturdy tree branch grasped in her hand. And upon seeing her, I realised who she was.

  "Debbie! Right, you're Dermot Gregory's daughter. From Brufort House."

  A nod in reply as she yanked her backpack through the narrow slot of the opening. My saviour had dark brown hair with a trace of ginger in a severe ponytail, and soft brown eyes. She wore solid hiking boots, black combat trousers with many pockets, a black polo-neck over her wide-hipped form, and a light camouflage-green rain jacket over all of it.

  She set the branch and backpack against the wall. I saw, strapped to the front of the pack, a shotgun in a soft case. "I must say this was the strangest request I've had a while." She sat down with a relieved gasp. "I ran most of the way, following those hares. God, my feet hurt. What?"

  The slightly horrified look on my face must have been obvious. "Um, nothing, it's just … where you're sitting, that's kind of … a toilet corner."

  "Ah." She slid further along the wall, not in the least bit thrown by having sat in slowly maturing piss.

  Debbie Gregory. Her father, Dermot, had owned Brufort House, a slightly broken-down estate a bit south of Dublin. I'd visited with Cormac, years back, and Debbie had been a teenager then. I remembered her running around in horse-riding clothes, with a dog after her, laughing in adorable snorts.

  Dermot had been involved in the craft trade, but he'd died a few years back, and the house, I recalled, had gone to Debbie. None of which explained how she … oh!

  "Hang on," I said. "You've got a portal oak? Right there on your lands?"

  She unlaced her boots, leaned her head back. "We do. Beside the house. I have movement sensors around it since I've been having trouble with lepps sneaking across, taking things. Your little friends set them off." She looked directly at me. "I've seen you before."

  "Bren McCullough," I said. "I don't think we were ever introduced."

  "Right." A slow nod. "I remember you now. Cormac brought you that time. I think you'd just started out with him. You were … a bit different then."

  That was eight years ago, before my hormone treatment. In fact, I'd waited with the HRT until Cormac had left the country because I knew he wouldn't get it. And here I was again, having to explain myself, and braced for a negative reaction.

  "Bren." Debbie thoughtfully nodded. "Bren. It suits you. I like it."

  My belly flooded with warmth. "Um, thanks." I felt myself blushing.

  "Anyway, the small folk headed off as soon as I got here. But the Remington" — she nodded to the shotgun — "should sort out any lepps. She said you'd hurt your foot. Can I look?"

  "Course," I said, and stuck it out. "Just, you know, be careful."

  "Wow, you've really ripped that boot apart. Can you take it off?"

  As Debbie extracted a first aid kit, I unlaced the boot and yanked it off to a drawn-out stab of pain. Next came the sock. It slid off cleanly with a slight sting. Debbie leaned in, and I judged, from her expression, that maybe it wasn't so terrible as I'd thought.

  "I think the small toe is broken," she said. "There's not much you can do about that, just bind it and wait. And the foot … I'm not sure. It's bruised, but not terribly. Maybe you got lucky."

  I grunted, through clenched teeth. "I don't feel so damn lucky."

  She peered some more. "I'll spray some antiseptic, and bandage it up. Then I'll pad and tape this branch to make you a crutch. We'll get you mobile soon." She reached into her kit and pulled out a pill container. "Painkillers." She handed me a pill and a water bot
tle. "Swallow that. And careful, the water isn't infinite. Plus we'll need some for the coffee."

  "Coffee?" I gulped down the pill and shoved the bottle back at her. "You have coffee?"

  "In a minute." Debbie extracted a swab, a bandage, a spray, and got to work. After five minutes of teeth-grinding and swearing from my direction, she announced, "There. Best I could do. That pill should kick in soon. Are you okay?"

  I was panting and dizzy, but I nodded. "Living. Should it be that tight?"

  "It should." She replaced the first aid kit, and pulled out a camping stove, which she assembled. A minute later, we had water on the boil, over a joyful blue flame. Debbie pulled out two aluminium cups, and spooned coffee granules into them. She nodded towards the shattered wall and the passage behind it. "So what's down there? The small one said we couldn't go in. She was extremely clear about it. Which of course made me interested."

  I looked that way and shrugged. "I don't know. I didn't get that far. "

  "I'm not sure I like sleeping in a place with an open back door."

  "Me neither. Although nothing nasty came out so far. Dead end, maybe."

  "Hmm," she said. She fished out a ham sandwich, and I had barely unwrapped it before she followed it with a cup of coffee. Once I'd finished both, I was feeling about five hundred percent more human. The throb in my foot was even down to a bearable level, maybe due to the pill, or maybe just my expectation of it. Either way was good by me.

  Debbie sorted shotgun cartridges, sitting cross-legged with her coffee cup in front of her. She was humming softly, as if mounting a rescue in Tara was a thing she did every day.

  "So," I said. "Brufort House belongs to you now, right? The whole thing?"

  "My joy and my curse. It all happened a bit too fast, really. I had a job in London, and a nice set-up. And when Dermot took a tumble off that ladder … well, that was that. Mum is long gone, so there was my life, all decided for me."

  "Sorry about your dad. But can't you sell it? It's got to be worth a lot."