Hollow Oaks

by Paddy Kelly

  He fell with all his slab-shouldered weight, pressing those bird-beak jaws together with my finger between them. I tried to yank the hand back, but not fast enough, and when the jaws snipped shut, I felt the hot slide through meat and the snap of the nail.

  An explosion inside my skull, a shriek of agony raging up my arm and chest and head, coiling then unleashing a geyser of white-hot rage and I totally utterly fucking lost it.

  Wreathed in blinding white, I was screaming, feet thrashing, as a part of me burst awake. Clarity, direction, fire lines skewering Bruno, his core and shine of his eyes, on and out in squealing pulses, and then he was up and I was up and I fucking slammed him, propelled by the deep-down scream of the world, sending him into the wall, the warm slick of my blood spurting and wetting, the pulse of the pain a pounding ravenous reactor of shitfire.

  No tape on me, maybe it ripped, and I charged the door, the rust-weakened metal and the padlocked clasp across the middle, as I screamed for some other pain to come and devour me, to wrap me up and make me gone, to lick off the feel of the sick sliding of blades—

  The padlock gave, the door burst wide and I slammed onto tarmac, rolling, still. Yells rang out, but I was already up, stagger-sprinting with taped-up hands, hot wetness on my palm and my breath sliced raw to the crushing roarshatter of my membranes.

  A gap ahead, a path between houses, lights suspended in drizzle. I sobbed as I ran, the white flame carrying me, but fading, the memory of that cut, slippery and soft, the crack as the nail broke and the fingertip fell onto a dirty floor, to be dog-eaten or stomped on.

  With pounding feet in pursuit, I swung a corner and staggered to a bent-over stop on a wet-licked road. Lights swelled towards me, and I kneeled, squinting in the blaze, waiting for the boom of metal to flatten me and finish it and then it squealed to a stop.

  I squinted into the lights, the slanted lines of rain cutting down. Blood welling, my heart shoving out more. Then a groan and down I went, shoulder slapping road.

  Men's voices, shouting. Footsteps. Another car, door-slam-yelling and hands helped me up, although I barked and spat, up onto my knees, with slick tarmac out ahead of me and behind me, as I squeezed the finger, to stop the blood, to stop it from being.

  Half a nail, slick and cutting. The unlikely poking-out of bone.

  I pitched forward, and heaved a watery splatter of puke onto glistening tarmac. Another one came, reaching deeper but not finding, seeking relief that wasn't there.

  Voices melted to a din as someone laid me down, face against the cool kiss of road and my own sick. And looking slantways I thought I saw the white van fold away into sheets of rain, with that small speck of me inside it, swallowed by distance and drizzle and dark.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  I woke, clinging to the fading shreds of a dream. A perfect person had loved me and covered me in kisses and made me glow. But I opened my eyes and it was all gone and I was back.

  Gernaud's sofa. Late evening, with cars passing and people laughing outside. My finger, sewn up and bandaged, thumped with jags of pain. I recalled the hospital's instructions to return in a few days to check it, but what was the point? It was ruined.

  I studied that bandaged bulb, in the faint light coming in under the door. Spotted brown, dulled by painkillers, but far from silent.

  All I wanted was to return to the dream, and stay there, leaving all this behind.

  Gernaud's place wasn't really safe as Burke's crew were still out there. But I couldn't face a hotel, not after what happened. So we'd agreed to keep our eyes open, power up the smoke detectors, and not be alone in the flat. If we hadn't made progress in a few days, then, maybe, a hotel. But for now we needed a base, and it would have to do.

  "Hey," a voice said from the other side of the sofa. I levered myself up and squinted until I could make out the silhouette in the light from the kitchen. Debbie.

  "Hey," I replied, smacking lips over a foul-tasting mouth. "What day is it?"

  "The same day," she said. "Tuesday night. You've been asleep for ten hours. Like a baby."

  "Ah," I said. "Okay. And how's, where's, I mean—"

  "Gernaud drove to my house, to grab a few things. He should be back soon enough. Tommy's out again, looking. He says he's making progress."

  Debbie turned on the ceiling light. I covered my eyes until it stopped hurting.

  "Aren't you hungry?" she said. "You haven't eaten since the hospital."

  "I'm good." The hospital. The noise, the antiseptic stink, the dull monotone they'd used to inform me that the tip of my little finger, and the nail anchored to it, weren't coming back.

  My head felt stuffed with old socks as I studied Debbie. Was she still angry? The thing that happened in her house, were we going to pretend our way past it, and just march on?

  "There's Chinese food," she said. "I'll heat it up. And you eat, no arguments."

  She stepped back into the kitchen. I rose, like the dead, and followed her to the tiny kitchen table, in my pyjamas. She set a mug of coffee in front of me. "Drink." I took a sip. No bite. No bitterness. I peered into the mug.

  "Is it okay?" she said. "I made it strong. I thought you'd need it."

  I sipped again. The same. Pling went the microwave. She grabbed the plate and set it down in front of me, along with a knife and a fork. Vegetables, nuts, tofu, orange sauce. Glistening. I grabbed the fork and stabbed a thing. Raised it. Chewed it. Tried not to grimace. My bandaged finger hovered at the table's edge, taunting me.

  "So you didn't find that van?" I said. "Or anything about Crafters Lodge?"

  "No. The hotel's burnt out and surrounded by police tape. I don't think anyone died, although Seamus Cavan fell off the radar. You're sure he was helping the fairies?"

  "That's how it looked. They were handing us over. Their own kind."

  I twisted a sliver of red pepper in glistening sauce, gouging a path that slowly refilled with stickiness. A flow that eradicated all traces.

  "Bren," Debbie said, looking down. "The thing that happened. In your room."

  A ball clutched tight in my guts. "Yeah?" I said.

  "I'm … not sure what to say about that. I mean, it's not that—"

  "I'd taken a whole lust urge," I blurted out. "And I didn't know you'd be there."

  "I know. Vesta was a good maker. And I shouldn't have got so mad. Probably."

  She wasn't looking at me and wasn't saying any more. So what was I to conclude? Did she like what happened? Did she want more of it to happen? Did I?

  Sure I did. I just didn't want to make a fool of myself. I'd done it before, and never again.

  "What happened," she said. "Was … nice. Okay? I just don't want us to go around thinking, sure, something happened then, and that means that—"

  "The urge was really strong," I said, just letting sounds happen. "Could have been anyone in that hall. I mean, in that state, I would have jumped on a coat-stand—"

  I bit off my words. Shit, what did I say that for? I'd had my eye on Debbie since I'd first seen her. Since she'd saved me. And now I go and say something like that.

  She wasn't replying, and not looking at me either.

  Idiot, Bren. Tell her. No, I couldn't. What if she … but so what? What did anything matter, with all this death and fire circling around us? Tell her, just—

  She stood. "Of course. You're right. I just have to … the bathroom."

  Say something say it just say it. But after two seconds of not saying it, she was gone.

  I exhaled, and lowered my head to stare again at the food. Piled-up shapes and colours, in a slime-like sauce. Somewhere in me sat a knot. Faint, far off, and barely felt.

  Water flushed and she came back. I couldn't look at her. I didn't know what to say. So, as she aimed herself at her chair, I blurted out, "Something happened. In the van."

  "Okay." She sat, arms on the table, looking at me. "What was it?"

  I cleared my throat. "I think … the thing in the well. In the cave. It happened again."r />
  She stared at me for longer that was polite. "What? You don't mean…?"

  "I burst a door open. Or it did. And it ripped the tape they'd tied me with. It felt like before, when I tore that tree apart. It's still in me, snuggled way down. It never left."

  Was that a stirring I felt now, around my bladder? A cat-lick of motion?

  She leaned back. "But … you changed worlds. You felt it leave."

  "I thought it had. But now I think it's just sleeping. It woke up in the van, maybe from the pain. Or from my desire to smash in Burke's head. And my head's been dull since we came back. Everything tastes flat, coffee and wine and … everything."

  "God, Bren, that's awful. What can we do about it?"

  "Do? I don't know. Go to the fairies. Maybe they know how to get rid of it."

  She crossed her arms across her chest. A barrier. Maybe unintended.

  "And my wounds. Those fairy spears were poisoned. They hurt like hell, all red and swollen, but now they're fine again. And where I stabbed my hand … look."

  I held the hand up, the same one she'd examined in the hallway before the urge had taken us into my bed. She stared. "That's not the same hand, surely—"

  "It is. I told you, the wound's just gone. Like it was never there."

  I held up the ugly bandaged bulb of my finger, my other wound, and stared at that. Two seconds it took me to decide. I grabbed hold of one of the small tapes, and yanked.

  "God, no," Debbie said. "Leave it alone. They said you shouldn't—"

  I kept going. Tapes first, then the bandage and a layer of fluff. They fell onto the table and I stared at what was revealed. The nail was gone, as was the top of the finger, sliced at an angle. But the wound was clean. Misshapen, sure, with dark stitches visible, but the flesh had nearly grown back.

  "Holy crap," I said, and turned it under the light. "It does heal people."

  Debbie touched the finger. I winced in pain, and she pulled back. "Sorry. It still hurts?" I nodded. The pulse was there, raw and deep. "But no bleeding. It's … amazing."

  "No, it's not amazing. It's eating me up me, Debbie. Piece by piece."

  I returned the bulb to the finger. It might be healed but it was still mangled.

  "I'll get some tape," she said, and headed for the bathroom. I made myself swallow some food, although it was like rubber dipped in syrup as it slipped down.

  Debbie returned with a roll of surgical tape and a nail scissors, and she was securing the bulb when a message bleeped on her phone. She pulled it out.

  "Ah. Gernaud's close. I'll go down and help him carry some things. And when I get back, I want to see that food eaten, okay?"

  She left the flat. I continued taping the bandage until it was done. I gave my food one last stare, slid the plate aside and leaned all the way forward until my forehead touched the cool plastic of the table. I was still there, eyes closed, when the door opened.

  "McCullough," came a voice from the hall. I sat up with a weary groan. "I hope you have not let all my plants die from thirstiness."

  I gathered strength, and stood, and strode into the hall. A nod to Gernaud, who nodded back. I stood aside to watch them carry stuff inside — plastic bags of shopping, a stuffed sack of bedclothes and pillows, a gun case. "I thought Tommy had your gun," I said.

  "He's getting one from his cousin, Martin," she said, shutting the door. "I figured we need mine here." She carried the two plastic bags to the kitchen, and opened the fridge.

  "Nothing has been heard from your … friends?" Gernaud asked.

  I wasn't sure if he meant Seamus and his lot, or Bruno Burke and company, but the answer was the same to both questions — a terse shake of the head.

  Debbie left the kitchen, wandered into the spare bedroom, and emerged carrying something I recognised.

  "My bag! I thought I'd lost it. I suppose all the stuff is gone, though."

  Gernaud looked at Debbie. "You did not tell him?"

  She stepped past me into the living room. "I thought we'd take it now."

  "What?" I said, looking from Gernaud to Debbie. "Tell me what?"

  "In, McCullough," Gernaud said. "Sit down. We have things to discuss."

  I stepped into the living room, swung the sofa around so it faced the room again, and sat. Gernaud took the chair opposite while Debbie placed my rucksack on the coffee table, and unzipped it. The room was dark, and I leaned forward, wondering what I was supposed to see.

  The bag moved and from it rose a reluctant head.

  "Ishbéal!" I said. "But what the hell, why are you—"

  "I saved her," Gernaud said. "Although by accident. She was in your bag."

  I realised what must have happened. When the panic hit, Ishbéal had crossed the divide and dashed into my bag, on the Dublin side of the zone. Gernaud had then scooped it up on his way out. Fast thinking.

  Ishbéal climbed from the bag, with some annoyed grunting, and sat cross-legged on the coffee table, in full view. Debbie shifted the bag to the floor.

  "This world is terrible," Ishbéal moaned. "Your smooth surfaces, your sharp smells. And the noise! How do you not throw yourself to the hawks?"

  "It happens," I said, surprised by how happy I was to see her. "But I'm guessing you're an outcast now. That queen of yours seemed keen to kill us. Am I right?"

  "I thought she did kill you," Ishbéal said. "The spears striking you were poisoned."

  Gernaud spun around to face me. "Poison? Then we need to get you back to—"

  "It's fine," I said. "And the wounds are all healed."

  "I don't think you have the skills to decide," Gernaud insisted. "What they speared me I was ill for a week, so I do not see why you would—"

  "Drop it. I'm fine. And there's … a thing you should hear, before we go on."

  I told Ishbéal what had happened in the cave, and how we made our escape from Tara by eviscerating the old portal oak. Gernaud and Debbie had heard it before, but to the fairy, it was fresh news. She sat stiffly, her coffee-pool eyes growing larger with every word.

  I skimmed ahead to the fire in Crafters Lodge, and the van after.

  "And when they cut my finger, it just … blew up. I ripped open a locked door. The fuath was there all the time. It had never left. And now I think it's healing my wounds—"

  Ishbéal, with a kitten-like yelp, leaped from the table and sprinted to the far wall. She flattened herself against it, small arms out, her whole stance radiating terror.

  "What?" I stood and stepped around the coffee table.

  A strangled yell. "Fan ar ais! You keep back or I will leave and die in your sun!"

  I backed up and sat on the armrest of the sofa, a slow thump in my fingers.

  "She is scared of you," Gernaud said. "She knows about this fuath. And this is good, as now she might tell us all the things she has not dared to tell us before."

  But it wasn't good. To me, her reaction said one thing — that what I carried inside me was more dangerous than I'd imagined.

  "Ishbéal," I said, "tell us what you know. I won't touch you."

  "It is not about touch," she said. "A fuath has other ways to spread. And for you, with your enormous body, it can be resisted, for a while. But for us, it is death."

  "Okay." Debbie stood. "Bren, move the sofa back to the window. And Gernaud, move the coffee table to the wall. Put the maximum space between these two, and let's talk."

  It took a while to convince Ishbéal, but ten minutes later, the sofa and the coffee table had a room-length of space between them. Gernaud turned on a lamp.

  "First thing," I said. "You said it can spread. So how does it … spread?"

  "Mostly through dreams," the fairy said. "Has anybody dreamed beside you since you took it in?"

  I thought about it, and shook my head. "Not beside me, no."

  "Then you are lucky. Do not let it happen. It can multiply from mind to mind. And each new one it makes will become stronger. And hungrier."

  I glanced at Debbie, sitting beside th
e sofa, her face stretched in terror. Gernaud was shuffling his way towards the far side of the sofa, stopped only by the arm-rest.

  "Tell us," Gernaud said. "What it is, where it came from. Tell us all."

  The fairy sat down on the coffee table and took a loud breath.

  "I will start with the Sidhe—"

  "The Sidhe!" Gernaud said. "You heard, she admits it!"

  "So they were real?" Debbie said.

  "Real. And terrible. They were like you. Apart from their eyes, that shone green as jewels. They were our masters and they controlled us with their crafting. Killed us on a whim. Their dominion covered Éire. You have seen the ruins of their structures. They were your cousins, and there was trade between you, and … other kinds of contact."

  Sex, she meant, between us and them. Plenty of that in the old stories.

  "And then what happened?" Gernaud said.

  "The details are unclear, but it is known that the fuath existed then. The Sidhe sought to control them, perhaps to gain the power that Bren McCullough describes. They also had devices to bend the anam in unnatural ways, to intensify it more than nature allows. That cage of copper and amber is one. I think also the great pit you saw. To bend the fuath to their will.

  "But something happened. The fuath began to spread. They filled the dreams of the Sidhe, consuming their will to move. And to live. They died where they fell. The air was thick with the birds that ate them. You could walk on their bodies across the lakes."

  "So you are saying," Gernaud said, in a wisp of a voice, "that they all died?"

  "Yes. My people, freed from the Sidhe's control, had already fled to hidden places. The fuath took us too, when hungry. And they waited there, for months and years, and when they emerged, only the bones of the Sidhe remained."

  "But some fuath were left," Gernaud said. "Like the one Bren found."

  "Some, in deep and dark places. Places we avoid. Those ones are weak, and we let them be that way. Because if they get into one mind, they may grow hungry. And spread."