Hollow Oaks

by Paddy Kelly

  "Not really. So he's digging. And given where he is, maybe he's digging a way into the Poddle tunnel. But would that even be possible? You said it was hard to get into."

  Max avoided my eye. "Well. There are ways. It's hard, but it's do-able."

  I twigged. She'd been inside. Maybe one of those urban explorers, getting into old industrial places and service tunnels for an illicit thrill. But that didn't help me decide what Burke was doing in that building.

  "Maybe they're trying to get to where the Dubh Linn was," I said, "and they're doing it via the Poddle. Maybe something's buried there, something they need—"

  "A map." She stood. "That's what we need. One second." She dashed across the road and into a brightly-lit shop. Two minutes later, she strode back to me and squatted down.

  "Right," she said. "Move over. Or get off the step, maybe that's better."

  I relocated myself to the footpath and squatted beside her as she unfolded the map she'd bought on the shop step. She grabbed a pen and drew. "The Poddle goes here, and here, then it goes under the canal and out." She back-tracked, drawing secondary lines, one close to Dublin Castle, one further south. "These are side branches. And then—"

  "Stop!" I grabbed her wrist. "Holy shit." I leaned in closer, mouth agape. "It's right there. You see it? Right fucking in front of us."

  She shook her head. So I grabbed the pen and made a red dot.

  "Here! Crafters Lodge. Right on the Poddle. And if we're here" — another dot — "then we're, what? Six hundred metres apart? Holy shit, that's it!" Max stared at me dumbly. "Crafters Lodge. Small hotel. Burned down a few days ago. And I thought arson, maybe a revenge thing, but now I think they just wanted everybody out so they could use the … oh."

  I'd nearly mentioned the border zone, which I couldn't do. But the theory felt right, the shape and weight of it. Burke and the nun and Mister Sunglasses wanted access to the border zone in Crafters Lodge, and now they had it. The building was taped off and empty and just waiting there for them.

  I thought back to the differently-coloured stones at the back of the zone. Maybe it was an old opening, covered up, and I'd bet anything it led to the Poddle. Used in the past, for smuggling or whatever, then sealed. But easy enough, possibly, to re-open.

  But why not just break in through the back door, if all they wanted was the zone? Maybe, as well as access, they also wanted to move something there. Something they were storing in the basement of that building where Burke was working. So not just digging, but also carrying. Wading through water, arms full of things they were slowly piling up in the zone.

  The stockpiled craft items. It had to be. But to do what?

  "Feel free to tell me the rest of it," Max said. "I'm right here and listening."

  I turned to her, jerked from the sparkly spin of my thoughts. "Sorry, I can't. But I might need to get into a closed-off building. You don't have a gun? Maybe a hurley?"

  "I have none of those things," she said, carefully. "But if you want to get into a closed-off building … well, I've had some experience at that. Will it be dangerous?"

  "Not for you. You get me in, I'll do the rest." In fact, I couldn't let her go inside, because my plan once I'd got in involved a certain tiny person in my bag.

  A plan. It barely deserved the name. But I had no choice. Time was running out for me and for Tommy, sliding into the ocean in slabs.

  "Do we go right now?" she said. "Because I have tools at home that might be handy."

  I stood. "Fold that map. We'll take a taxi to your place, grab what you need and then head to the hotel. And if there's a place to buy a hurley on the way, all the better."

  We stood at the back of Crafters Lodge, surrounded by a mess. It looked like the house had gorged itself on rubble and then puked it out the rear windows. Blackened wood, melted bins, crushed glass, all doused with the retch-inducing stink of charred plastic, with grit sprinkled into every crunchy footstep.

  I didn't see anybody watching — the windows along the alley behind the hotel were dark — but we needed to be careful. If my theory was correct, the people we hunted were close.

  The fairy lay curled up in my inside coat pocket, and in the other I had the bag with my two remaining urges, a torch, and a knife. Debbie, when I'd called her, had not been happy about my plan. But she and Gernaud were nearing the house in Dundalk and she'd been too busy to tell me off much. All we could do was promise to be careful, keep each other informed, and pray that one of us hit gold.

  "Solid," Max said, stepping back from the door. "I'm not sure even the crowbar would do much." She took another step back, cracking a roof slate under her boot. "Hmm."

  I backed up beside her, and stared where she was staring, at the windows along the darkened back of the hotel. Several of the lower ones gaped open, and had great dark stains fanning up from them, where the fire had climbed the wall.

  "There," she said, pointing. "That window, three along. The glass is gone, and the frame's damaged so those bars shouldn't be hard to shift. Help me out here."

  We piled bricks under the window, making a stack that allowed her to reach it. I handed her the crowbar and Max went to work on the frame. Shortly, she'd removed several bars and had made a sizeable gap. She hopped down, brushing her hands.

  "Okay. There's glass shards on the frame, so we'll cover it up. And get through fast, okay? The frame's not in great shape and we're a bit obvious."

  "Got it." I removed my coat, which I balled up and lightly tossed through the window. I didn't want to squish Ishbéal in the pocket while trying to climb inside.

  Max offered me a leg up and passed me what looked like a small piece of a yoga mat. I grabbed a remaining bar and steadied myself as I lay the mat across the stubs of glass. The stink of burning and a sodden silence greeted me from the inside.

  With Max's help from below, I wriggled ahead, the window frame pressing into me. I made out a dark floor as I shifted my weight. My legs went up, and I went down, hands out, hitting the floor and rolling. I slammed a hip and swore, then stood, hands black with ash and dirt, and looked back out the window. Max handed up my torch.

  "If you die," she said, "nobody's going to pay me for this, are they?"

  I shrugged. "It'll hurt me more than it hurts you. I'll be careful. See you shortly."

  I turned and faced the soundless corpse of the hotel. Gloomy dark, but I could tell I was on a carpet, in a lounge or office, possibly the same one I'd met Seamus in. I made out a couch, chairs, the dark outlines of bookshelves, everything reeking of ash and wetness.

  My coat lay at my feet. I activated the torch, set to its lowest gleam, and pulled my coat on. The fairy wasn't in the pocket.

  "Ishbéal," I hissed, sliding the beam around the wreck of the room. "Ishbéal!"

  She appeared in the doorway, one hand shading her face from the light.

  I lowered the beam. "Don't vanish like that. We've a plan, remember?"

  That plan was to sneak into the place with the spiral steps that led underground, and send Ishbéal on ahead. If the gate was locked, she'd go through the bars, but either way she'd have a look around and report back on what she found. Then we'd decide what to do.

  "Forgive me for not wanting to wait in a pocket to be stepped on."

  "No one's stepping on anyone. Now stand back and let's get this done."

  I stepped through into the corridor, trying to remember the way Seamus had taken me that day. The place was a mess — wallpaper bulging, carpet bloated as if diseased, the air with a slight stink of puke. I located the reception desk, turned the corner, and stopped at the door with the private sign. It was open, probably since our escape. I closed my eyes and heard only passing cars on the street to the front. I crouched down, to face the fairy.

  "Okay. You sneak in, look around. You sure you can manage those steps?"

  Her annoyed look I could feel even in the dark. "I live in a forest, Bren McCullough."

  She slipped through and I couldn't help feeling confident.
Soon we'd know if my theory held water or not. Although, if we found them, I wondered what we'd—

  My phone, on silent, vibrated in my pocket. Shit. Debbie. I moved back to the unlit corridor, and leaned against the wall to answer it in a whisper. "What is it?"

  Heavy breathing, then her voice, very low. "I've stuff to show you. You hear me, Bren? Go to video chat. Hurry, we're inside the house now."

  I fiddled until I got the video chat working, and saw her heavily shadowed face, with torchlight coming from the side. I held the phone up. "Okay, go on."

  "We're inside the house, and they're definitely not. There's a garden out the back with a building at the bottom, like a grotto. And the well's there, in the floor—"

  "A square well? Seriously?"

  "The stones are worn, but yes, it's square. And listen, there's bits of broken jars in the grotto, brown and blue glass, old looking. Some inside the well too, at the very bottom. Gernaud shone the torch in and we could see them down there, with lots of other junk."

  "What kind of junk? I mean, could we go in and fish it out?"

  "The well's too narrow to go in and check, but Gernaud's sure it's old craft items, or what's left of them. It looks like someone's been dumping them in there for years."

  "Shit." My fingers around the mobile were tingling. "And you're in the house now?"

  "We broke in. No alarms, and no-one home. There's a couple of rooms full of junk, a total mess, but there's signs of people in the rest of it, more than two, I'd say. And here, the thing I wanted to show you. Photos, on an old dresser in the living room. Look."

  She turned the camera. The beam of torchlight, being directed by Gernaud, I assumed, fell across the photos. The phone moved closer, and I squinted, trying to make them out.

  Sister Agnes was in the first one, standing before a closed door, looking many years younger. She wasn't smiling. Neither was the woman beside her, who shared her features to an uncanny degree. Her sister, Bríd, clearly, who the prioress had mentioned. The lady who'd owned the house.

  Next to that, a photo of an older couple, and then one of Bríd by herself, holding a bucket in a garden. Debbie shifted the camera, and another person showed up — a child. He was sitting on a soft chair, feet above the floor, eyes closed. A skinny boy, with lifeless dark hair, and sharp features. Around his neck hung something on a cord, maybe a shell.

  "And here," came Debbie's voice. "What do you make of it?"

  The next photo sat to the side, surrounded by what was almost a shrine. A small Virgin Mary statue, and another of a male saint. In front of it were two unlit tea candles, and a bowl, containing scraps of clothing, cord, stones. Arranged like relics.

  In the image itself I saw a child, asleep on a bed, with a yellow wall behind him.

  "Get closer," I said, peering into the little screen.

  The child's leg had a stained bandage. He was skeletally thin, and filthy, which made it hard to estimate his age, but I guessed five or six. He looked fast asleep.

  Behind him hung a mirror on the wall, where the face of the photo-taker could be seen. The nun, Sister Agnes, a couple of decades younger. Her half-face looked terrified.

  "Look at the frame," Debbie hissed. "They've engraved it, see?"

  The phone shook but I could still read it. Miracle from the water.

  Gernaud, off-screen, said something. "I know," Debbie said. "We will."

  The camera shifted, planes of grey and dark, until Debbie's face filled the view again. "What do you make of all that? It doesn't exactly look normal."

  "Sure as fuck doesn't. And wasn't her sister a bit old for a child that age?"

  "That's what we thought too. He doesn't much look like her either. Adopted? Or he might belong to a relative. And what does that engraving mean?"

  Gernaud's voice, more insistent. "Yes," Debbie said. "Bren, we have to go. But if they're not here, and it doesn't look like it, it means they're in Dublin somewhere."

  "I'll be careful," I said. "I check this place, and leave. Talk shortly."

  My mind buzzed as I turned the phone off and put it away, but I didn't even get a chance to sort through my thoughts, because right then, from behind me, came a voice.

  "She's gone now." A man, speaking calmly. "So you can turn."

  I spun around, the torch in my hand, and shone it onto a figure taller than me, but just as skinny, with a torch in one hand and a small black gun in the other.

  "Okay," I said, my blood running cold, staring at the gun. "Um, just listen—"

  "Quiet. You're alone. That was unintelligent. Drop the torch. Now."

  I did and I wasn't sure if I should raise my hands as he hadn't said so, and I wondered where Ishbéal was, and Max Grey, maybe I could catch her attention, bring her in—

  He stepped back and lowered his torch from my face so I could see him. Thin black hair. Face clean-shaven with sharp lines. And sunglasses, even here, in the dark.

  "That was you. The child in the photos. The miracle from the water."

  "It was a small opening," he said. "Even for a child. But it worked. And Agnes, the fool, had been feeding the waters for years, leeching in anam, making it possible."

  "Wait … you came from Tara, through the well? So it's a portal, like the oaks—"

  "Tara? Even you can't see it, the one who keeps escaping. What is it, two times, now?"

  "See what?" The fuath, maybe I could raise her, get angry, bite my tongue—

  "This universe. You see two-thirds of it. And you think that's all there is."

  The sunglasses. The sun. The smell of booze from him that time I saw him, in these very corridors. The well, a passageway, a portal. To somewhere else.

  "Let me put this plainly. You will walk ahead of me, now, down those steps. No arguments, no discussion. Are we clear on that?"

  "And what if I don't? What if I call for help? I could."

  The gun rose up to point at my face. "I don't think you will." The other hand, holding the torch, took hold of his sunglasses. "I'm willing to bet on it. Are you, Bren?"

  He slid the glasses off and I stared into those impossible eyes, from a people long dead, who had ravaged a world, caused the deaths of thousands, enslaved a race, and created the thing devouring me from the inside. Eyes that shouldn't exist, but did.

  Eyes of a bright and unearthly green.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  "He is Sidhe," Ishbéal whispered into my tangled hair. "He is one of them."

  "But they're dead," I hissed back. "You fucking told me so."

  "I wish it was so. But his name, his eyes … he cannot be anything else."

  I was sitting on the stone floor of the room beside the border zone, my hands secured behind to a pipe, my legs taped, a fairy on my shoulder. The room looked pretty much as it had the last time I'd seen it, apart from the eye-piercing stink of smoke. And the pile of blocks and bricks, speckled with fresh-looking dirt, that lay in one corner.

  From the border zone, through the curtain, came the clanging of metal on stone. Dreabh was in there, the man who'd taken me down here at gunpoint. The nun had called him that, before she and Burke had left, taking my replacement mobile with them.

  But none of them knew about the fairy. If they had, Dreabh wouldn't have gone to work in the next one, leaving me here, awaiting my fate.

  "So they didn't die out," I said. "And Dreabh, as a child, was sent through that well. But that isn't our problem now. Getting out of here is. So come on, cut me loose."

  "There are no portal wells," Ishbéal said. "He lies, it is what the Sidhe do. With their bright eyes and their sweet words, making you believe anything—"

  "For fuck's sake, just untie me! Find a sharp rock or something."

  Squatting on my shoulder, she moaned. I strained at the pipe behind me.

  "Okay, let's just talk then. So what do we know? Dreabh manipulated Vesta into making the uisce beatha for him, which protected himself from the sun while he was swanning around Dublin. He hung out in Crafters Lodge, sco
ping the place out, and he eavesdropped on me and Seamus. So he knew I had craft items, and that I knew about the blockage in the anam. And that turned me into a target. And then—"

  I was cut off by the jangling of keys in the passage. Followed by the clank and squeak of the gate being opened. I stared into Ishbéal's dark eyes. "My pocket. Now."

  She clambered down and crawled in, just as the door opened. Through it stepped first Sister Agnes, in her hooded coat, and then Bruno Burke, who nodded to me.

  "Still comfortable?" he said. "Not cold on the arse at all?"

  I yanked at the cord holding me. "I want my fucking phone. Where is it?"

  "And you'll have it." The nun slipped through the curtain as he extracted the phone. "Here." He raised it, then launched it at the wall, where it exploded into plastic and bits.

  "Oops. No quality these days. Don't worry, though. I texted your friend, Debbie. Pretended I was you. Said there was no need to come looking for you here. So she won't."

  My jaw quivered, but then the curtain shifted and through it stepped Dreabh. Tall, skinny, in jeans and a grey t-shirt, with eyes shining bright as stained glass.

  "Bruno," he said, crowbar in hand, and a flat expression. "Is it done?"

  The transformation in Burke when being addressed by Dreabh was total. He was suddenly all cap-twisting respect, his gaze fixed somewhere on the thinner man's chest.

  "Done it like you said. He's on his way. Shouldn't take more than a couple of hours."

  "And the way through the oak is blocked?"

  Burke nodded. "No-one else is getting through that tree."

  "Then we don't have long to wait. We should get ready. Bruno, you come with me. Agnes, stay here and watch our guest. And don't listen to any of his lies."

  The two men passed through the curtain into the border zone, while the nun pulled the single chair from the far wall, turned it and sat, staring at me. I turned my gaze to the curtain, trying to hear them speaking, but all I heard was the soft creak of the nun's chair.

  "Where's Tommy?" I said to her. "And why am I here?"