Hollow Oaks

by Paddy Kelly

  No answer.

  "I saw it," I said. "The boy from the well. I know all about it."

  Her face shifted towards a smile, stopping halfway. "Then you know of the miracle. How he came from the water. All the prayer I'd poured into it, the sin destroyed … it worked. It brought him. A pure child—"

  "From Tara! From the place you hate. And he's not a person, he's—"

  "That's enough of your spite. You're not the first to doubt. Bríd never really believed either. Even after we heard them talk to them, with that shell. And even after he healed her. He healed others too, the sick and the broken. I brought them to him, the ones who had no hope. He took their pain away, or he sat with them and made their passing beautiful."

  "He's from Tara," I said. "His eyes are bright fucking green. I know what that means. He's Sidhe, from the old stories. The original heathens—"

  "He doesn't come from your godless other Earth," she snapped, "but a time. A world far after ours, beyond the cusp of salvation, where all sin has been washed clean. He was sent back to tell us, Brenda. To save us. And to take us with him."

  So Dreabh had apparently convinced her, and maybe Burke too, that he was a messiah from future heaven. I swallowed, feeling myself on shaky ground.

  "Sister," I said. "Please, listen. He's not performing miracles. He's using crafting, and I know, because I've seen plenty. He's using you. Just try to think."

  She leaned forward. "Your doubt is something you must get past, to find the truth. There is a place for all of us, even the godless and the sinners. Ask him—"

  "I'm not asking him shit. He killed Vesta, my friend. He murdered her and torched her house. You’ve seen him drinking, smelling of booze? You know why? It's—"

  "The distilled essence of his world. The priest drinks the blood of Christ, is that so different? But you are not lost, even though you tried hard to be. He will save you too, if you ask him."

  "I don't want to ask. I want Tommy, and I want justice for the killing of my friend."

  "He told us of your friend, the witchcraft lady. He tried to save her. But she wouldn't let herself be saved. She rejected him, and he left. He said she was speaking of dying—"

  "Will you listen to yourself? He kills people, he kidnaps people, he burns down—"

  "Enough." She stood and glowered down at me. "If I had my way, I'd leave you here. But Dreabh is kinder than me. And you will take the chance he gives you."

  I stared at her, no idea what to say next. All I could hope for was that she left so the fairy might set me loose. I couldn't convince the nun, but I could probably overpower her.

  "I must see to something," she said. She strode past me, to the door and out into the passage with the locked gate. Was she pissing? Then I had an opening.

  "Ishbéal," I hissed towards my pocket. "Get out. Find a knife or something—"

  "No," she moaned in reply. "Maybe he is there. I cannot look at him."

  Shit. I looked around, and listened. The gentle patter of piss from beyond the door, but from the border zone, nothing. They must have gone through the hole, into the Poddle tunnel. If they walked the whole way to that basement they were digging in, how long until they were back? Didn't matter, as I was still fucking tied up.

  I thought back to the time in the van, and what had happened. Dare I wake the fuath to escape, as I'd done then? And if I did, would I burn myself out even faster?

  When the nun returned, I was still sitting there, still devoid of a plan.

  "My friends know I'm here," I said. "They're on their way, with a bigger gun than Dreabh has. And then you're all fucked."

  She ignored me, pulling out rosary beads. She sat, and her head dropped as she prayed, one bead slipping through pressed fingers after another.

  After ten minutes, when I was ready to scream, noises came from the border zone. The curtain swung back and Bruno Burke stepped through, followed by Dreabh.

  "We have the last of it," he said, and nodded towards me. "Now bring him."

  Bruno Burke, grinning beneath his moustache, stepped over and sliced the cord behind me. He put the knife away and grabbed my feet. Dreabh, meanwhile, pulled out his little black gun, and held it facing the floor. He watched as Burke backed up, dragging me on my pained arse, across uneven stone. Through the curtain we went, then through the second one, and into the border zone.

  Burke dragged me around the circumference to the side opposite the curtain, where he sat me against the wall, and stepped back.

  I looked around, in the light of a hanging LED bar. At first, I couldn't grasp what I was seeing. It looked like they'd taken a crowbar to the border zone and ripped it apart.

  Beside me, in the back wall, was a gaping hole. I'd been right about the off-colour blocks being an old tunnel. They'd opened it up, and now it led to a ragged-walled passage, big enough for one person, with a floor of flattened black earth. From its block-dirt throat came a sigh of air, and the tinny gargling of water. The Poddle — an escape route, within reach.

  Then the floor. Stones had been smashed and yanked out, like bad molars, to create a ring-shaped trench two metres across and about ten centimetres wide and deep, in the middle of the zone. Into that ring they'd poured sticks, which reeked of petrol.

  The blocks they'd removed or smashed lay in a pile against the wall. Beside them sat two backpacks, both bulging full. And beside those, a low shelf, possibly made for shoes, on which lay brown plastic bottles in tidy rows, maybe three dozen. They shimmered with a dirty crimson light, as if each one contained a tea-candle made of blood. Or a small, beating heart.

  As I stared, a prickling sensation spread across my face. Those were craft items. But also not. The crackle of anam was so strong the air between me and them was blurred.

  I recalled what Ishbéal had said, that the Sidhe had ways to concentrate anam, and maybe even store it. So, finally, I'd found what I was looking for — the missing craft items, condensed into a form so potent they made my eyes itch to look at them.

  Now the question was — what the hell did they mean to do with it?

  Dreabh was watching me, the gun in his right hand, his left on his chest, touching something beneath the fabric of his t-shirt. A thing that bulged.

  "Aren't they beautiful?" he said. "All that power, distilled. Burke, how long?"

  Bruno, by the curtain, shrugged. "Depends how fast he is."

  The nun slipped through the curtain and stood by the wall, head down. Her gaze slid to Dreabh and then off, as if that green-eyed bastard were Jesus himself.

  "He needs to hurry," Dreabh said. "Otherwise we'll have to try with somebody else."

  The fairy squirmed in my pocket. I tapped her gently to tell her to shut it.

  "What the fuck's going on?" I said. Dreabh didn't answer, and the others just stared.

  Something caught my eye. Lying innocuously on the floor by the tunnel was a plastic bottle, half-full. I recognised it — the uisce beatha I'd brought when the queen had held her little trial. Maybe Dreabh and them hadn't known what it was, and just left it there.

  I turned my head to check out the tunnel. They definitely had another opening in that office building basement. But even if I got the tape off and got inside, they'd be right behind me, with torches and a gun. The other way, then, maybe force the gate—

  The room shook as if a massive magnetic pulse had passed through it. Dreabh looked up, mouth open. It faded, but a tremor remained, as if we all sat on a spin-drier. It didn't take me long to realise what had happened, and what questions it answered.

  "Tommy! You sent him across the other side, with craft items, didn't you? To open the zone from Tara. With killer fairies and lepps everywhere. That's close to murder—"

  "Clearly it wasn't, as he made it. You two, get the rest of it. Quickly."

  The nun slipped through the curtain and back into the other room, with Burke after her. My teeth ached from the vibrations, and cold thrummed icily in my bones.

  Dreabh, now alone in the room w
ith me, was peering around, looking excited. His gun faced the floor. I could have charged him, but I was immobile. I had to do something.

  Wake the fuath. But how much of myself would it cost?

  Burke and the nun returned, and deposited stuff on the floor, on our side of the dividing line. A petrol canister, two plastic bags filled with sticks, a shovel, a crowbar, a trowel. Dreabh added to the pile about ten of the dully glowing bottles of concentrated anam.

  "Now," he said to the nun. "Refill the slots. End with the one nearest me."

  Agnes got moving. She circled the room, as the floor trembled and the air creaked. There were three niches without craft items and into the first one she slid a jar. The vibration shifted down. Then the second one, a wrapped package. As it slotted home, the wall behind her became, for a second, half-transparent, like a balloon stretched thin. I saw the slope, the earth, the gloom. She stepped back across the dividing line, joining us on the home side of the zone, and picked up the last one. It slid into its niche with a clunk.

  The vibration, with a flash of purple, snapped off, and the stone floor across the dividing line was suddenly gone. In its place was bare earth, on which sat a man in a black coat and woolly hat, grinning like a kid who'd just been given infinite ice-cream.

  "Tommy!" Blood smeared his face. I turned to Dreabh. "What the fuck did—"

  I caught Burke's hand moving a microsecond before it reached my face, slapping me so hard it smacked my head back against the wall. Teeth clenched in stinging defiance, I shot Burke a murderous look, but he wasn't looking at me, but at Dreabh, like a dog awaiting orders.

  Dreabh squatted down beside Tommy. "Did you get the water?"

  Tommy, with a dopey grin, held up a plastic bottle. Dreabh grabbed it and stepped back. "Get him out of the way," he said to Burke.

  Come on, Tommy, I was thinking, stand up, hit him, do something. But he just sat there as Burke stepped up with his knife. Had they drugged him? They must have, because it was no problem for Burke to direct Tommy to the wall and make him sit, one metre from me.

  "Now Earth water," Dreabh barked. "From the river."

  Burke headed for the tunnel and scrambled through, while Dreabh poured out most of the water he'd got from Tommy, leaving the bottle about a quarter full.

  "Made a fire," Tommy said. He stank of smoke. "In the woods, like. Fuckin' pretty—"

  "What fire?" I whispered back. "Tommy, what did you do over there?"

  He didn't answer. It struck me they hadn't drugged him at all. They'd given him urges, to make him obey and sprint across Tara, carrying a rucksack of craft items, to open the border zone. They'd probably sent him through the tree in Marlay Park, and blocked it after he'd gone.

  Burke returned with a metal bowl of water, taken, I assumed, from the Poddle. Dreabh kneeled on the floor. With extravagant care, he added some to Tommy's bottle, until it was half full. From his pocket he pulled a smaller glass bottle, old and rough, stopped with a plastic cork. He carefully added its contents to the bigger bottle, and replaced the cork.

  He held the bottle up. "The three waters. Crossed to one."

  "Tommy," I hissed, while he was distracted. "Just tell me what the hell—"

  "Shut it," Burke barked, raising a hand but not swinging it, making me bite my lip.

  Dreabh squatted down in the middle of the zone, where the soil of Tara met the stone of Dublin, and planted a big iron nail in the ground. Over it he slipped a ring with a cord tied to it, with another ring at the end. He stretched the cord out. It reached as far as the trench of sticks, although now it was only half a trench, as it was cut off where the home half of the zone was eaten by the Tara half. He pulled out a screwdriver, shoved that into the smaller ring, and drew a clear circle into the Taran ground with the screwdriver, a half-ring that perfectly matched the stick-filled trench on our side. A guide, I realised. Then he nodded, and stood.

  "Now," he said. "Move it all across. Quickly."

  The nun and Burke moved the pile of things across to the Tara side of the zone, as Dreabh wound the string around the nail in the ground. "Back," he ordered, when everything had been transferred. The nun joined us on the home side of the zone, but Burke remained on the other. He sat where Tommy had been sitting, legs crossed, on the earth.

  Burke pulled out a torch, turned it on, put it down. Dreabh picked up one of the two rucksacks, shoved it into Burke's hands. "Work fast," he said, and stepped to the pillar closest to me. "I will reconnect us in ten minutes exactly. Go."

  Dreabh yanked two craft items from their niches, severing the zone with a stinging rattle. The room was all stone again, with a bare flicker in the walls. Burke and all the gear was gone.

  "Now," Dreabh said, and pointed the gun at Tommy. "Get up."

  Tommy stared at him. He seemed to find the gun amusing. I nudged him, feeling the pulse of the blood in my neck. "Tommy. Get up. Don't fuck with him."

  Slowly, he stood. "Now," Dreabh sad. "Through that curtain."

  Tommy, with a float to his step, crossed the border zone with Dreabh two steps behind. I had a wild hope that Tommy was putting it on, that he'd burst into action shortly and slam Dreabh's sneering face into the floor. But once they'd passed through the curtain, leaving me and the nun alone, all I heard was the faint clanking of keys.

  The nun seemed to be ignoring me, so I struggled with the tape, but again got nowhere. If I could just send her out, and convince Ishbéal to cut the tape—

  The curtain parted and Dreabh stepped through. He walked over to me and looked down. "Your companion is locked between the gate and door. If you want him to not starve there, you'll listen and do what we ask."

  "Then why don't you fucking tell me what that is?"

  Dreabh grabbed the remaining rucksack from where it sat against the wall, and set it down by my stretched-out feet. "You will take that. Shortly. And deliver it."

  "To who?" I got no answer, because Dreabh was moving again. He grabbed two of the glowing anam bottles and placed them in the ring of twigs on the floor. He kept going, two at a time, until there was about ten of them, evenly spaced on petrol-soaked twigs.

  "Wood," he said. "And water. And fire."

  He stood back, studying his watch. I struggled at my restraints, wondering if Max was still out there. Would she go for help? I should have given her Debbie's number. Stupid mistake.

  Dreabh stood there until the ten minutes were up, and then replaced the craft items in their niches. The floor jolted, purple light flashed and the zone re-connected.

  Now the floor was split along the middle again, and Burke stood in the other half. He'd been busy and had dug a ring-shaped trench in the ground, mirroring the one on our side. Into that trench he'd arranged the sticks he'd carried across, and spread the anam bottles out along the top. The two trenches were now perfectly lined up, across two worlds.

  "No opposition?" Dreabh said.

  He shook his head. "All clear. Must be busy with the fire."

  "Then get him into the middle," Dreabh said. "And cut him free."

  I was feeling ill as Burke sliced the tape on my hands and ankles without noticing the fairy-shaped bulge in my coat pocket. Under Dreabh's glare, I stood. And gasped. I staggered to the wall, towards a certain forgotten plastic bottle, where I fell to my knees.

  "Get up!" Dreabh said, his gun extended. "You will stand!"

  I raised a hand, wretchedly panting. "Please… water. The bottle. Please."

  I was gambling I was too valuable to shoot. Uisce beatha wasn't much, but if I was going to Tara, it might save my arse.

  "Take it," he barked. "Drink it later. Now stand."

  I slipped the bottle into my non-fairy pocket and stood. Dreabh directed me inside the ring on the floor, placing me on the home side of the central line. He handed me the rucksack, heavy and bulging. I pulled it on, as the nun went to stand by opening in the wall.

  "My friends are soon here," I said. "And there's someone expecting me outside—"

  "T
oo late," Dreabh said, "for lies. Things will happen quickly now. Keep your head. Getting back depends on that. As does the life of that man out there. Understand?"

  Sticky fear was hauling itself up my gullet, hand over hand.

  "Dreabh … please. Just tell me. What the fuck's going to happen?"

  No answer. He opened the bottle of water that he'd mixed. Walking around where I was sitting, from Earth into Tara and back, he drizzled water onto the sticks and the blood-coloured bottles of distilled anam that lay among them, in the ring-trenches in both worlds.

  "Water of three," he said. "Wood of two. Fire of one."

  He tossed the empty bottle aside. His hand slid to his neck, pressing the thing beneath his t-shirt. A deep breath. "We are ready." He stepped back, the gun firmly pointed at me.

  "Burn it," he snarled at Burke. "First the other side, then this side."

  "What?" I said, looking around. "What do you mean, burn it? I'm in here."

  Burke, following orders, stepped around behind me, and I craned my neck to watch him as he squatted down, with a lighter, and held it to the sticks.

  "What the fuck," I said, "don't—"

  With a fat whomp, petrol-soaked twigs ignited, and around the ring in both directions skittered a snake of blue flame. Burke held the lighter in place, until the twigs caught properly with a crackling yellow. I made a panicked attempt to stand.

  "Sit!" Dreabh yelled, the gun raised. "You don't have to be intact, just alive."

  I sunk onto my knees, as heat pressed in around me. The fairy squirmed in my pocket, but I couldn't help her. What the fuck were they doing? Was I a sacrifice? Holy shit, why—

  The heat swelled. Burke moved to the other side of the ring and leaned down to apply his lighter to the twigs. While Dreabh, the gun still pointed at me, was chanting.

  "Fire, wood, water, fire wood water, fire wood water!"

  Burke stepped back from the burning ring. The nun had her rosary beads gripped and I pressed a hand to my mouth, heat prickling my skin. I couldn't stay here, I had to do something. I'd charge Dreabh. Slam him, hope for the best. One, two—

  One of the anam bottles ignited, and a thunderous burst of purple shook the room, as if a truck-sized boot had kicked the walls. I cringed, covering my head, expecting the ceiling to fall on me. Around me, purple tendrils snaked up from the ring, a wispy veil of them.