Hollow Oaks

by Paddy Kelly

  But I knew if I did, she'd take me. Her promises were now too hard to resist. I had to stay awake. Keep moving. The moment I stopped, it was all over.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The roar of water thrummed off the brick of the Poddle tunnel. My palm lay flat against a cold wall as I tried to catch my breath. Far ahead, the tunnel swung a left, water glinting in the glow of my torch as it poured over a concrete step and passed from sight.

  I stared at its dark flow, having trouble remembering why I was there. My thoughts kept skittering away, coming back in fragments. The water. The urge. The fuath.

  "Sure you don't want me to come down?" I turned to Max Grey, a few metres behind me. She was crammed in under the curved brick ceiling, stretched out on the iron pipe we'd crawled along to access the tunnel. A lamp blazed on her head, and a rope ladder hung down.

  A shake of my head. I'd planned some words, but they wouldn't form. It was like parts of my brain were turning dark. I took another slug of water from the bottle.

  The river gurgled around my wellingtons. Swirls in the pretty light. Comforting.

  I pulled the bottle from my mouth, and capped it. My bladder ached from the many litres I'd poured into myself. But that was the whole idea.

  "You shouldn't drink so much water," Max said, her voice echoing off the walls. "Your brain will swell. I've heard about it, because brain tissue is—"

  "Please," I said, facing her again. "Can you give me a few minutes?"

  "You mean, leave? Not sure how. There's not much room to manoeuvre up here."

  "Then turn off the lamp. When I tell you. Okay? I'll walk on a bit first."

  She nodded, and I turned, facing into the Poddle's current. We'd considered sneaking into the border zone, then getting into the river that way. But too dangerous, given we'd no idea where the Sidhe were, the four or five who'd made it through the zone. Or Sister Agnes. Or even Burke, whose body hadn't been there when Max Grey had rescued Tommy.

  So instead I'd availed of Ms. Grey's urban exploring skills. And I was right — she knew a way in. It took only a little climbing and sneaking and use of tools to get us here.

  I trudged ahead, torch in hand. The water came only halfway up my wellingtons, but the flow gave it weight, like chains dragging on my feet. I checked my coat pocket, confirming the glass jar was there. And after a few more steps, putting me twenty metres from Max, I stopped and pulled it out.

  The urge sloshed behind the glass, like diluted tar. Four hours it had taken the fairies to make it, before they'd gone back through the tree. And now I was about to see if it worked.

  I turned off my torch, leaving Max's as the only light. Then, with exquisite care, I removed the lid of the jar. A turf-like smell rose, with an edge of chilli. I filled my mouth with it, swallowed it back, then tipped the jar to make sure I'd gotten every stinging drop.

  My belly was already gurgling as the jar went back in my pocket. I turned to Max, who now looked fairy-sized herself, stretched out along the fat pipe in the distance.

  "Turn it off. I'll tell you when to put it back on. Won't take long."

  "Ok." Her words boomed down the narrow tunnel. "Turning off … now."

  Darkness descended, like a sack over my head. I felt for the wall and took a deep breath. Then, eyes closed, I reached inside, un-tensing my chest, and tickled the fuath.

  "My darling. We're here. Where the Sidhe walked. Can't you feel it?"

  She stirred, a pressure shifting from one internal wall to the other.

  It's all broken the poison you try to betray us you try I know—

  "My sweet," I whispered into the dark. "Listen. Water. Dark and deep. A home."

  I feel it run and whisper but it is cold and empty and you are so warm.

  My legs trembled. A sick feeling was building. The urge, doing its nasty business.

  "You're right. I'm poison. You can't stay in me. But this river — the Sidhe walked here, and they will again. And the city above, can't you hear it? A million voices, all lost and desperate. A million dreams to fill. They'll listen to you. Because I can't anymore."

  Silence, as the pressure in my bladder increased, and the urge made my lips tingle.

  I can heal you I can make you whole as you've always wished for.

  "Thanks, but I'll have to heal on my own from now on. Like everyone else."

  No not the wounds the fault the wrongness in your body I can make it whole.

  My eyes widened in the dark. She meant … oh fucking shit. She meant my body. The breasts and … the rest of it. She was promising to change me. To make me right.

  "You can't do that," I whispered. "No fucking way. It's impossible."

  But I can I can change you heal you in any way you wish all for my love.

  My head grew light with the idea of it. And even … considering it.

  "You're lying," I said. "If I keep you, I'll die, that's what they all said—"

  I can pull back and hide deeply you will not know I am there.

  I swallowed. The sound of running water enveloped me. Fucking fuck. Could I do that? They'd all know I had her. But I could lie. I could pretend she wasn't there. Then when it was done, I'd go to the fairies, get another urge, and this time I'd—

  Stop. She was doing it, the thing she did. Offering me my heart's desire. And I was buying it. But I wanted it. How could I pass it up? Because it had conditions. It had lies.

  It was all lies. She couldn't help it. It was what she was. But I could help it.

  "No," I said, and felt a heave in my gut, as if to throw up. That word, so harsh and final. I swallowed it and said it again. "No. We came to do this. And we're doing it."

  A furious whine rose, a tornado of dead leaves and screams, higher and higher—

  I clenched my teeth and unbuttoned my trousers. Pulled them down. Squatted.

  "You leave me," I said, with an awful ache in my chest. "You hear me? Into the water or the poison takes you. Your last chance, and you won't get another. Out. Now."

  The howl rose into grit and static as I held myself over the Poddle, my bladder bursting at its seams. I unclenched my muscles and out it came, that water I'd been building up for hours, hammering a furrow of piss into the current. Her scream lessened with the pressure, and then came a shocking burst of cold, as if I'd plunged myself in that icy water, after which the flow eased to a dribble and stopped.

  I remained squatting in the dark. Turned my head left-right, up-down. The air sharp, the cloudiness gone. I ran a finger down my face, sighing at its touch across my lips.

  "Esmerelda?" I said, trying to extend myself into the dark to listen. "Hello…?"

  I heard a voice, far off, the barest of whispers. Come back to me my love my everything come back you are the flow the water…

  It slipped beyond hearing, swallowed by the sound of the stream. The fuath was gone, hidden beneath a city of a million. Hardly safe. But for now, it would have to do.

  I buttoned up, and stood. Lightness on my shoulders, smells jostling in my nostrils — water and mouldy brick and the fading warmth of piss. In the dark, I pulled from a pocket what I'd bought some hours before. A long triangular form, heavy in my hand.

  I ripped it open with my teeth and let the paper fall to be swept off. The foil next, slid off with trembling fingers, before I stuffed the whole bar into my mouth, like a deep chocolate blowjob. Heart thudding, I took a bite.

  Tears welled. I chewed, as if devouring angels, one holy chomp at a time.

  "Are you still there?" came Max Grey's worried voice from the dark.

  "Here," I said through a mouthful of chocolate. "All fine. Turn on the light."

  The tunnel blazed back into view, and when I'd stopped squinting, I walked, my footsteps long and strong. I stopped by the rope ladder, and looked up.

  "You look … chirpy," Max said, peering over the pipe. "Who were you talking to?"

  "Sorry, it's need-to-know only. Now I think we should get out of here."

  Max, in lip-pr
essed silence, watched me climb the ladder. She led the way along the pipe, through the tight hole where it penetrated the wall, and a few metres more until we were over the basement boiler room, back in the reek of rat-shit and heated metal.

  I dropped to the floor as she wriggled back along the pipe to replace the loose bricks that hid the Poddle opening from casual view. Then, with barely a puff of effort, she hung from the pipe and dropped down, sending dust swirling, and wiped her hands.

  I raised my arms, amazed by how light they were. Was this what people had all the time, this lightness? How had I been this way, day after day, and not noticed how astounding it was?

  Max Grey, standing in front of me, turned her lamp towards the ceiling. Some red locks had slipped out from underneath her woolly hat, which had already attracted cobwebs.

  "Tommy's waiting for us," I said. "We shouldn't let him worry about—"

  "Let him. There's only so much secrecy I can handle. I dragged your friend from a basement. Then you vanish for two days, and when you come back, you talk to a river and pee into it. And you're all with the secret looks and whispers. It might not be my business, but I don't care. Look where we are. Is this my business? No. So before we take another step, you'll tell me what's going on here. All of it."

  I blinked grit from my eyes. "Fine. But I won't tell you. I'll show you. Come on."

  Marlay Park, in the bite of a Dublin winter. Grass encrusted with frost, stars in a bare sky, and the lights of houses around us in a messy ring, bleeding through the trees.

  Tommy was standing back, keeping an eye out, while I stood with Max Grey at the portal oak. "There," I said, nodding to the opening. "That's where you go."

  "What's in there?" she said, sounding doubtful, as if I was planning a murder.

  "Let me ask you a thing. You sneeze in the sun, right? I mean, I know you do. I saw it, back in the Dubh Linn park."

  She gave me a look that suggested I'd lost my mind. "I … do. But should I understand why that matters?"

  "So do I. Our brains are oddly wired, and we sneeze in strong light because the optic nerve excites another nerve in the brain. Hence the sneeze. But that cross-wiring also means something else. It means we can do this."

  I slapped my anchors into her hand, two balls connected by a leather cord. She stared at them, as if I'd handed her a turd. "Grip the furry one after you climb into that tree. Then the other one when you want to return. But don't stay long. A quick look and back, okay?"

  Her expression of pure bewilderment was soul-warming to behold.

  "Go on," I said, giving her a gentle shove. "Give it a try. Live a little."

  Perhaps too confused to argue, Max climbed into the oak, the cord gripped, the anchors hanging. I looked across to Tommy, and we exchanged a nod. I heard her swallowed cry, and when it was cut off halfway. The twang of her passing reverberated, strong in the restored flow of anam. Then silence.

  A minute and a half later I felt it again as Max Grey tumbled from the portal oak. She jumped up, then darted up to me, head shaking, and grabbed my arm.

  "That place … what was that place?"

  I thought back to when it had first happened to me. The disbelief, confusion, exhilaration. That feeling of leaning over the edge of a precipice, with a warm wind rising.

  But I hadn't done it just to see her expression. The Sidhe were out there, a fight was looming, and we needed people on our side.

  I was beginning to grasp you can never have too many people on your side.

  "To the car. I'll tell you on the way. Long story. But a long drive too. And I guarantee you won't be seeing the same world out those windows by the end of it."

  Debbie met me at the back door, grinning despite the chill of stupidly early morning. She crushed me in a hug, and I wondered what kind of hug it was, if hands were allowed to wander, and where. So I played it safe, planting mine on her back, feeling the muscles along her spine harden under the power of the crush. She held me for a while, and I let her do it.

  Then she released me, beaming into my face. "You look so much better. Oh my God, it worked! Did it work?" I nodded, and she squealed and hugged me again.

  Without the fuath dulling me, it was like seeing her for the first time. Like all windows were open, all colours screaming. Her scent, breathed deeply in, making my chest tremble.

  She let me go and turned to the two behind me — Tommy and Max Grey. Max was still in a daze after her debriefing in Tommy's car. She accepted Debbie's hand and floppily shook it.

  "Bren said there's … one of those trees. Here, in the house. Is that true?"

  Debbie turned to me. "Did we agree on this? How much did you tell her?"

  I shrugged. "All of it. And showed her too. I think she's going to need a drink."

  Debbie turned back to Max. "Well, okay, then. Welcome on board."

  "A drink would be kind of nice," Max said. "Although I know it's early and all."

  "I saw a good breakfast wine downstairs," Gernaud said. He stood in the hallway, a towel slung over his shoulder. His gaze was directed entirely at Max. "Hello again."

  She nodded to him, smiling. "I'm glad to hear it. Philippe, wasn't it? I smell cooking in there. Maybe you need some kitchen assistance?"

  A flash of panic, then a gallant recovery. "Of course. If you can fry sausages—"

  "Can I?" She was already kicking off her shoes, and hanging her coat in the hall. She strode in, and stood in front of Gernaud, half a head shorter, her hair a fire against the dark of his skin. "Well go on then, lead me to your sausages."

  They headed towards the kitchen, chatting as they went. Debbie shot me a grin, and turned to Tommy, who was still standing outside, scanning the grounds.

  "I'm thinking we keep the alarms on day and night," he said.

  "I'm on it," Debbie said. "And I'm getting a proper guard dog too."

  "Good," Tommy said. "Fuckers drugged me up on urges. No way I'm letting them do that again." He turned to us. "But now some breakfast would be fuckin' deadly."

  Breakfast. The forgotten feeling of hunger, drool on my tongue. Like a brain, re-inserted. I handed Debbie my coat, dirty and cobwebby, and slid off my wellingtons.

  Debbie hung up my coat, adjusted the tightness of her pony tail, and closed the front door. She led Tommy and me through a murky corridor, to the scullery. That familiar space, with its tattered brown couch, turfy air, dirty lighting, and Willy the dog, dozing.

  Everything was so sharp. Edges, smells, light. All so jangly and alive.

  Gernaud and Max were chatting in the kitchen as they worked on the food. We sat down, me on one side of the table, Debbie and Tommy across from me.

  "Hey in there!" Debbie yelled towards the kitchen. "Less chatting, more frying. There's hungry people out here."

  The cooks were soon shipping trays of sausages, black pudding and eggs to the table, along with stacks of toast. I started in as soon as it was set before me, in the manner of a post-hibernation bear. The first bite of a sausage, and I fell silent, mouth half-open, having forgotten that things could taste so amazing. That it was even an option.

  So weird how quickly a bad thing became normal. How we adjusted what we expected to whatever we had, and pretended it was never any other way.

  Gernaud and Max, carrying the final tray and two bottles of wine, joined us at the table. Max poured and downed a half-glass of wine in one fluid motion.

  "How are you handling all this?" I said to her, between my sausage bites.

  "It's … a lot," she said. "Quite a big part of me still thinks you drugged me when I went through that tree. Even though I saw it. I smelled it. But it's hard."

  "Yeah, it'll be that way for a while. Shit, this black pudding is divine."

  "I'd like to hear it, though," she said. "What actually happened."

  In the car I'd told her about Tara and portal oaks and fairies and craft items, but not about the Sidhe or the fuath. Or the bug-world. Or Dreabh.

  I hesitated, looking at Debbie. Sho
uld we go the whole hog on this?

  "That lady," Tommy said, pointing with a fork at Max, "pulled my arse out of that basement, when the roof was falling in. Broke the gate with a stone. So tell her all of it. No fuckin' secrets."

  I took a breath, stuffed some toast into my mouth, swallowed it, took another breath. With butter and crumbs on my lips, I sat back. "Okay then. Listen up"

  I dived into it. The history of the small folk and the Sidhe. The discovery of the third world, the fuath, the water of years, new kinds of anam. Everything Carmath had told us. Then Dreabh and Seamus Cavan, ending with me pissing out the fuath into the Poddle.

  Max sat there when I was done, staring in a defocused manner at the wall. Gernaud poured her some wine. She picked it up without looking at the glass, and sipped, still staring.

  "So." She put the glass down. "There's some kind of dangerous ghost in the Poddle, that might get into people's brains and kill everyone. Is that what you just said?"

  "That's the gist," I said. "But nobody's going to fall asleep in the Poddle tunnel, right? Because that's when it infects you, when you sleep. And if the Sidhe decide to sneak along it into Crafters Lodge again, they should hopefully be discouraged."

  "Fuckin' not drinking the water in Dublin again," Tommy said. "That's for sure."

  "And what is the plan now?" Gernaud said, looking pleased as a scratched kitten.

  "The plan?" I slathered toast in butter and devoured it in a few chomps. "Track down Sister Agnes and the Sidhe that made it across. I suspect they'll avoid Tara for now, as the fairies know they're coming. Meaning they'll be in Dublin, hiding from the sun. And preparing."

  "We should find Seamus Cavan too," Debbie said. "I tried calling him after the fire, plenty of times, but no answer. He knows a lot that we should know too."

  "Assuming he's alive," I said. "He'll probably have words for me after I wrecked his border zone. The bastard. Somebody pass the tea. And more black pudding."

  Willy the dog hopped off the sofa and trotted over. He had a look at us, working out who was the most easily twisted around his paw. He settled on Tommy, and sat beside him, gazing up. Tommy, under Debbie's scowl, slipped him a sausage.