The Call

by Peadar O'Guilin

  But he draws attention to himself by crying out. For he has seen that it has not one face, but dozens and dozens of them. They are crammed in together beneath the lip of the crablike dome of its shell. All of them are human, melting into each other, mouths twisted in pain or fury or hunger. A thousand blinking, tearful eyes; the features of every ethnicity in the world.

  Nearest Anto, at the surface of the water, is a woman’s head, half covered by the rags of a pilot’s uniform, squashed up against, and growing into, the moaning weathered skin of a middle-aged man in a rotted fisherman’s cap.

  And then all the mouths open at once and call out in a chorus of rage and hunger. Massive fists slough off the water, and these are rough things, made of multiple human torsos, each great knuckle protected by a sheet of metal torn from the hull of a ship.

  But Anto won’t die just yet. The creature is not the only one of its kind. Another has heaved itself to the surface and is already shoving old wrecks from its path as it powers toward the first. Such is the force of its passage that the waves lift Anto and fling him gasping against the fuselage of the plane behind him. In no time at all the “crabs” are battering at each other. Their metal shells dent and tear with a sound that can be heard for miles in all directions. Their many voices cry out in pain as blood seeps into the black water, and a terrified Anto, gasping in horror, can see that several of the faces at the front of each titan are already dead.

  But eventually one great fist breaks through the enemy’s shell. It tears out whole handfuls of body parts, and these it pushes gently but urgently into its own flesh, growing in the process. The loser, meanwhile, staggers back toward Anto, already diminished, no larger now than a minibus, bleeding, disoriented.

  Anto has seen enough. He knows that if he doesn’t leave right now, he will finish his days under one of those shells. Or parts of him will.

  He swims, or rather he claws his way through the water under the body of the plane to come up on the far side. He’s got to get out of here. Got to.

  Screams from behind tell him that the two giants are not quite finished with each other yet. They’re making more waves now, and one of these is so large it lifts Anto from his feet entirely and flings him head over heels toward the beach.

  This is not the place where he entered the sea: nowhere near it. He has fetched up, in fact, beside the “windows.”

  Anto’s strength has left him and has taken with it all will and imagination. He is incapable now of wonder. But still his eyes are drawn to the color.

  “Windows” are a well-known but poorly understood phenomenon. They are like holes in the air. Each is double the height of an adult, and three times as wide, and through them you can see views of Ireland as it was a few decades ago. The Testimonies have recorded eighty separate scenes so far. Without exception they are displays of happiness.

  The one farthest from where Anto lies shows a herd of colts, prancing in a spring meadow. The green of the field burns into his retinas, so intense does it seem amid the misery of the Grey Land. Another window displays a cocktail party, with dancing and the like, in old-fashioned clothes. Anto wonders what music can make the people move so vigorously that they look like they’re about to crash into each other in a joyful mess.

  But the people in the scene nearest to Anto are all, like him, spending a day by the seaside. They stretch out in the glory of the sun, heedless of the intense beauty of their plastic buckets, their bathing suits, their towels. A sob escapes his throat, and even though it won’t work—it can’t work!—he climbs to his feet and tries to reach into the scene …

  And that’s when the Sídhe arrive. A group of twelve.

  Anto can’t run. He’s got nothing left in the tank. Even standing is too much for him. For the second time in less than twenty minutes, his fear freezes him.

  They approach, and he sees now that their beauty is all illusion. And they know it too. Because although they are supposed to be searching for him, their eyes are drawn first to the horses and the green and then to the dancers.

  He sees the longing in their perfect faces and he wonders who designed this hell. Who, in their cruelty, left these windows behind to remind them of all that had been stolen from them? To remind them of the thieves themselves, enjoying every shade of green and gold and red? Feeling the sun and the clean, pure rain on their skins?

  For once the Sídhe are not smiling. They beat at their chests like maddened gorillas. But they keep moving, and now they turn their eyes to Anto, until every one of them, the full dozen, is looking right at him.

  But then they begin to walk past, and he realizes, he realizes, they think he is part of the scene in the window. Laughter bubbles up inside him, but it’s death to make a noise and he manages to squash it. Three Sídhe women come by in cloaks of spiky leaves. Four men follow along, bows half cocked in their hands.

  “We have no time,” says one. “The thief has escaped us.”

  “Every one that gets away,” says a second, “is another to fight us when the worlds align again. It will not be long … But this one, I think, is still here. I felt it arrive, and a hundred heartbeats remain before it can leave.”

  Two more men and two women go by. In the scene, through the window, a girl is standing next to Anto. Blonde hair has blown into her eyes and she brushes it away. He moves his mouth silently, pretending to talk to her.

  Then a hand closes around his wrist, and for a moment Anto thinks it’s the girl, that she has come to him through the window. But it’s the last of the Sídhe. A tall woman with huge, sparkling eyes and a wide, wide grin of triumph.

  “Oh, cleverest of thieves,” she says. She is so happy to see him. A child at Christmas. “Yet I saw that your hair does not blow in the same direction as hers.”

  And she begins to squeeze. And the pain is incredible.

  “You, we will make a giant!”

  Nessa and Megan walk right past Anto’s empty tracksuit without ever seeing it. They don’t even know he was Called. Beyond the mound where the girl in the rock forever struggles to free herself, Aoife is still screaming.

  The noise has attracted some instructors too: Tompkins and Horner, materializing between the trees like a pair of ghosts. Tompkins, the one who talks, turns his head toward Nessa. “Go back. This is forbidden.” But he doesn’t stop to ensure obedience, and the two girls skirt around the face of the hill to where Aoife, her voice now hoarse, weeps over the appalling remains of Squeaky Emma. Liz Sweeney crouches nearby, trying not to look but unable to help herself.

  “I … I’m not sure I want to get any closer to that,” says Megan, and Nessa can only agree. Squeaky Emma has always been a strange fish: secretive, but cheery and irreverent. She could talk for hours about foods and dishes she had never tasted, but showed little interest in actually eating. And she could be fun, sometimes, when the mood took her. Nessa doesn’t want to see what has become of her now. The parts of her that appear from behind Aoife and Liz are scaled and oozing. That’s more than enough.

  They turn, to find Sergeant Taaft clumping along toward them through the fallen leaves. “Oh, you’re for it now,” she says.

  But just then another voice calls out. “Chuckwu! We’ve found Chuckwu! I think it’s him anyway.” And Taaft curses. “Two together so soon? Back! Get back to the college. Now!”

  They return the way they’ve come, and if they didn’t see Anto’s empty tracksuit on the way here, they certainly won’t notice that it is now missing. Only the crucifix remains, dull in the forest gloom.

  The mourning bells ring twice that day, both times for Year 5. In the refectory Megan is trying to comfort the weeping Aoife, but gentleness was not one of nature’s gifts to her, and besides, she has wet cheeks of her own.

  Nessa’s not much help to anybody either. It’s because of Marya, who’s running around telling everybody that Anto was Called too, but that he’s come back alive.

  Nessa’s thoughts are spinning and spinning with it. What will happen now? What can
happen? She’s in a daze, and yet she’s not, because every time the door swings open her head jerks up, expecting to see him come in, to see him stride over to her for her congratulations.

  Such things have happened before: survivors paraded in front of their peers; injuries tended, faces washed, and awkward in civilian clothes and even—by the Cauldron!—shoes. More often, however, they need “help” processing their experiences. Sometimes they don’t return to society for months. Sometimes they are kept on a suicide watch. Forever.

  And yet, in spite of that, their untested peers envy them and celebrate these rare victories more than they mourn the losses.

  In the refectory, songs are sung and cakes are served along with precious coffee. It makes everybody giddy and loud. Under the cover of this racket, Megan leans in close to Nessa; her eyes are red from crying over Emma. “You happy?” she asks. “I always know when you are. He’s your boy.”

  “He’s not my boy.”

  “He’s yours if you want him.”

  Nessa doesn’t respond. Megan’s right though, isn’t she? Half of the impossible fantasy has come true. And Nessa wonders if Anto will return to the college as a veteran. Many do. Like poor Shamey. Like Diane Mallon, who, with seconds to go in the Grey Land, jumped off a cliff and got home just before hitting the bottom. Both of them seem reluctant to begin new lives and she wonders why that is. And then there’s the third veteran, poor Melanie, whose heart will literally burst if she ever comes under real stress again. What if Anto is like that? The Grey Land kills in many ways and not always quickly.

  Please, God—she never prays! Holy Mary, let him be all right.

  For the second time that day, Taaft appears behind the Donegal girls. Her hands grip their shoulders. “Ms. Breen wants you,” she says. “Did you think we’d forgotten you were in the forest today?”

  Nessa looks up to see Conor glaring across at her from the boys’ table. His special hatred for her is never far away. So much so that she rarely notices it anymore. And after what she did to him in the forest, surely she has earned a bit of it now.

  They have to drag Aoife out of the warmth along with them. It’s no easy task. The poor girl walks as though in a dream, and Nessa imagines she would have the same look on her face if it had been Anto who was lost, rather than Squeaky Emma. Except Anto is only a fantasy boyfriend rather than a real one. She wouldn’t have a right to feel that way.

  Taaft leaves them with Liz Sweeney, who’s already waiting outside the principal’s office. “What about the puppy-lover?” Megan asks her. “He too busy today?”

  “Who?”

  “Ass face. Your boss. Conor turdbreath.”

  “Crom will snap you in two, you hateful little redheaded bitch.”

  “Seriously. Where is he?”

  “The instructors never saw him in the forest. Nobody knows he was there, and there’s no reason for you to tell, is there, Megan Donnelly?”

  Megan shrugs. “I’m no snitch, Liz Sweeney. Unless he saw something useful for the Testimonies?”

  Liz Sweeney says he didn’t, so that’s the end of the matter. Megan knocks on Ms. Breen’s door. “It’s the Cage for all of us,” Liz Sweeney says.

  And in they go, the four girls squashing in between piles of books and stacks of yellowing notes that must never have been consulted in the quarter century since a religious order ceded this building to the State. The place stinks of the menthol tobacco that Ms. Breen uses in her pipe, and she takes another pull of it now as she looks up at them from the keyboard of the patched-together computer she uses.

  “You will be punished,” she tells them conversationally, “but not until we’ve figured a few things out, because it’s strange, isn’t it? For three people to be Called so close together, so soon. Within a radius of, what? Fifty, a hundred feet?”

  “It’s the girl in the rock,” says Nessa. Because of course she has been thinking about the coincidence too.

  The Turkey nods. “But why weren’t you Called? You and Megan discovered it only a week ago. You walked right up to … to her, didn’t you?”

  They nod.

  “Did you touch her? Did Emma touch her? Or Chuckwu, or Anto?”

  “We didn’t get a chance,” said Megan. “We were followed by—”

  “We followed them!” says Liz Sweeney hurriedly. “Me and Chuckwu. The two of us. That’s what she’s saying. We were … we were curious, but the girls ran from us. They must have thought we were teachers or instructors. So they ran.”

  Ms. Breen’s voice turns hard. “Did any of you touch her or didn’t you?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Megan. “Like Liz Sweeney says, we scattered before we got the chance.”

  “And Anto definitely didn’t get the chance,” said Nessa. “He couldn’t have.”

  “You were together?”

  Nessa feels her face redden, but manages to keep her voice steady. “We were in the library, miss. We saw … Liz Sweeney and Chuckwu and wondered what they were at.”

  The principal sighs. “And so,” she intones, “all of the lemmings run over the cliff. Brilliant.”

  She puffs at the pipe for a moment, ignoring them, deep in her own world. But Nessa feels compelled to speak.

  “I think this happened because they cut open the rock, miss,” she says. “There was a strange feeling among the trees that wasn’t so strong the first time we saw the … the Sídhe girl. And … and it affected Anto more than me. He was grabbing at that cross of his and sweating.”

  “By the Cauldron!” shouts Liz Sweeney. “It was the same with Chuckwu!”

  “And Emma … ” These last words are a whisper from Aoife. “She … she never was afraid of anything, but she … she seemed more nervous than Megan did. Or … or me even.”

  “Good,” says the Turkey, the folds of skin at her neck gently swaying. “This is good.” Keys clack-clack on the filthy computer as she takes notes, the pipe dangling precariously from her cracked lips. Only her command of the Sídhe language is beautiful. “Is there anything else?” she asks. “Anything at all?”

  Nessa does have a question. She has a ton of them actually. For example, where is Anto? Is he coming back to the school? Is he all right?

  But it is Megan who speaks.

  “Why was the Sídhe girl getting smaller, miss? The farther her body went into the rock?”

  Ms. Breen shrugs, as if the question is unimportant. “You’re getting three days in the Cage” is her answer.

  “That’s too long, miss!” Megan protests. “And since we were at the rock today with Squeaky Emma and Chuckwu, how’d you know we aren’t about to be Called too?”

  “We don’t, child. We never know. But we have to maintain the system for everyone’s sake and—”

  “And things are getting worse,” Megan interrupts, “aren’t they, miss? Coming to a head. Everybody says so, what with that whole school in Mallow that got done! But none of you teachers are admitting it. I think—”

  “Enough!” The Turkey’s voice is sufficiently cold to stop even Megan in her tracks. But Nessa fancies she can see doubt in her eyes. “You, my dear lass from Donegal, you are getting an extra day for insolence.”

  Even Megan knows better than to push it and snaps her mouth shut in time.

  “Nessa,” Ms. Breen continues, “I won’t be sending you to the Cage.”

  “You … you won’t?”

  “You were the most foolish of all. Following the others for no reason. So I have something much worse in mind for you. You will stay behind. The rest of you”—she waves the stinky pipe toward the door—“I hope you ate all your cake. Find Tompkins and ask him to escort you upstairs.”

  Out they go, leaving Nessa to her fate.

  “We’ll give them a few minutes,” says Ms. Breen, her voice more kindly now.

  “A few minutes for what, miss?”

  “You’ve never been to the Cage, have you, Nessa?” She waits for confirmation. “Well, I’m not sending you now.”


  “So what is my punishment?”

  “Oh, there isn’t one. I just didn’t want to embarrass you. The thing is … we can’t have you weak now, can we?” And she winks. She actually winks. As in, I’m doing you this massive favor because you’re a useless cripple type wink.

  It takes every scintilla of Nessa’s willpower to keep her face straight, to prevent herself from lifting up the table and battering Ms. Breen to death with it. She takes a few deep breaths, and this too, she realizes, will be read by her tormentor as “relief.” As weakness.

  But what it actually is, is strength. She will use Ms. Breen’s idiot pity to get what she wants. And so she comes straight out and asks about Anto.

  “Is Anthony Lawlor coming back here?” Her voice is perfectly disinterested. Perhaps too much so, for who wouldn’t be curious about the first member of her class to survive the Call? It is a massive event for Year 5. Massive.

  “He’s on his way up to Dublin.”

  “Is he all right?”

  Ms. Breen’s face twists around the stem of the pipe, as though she is carefully working through a dozen different wordings in her mind, before she finally settles on, “The doctors are … they are confident.”

  “C-confident? Confident of what?”

  “Oh, child. You’ve had a long day, haven’t you? Go on back to the refectory and tell the rest of them you’ve been punished terribly. Make something up. You’re smart enough. Go on.”

  Nessa finds herself back in the corridor. She stops halfway down, in front of a window blurred with rain. She’s thinking about all the Testimonies she’s read, about the bizarre and terrible conditions inflicted on some of the unluckier survivors. The mermaid girl, Angela Heffernan. That lad from Tuam, what was his name? The one who was given bats’ ears and a voice too high for anybody else to hear.

  And there are far worse things than that! Look at the veteran Melanie, right here in this college! A beautiful, beautiful girl. But that’s not why people whisper about her. Her Testimony is one of the most popular in the library because everybody wants to see the sketches of her incredible “injury.”