by Sarah Rayne
At length, Flynn said, “Do you — I beg your pardon — but do you believe in such things?”
Amairgen had been surveying the inside of the Dutch barn. “This will do excellently,” he said. “How very fortunate you are to still possess such things, Flynn. And the farmhouse itself is pre-Apocalypse, I think? Yes, of course it is. No one today builds half so well. As for magic …” He broke off and the thin, sweet, rather austere smile lifted the corners of his lips. “People did once believe,” he said. And then, looking to where Portan was quietly listening, “Portan believes,” he said.
“Do you?” Flynn was at once interested, because no one — or no one he had ever met — really did believe. And then he remembered that Joanna had believed; Joanna had listened to the legends and drunk in the enchanted creatures of myths, and she had believed, wholly and forever. He put the thought from him, because he did not think he dared remember Joanna, at least not until they were setting out to bring her back.
Portan said cautiously, “Inside the Gealtacht there were a few of us —”
“Yes?”
“We had brought with us some of the old stories,” said Portan. “I think that not all of us had been taken to the Gealtacht at birth, and so we could share memories of early childhood.” She smiled at them. “The best time of all, early childhood,” said Portan. “Fairytales and legends. And you believe in it all then, quite unquestioningly.”
Flynn said, “But surely the law says —”
“That Mutants must be taken to the Gealtacht at birth? Oh yes,” said Portan, “but people do not always obey laws. And there were several of us whose mothers tried to cheat the law. We had been hidden away until the Elders discovered us.”
“Did that happen to you?”
“Yes,” said Portan softly. “Yes, that happened to me, and then my father, who was not brave, took me to the Gealtacht by night — perhaps because he could not bear to perform such an act by daylight — and I was left there. But you have brought me out now,” she said, “and although I do not quite believe in magic any longer, I think I do not quite disbelieve.” She looked at Amairgen. “I should like to know those old legends to be true.”
Amairgen said, “You see, Flynn? People do still believe, if only a very little.” He dropped a hand lightly on Flynn’s shoulder. “If you could sleep for a few hours it would help you,” he said. “Portan and I will be here. And a few hours could not make very much difference now.”
But Flynn could not sleep. He was achingly tired, but he was also restless and strung up.
“Try to work,” said Michael, who had been anxiously watching for their return, and who was secretly horrified at the sight of Flynn, white-faced, dark-eyed with fatigue, but also with a kind of wild determination about him. “You could gather up some of the apples,” said Michael. “Flynn, you have to be strong for what is ahead of you.” He said no more, but prepared a huge platter of eggs and ham and newly baked bread, which he persuaded Flynn to eat before taking a second platter out to the Dutch barn.
“I will not intrude,” he said before he went, “for I can imagine — just a very little — of how it must be for that poor creature you have brought out. This is a terrible world, Flynn.”
“She will be very wary of you,” said Flynn, but Michael only smiled and balanced the tray carefully as he crossed the yard to the Dutch barn.
“But I was shocked,” he said afterwards to Flynn. “Truly we live in a dreadful world. Dear God, what did our ancestors do to mankind?”
But Portan, still cautious and certainly unsure of the world, had been able to meet Flynn’s father calmly, and to thank him for the food. Michael had stayed with them for a little while, discussing what might lie ahead of them, wondering could they make any kind of contingency plans.
“But I do not think you can,” he said. “For there is no knowing what you will meet.” And he picked up the tray and the plates, and stood looking at them for a long moment. “I wish I could come with you, Amairgen. You know that I would do so if you had not forbidden it.”
“Not forbidden,” said Amairgen. “It is only that I do not think it would be prudent.”
“Well,” said Michael, “I expect you are right. And I shall be here waiting when you return. You will be constantly in my thoughts.” He went quietly out and Portan, who was curled into a corner, said, “He is very like Flynn.”
“Yes.” Amairgen thought that there was a strange affinity and a strong similarity among all of the Keepers in fact. He had noticed it more than once. It was not always there to begin with, but it developed over the years. He wondered whether it was strength, and then he wondered whether it was courage. Or was it just that the sharing of a Secret so immense and so awful brought out the qualities necessary?
Portan said, “He is strong, Flynn’s father,” and Amairgen looked up, startled, because although he had had no indication that Portan might possess the Samhailt, she had caught his thoughts exactly.
“Yes, I believe he is.”
“But he has not Flynn’s — I am not sure of the word. Recklessness?”
“Flynn would take on the world,” said Amairgen, and Portan smiled.
“I am so grateful to him,” she said. “And to you. Inside that place — I do not think I should have stayed for very much longer.”
“What would you have done?” Pity twisted Amairgen’s throat as he remembered her life inside the Gealtacht, and a deep and bitter anger rose up in him at the people who had incarcerated her there.
“Perhaps I should have run away,” said Portan, sitting up now, her eyes bright. “We talked of it sometimes — those of us who were only deformed in body and not in mind.”
“You were able to do so?” said Amairgen, and was glad to think that at least she had been able to find a friend or two, kindred spirits in the Gealtacht.
“We talked of it often, at night, after we had been locked in,” said Portan, and the shiver Amairgen had noticed earlier went through her again. “They locked us in every night, you see. And the sleeping chambers were terrible places. We slept on the floor — there were blankets, but they were old blankets. Not always very clean. And it was often cold, so that we would huddle together for warmth. And perhaps for comfort as well, for we were directly above the Paupers’ Chamber — which you saw, I think — and the Mutants there would howl after dark.” Again the shiver racked her. “It was terrible to hear, but for me more terrible was the sound of the door closing on us, and the key turning in the lock. It was every night, but I never got used to it.” She looked at him. “We would not have harmed anyone.”
“No. Go on.”
“We would talk then, of how we would run away. How we would somehow steal out after nightfall. That was important, somehow. To leave as most of us had arrived, under cover of darkness. We pretended that we would be able to make our way to a place in the world where Mutants were not outlawed. We thought that there might be such a place somewhere. We needed to think that, perhaps,” said Portan, and Amairgen, understanding this, nodded.
“We thought there would be somewhere where we could be accepted. Where we could work and be a part of the community. Share things.” A half grin. “We knew, deep down, that it was only a pretence, but it was an escape for us. For a while we could imagine ourselves outside, in the real world. We had memories of the world, all of us, and we shared our memories. We built our own world out of the memories we had brought and cherished,” said Portan, her eyes faraway now. “And it became very real, that world we built. Houses we would live in. Tasks we would perform. Farming and cooking and gardening. Growing fruit.” She looked at him. “I do not know if it exists, such a world,” said Portan. “Where Mutants could be equal.”
She looked at him again, and Amairgen heard the note of query in her voice, and said gently, “I do not know either, my dear,” and wished he could have lied and said: yes it exists, and yes you will find it, you and those other pitiable creatures.
Portan said softly, “Thank
you for not pretending, Amairgen,” and Amairgen felt again the faint ripple on the air that was so like the Samhailt, but was not the Samhailt. “I wish,” said Portan, “that it had been possible to bring the others out. I wish I could have done that.”
She looked at him, and again he understood and said at once, “It was not possible.”
“I know it was not.”
Amairgen reached for her hand. “To have done so would have drawn attention to us all. We were in very great danger as it was. If you had brought your friends out, we would certainly have been caught and you would have been captured. Perhaps they would have chained you this time. And in the end, no one would have been free.”
“Shall I ever go back?” said Portan, her eyes wide with fear, and Amairgen’s hand tightened on hers.
“No,” he said quietly, and Portan looked at him with deep gratitude.
“I promise,” said Amairgen, “whatever else happens to us, Portan, we will never let them take you back to the Gealtacht.”
*
Flynn worked doggedly in the orchard, sick with fatigue, his mind tortured by images of Joanna alone and helpless in some long-dead world; at the mercy of the half-human, half-bestial creatures who had inhabited Ancient Ireland. He had always been interested in the legends and the folklore of his country and now his vivid imagination betrayed him; it turned about and presented him with terrible hurting pictures of Joanna in pain and frightened; thrown into some deep dungeon, raped and bleeding and starving.
Even so, in the warm afternoon sun, the orchard was a restful place, and Flynn, gathering the ripe apples and tipping them into baskets, found an unexpected comfort in the place where his ancestors had once worked. There was a drowsiness about the scent of the fruit, and there was a sleepiness in the very warmth of the trees. Once or twice, he found himself almost thinking that the trees were sleeping, dozing in the afternoon sun, and he thought he would just sit down for a moment. He thought he would certainly not be able to sleep, but he closed his eyes — just for a moment he thought — and leaned his head back against the bark of the tree. The sunlight was heavy on his eyelids — but I won’t be able to sleep, thought Flynn. I shall be more or less awake really. I shall certainly be able to hear if anything happens.
But the sunlight lulled him and the apple-scent calmed him, and the sun was already sinking over the Mountains of the Morning when he awoke.
He sat there for a while longer, feeling himself rested and refreshed, thinking that his father — wily old devil! — had known what he was doing when he sent him out here.
“It’s an old, old, orchard,” Michael had said gravely. “And there has always been something about the scent of the fruit. Our family has always found it a peaceful place, Flynn.”
Now, leaning back, watching the light turn to pink and then to lilac, knowing he must soon stir himself to go along to the Dutch barn, Flynn thought: something magical? Of course not! Even so, I feel stronger. I think I could tear the Time Curtain aside with one hand and bring Joanna out by myself.
In a moment, he would get up and get together some provisions for them to take, and then it would be time.
As he stood up, he saw the two figures making their way across the orchard towards him.
*
John Grady and Brian Muldooney had formed a rather unlikely alliance. Neither man particularly liked the other; John thought Muldooney coarse and rough; Muldooney was finding John overfussy and pompous. What could it matter how many people got to hear of Joanna’s disappearance, or how many of the villagers were called in to help with the search?
But John Grady, who knew his world, was adamant. No one, he said frowning, should know that Joanna had gone. Did Muldooney want the whole of Tugaim to know that a girl, a little bit of a thing with more hair than muscle, had run away rather than be conjoined with Muldooney himself? Did he think that he, John Grady, one of the Elders of Tugaim, wanted everyone to know how a mere daughter had flouted his wishes and shown herself capable of disobedience such as no one in Tugaim had ever heard of? The story would spread; it would be exaggerated. Before they knew it, the pair of them would be held up to ridicule and contempt, and if Muldooney wanted that to happen, John certainly did not!
This was unanswerable. Muldooney scratched his head and could not think why he had not seen it for himself. But there, Grady had ever been a man for the intelligence; wasn’t he an Elder, and it a terrible responsibility. Muldooney would not have taken on such a thing, even if he had been asked to, which he had not, but he did know you were not elected an Elder without you had some wits about you. He looked at the other man with respect, and said wouldn’t they keep it as quiet as a midnight fog to be sure, and not a soul should hear tell of the girl’s disappearance. To himself he thought: just as well to hush it up, for a different reason altogether. He had not forgotten how he had given a less than excellent performance with Joanna that night, well, afternoon it had been really if you wanted to be exact. It had not been his usual form, of course, good lord of course it had not! Many a one could have testified to that. Even so, it was not the sort of story a man wanted spreading all over Tugaim. He would say nothing about it.
He listened to Grady outlining their plan, and nodded in agreement at the idea of going to the O’Connor farmhouse. There could not be any harm in just going along there.
John Grady said, rather portentously, that Joanna and Flynn had been close friends. He had never really trusted Flynn of course, he said, and now that Muldooney came to think about it, neither did he. There was something a bit wild about the boy; something too smooth and too satisfied. Condescending. Yes, that was the word for it. Flynn O’Connor was condescending to his neighbours, and as far as Muldooney could see, had no cause to be any such thing. He trod heavily along at Grady’s side, listening while the man told how females had occasionally to be suitably chastised. They would find Joanna of course, said John, to whom any other notion was incomprehensible. They would find her, and Muldooney must do as he thought best. Doubtless, the silly child had been homesick for the familiar surroundings of her home. Certainly she had panicked. You could not blame her, said John Grady, that cold unsexed man, who had only conjoined because it was expected of him, and not very enthusiastically then. Even so, he hoped that Muldooney would not be too severe on Joanna; pig farmers could sometimes be rough, and it would be very uncomfortable for an Elder of Tugaim to be pointed out as the man who handed his only daughter over to a man who had treated her harshly.
In this rather divided frame of mind, the two of them approached the O’Connor farmhouse, both hoping, neither admitting, that Flynn would be found to be at the back of Joanna’s disappearance. That insolent boy! I should like to have him before the Council one day! Grady thought. Muldooney, still smarting from Joanna’s rejection of him, remembered Flynn’s air of casual confident virility and experienced an impotent man’s jealousy.
But Flynn, rested and refreshed from his long sleep in the apple orchard, filled with confidence about what lay ahead, treated the visitors in a cavalier fashion. He was politely welcoming; he asked would they step inside the house and take a glass of wine; but he said, “Missing is she?” and seemed more interested in transporting baskets of apples to the apple store than in anything else.
John Grady was stung by Flynn’s attitude. “We have a very good idea of where she is, Mr. O’Connor,” and Flynn turned, studying Grady with narrowed eyes.
“Do you indeed?” he said, and John heard, or thought he heard, the amused arrogance again. He remembered that he was an Elder — it was something he did not often forget — and he remembered as well that he could invoke all kinds of useful powers. Search the house? Make a tour of the outbuildings? And what about that useful law, not often invoked, but allowing that a man accused of a crime must, if found guilty, forfeit his lands and his goods to the one making the accusation? John hoped he was above such acquisitive ways — look where being acquisitive had got the Letheans! — but he could not forbear to
just look about him and see the good prosperous lands that Michael O’Connor and his son owned. He could not help casting rather covetous eyes on the long white farmhouse, bathed in a rosy glow from the rays of the setting sun, solid and comfortable, and surprisingly spacious once you got inside. He noticed that the windows had very good quality glass in them; that they were what was called latticed — Lethean nonsense of course, but it looked very nice. The floors were of old oak planks, polished and buffed to a soft mellow shine, and the furniture had quite certainly seen the light of day well before the Apocalypse. Comfortable, as well, thought John Grady, seating himself on a deep sofa covered with some kind of elaborate floral-patterned cover. Of course, Michael O’Connor’s wife had brought a deal of fine things with her from the West Coast, and didn’t everyone know that Galway had missed most of the Apocalypse’s blast. Yes, a very nice little farmhouse, this, and one that John Grady would be pleased to add to his property. A pity about that belt of Glowing Lands on the south-east boundary, but you could not have everything. He could easily overlook the Glowing Lands.
Muldooney was not thinking about Glowing Lands, or about acquiring other men’s properties, but he did think that a man who had such unnecessary frivolities as geraniums growing in stone tubs at his front door and beaten brass jugs on oak chests in his hall might be capable of anything at all. O’Connor had also, for some reason, thought it necessary to whitewash the entire outside of the farmhouse, and Muldooney had clucked his tongue at the wanton extravagance, for didn’t everyone know the price of good whitewash these days! He found himself disliking Michael and Flynn afresh, and he thought it would be very gratifying indeed if they could be found guilty of Joanna’s disappearance.
Flynn’s tiredness had fallen from him like a sloughed skin. He felt more alive than he had ever felt in his life, and he thought that he could outwit these two without any difficulty at all. Of course they thought he had hidden Joanna away somewhere, and of course they would be waiting their chance to search the entire place.