‘Killian Doherty?’ Her father’s shoulders tensed anxiously beneath his shirt.
‘He got a cut on the back of his head and he thinks I’m an evil witch.’
The shoulders relaxed. ‘As long as you haven’t spoiled his lovely looks.’
‘Dad, this isn’t funny. I threw Father Leahy across the church.’
‘You threw Father Leahy . . . ?’ This time he stopped embracing her – he pulled back and held her with one hand on each of her shoulders, face drawn tight with shock.
Aoife hated the scared expression in his eyes. ‘He’s OK, he’s not hurt – but he knew I was a changeling!’
‘What?’
‘Because you let him in to see Eva when she was dying, and he always suspected she wasn’t me, and now he knows because the welfare officer told him you have a four-year-old adopted child and showed him Eva’s picture on her phone!’
‘Oh my God.’ For a moment he was breathless with shock . . . but then recovered. ‘He can’t do anything about it – no one would believe him in a month of Sundays. Darling child, why did you throw him across the church?’
‘Because he tried to baptize me and the water started boiling!’
‘What?’
‘And I had to stop him, and now he thinks I’m a creature of Satan and he told me never to come into the church again!’
Staring at her, James O’Connor repeated, ‘The water did what?’
Despairing, she tore herself away and threw herself into the old wing-backed armchair by the fireplace; the one her father always sat in when he was reading his way through these countless useless books. Huddled sideways, head on her knees, she sobbed, ‘I’m a monster!’
‘Oh, Aoife, my love, my love.’ He crouched heavily on the hearthrug right in front of her. ‘Of course you’re not a monster.’
‘I am!’
‘Aoife, you’re my lovely daughter.’
‘I’m so afraid of killing someone!’
He shook his head emphatically. ‘You won’t do that.’
‘But how do you know?’
‘Because I know you.’
‘Father Leahy think I’m evil!’
‘Father Leahy is a superstitious man who thinks good and evil is down to which God you worship.’
‘What?’ She looked up at him – tear-stained; shocked. ‘But you and Mam are Catholics?’
As he knelt before her, his brown eyes were on a level with hers. He said earnestly: ‘We are, of course – but how different is the Catholic religion from the old religions? Aren’t so many of our churches built on the same stone raths where people worshipped the ancient gods? The Tuatha Dé Danann believed in Danu, the goddess of rebirth. Life dies, goes into the ground, and is reborn. I’ve thought about this so much since the banshee took Eva, trying to figure out where and why she’d gone . . . Think about it, Aoife! The body of Christ becomes bread and wine. How is that not a religion of rebirth? It’s Halloween next week. The church call it Allhallows Eve – the evening before the Day of the Saints. But in ancient times it was called Samhain, the Festival of the Dead – a celebration of the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter. The season when the fabric between this world and the otherworld is at its thinnest: the green shoots above and the roots beneath—’
She interrupted in a panic, ‘But which of those worlds do I belong to? Who am I?’
He put his hand on her arm, stroking it. ‘My love, you’re Aoife, the same as you’ve always been. It’s not whether you’re fairy or human – it’s who you are inside, who you are in your heart. It’s everyone you love, and everyone who loves you – these are the things that make you who you are.’
Carla finally answered her, clearly having just turned on her phone after school.
No worries, Killian said he saw you in the bike shed so I knew you gone home. How are you feeling??? ☺☺☺
Smiley faces. Had Killian said nothing? Aoife, lying on her bed propped up on one elbow, texted:
so how is Killian? OK?
did you hear?
Hear what?
banged his head coming off his bike ☹ but he OK! ☺☺
Aoife stared at the screen for a moment. OK. Killian must have thought better of mentioning what had happened in the bike shed – perhaps he was worried that if he told on Aoife, then she would tell on him for trying to shift her. That was good – he was clearly afraid of losing Carla. She texted:
poor old Killian ☹
no, worries, he’s grand. and he just did you a big favour . . .
?????
u want to come round tomorrow? ☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺☺
Again, Aoife stared at her phone in utter surprise. Then tapped:
what about your mam?
Killian was just here and told mam that I’m right and he talked to you about the fairies and you are totally mad! ☺☺☺
Aoife, feeling rather ambiguous about this, texted back:
Excellent ☺
BTW SORRY I TOLD KILLIAN ABOUT THE FAIRY THING but he has not told anyone else except you (but you already kno) and mam who I already told because I had to explain to her but I swear NOBODY ELSE!!! ☺??
Aoife paused before texting back:
☺!!
☺☺☺!!!!! and Aoife please text Shay and tell him you know he’s not a bad fairy because he isn’t I KNOW U THINK THIS BUT I SWEAR ON MY LIFE AS YOUR BEST FRIEND ITS NOT TRUE and when you are better you will regret it if you don’t listen to me, I love you and I am telling you this FOR YOUR OWN GOOD
Aoife paused for longer this time, before replying:
I love you too
This was followed by silence. It was probably dinner time in Carla’s house, when her mother forcibly removed all mobiles. Even her husband’s, when he was home from England where he worked as an engineer.
Aoife was just finishing her own dinner, sitting at the kitchen table with her parents and Eva, when the iPhone finally beeped again. She glanced at the screen casually, then – heart missing a beat – jumped up and ran out of the kitchen. She had to be by herself when she opened this.
Shay had texted:
sorry was out on the bog just saw yr text don’t worry about school
Standing in the hall, she typed back quickly:
no please dont drop out, I won’t come near you
There was a long pause – so long, she wondered if he was out of range again. And hoped he was, rather than ignoring her. (Maeve called from the kitchen, ‘Are you all right?’) But eventually:
Aoife im grand
Immediately, despite her own vow not to tug at him, she texted back:
please please this is crazy, surely we can still see each other, just in class? we don’t even need to talk. I know this is hard but I think it is more hard not seeing you, don’t you feel the same way? please don’t do this
She waited a long time, in the shadowy hall. But no answer.
Later, she was watching television with Eva – or rather, Eva was sitting on her lap watching cartoons on Netflix, and Aoife was just staring into nothing – when the phone finally beeped again. She shifted Eva onto her left knee to dig it out of her pocket.
It was Carla.
Love you too! did you text Shay yet? ☺
Aoife considered her reply. The truth would have to do.
I did. He not got back.
He will ☺ crap reception on bog
he wont but it’s fine
No no no no no he will you are most gorgeous girl in Kilduff! ☺☺
ha ha no you definitely the most gorgeous!!! ☺☺☺
Ha ha, you seriously are mad! Bring Eva tomorrow, Zoe can’t wait ☺☺
Yay! Will do, I promise her ride on bike ☺☺☺
And at least that was something – she was welcome in her ‘other home’ again.
Aoife was up in her room with the light off and nearly asleep, before Shay finally replied. She grabbed her phone from the floor beside the bed. His text said:
night night, Aoife
Like a ghostly hand touching her hair. Goodnight. I can’t help thinking of you. Goodbye. Goodnight.
CHAPTER NINE
Eva was sitting on the carpeted steps of the Heffernans’ split-level living room, having an earnest conversation with Zoe about Halloween costumes. Zoe had produced a battered pair of fairy wings – the ones Carla used to wear as a little girl – and a witch’s hat.
Eva flatly rejected the whole idea. ‘Fairies don’t have wings.’
Zoe – at four, the cut of Carla at that age: soft brown hair, brown eyes and a cute, chubby little face under the pointed hat – looked at Eva in astonishment. ‘Yes they do, they do have wings.’
‘They don’t.’
‘They do.’
‘Nope. Aoife’s a fairy and she doesn’t have wings.’
Aoife was sitting with her arms around her knees on the long blue leather sofa beside the patio doors, eating her way through a plate of Oreos and Kimberleys. She glanced at Carla to see if she was listening – but Carla, stretched out beside her, seemed to be happily absorbed in Snapchat, firing out a series of pictures of herself stuffing three Oreos into her mouth at once.
Zoe spotted Eva’s obvious mistake and pounced, triumphant. ‘Aoife isn’t a fairy, she’s from Kilduff!’
With a quick check at Aoife, Eva countered, ‘No, she is a fairy because she threw the banshee up in the air.’
At this, Carla also shot Aoife a look from under her eyelashes and, just as quickly, looked away again – clearly not wanting to embarrass her by openly noticing how Eva was mimicking her delusions.
Zoe said firmly, ‘No she didn’t.’
Eva stood her ground. ‘Yes she did.’
‘No she didn’t. What’s a banshee?’
‘A woman in red who cries in the night and steals little girls like you right out of their bedrooms.’
Caught off guard by this unexpected attack, Zoe raised her voice in trembling protest. ‘There’s no such thing!’
Eva, watching closely for Zoe’s reaction, pressed home her advantage: ‘Yes there is, and if you’re a very good little girl, she brings you to a great big party where stinky old men dressed all in white—’
‘Carla, Eva’s being mean to me!’
Aoife said hastily, ‘Eva, don’t be mean to Zoe.’
Carla set aside her phone with a sigh. ‘No she isn’t, Zoe, and she’s new here and you have to be nice to her. Have a— Jesus, Aoife!’ The plate was empty: while listening to Eva – and wondering what was real, and what fantasy – Aoife had absently eaten everything.
‘Aoife’s eaten all the biscuits!’ Now the little girls were hopping up and down in front of the sofa, united in outrage. ‘Aoife’s eaten all the Oreos!’
Aoife protested, half laughing – but slightly mortified: ‘Not just me – Carla too!’
‘I had, like, three!’ Carla was completely taken aback. ‘And you’ve eaten all four Kit-Kats as well! And the Mars bar! God almighty, what are you – a gang of teenage boys? I’ll go and see if there’s anything left in the cupboard . . .’
‘Aoife’s a greedy pig!’
‘Eva, quit it, I’m not a pig, I’m your big sister – you have to stick up for me.’
‘My big sister’s a big greedy pig!’
‘Mine too,’ said Zoe consolingly, happy to smooth over their recent differences.
Carla, returning with ginger biscuits and a packet of Penguins, shook the whole lot out onto the empty plate and gave it to the two little girls. ‘Take this, and keep it well away from Aoife.’
‘She’s a big greedy pig!’
‘Oh, go sit in the corner, you brats.’ Carla plonked herself down on the sofa again, adding to Aoife: ‘They’re right, though. Jesus, I’d love to be able to eat anything I want and stay as thin as you.’
Aoife examined her best friend, smiling – she found it hard to get used to how like a model Carla looked, with her beautifully groomed hair and expensive make-up. And so slender. ‘What are you on about? There’s not a pick on you these days.’
‘There is, actually.’ Carla plumped up a cushion and settled herself sideways for a chat. ‘I’ve put on half a kilo since you came back.’
‘That’s nothing!’
‘Nothing if it stopped there, but it won’t, and it’s your fault for not being dead after all.’
‘I’m really sorry about that.’
Carla pulled a face. ‘I suppose I forgive you. And at least I know Killian loved me before I lost all the weight, so hopefully he won’t mind me getting fat again.’
‘Stop that! You were never fat!’
‘And talking about love – Shay?’
And just like that, the lightness went out of Aoife; all the fun switched off.
Moments later, Carla was saying anxiously: ‘Aoife . . . ?’
Aoife leaned back her head against the firm leather of the couch. (Night night? What had he been trying to say? I’m thinking of you? Or: Please leave me alone?) ‘Really, it’s OK, I’ll be all right in a minute.’
‘If you’d just get over this . . . thing . . . about him.’
‘Do you mind if we don’t talk about it?’
‘But we have to – it’s not fair on him.’
Aoife let her head fall to one side, meeting Carla’s deep brown gaze.
Carla sighed, and rested her elbow on the back of the sofa, and her cheek on her folded fist. ‘OK, fine. Let’s say you don’t get any better. Let’s say you’re always going to think you’re a fairy. Let’s say nothing’s going to change your mind.’
‘Sorry.’
‘It’s OK.’ Over Carla’s shoulder, through the patio doors, a warm rush of sunshine came over the lilac mountains; a river of gold from a lowering sun. The back of Carla’s house faced west, in the direction of the sea. Somewhere up there, the cliffs; a lonely farm . . .
Carla was saying in a practical voice, ‘If that’s what we’re stuck with, we’ll just have to work around it.’
Aoife brought her eyes back to Carla’s face. ‘Work around . . . ?’
‘Your belief system. Well, more like work with it. So you’re thinking that Shay Foley’s mother was some sort of a fairy?’
Aoife sat up. ‘A lenanshee.’ She knew Carla was only humouring her, but it still felt important to get it right.
Carla nodded. ‘A lenanshee. Sorry, I knew that. OK, grand. And this lenanshee’s love was so powerful it destroyed Shay’s dad . . . Hang on, is that why we’re saying Shay’s mother killed herself, God rest her soul?’
In for a penny . . . ‘Moira Foley didn’t kill herself. When she jumped off the cliff, she went back to the underworld. That’s a log of wood buried in her grave in Kilduff. It’s an old fairy trick.’
Carla stared at her, then lowered her head, poking her finger through a hole in the seam of her trackies, making it larger. Then recovered, and looked up again with a sweet smile. ‘OK. But what I was going to say was – Shay’s dad was human, wasn’t he? So maybe so is Shay.’
‘No, Shay is a lenanshee. There was a’ – devil – ‘man who tried to marry me, but he couldn’t because Shay loved me, and if a lenanshee has a grá for you, no one can take you away.’ And she had made Shay kiss her, and they had flown . . . So high, so far, from one world to the next . . .
Carla was nodding earnestly. ‘OK, so we’re agreed he’s a lenanshee. OK. What sort of a fairy are you? Good, I assume?’
‘I’m a child of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the people of Danu.’
‘Oh, I’ve heard of them! No wait . . . It’s the name of a pub in Clonbarra. Anyway, the Tuatha Dé Danann . . . Are they powerful?’
‘I think so. They’re gone to the Blessed Isles now. It’s only us changelings left behind in the otherworld – the children of the people of Danu.’ It actually was a relief to talk about it, despite knowing that Carla thought she was making it all up. She had avoided telling Maeve and James about her fairy parents – it would feel unkind, as if she was judging the O’Connors for be
ing too ordinary. ‘My fairy mother was the queen of the people of Danu.’
Carla’s eyes widened a fraction. ‘Really? You’re a fairy princess?’
‘A queen. My mother was murdered, and I’ve been crowned.’
Carla looked even better pleased. ‘Excellent. So you’re a fairy queen. That’s perfect. So, here’s what you have to do: you have to tell yourself that lenanshee power can’t affect you. I mean, in your belief system you’ve got to be pretty amazingly powerful. And in your world, Shay might be a lenanshee, but he has to be half ordinary human, because of his dad. You think a half ordinary human, half lenanshee could mess with a full-on fairy queen? I don’t think so.’
For a long, long moment Aoife looked at Carla with much the same astonishment as Zoe had looked at Eva when Eva had announced that fairies didn’t have wings. Paradigm shift.
Then she said, ‘Carla, you truly are amazing. Look after Eva for me.’
Faster, faster, out across the empty bog. Up over the gap between the high shoulders of the mountains, the rusty heather glowing pink in the blaze of the declining sun. A wilder, different sort of happiness was filling her than when she’d last made this bicycle ride. Then, she had been sure of him. Now, she had to argue with him. But it was OK. Everything would be OK.
Because Carla was right and Shay was wrong – the lenanshee boy couldn’t harm her.
Her fairy mother had been queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She was powerful already, even before she’d turned sixteen. The one time she had kissed Shay properly, she had become filled with his energy and had flown, up into the shining sky. She had been that caterpillar-turned-butterfly. That girl-turned-bird. And she hadn’t died. She didn’t need protecting from Shay’s love. She must have been mad – genuinely mad – to let him imagine that he could burn her up! Why had she allowed him to turn away from her – when it was so crazily painful to them both? She should have just kissed him, the way she’d made him kiss her before, in the temple when they’d had to escape her wedding to Dorocha. Ah, that sense of flight . . . Exploding up the walls of the pyramid city, into the glorious blue-gold sky above . . . Brushing shoulders with eagles . . .
The Dark Beloved Page 10