‘No, I won’t! Where are you going?’
‘Just to see how Mícheál is and if he knows how soon we can turn the boat round.’
‘But he’s a lunatic!’
‘Don’t worry, I swear he’s not dangerous.’
‘He tried to kill me!’
‘I told you – only because he thought you were a shape-shifting monster – it’s an easy mistake to make down here. Look, I promise I’ll be right back.’
‘No, no, don’t go, don’t leave me . . . Oh God, be careful!’
Aoife turned over onto her front and crawled towards the stern, sliding snake-like over the seats – not daring to raise her head more than a few centimetres for fear of the low stone roof, which was rushing past dangerously fast just above them. To her right there was a leaking hole in the side of the boat where the pooka had put its foot through the boards – it was smaller than before, slowly fixing itself as Mícheál had told her it would. On the far side of the third seat, the little man was lying very still on his side in a pool of green water. He had gone silent now. His shirt had been ripped nearly off his back.
For a moment Aoife’s vision blurred with grief. But surely Mícheál could not be dead? The other smugglers might call him ‘soft’ behind his back, but he was definitely one of the toughest people she’d ever met . . .
Yet as she wriggled in beside him, Aoife’s hopes faded. Not just Mícheál’s shirt but his flesh had been shredded by the claws of the pooka. The green puddle in which he was lying was swirling with silver spirals – his fairy blood, pouring out of deep holes sunk between his ribs. A lot of blood. Too much blood. With sinking heart, she eased off her cardigan to make a pillow for his head, raising it out of the puddle. He was so badly injured, it seemed better to leave him where he was, rather than put him through the agony of being dragged over the seats to the drier end of the boat. The man opened his eyes and smiled weakly at her; he made an effort to button up his torn shirt, but before he could manage it, his hand slid back limply to his side. Aoife did up the shirt for him, using the few remaining buttons – covering the worst of his wounds. As she was doing so, she said brightly, ‘We’ll soon get you to dry land. And then we can sort you out.’
He made another effort to fix his shirt for himself; his hand came upon hers as she was doing up the last of the buttons. He took hold of her thumb; he whispered, ‘Bury me deep.’
A lump came into Aoife’s throat. She said cheerfully, ‘Nobody’s burying anybody. You’re going to be just fine.’
Mícheál slid his hand fully over hers. ‘Darling Maud—’
‘It’s Aoife.’
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she regretted saying them, for a look of such disappointment crossed his face. He peered at her, slightly lifting his head – then let it fall back and closed his eyes, saying weakly, ‘Stupid. Stupid. My darling is in heaven.’ But he kept hold of Aoife’s hand.
She returned the pressure of his fingers. ‘I’m sorry. Your wife must have died so young.’ On impulse, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead very lightly, brushing it with her lips.
A shiver went through him. ‘Young?’ He frowned. But then smiled, as if a pleasant thought had come to mind. ‘Yes, she did. She did die young, in a way.’ His voice grew suddenly stronger, as if her kiss had breathed life into him – even though she was not who he wanted her to be. He said, ‘I didn’t mean to leave my wife, you see. I followed a sheóg and fell into a bog hole and thought I was drowned, and then I was here. And I was lost and afraid, and so lonely for my wife. Then I heard a rumour of the secret road, but it was months before I discovered the lads who used it, and months again before they trusted me with their secret, and that was only because of promising to bring Wee Peter back ice cream. Did you know time goes a hundred times faster in the human world?’
‘I do know it.’
‘Never forget it – never stay here too long. By the time I got home, over seventy years had passed and my wife was an old, old woman of ninety-six.’
Aoife said again, feeling the terrible inadequacy of her words, ‘I’m so sorry.’
Mícheál shook his head slightly, as if her sympathy wasn’t needed. ‘I went out to our farm and I climbed in through the window and sat on her bed. And when she woke up, she thought she was young again, because I was still young myself, and we talked as if we were still in the good old days.’ He smiled again. ‘We talked about how many children we wanted to have – six! – and what would be their names. And then I held her, and she died very happy, she died very young. She’s that way in heaven now, please God.’
Aoife repeated hopefully, ‘Please God.’
The smile faded and he looked troubled. ‘I’m glad I saw her that day, because I know I’ll never see her again.’
‘You will one day in heaven, please God.’ She couldn’t seem to come up with anything better than the platitudes everyone used at funerals. Yet even these very ordinary words of comfort seemed to unsettle the dying man. He tightened his grasp on her hand, and beads of sweat sprang through his skin and ran down his face.
‘No,’ he said loudly. ‘Reborn. I will only be reborn.’ Then his voice failed, and he muttered something else which she couldn’t catch. She bent low, holding back her long red hair with her free hand, bringing her ear close to his mouth.
‘Say again?’
Mícheál took a deep, gravelly breath, making a painful attempt to fill his lungs. Aoife could hear the air hissing out of them, not through his mouth but bubbling out through the holes in his ribs. He said with great difficulty, ‘Bury me deep.’
‘Oh, Mícheál, don’t say that . . .’
‘Deep, where the pooka can’t get to me.’
‘Mícheál . . .’
‘I don’t want to be reborn as a pooka. I want worms, and then plants, and then birds. Bury me deep. Promise me.’
She groaned, ‘I promise.’
‘Thank you.’ He loosened his grip, his hand sliding from hers. Shivering, she dipped a corner of her black dress into the pool of water around him and used it to wipe the hot sweat from his forehead. He smiled at her touch, closing his eyes.
‘You said you were coming straight back!’ Carla appeared, still trembling with fear, at Aoife’s shoulder; her eyes fell on the man lying in the water and she groaned with fresh horror: ‘Oh my God . . . Is he . . . ?’
Without opening his eyes, he murmured, ‘Maud? Is that you?’
‘Who’s Mau—?’
Aoife grabbed Carla by the wrist, putting her finger to her lips.
Carla, with a startled glance, fell silent.
In her silence, Mícheál Costello was smiling again. ‘Maud? Is that really you? Maud?’ He opened his eyes once more, squinting and shielding them with his hand as if the weak light had become suddenly, dazzlingly, bright. ‘Maud! Oh, this light, this light . . .’ It wasn’t obvious if he was looking at Carla or somewhere slightly beyond her, into the shadows. He cried, raising himself on one elbow, ‘Maud! Oh, this light!’
And seconds later the light did indeed become dazzling, to them all – the boat had swept out of the pallid shadows of the tunnel into hot, brilliant sunshine, and the river turned pure sapphire under an azure sky.
And Carla said, faintly, staring around, ‘Oh. My. God. This cannot be real. Oh. Oh. This is absolutely . . . This cannot be real.’
*
Seconds later, the boat began sinking. The hole in its side was still too large to cope with a sudden influx of new water pouring into the river, coming from a waterfall that was crashing down the cliffs behind them.
Grabbing the oars, Aoife steered into the reedy shallows then jumped out and – with Carla’s help – dragged the water-logged craft up onto a grassy bank, over which blossoming fruit trees spread their branches. In the bottom of his much-loved boat lay Mícheál Costello, his face sun-dappled by the light shadows of the flowering canopy swaying over him. He was smiling as if he was very happy. The boat continued to heal itself, t
he broken boards gently slipping back into place and knitting together like bone.
After gazing for a long traumatized moment at both the smiling dead man and the mysteriously self-healing boat, Carla went to throw herself down under the nearest tree, lying flat on her back on the grass, staring up through the branches at the azure sky. A few seconds later, she pulled off her mouse ears and unzipped her Superdry coat.
Aoife stood anxiously over her. ‘Are you feeling OK? I hate to say this, but we don’t have time for a rest.’
Carla said in a tight, trembling voice: ‘Please, just let me try to recover here for one minute. I can’t get my head around anything, and if I even think about it, my head’s going to explode.’
Aoife dropped guiltily to her knees beside her. ‘Oh God, I’m so sorry about all this. I can’t believe you followed me . . .’
Carla laughed rather wildly, still without opening her eyes. The next moment she sat up and grabbed Aoife by her cardigan and wailed into her face, ‘You went down into a grave! In the middle of the night! On Halloween!’
‘I’m so sorry – it’s just I had to get here really fast . . .’
‘And I slipped down a hole and fell about a million miles, and when I stopped falling, all I could see were these shiny dots in the dark, and all I could do was keep crawling after them . . .’
So that’s how Carla had picked her pathway down the constantly dividing staircase – by following the trail of Aoife’s silver blood. If Mícheál Costello hadn’t slashed his knife across Aoife’s thumb, the human girl would have ended up in a pooka’s nest. Shaken by the horror of what could have happened, Aoife rocked Carla in her arms. ‘Hush, hush. You’re here now – you’re safe now and I’m going to have you home in no time.’
‘And then that little lunatic tried to cut my throat. And then I had to kill a terrible monster!’
‘Carla, you’re the bravest, most fantastic friend anyone could ever have, and I swear to you, I’m going to make this up to you. Are you ready to move yet? I’m going to get home immediately.’
‘No, don’t make me go anywhere yet – my legs are jelly and if I move an inch, I’m going to be sick. Please.’ And Carla threw herself back on the soft grass again, laying the back of her hand across her eyes.
There seemed no point in trying to move her. Aoife sat down on the soft green grass beside her. ‘I suppose we have to wait while the boat fixes itself, anyway.’
Carla said, with a slight whimper, ‘Exactly. Just while the boat is magically fixing itself.’
Waiting for Carla to recover, Aoife leaned against the slender trunk of the tree behind. Under her bare feet and legs and palms, the grass felt cool and soothing. Above, through the blossoms, arched a cloudless azure sky, criss-crossed with rainbows. Everywhere, the flowering fruit trees swayed, slender and supple and loud with birds. Behind, a limestone cliff sloped upwards to the sky, covered in vines from which, at every shake of the breeze, blue butterflies rose in clouds. It wasn’t a cliff, of course – it was a ruined city, higher even than Falias or Gorias, and carved out of limestone rather than rose quartz. The river bubbled brightly out of the small green archway through which they’d come, the water turning from emerald to sapphire as it flowed into the sunshine. There, the stream merged with a waterfall that plunged in a long streak of rainbow spray down the face of the abandoned city, and then flowed away between banks of tall bulrushes towards a distant shining glimpse of lake.
A deep sense of belonging flooded Aoife’s heart. Despite its many horrors, this was her world. The sun was hot upon her head. Everywhere the scent of flowers infused the air. Her eyes drooped . . .
He was dancing . . . He was dancing . . . his lips buried in her white-blonde hair . . .
The flood of sheer grief shook her physically awake. What was she doing, drowsing here in the sun, while Shay was in danger? ‘Carla, we have to go – now!’
‘Aoife, please, I’m still trying to get my head around all this—’
‘Carla, NOW.’
The boat had just finished fixing itself. Crouching, Aoife ran her hands quickly across the hull; she couldn’t even feel the join. Inside, even the green silk cushions were neatly arranged. Amazing magic. All she had to do now was get Carla safely back through the tunnel, and then she could head for Falias.
But first there was the matter of the dead man, still stretched out in the bottom of the boat.
Carla had joined her, staring again at Mícheál Costello – her make-up was ruined and she kept on hiccoughing, but she seemed to be gradually calming down. A moment later, her tendency to common sense even managed to reassert itself. ‘OK – is there somewhere to bring him, like a funeral home?’
Bury me deep, where the pooka can’t get to me.
‘No, Carla, there’s no funeral homes – this is the fairy world.’
‘Oh, OK.’
‘OK . . . ?’ Carla’s sudden acceptance of the truth was oddly disconcerting.
Carla said, with another hiccough, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’
‘What?’
‘Sherlock Holmes. And I’m sorry for not believing you before, but, you know, improbable is a bit of an understatement. So, what are we going to do with him?’
‘I promised to bury him. Oh God . . .’ A wave of panic swept through Aoife. She hadn’t thought her promise through. If she had to dig a whole adult grave single-handed, and deep enough to keep away the pookas, it would take her all day . . .
Carla was taken aback. ‘Bury him – here? Now?’
‘It’s what fairies do for each other, so they can be transformed and then reborn . . .’
‘Oh Jesus . . . OK. Right. We’re in the fairy world. Sorry. Still adjusting to the new reality.’
‘And you have to help me bury him, Carl – I can’t do it all by myself.’ Two of the oars were still unbroken from fighting the pooka – she grabbed one of them and ran with it to the nearest level piece of ground. Lifting the oar over her head, she drove the sharp blade down into the earth. It sank in a couple of centimetres.
Carla was looking horrified. ‘But we can’t just bury him here without letting anyone know!’
‘His wife is dead and he has no children! No one else will mind!’ This time, by forcing the oar in at an angle, Aoife managed to lever out a good slice of dark earth. She wrenched the oar out of the soil and rammed it in again. The blade snapped. ‘Crap! This is going to take for ever! Please help me, and then I promise you I’ll get you home!’ She rushed back to the boat for the last oar.
When she returned, Carla was standing over the miserably small dent in the earth, with her arms folded. ‘But we don’t even have a coffin.’
‘We don’t want him in a coffin – he’s better off like this! He’ll come up quicker then, as flowers and then bees, and then he’ll be a bird and . . .’ She rammed the oar into the earth. The blade also snapped. ‘Oh my God, what am I going to do!’
Carla said unhelpfully, ‘Do you remember the hamster’s funeral when the cat brought him back into the kitchen while we were still having the tea and sandwiches?’
Aoife groaned and fell to her knees, digging frantically with her hands, trying to lever out the tough tree root which had snapped the last of the oars. ‘I do, and that’s exactly why you have to help me. I promised Mícheál I’d bury him really deep so no pooka will ever eat him . . . Help me – you have to help me!’
‘Then stop digging now!’
Startled, Aoife looked up.
Carla unfolded her arms and pointed down the river. ‘There’s a lake just there ahead. If we really have to do this, how about we take the poor man out in the boat and find a deep spot and give him a burial “at sea”?’
Aoife stared at her. ‘But to be reborn he has to be transformed through living things . . .’
Carla looked slightly smug. ‘I’m not pretending to be an expert on this, and I know I’ve only just got here – but fish and
water lilies and swans are living things, aren’t they? And the pooka definitely won’t get at him if he’s at the bottom of a lake. I mean, look what happened to that monster when it fell in the water. Filthy beast – we gave its face a good washing, didn’t we?’
In the centre of the lake, they crossed Mícheál Costello’s stiffening hands on his chest, and fitted a bulrush cross between his calloused fingers. Then fixed his bright red comb-over to lie flat across his scalp.
Kneeling over him, Carla intoned, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Come on, Aoife, ten Hail Marys. Hail Mary, full of grace . . .’
In every direction, leafy green oak forests stretched to the horizon; in the distance beyond, white gleaming mountains rose. Directly above, an eagle circled, sailing very high – a golden winged dot.
Aoife joined in the prayer: ‘Our Lord is with thee . . .’
After they had completed ten Hail Marys, they lifted Mícheál Costello’s short plump body between them, and lowered him carefully over the side of the boat. Alarmingly, he floated for a while beside them, his shirt and trouser legs swollen with air. Swans gathered around them in a circle, dipping their heads, paddling with quiet feet in the sapphire water. Mayflies drifted, and a silver salmon jumped and fell back again, causing a loud splash which rocked the body slightly.
Carla said one more Hail Mary, persuasively.
As she finished, Mícheál Costello tilted sideways, rolled and sank.
The water was so clear that by leaning over the side of the boat they could watch him gliding down through the water in his white shirt and old-fashioned black trousers. His arms were out sideways now, wafting up and down gently like he was flying. An arrow-shaped swarm of silvery fish followed him at a respectful distance. When he was nearly at the bottom of the lake, one arm dropped and he rolled again, coming gracefully in to land on his back, where he rested spread-eagled on the stones, gazing blindly up towards the light.
Carla whispered once more, ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, Our Lord is with thee . . .’
The Dark Beloved Page 18