The Dark Beloved

by Helen Falconer

  ‘That would have made no difference to him!’

  ‘It didn’t! He fought her very bravely! But she got the jump on him, and slashed him across the chest and got his head in her mouth—’

  He reeled in horror. ‘The pooka ate our Mícheál?’

  ‘No! We killed the filthy thing, and we buried Wee— Big Mícheál good and deep.’

  ‘Ah . . . Ah . . .’ At this news, the giant calmed slightly, and a more gentle grief glimmered through his rage. Tears sprang into his half-buried eyes and sparkled down his beard, and he sank down at one of the many rickety little tables, on a sugán stool that could barely take his weight, and rested his head in his hands. His big shoulders shuddered as he pretended not to weep. ‘Ah, Big Mícheál, Big Mícheál, the greatest pooka killer of them all . . .’ Clearly Mícheál had commanded a lot more respect among his fellow smugglers than he had realized, despite being convinced they called him ‘soft’ behind his back. Now Peter was sobbing openly, his beard awash with grief. ‘Oh Lordie, Lordie . . . Did ye truly bury him deep? Just the two of ye, two wee girls, to bury him six foot down in the hard earth? That darling man had only a single fear – that of being eaten by a pooka and reborn as a pookeen.’

  Aoife wanted nothing so much as to go back to unbolting the door, but it seemed cruel not to take even a few moments to console the weeping giant. With a glance at Carla, who was still white and shaking, she said, ‘You’re right, it was impossible with just the two of us. But we didn’t want the pooka digging him up, so we sank him to the bottom of a lake.’

  In a flash, the giant was on his feet again, jabbing and stabbing with his mighty sausage of a finger, his face a terrifying kaleidoscope of clashing colours, his vast hairy eyebrows hurling themselves at each other. ‘That’s not a true burial! No one throws away a staunch Republican man like an old piece of fish! That’s royalty all over – no respect for the little man.’

  Once more the ice rushed into Aoife’s blood – she was going to have to fight him after all . . .

  But Carla was darting forwards, shouting fiercely, ‘Hey, leave her alone! The lake was my idea and it was an excellent idea! Fish and swans are living things, just the same as worms and bees and robins! Mícheál will probably love being a fish, him being so good with the cold! And no pooka will try to get to him in the water – I hit the one that killed him in the face with an oar, and it fell back into the river and melted entirely to pieces, the disgusting animal!’

  Wee Peter took an astonished step backwards, lowering his finger and studying Carla in amazement. It was the first time he’d paid her any attention at all. The lower part of his beard twitched. ‘Well, I’ll be . . . And here was I, making the exact same mistake as any fool of a English royalist – forgetting the little people and talking only to the queen! So you’re a mighty pooka-slayer, like our Mícheál, are you? In that case, you must do me the honour of joining me to wish him a speedy rebirth – if indeed he was right, and the Goddess Danu can bring him safely back.’ And he sat down again and indicated for Carla to join him at the table – which she did, beaming hugely with satisfaction.

  ‘Carla, we have to go . . .’

  But Carla frowned and beckoned her over. ‘Mícheál died fighting on our side, and we can’t leave without paying him our respects.’

  ‘Spoken like a true Irishwoman!’ The giant fished out a leather flask from his apron pocket and slammed it down between them, nearly breaking the table in two. ‘And thanks be to Danu, if She truly exists, we have a small bit of hawthorn juice left to wake the man properly, and plenty of supplies.’ He reached for the black plastic sack and, to Aoife’s alarm, pulled out the container of ice cream with a roar of pleasure. Only, it was empty. Once more, the red tide swept up his neck . . .

  Carla was saying innocently, ‘It’s such a shame about the ice cream, but it was melting very rapidly and we were so grateful to find it, and we didn’t think he’d want it wasted.’

  Wee Peter’s rage subsided, and the tears rose again, refilling his tiny eyes. ‘Ah, Mícheál, you will be sorely missed until you are reborn!’ He wiped his face with his apron, then brought out a tray of Coke. Cracking open three of the cans, he turned a fourth unopened upside down (saying to Carla, ‘And that’s for our Mícheál, Danu restore him’), and with a jerk of his mighty beard, roared at Aoife: ‘Come on now, your majesty – we’ve no throne to offer you in this humble abode, but there’s a sugán stool awaiting you at our table, if you’re not too high and mighty to stoop down to the level of the likes of us!’

  There seemed no help for it. And she had to admit to herself that Carla was right – it was only proper for them to pay their respects. If it hadn’t been for Mícheál slicing her thumb in the tunnel, Carla would be dead and on her way to being reborn as a vile pooka baby herself. She went to sit beside her friend, on a very badly made stool with very uneven legs.

  ‘Now. Take a mouthful of the American drink, and I’ll top her up with the good stuff.’ Wee Peter unscrewed and lifted the leather flask of hawthorn juice, but Aoife hastily flattened her hand over her can. She remembered the juice that Donal had poured into her and Shay. It had been a miracle at the time – it had shocked the two of them back to life – but if this juice was anything remotely like Donal’s brew, it was unwise to use it for anything other than extreme emergencies. ‘We’ll stick to the Coke, thanks.’

  The flask still hovered in his hand as he winked at Carla. ‘The queen has a delicate stomach, it appears, but a hardened pooka-killer like yourself—’

  Aoife said firmly, ‘No, really, she won’t, thanks.’

  Disappointed, Carla murmured, ‘But it smells nice . . .’

  ‘Trust me, it’s not a good idea.’ To mollify Wee Peter, who was looking most displeased, she raised her own Coke. ‘To Big Mícheál! He died very bravely and I owe him my life.’ Which was also true: without Mícheál she would never have known enough about pookas to respond so fast to Zoe’s appearance.

  ‘You owe him your life, do you?’ Wee Peter didn’t seem particularly thrilled by this information. Given a choice between Aoife’s life and Mícheál’s, he would clearly have preferred things to have been the other way round, but was just too polite to say it. He took a large mouthful of his own Coke before topping his can up with the juice, then screwed the brass top carefully back on the flask and tucked it back into his apron, before lifting the drink over his head – ‘To Mícheál! A man who once opened his own grandmother up like an oyster rather than let her get the jump on him!’ He took a long pull and shuddered slightly, blinking and shaking his head fiercely like a dog with water in its ears. ‘Ah, good stuff . . .’ And patted the bulge in his apron. ‘A shame ’tis nearly gone. Only one flask remaining after this. But the ladeen who makes it is away hunting the cat-sidhe this past month, and we’ll get no more till he returns.’

  Nearly choking on her Coke, Aoife said, ‘Donal?’

  The massive beard twitched, and for the first time he looked pleased with her. ‘You know our Donal?’

  ‘A ten-year-old boy with freckles and a big smile?’

  ‘The very one! A grand wee fellow. Did ye meet him out in the wilderness? Is he well?’

  The answer stuck in her throat; but in the end there was no need to articulate it – Wee Peter could see it written in her face. Again his eyes welled up. ‘Cat-sidhe got him, I’m after thinking?’

  Aoife said sadly, ‘But we buried him in a really beautiful spot, and the apple trees grew up on his grave so fast, and the apples were really sweet.’

  ‘Were they indeed? Well, isn’t that well for them as likes apples.’ For some reason the giant looked more angry than comforted. He took out and unscrewed the flask, and helped himself to another drop, larger than the first. ‘So now. We may as well wake two children of Danu as wake one.’ He lifted the can, saying, ‘To Donal, another true child of Danu! Maybe the best of them!’ and drank, and whistled a few bars of ‘The Foggy Dew’. ‘And may the little lad be reborn as somet
hing more like himself than an apple.’ After which, instead of replacing the flask in his apron, he moodily poured a third drop into his Coke.

  Aoife caught Carla’s eye and jerked her chin towards the street door, but before they could make a move, Wee Peter grabbed hold of Aoife’s forearm, forcing it down on the table. The politeness had entirely gone from him. He said slowly, in his soft, hard Donegal accent, ‘I don’t pretend to know the ways of royalty, my queen, but maybe you might consider the lesser people in future, and not send small children out into the wilderness to catch beasts, on the promise they’ll be reborn?’

  She jerked her arm away, crying hotly: ‘What do you mean by that? I never sent Donal out to catch beasts!’

  He tilted his can to the mouth, and looked at her sideways as he threw back his head. ‘But was it not your philosophy that made him so brave, my queen? Do you not worship Danu, the Goddess of Rebirth, like your mother before you? The druids teach us, on the queen’s behalf: Never fear death, for as a fairy you will be reborn. Lay down your life for your queen and country, because that way lies glory. In the Land of the Young, we will never grow old . . .’

  ‘I don’t want anyone to die for me!’

  He said dangerously, ‘Die? Are you telling me even the queen doesn’t believe in transformation?’

  ‘I just mean, I don’t want anyone to get hurt, or have to be buried at all!’

  He sneered: ‘Don’t you think, if you come here looking for your boy, and fall foul of Dorocha and his dullahans, there won’t be young changelings in their hundreds who choose to throw themselves away on your behalf? And all so you can be like your mother, living in her crystal tower like a cold-hearted lenanshee, spending all her grá on one poor benighted man after the other, while us little people make a living smuggling food?’ And he poured himself out another drop of hawthorn juice – and groaned, because the flask was nearly empty.

  Aoife was still furiously trying to unlock all the bolts and bars on the street door when Wee Peter came over to her with a bright red, apologetic face. He was holding out the empty flask. ‘Take this with you, my queen.’

  When she ignored him, he took her by the arm to turn her towards him (Carla snapping, ‘Let her alone! Haven’t you bullied her enough?’), and pressed the flask into her hand.

  She thrust it back at him, furious. ‘I don’t want it – I don’t want anything of yours, I’m not going to involve you in anything.’

  ‘Take it.’ He slipped it into the pocket of her black cardigan. ‘It’s the last drop in there, and it pains me to part with it. But you buried little Donal, and I’d say he’d want you to have it, for emergencies. And here . . .’ He handed her an old red shawl, of the type that was worn early in the last century. ‘My mother’s. Cover your head with this. If you must go walking the streets, you won’t get two yards before being recognized – only a fool wouldn’t know you. You have the head cut off your own mother – the living image of her.’

  She looked at him then. ‘You knew my mother?’

  He held her gaze with his small half-buried eyes. ‘Not knew her, but saw her once. It was near a hundred years ago that the sheóg tricked me down, when I’d gone to look for this very shawl which had got left out on the bog. And when I arrived here, I saw your mother in the street. She was choosing ripe peaches from a stall, and a hundred men around her, and the Beloved watching her from afar. Oh, she was a true beauty, with her turquoise eyes and oval face and red-gold hair . . .’ He said with sudden, bitter longing, ‘I would have fallen at her feet myself if I hadn’t been told she was a queen.’

  ‘Oh . . .’

  Wee Peter shrugged. ‘And that very night she was murdered in her bed. And I didn’t sail with the Tuatha Dé Danann to the Blessed Isles because I didn’t care for queens. But in my heart I have always cursed the priest who murdered her.’

  Aoife said fiercely, ‘He was innocent. Dorocha murdered her.’

  His eyes veiled themselves. ‘Who told you that? I heard the priest was a jealous lover who couldn’t bear that Dorocha was the true Beloved.’

  ‘Dorocha is the devil.’

  ‘Every enemy is the devil,’ answered Wee Peter calmly, and – ignoring Aoife’s quivering anger – he tucked the red woollen shawl around her shoulders. ‘And take this too . . .’ He pulled a leather pouch out of his linen apron. It was stuffed with the little blue and green enamelled orbs that were used for money in Falias.

  ‘There’s no need to give me any money.’

  He dropped it into her other pocket. ‘Take it, your majesty – you never know when it might come in handy. And it’s nothing – ye brought me a bag of smuggled goods, and the Coke alone is worth this amount.’

  Stiffly, Aoife gave in to him – ‘Thank you’ – and went back to opening the bolts; but it was a hard task, fighting the smugglers’ spell upon them.

  Wee Peter stooped to help her, freeing the last few bolts himself – but as he did so, a sharp knocking rang through the cellar. He straightened up, small eyes darting around. Another heavy knock, as with the side of a fist. The river door shuddered in the wall. ‘Did anyone see ye two passing through the gate of flowers?’

  Another, louder, knock.

  Carla said anxiously, ‘We saw an old man and a headless creature on the bridge, but that was before we took the corner . . .’

  He swore bitterly under his breath, ‘By Danu.’

  ‘. . . and we had to outrun a big filthy leathery bird, like a shrivelled old geriatric with wings. But I’m certain we took the turning before it could see where we went.’

  His beetroot skin paled to pink. ‘But the sluagh can see through stone.’

  Another knocking. And now an old and quavering voice shouted through the wood: ‘Open up, Peter Joseph! Open this door! Hand over the queen – she’s as wild as her mother and you know what she was like! Come on now, Wee Peter! I know you don’t like to get involved with palace politics!’

  Wee Peter set his hand on the street door – and stood leaning heavily against it, his eyes on Aoife’s face. She stared back at him mutely – waiting – sure, somehow, that there was no point in begging.

  Carla was pleading, ‘Let us out, please, let us out!’ She was trying to pull back the last bolt herself, but without any power of her own she couldn’t shift it. ‘Don’t stop us, help us!’

  The zookeeper’s voice came again: ‘I have a dullahan with me, Peter Joseph! And he knows your name and is ready to call it!’

  The giant licked his lips – a dart of red tongue in the immensity of his marmalade beard. Holding Aoife’s steady gaze, he said, ‘And if the dullahan calls my name, your majesty, do I die? Or am I transformed?’

  Knock, knock, knock.

  Aoife kept looking straight into his eyes. ‘Come with us. There’s safety in numbers.’

  ‘What? A number of three?’ And he broke eye contact, leaned down and began firmly shoving the opened bolts and bars closed again.

  Carla gasped, ‘No, let us out!’

  Aoife fought to stop him. ‘Let my friend go anyway, even if you hand me over!’

  ‘I’m not going anywhere without you!’

  But Wee Peter grabbed both their wrists, hissing, ‘Ssh! Be quiet! Do you think they would come to the back without guarding the front? Come . . .’ And, still gripping Aoife by the arm, he hustled the two girls roughly towards the bar. Behind the counter was a massive flagstone with a bronze ring, which he lifted with a soft grunt. ‘Storeroom. Near the back is a crack in the wall. Too narrow for me, but Donal came and went that way, and two skinny slips of girls like ye might just fit through it.’

  The knocking came again, and at the same time a thundering began on the front door as well, the massive bronze bars shuddering.

  ‘Aoife, come on – let’s do as he says!’ Carla fled down the rough wooden ladder.

  Aoife paused, a few rungs down, looking up, pulling the cloak tight around her. ‘But what about you?’

  His big hairy face peered down at her.
‘Don’t worry about me. I’m going nowhere. Sure, where would the zookeeper get his Barry’s Tea without us smugglers?’

  ‘Open the door, Peter Joseph! I know you’re awake in there!’

  The giant raised his voice to a roar. ‘And I know I’m awake meself! How could anyone think they were asleep with this infernal racket going on? Can’t an honest landlord get a little rest?’

  ‘Open up!’

  ‘That desperate for your tay? Wait there while I get me trousers!’

  But as Aoife took another step down, he leaned in to catch her by the end of her shawl and said, low and urgent, ‘I’m not a follower of queens or gods. But if you’re the queen of rebirth, can you answer me this truthfully? Will little Donal and Mícheál be reborn, as the druid tells us? Or is it just a lie to make the young ones unafraid of dying?’

  Her first instinct was to say that she didn’t know. Ultan and Caitlin had both told her that fairies were reborn, yet they’d never witnessed it – they only believed it because the druid had told them so. What did she herself know for certain? ‘I don’t—’ But then a different sense of rightness came to her – a feeling that by saying she didn’t know, she was being merely stubborn. Blind. Unkind. And anyway, she had a strange feeling that she did have the answer – that she had seen it happen. The robin . . . Donal . . . Had the truth of it stared her right in the face? She said firmly, ‘They will.’

  ‘Ah . . .’ He let out his breath on a long sigh. ‘And not just as apples? Will they remember their old lives and who they are, and will we know them?’

  Again she resisted the impulse to say she didn’t know. Instead, she pictured Mícheál Costello as he died – seeing his wife so clearly. ‘We’ll know them, and they’ll know us.’

  ‘Ah . . .’

  On the far side of the counter, a violent battering began, and the sound of splintering wood.

  Still kneeling, Peter raised the stone flag in his huge hands, ready to replace it over her head. ‘Go on now, quick. I’d rather open up to them than have them breaking down my doors.’