At the bottom of the short ladder, Carla waited for her, pale-faced with fear in the shadows, insisting, ‘Come on, come on.’
Aoife had nearly reached the floor when Peter called down to her again, his marmalade hairiness filling the trapdoor opening: ‘And what Mícheál believed – is it really bad luck to be reborn as the child of a dark creature? A pooka or a cat-sidhe or cooshee? Do we always carry some of its darkness in our own heart, and never find the light again?’
She hesitated, holding the sides of the ladder, looking up, thinking of Donal – and the sweetness of the apples that he had become. ‘No, I don’t think that’s true. I think we take our own nature with us – I think the heart stays whole.’ And on impulse, she quickly climbed the ladder again, and pressed a quick, soft kiss to the enormous hairy cheek.
Flushing the deepest crimson yet, Wee Peter said hoarsely, ‘Good enough for me. Be off with you.’
And as she fled back down the ladder, he covered the hole with its stone lid, and darkness fell.
CHAPTER SEVEN
After the trapdoor had closed, they were plunged into blackness, and there was a second when Aoife feared she’d done something utterly insane – that she’d walked them into a trap, allowing the smuggler to lock them in a box where they could only sit and wait blindly to be discovered. She could hear Carla panting somewhere in the darkness. Up above in the bar, there was the crash of a door opening, and the whiny high voice of the zookeeper, and the booming tones of the giant . . .
But then her fairy vision sharpened, and she began to make out the shape of the cellar – a cave hacked out of the single quartz crystal of which the whole city was made. Trickles of grey light leaked through a pile of roughly-made wooden boxes stacked at the far end. Carla was standing by the ladder, clearly still blind. When Aoife took her elbow, she started and gave a faint moan.
‘It’s OK, Carla – it’s only me. Come on, I’ll guide you.’
Behind the boxes was a space wide enough to slip into, and here was the source of the light: a fracture in the rose-quartz rock, through which several long gnarled roots had thrust themselves, taking advantage of a structural weakness in the crystal. Aoife peered dubiously into the crack – it was deep and very, very narrow. At the far end, a long way off, was a jagged vertical line of pale grey.
Footsteps on the stone ceiling of the cave. Very clearly, the tap of a walking stick, leaving a dotted trail of sound.
‘We have to squeeze into this crack, Carla.’
‘What crack?’
‘Here, give me your hand, feel around.’
Carla did, then said firmly: ‘No. Can’t fit.’
‘I think we have to, Carla. I’m pretty sure I can make it, and you’re smaller than me.’
‘Smaller upwards maybe, but not outwards.’
‘That’s just in your mind – you’re incredibly skinny now. Come on, you go first. I’ll push if you get stuck.’
Carla whispered fearfully yet bravely, ‘No, I’ll go second – if I get stuck, you’ll be trapped, and we’ll both get caught!’
The dotted line had reached the trapdoor.
Shoving her, Aoife hissed, ‘Just get in there!’
‘Oh God . . .’ Raising her arms over her head, Carla jammed herself sideways into the fissure, and Aoife squirmed in after her.
Behind and above, a grating of stone on stone. Wee Peter’s voice echoed loudly down: ‘See for yourself! I told yer! Nobody there!’
The further they pushed in, the thinner grew the crack, like a vice closing on their vulnerable bodies. Aoife began to wish she’d taken off her shawl, to gain a few extra millimetres all round – but there was not enough room now to shrug it off.
Behind, more noises in the cellar. Heavy, soft feet descending a ladder, and Wee Peter shouting desperately, ‘There’s nobody down there, I’m telling ye!’
Just ahead of Aoife, Carla groaned breathlessly, ‘Can’t go on.’ Bracing herself, Aoife thrust hard with her shoulder. Carla, with a whimper of pain, slid on another centimetre, then gasped, ‘Stop! Too tight!’
Aoife shoved again.
‘No, stop! Stop! I told you you shouldn’t have let me go first! Now we’ll just have to pray they don’t find us . . .’
Now the darkness was deeper. Carla’s body, filling the crevice, blocked any hint of daylight that Aoife’s sharp eyes might have picked up from the entrance at the other end. They stood there side by side, waiting, wedged, unable to move a centimetre. Heavy feet paced the hollow cellar, up and down. A few minutes later, a fierce smashing and breaking started up – the crash of wooden boxes being hurled around. A pause. Silence. And then, from the direction in which they’d come, soft orange light began leaking into the crack – and the hum of flies began to fill the air around them, like the soothing sound of a summer’s day. And the abattoir stench of decomposing flesh.
Vomit rose in Aoife’s throat. She was jammed too tight to turn her head. She slid her eyes sideways. A large, soft, rotting face had its forehead pressed to the narrow entrance, peering in with eyes that glittered with blue decay, grinning and thrusting out its tongue up which, from deep in the back of its throat, white wriggling maggots crawled.
Trying not to be physically sick with fear and the very stink of the dullahan, Aoife pushed again. ‘Move, move!’ The crevice was far too narrow for their pursuer, but a dullahan could kill with a name . . .
Carla squealed shrilly, ‘I can’t! I’m stuck!’
The rotting head glowed brighter with delight and its vile lips began to shape themselves squashily around a word: ‘CAR . . .’
‘Move!’ With a violent spasm of terror, Aoife thrust one more time, and Carla’s soft body crashed sideways out of the crevice. Flinging herself out after her, landing painfully among thorns, Aoife plastered her hands over her best friend’s ears, blocking the terrible, sonorous cry of the dullahan:
‘Car . . . la . . . Car . . . la . . . Car . . . la . . .’
Three times calling Carla to her death.
Carla was groaning underneath her, ‘Get off me! Thorns!’
As soon as Aoife released her, Carla rolled over onto her front – ‘Ouch! Ouch!’ – and went struggling out through the bushes into the open. Following her, Aoife collapsed with a sob of relief on a dewy carpet of grass, face buried in the scented wet, the sun on her back. As her heart-rate slowly recovered, she turned her head to one side.
Carla was already sitting up, inspecting herself for scrapes and scratches; her black dress was ripped and her arms and legs in ribbons, but bizarrely, she was grinning. ‘Jesus and Mary, how thin am I, being able to squeeze through there? Thank Christ for last summer’s misery diet! One more of Mícheál Costello’s chocolate bars and we’d never have made it through. Did we get away without being seen, do you think? Can we have a rest now?’
Aoife laughed into the grass, a touch hysterically – and decided not to terrify her friend with the truth. She just needed to get Carla home before they ran into another dullahan. ‘No, I think we better keep on moving.’
‘Seriously? Ugh. Grand. Where now?’
Aoife sat up and looked around. The fissure had spat them out into a small orchard of hawthorns, and a thin set of white steps, barely half a metre wide, ran down from the street above. Beyond, the crystal city climbed, layer after layer of sun-touched streets and gardens. Far above, at the summit, was her mother’s minaret – a golden pencil in the dawn. ‘Home, to Mayo.’
Carla sobbed with relief: ‘Oh, thank God.’
‘And then I’m going to find Shay.’
‘What? No!’ Carla’s relief turned instantly to horror. ‘I can’t leave you here in this crazy world by yourself!’
Aoife felt like hugging her – loving her for her courage. She said firmly, ‘No. This is my fight. You’re a human. I’m a fairy with powers.’
Carla was breathless with indignation. ‘Fairy, shmairy! Not everything is to do with powers, you know!’
‘I know you’re incredi
bly brave—’
‘I’m not talking bravery either! Any eejit can be brave! I’m talking common sense! Who had the idea about burying Mícheál in the lake? Who told you the boat was hiding when you were about to walk slap into that headless monster? Aoife, I’m not trying to be mean, but you’re extremely impulsive and you never— I mean, you don’t always think! You need me to think for you!’
‘Of course I need you, Carla, but I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you—’
‘Nor me you! I’m not going home without you.’
Aoife took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Love and frustration battled within her. There was only one way out of this. ‘OK. Come on. We can’t stay here, anyway.’ She got to her feet, holding out her hand, and Carla, astonished at having won the argument, grasped it and allowed Aoife to haul her to her feet.
‘Right. Where are we really going?’
‘To my mother’s tower. Dorocha lives there, and wherever he is, I think this demon and Shay may be there too.’
They climbed from level to level, up high-walled stairways, cutting briefly across streets cobbled in semi-precious stones – lapis lazuli, agate, tiger’s eye. At this early hour, all seemed asleep – or absent. Bronze doors were closed. Bronze gates led off the stairways into deserted gardens of fruit trees and marble fountains. On gold-plated roofs, flocks of pink chaffinches and blackbirds poured out their tiny throbbing hearts to the new sun.
Aoife’s mind worked as she climbed. Dorocha was out of the city. His own spy, the zookeeper, did not know where he’d gone. Perhaps she should ask the druids about the demon girl – they knew all things, or so they claimed. No . . . Something about the druids made her uncomfortable – they did Dorocha’s bidding too willingly. The lenanshees, then? They held themselves as aloof as the banshees. Yet Shay – although his father’s human blood ran in his veins – surely counted as one of their own?
But first – the queen’s pool. And when Carla, unsuspecting, followed Aoife across the blood-red tiles, she would sink and be gone and, a moment later, find herself climbing out of the hawthorn pool into the first stirrings of the Mayo spring, with tiny green leaves unfurling themselves and the mountain lambs racing in clumps across the bog.
As she neared the top of the next flight, Carla’s voice cried very faintly, a long way behind: ‘Wait!’
Aoife turned in surprise – she’d expected Carla to be right behind her, but instead she was slumped against the wall a long way below, head between her knees. By the time Aoife had reached her, Carla was retching from deep down in her gut, and moaning in between convulsions: ‘How are you taking the steps this fast? I’m going to die.’
‘Oh God, I’m so sorry!’ After all her insistence on sending Carla home, she’d entirely forgotten the difference in speed and strength between a changeling and a human. She crouched guiltily on the narrow steps. ‘I’m such an eejit.’
‘My legs are cramping. My lungs are agony. I can’t even stand.’
‘I’ll carry you.’
Carla retched again, less violently. ‘It’s OK, I’ll feel better in a while.’
‘No, seriously. I’ll piggyback you. Climb onto my back.’
‘Ah no – you couldn’t possibly . . .’
‘Trust me, I’m very, very strong. Let me show you.’
‘Ah, Jesus.’ But Carla scrambled weakly onto her back. ‘I must weigh a ton.’
‘You do not. You’re as light as a feather.’ And she raced easily on up the steps, her arms tucked under Carla’s knees.
Carla, in between panting, started to laugh so much she got hiccups: ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this! This is crazy! Is this all part of being a fairy queen?’
‘Any changeling can do it . . .’
‘It’s like that scene in Twilight!’
‘Ssh, not so loud . . .’ The nearer they got to the summit of the city, the more anxious Aoife felt about running into another of Dorocha’s dullahans. ‘Keep looking around you, Carl – keep an eye out for anything moving.’ Yet apart from the soft running patter of her own bare feet, the city seemed very still – and now more silent than before, because even the birds on the golden roofs had ceased to sing.
A darkness passed over, cooling the air.
Carla flinched, nearly choking her. ‘Oh no, oh God!’
It was another sluagh, gliding above them like a storm cloud on the wind – not the one that had landed on the dullahan’s forearm, but much larger – a twelve-metre wingspan at least. Moments later, the clawed beast rushed forwards, disappearing over the roof tops – no doubt spotting some easier prey in the sunlit open. Carla sighed and relaxed a little, loosening her stranglehold on Aoife’s neck. Gasping gratefully for air, Aoife paused on the edge of the next street. Surely not that much further to the summit. She could no longer even see the minaret – it was concealed by the wide blue underside of the lenanshee quarters, its verandas merging with the hazy sky. A very distant lute was playing in these heavens, and a strong scent of bluebells spilled over the edge of the blue balustrade – a waterfall of perfume.
Aoife started out across the street, seeking the next stairway.
And with a triumphant screech, the giant sluagh swooped down on them from behind.
Carla screaming in her ear, Aoife fled round the now quite narrow circumference of the city, past closed doors and gates, and then – just before the clawed hands could rip the girl from her back – threw herself down a waterway that flowed steeply between two houses: a narrow golden gutter down which the red water of the city poured. The shadow was over them again, keeping pace as they raced downwards between the crystal walls of the houses. The screeching old man’s head jabbed down at them between the walls, the beaky mouth choked with deformed and twisted teeth.
Aoife yelled, ‘We’re going to glide! Hold onto my neck!’ Letting go of Carla’s legs, she flung her arms forward like a diver, and swooped headlong. The sluagh thrust its hooked hands and feet at them, trying to scoop them up; the claws narrowly missed them with every clutch. The golden gutter flowed out from between the houses across a street that was filled by a slowly walking crowd of chattering teenagers. Aoife swept left and came down halfway into the throng, running forwards in the centre of it. A winged shape swept from above and she ducked, dragging Carla down beside her. Yet the shadow passed over, and when she peered up, it was an eagle – not the magnificent beast of that morning, but a very young and clumsy fledgling, flying slowly and determinedly down towards the valley. Moments later, the sluagh appeared over the rooftops and chased the young bird down several more levels of the city before managing to seize it in its wizened hands and feet, and hurtling on out across the grassy plain.
Aoife rose shakily to her feet, pulling Carla up beside her. ‘Are you all right?’
Carla turned her head to look at her, opened and shut her mouth a couple of times, then said in a hoarse, stunned voice, ‘Oh. My. God. That was absolutely amazing.’
Aoife was stunned. ‘Amazing?’ Being chased by a giant sluagh could be described in many ways, but . . .
‘He saved us again!’
‘He . . . What?’
‘You see what I mean about you needing me to think sensibly about things? You’re so missing the obvious here! The robin sacrificed itself for you and got eaten by an eagle, and then a baby eagle shows up and does the same thing! Coincidence? I’m telling you, it’s that little boy you keep on talking about—’
‘You think the eaglet was Donal?’ Shaken, Aoife turned to watch the mighty sluagh powering towards the cliffs with great claps of its leathery wings. Tiny drops of red and gold tumbled from its vicious claws. ‘Oh God . . . Do you really think? Oh, Donal, poor Donal . . .’ If Mícheál Costello had been right to fear being eaten by a pooka, how much worse would it be, to be eaten by a giant sluagh?
Still panting, Carla said, ‘I have to say, if I’m right about this, I really, really like that kid.’
Around them, the crowd of changelings hustled o
n, seeming largely indifferent to the monster that had just passed over their heads. Only a lanky boy of sixteen glanced out towards the cliffs, scowling. ‘Hate those leathery things. Where are they all coming from?’
‘Don’t say “hate”. . .’ His fellow changeling was an older boy with faint stubble, wearing a soldier’s uniform from the First World War. ‘We’re all one now, we’re all creatures of light and dark, united.’
‘But the queen is gone.’
Aoife, with a glance at Carla, fell in behind the boys to listen. Perhaps she could learn something.
The soldier lad was saying confidently, ‘Stolen away from us, the druids say. The Beloved has gone to fetch her back.’
‘But if she genuinely prefers a lad her own age . . .’
‘They say she was too young to know her own mind.’
‘They say.’
‘Look, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? To ask this new teacher the real truth of everything? Stop trying to work everything out for yourself, your brain will melt.’
The throng parted suddenly, flattening themselves against the walls of the street. A long procession of druids in white robes came striding through, beating drums, strumming small gold harps. They were pushing a bronze-wheeled cart on which sat a hawthorn tree in a large clay pot; smoking copper jars dangled on chains from its thorny branches, giving off a poisonous scent. Among the druids was the tall woman who had crowned Aoife. Aoife tightened the red shawl, wrapping it across the lower part of her face. The jars swung and stank; the wheels rattled loudly over the marble cobblestones. Finally the procession passed and the crowd re-formed.
The lanky boy was complaining again. ‘What are the druids doing with a hawthorn tree? It’s bad luck to dig them up.’
‘They’re celebrating the Festival of the Dead – the luck is supposed to be bad.’
‘Do you think it’s true this teacher knows more than the druids?’
‘That’s what I hear. Only don’t go asking questions about wanting to go back hom— back to the human world. Just remember – we changelings don’t care about humans any more. We’ve cut our ties.’
The Dark Beloved Page 23