The back half of the crowd surged towards the Land Rover, sucking Dawn and me with them.
I stumbled over someone’s feet, and fell to my knees. Dawn tripped and fell beside me. We huddled together, unable to rise against the trampling rush of people.
Again, Eamon’s song stopped for a moment.
Orla sang anew, her voice over-powering all attempts by the other fay to battle her. Enough of a calm settled over the mob to allow a gap to open in front of us.
I grabbed Dawn’s hand and, keeping our heads down, we shoved our way through the last of the crowds and back to the safety of my front garden.
We were panting. Dawn’s trousers were torn. My hands were cut and bruised, and both our faces scuffed. But we’d broken free.
Mum pulled me into a tight hug. I looked down the street to the mob. Orla fluttered from the top of the Land Rover and headed our way.
Dawn’s mum—human mum—was there too, hugging her own daughter. Letting go of Dawn, her mum said, “You saved her life. Thank you, Melanie.”
I blinked. I had, I guess.
“It happened so fast.” Dawn drew in a ragged breath, the impact of what had happened growing on her face. “I didn’t know what was going on.”
Orla flitted to Dawn’s side, looking her over. “She’s all right.”
“Want to come over tomorrow?” Dawn asked. “We have so much catching up to do.”
“I’ll be there,” I said, grinning. I’d make sure I didn’t lose this friendship again. Oisin would have to let me keep it.
It was all surreal. I was the only one who could see or hear the liminals, and . . . for the first time I felt like . . .
It was all right.
I was all right. I was living in a full-colour world.
“Where’s Dad?” I asked Mum as we went into the house.
“Safe at the Whiterock Lodge, thank goodness,” she said, hugging me again. “He texted to say the army is blocking anyone from getting in or out of the neighbourhood right now, so he’s going to stay there for a while.”
In the hospital I’d missed Mum’s care and affection, but after today, I knew I couldn’t stay here anymore. The marching, the fay, the Troubles. Parades like these had too much potential for violence. I had to get to the Druidic Enclave. I had to become part of the solution.
“I’ve been thinking about yesterday,” I said to Mum, falling into a chair by the kitchen table. “I don’t want to go back to the Mater.”
“Melanie . . .” Mum said.
“I know I need help,” I interrupted. “I was on the internet yesterday and I found a site for a wee residential centre. Here in Belfast.”
Mum bit her lip. She slipped into the chair beside me and took my hand.
“It’s just on Fitzwilliam, close by.”
Mum nodded slowly, her cheeks wet.
“I can live there, and get the care I need, without being hospitalized. When Dad gets home, I can show you both the website. It looks grand.”
Mum took me in her arms and held me for a long time. Then she pushed me back to look into my eyes. “Are you sure?”
“I am.” I smiled.
I was.
FROG SONG
Erika Holt
“Head for the water, Woof.” Ruby clung to the long fur around her friend’s neck and urged him to go faster. For three hours they’d been eluding their pursuer—a concerned dog lover intent on “rescue.” Such were the risks of visiting the city. Out in the countryside, as long as a dog didn’t appear to be suffering, people would leave him to roam. But some city-dwellers were relentless in their heroics. Woof’s tongue lolled out to the side and he panted heavily. Ruby felt him slowing down.
Woof plunged through the undergrowth at the edge of the neatly constructed wetland they’d used more than once as an urban bolt-hole. As soon as he set foot in the murky water, Ruby slid off and with two easy strokes of her webbed feet reached the safety of the deep. On land, her weak, misshapen hind limbs were capable of no more than crawling, but water was her element.
“Go!”
Woof skirted the pond’s edge and bellied his way under a chain link fence—no easy task for a sheep dog—before disappearing into a thicket. Ruby sunk low so that just her eyes poked from the surface, unblinking. Though she was somewhat larger than a frog, her marble eyes more than twice the size, never once had she been spotted in the water. People only saw what they wanted to see, or what they expected, and this woman was no different, her gaze skipping over Ruby like a flat stone across the surface.
“Come here now, boy! I won’t hurt you!”
Ruby snorted, causing burst of bubbles to rise up. What did this person know? Woof did just fine. Certainly better than if he was locked away in a cage or forced to wear a collar all day like other dogs Ruby had seen. When the woman looked away, Ruby splashed her and was gratified to hear a surprised shriek before she dove. The woman was lucky. At least this water was clean.
The next day they were back in the city, but not for sight-seeing. Ruby had business there. The pair hunkered down between a dumpster and a wall, waiting for Aaron to wake up. He had that smell, the rotting sweet breath that meant he’d had too much to drink the night before. It could be some time before he came to, but it was best to catch him first thing in the morning, so they waited. Ruby scratched behind Woof’s ear and patted his head. If the smell was bad for her, it must be way worse for him.
Aaron was only the second human she’d ever spoken to, though she’d eavesdropped on many. Amitola—or “Rainbow” as the woman had preferred to be called, saying it made her “dates” smile—had been her first and best friend, but Ruby hadn’t seen Rainbow in over a year.
But Aaron and Rainbow shared some similarities, which was what had drawn Ruby to him. They were both outside-people, who kept to themselves mostly, and showed small kindnesses to critters around them, like sharing their meagre food with Woof with no expectations of getting something in return. And, like Rainbow, Aaron seemed invisible to his fellow humans. Ruby had once asked what his name meant. He said, “screw-up” but when Ruby asked if that’s what she should call him he stayed quiet.
She leaned against the wall, pulling her long legs into her chest. That she was part human herself was a certainty. Her upper body and shoulders were undeniably human shaped, as were her arms, and her perfectly formed, little hands, with eight fingers and two thumbs tipped by ten hardened nails. Her legs hadn’t come out as well, more frog-like than human, but not as functional. Others like her, strange hybrid creatures, had been born of the soupy swamp behind the grey brick building—a baby-making clinic, Rainbow had told her—though most had been too malformed to survive more than a few days or weeks, and some had simply withered when the swamp was drained. At thirty-odd years old, Ruby was positively ancient, and now seemingly one of a kind. But despite her part humanness, she felt little kinship with these creatures who sped around in metal contraptions spewing fumes and noise, paved the world in black, and bustled in and out and in and out of revolving doors all day long. Like ants. An ant-human hybrid would be terrifying.
A deep engine roared in the distance, followed by the sounds of clanging and banging metal. The garbage truck. She squeezed with her legs and Woof rose, standing over the snoring man a moment before licking his face.
“Mmmrrrr,” Aaron swatted at his unseen attacker and rolled over.
Woof pawed at Aaron’s arm until he stirred again, finally opening his bloodshot eyes.
“Whaaattt? Oh. Hey, Ruby. Hey, Woof.” He pulled up to a sitting position, tipping his head from side to side to stretch his neck, which cracked loudly. “Woo, feeling a bit rough this morning.”
Though she’d learned to speak, it wasn’t easy and her voice was soft. She felt as though she was shouting when she said, “I gathered everyone yesterday, told them you were going to help us. But you didn’t come.”
“Yeah,” Aaron stared off down the alley. “Yeah, sorry. I . . . I got busy. I’ll come tomorrow, ok
ay?”
“We need you now.”
“I’ve got my own stuff going on.” He fished around in his nest of blankets, retrieving an empty glass bottle. He peered at it, frowning, as though not believing it could be empty.
“Three more floaters this morning. You said you had a plan.”
Aaron sighed, scrubbing at his scalp with dirty fingers. “My plans don’t tend to work out. In case you hadn’t noticed.”
He got like this sometimes. Negative. Surly.
“How will we know unless you try? Come. We’ll take you, so you can see.” Ruby turned Woof around and motioned for Aaron to follow.
For a moment he just sat, staring at the ground. Finally he said, “Fuck it,” and hauled himself up, stuffing his blankets into a green garbage bag, which he tucked behind a grease recycling bin. “How far is this place again?”
“Not far.” It was pretty far, but if he knew that, he wouldn’t come.
They kept to the alleys, mostly, and the dead spaces below underpasses and around industrial areas. A longer route, but safer; especially now that the sun was up. Once on the outskirts, they ducked through a few culverts under the highway. Aaron grumbled about getting his boots wet, though his feet, along with the rest of him, could use a good soaking.
Usually, Ruby skirted the buildings bordering the slough she called home, but today she directed Woof into the heart of the complex. Aaron had to see everything.
Hulking metal skeletons of dilapidated buildings baked in the sun, mint green paint faded and chipped, giving way to rust, smearing the sides like blood. That was, where they weren’t covered with graffiti, hastily scrawled doodles and hearts and names, and symbols only intelligible to their writers. A network of pipes—arteries and veins—zigzagged between and up and down the walls. Weeds fought to reclaim the gravel pad on which the structures sat. They were winning. Given enough time, would this place be swallowed up? And what would happen to the swallowers?
Woof carefully picked his way around broken glass, until Ruby brought him to stop.
“Wow,” Aaron said looking around. “Is this place abandoned?”
A lone red-winged blackbird perched atop a stack, intoning its melodic call, but Ruby knew Aaron was referring to people. “Kids come sometimes in the summer. They make fires.” They also drank a lot of the same sort of stuff Aaron drank.
“It’s nice out here. Peaceful. Could be my country estate.”
Aaron grinned and Ruby frowned. Not the reaction she’d expected.
“Just wait,” she said.
They snaked around the buildings and headed downhill toward the water. When she’d first found this place five years ago, it had smelled alive, like peat and muck and algae-green water. Those smells were there still, but interlaced with a chemical undertone, and, depending on the direction of the wind, the stench of rotting flesh. She and Woof pulled bodies from the water daily, but could only take them so far.
As was her habit of late, Ruby scanned the pond’s surface for floaters, spotted a minnow, its bloated white belly exposed to the sky. If not dead yet, it soon would be.
A vibrating croak cut off abruptly when they were spotted. The silence lasted only until Ruby was recognized, and then a chorus of voices burst forth, competing to be heard. Not in the ribbits or croaks that would be discernable to Aaron’s human ears. The frogs spoke to her in their secret language, an undetectable, low frequency humming. Eggs failing to hatch. Malformed tadpoles. Metamorphoses gone horribly wrong. Burning skin. Foggy eyes. Paralyzed back legs. Is this the human who will help?
It seemed too much to relay to Aaron, so instead she pointed to the latest casualty. “There.”
He approached the dead minnow and bent over, examining it. “Huh. So, stuff’s dying you said?”
“Yes.”
“Wonder why?”
“Follow.”
They circled around to the west side of the pond where a jumbled pile of badly rusted barrels sat, a couple in the water. Ruby and Woof stayed back. They’d already tried everything they could think of, plastering the leaking cracks with mud and grass, pushing on the barrels. Nothing had worked.
Aaron moved closer to investigate. “Looks like somebody had a good time.” When Ruby just stared, he added, “Those kids you mentioned? Bet they tipped these and rolled them down the hill. But yeah, this looks like the source of the problem. Wonder what’s in them?” He kicked one on the water’s edge, and a hollow echo sounded. Empty, or nearly so.
“I could try to find some gloves somewhere. Move them maybe. At least get them away from the water.” He grabbed an edge of one, but though he could rock it, he could not tip it up to stand. “Or maybe not.”
“You can do your plan. Your other plan. The one you mentioned last week, that worked for a pig. ‘Some pig.’ Remember?”
“I was blasted when I said I had a plan. It’s . . . it’s totally stupid.”
“You said we just needed to get people’s attention.”
“Jesus, Ruby. My ‘plan’ isn’t even real. It’s from a stupid kids’ book. I mean, here I was, talking to you, and you’re on a dog for God’s sake, and you’re this . . .” He stopped. “And it just struck me as funny, you know? You’re asking me to help, to convince people that you were in trouble, to save you. It reminded me of a story and I came up with this stupid idea. It was just a joke, Ruby. A dumb joke. I’m sorry.”
“Aren’t jokes supposed to be funny?”
“Yeah.” As he reached around to pull up the hood on his jacket, Ruby saw his hands were shaking. “I gotta go.” Gone were the grins and chuckles.
“Can you bring help to move the barrels?”
He mumbled something about having burned his bridges, and started back up the hill.
For three long days Ruby waited for Aaron to return with help. How could he not, after what he’d seen? He’d seemed anxious and agitated by the time he’d left; the dead minnow and leaking barrels must’ve made an impression.
But, by the fourth day, she knew he wasn’t coming. Or, if he was, he would be too late.
Ruby fiddled with a green and yellow woven string bracelet around her wrist, so tiny Rainbow had worn it as a ring until giving to her. When Ruby brought Rainbow a perfect, pink water lily in return, that was the only time she’d seen her friend cry. Rainbow wore it in her hair all day.
Maybe if Ruby gave Aaron something, a gift, he would do his plan as a gift in return.
Over the next several days, she and Woof made trips into the city. It took a while to find him, for Woof to sniff him out, as he’d changed alleys, now making his home in a concrete nook next to a chain-link fence. Ruby could see the appeal—the concrete soaked up heat, and warm air gusted from a metal vent above. But it was also a dead end, making visits, particularly daytime ones, risky. And so they came at night, bringing every sort of thing she could find and that Woof could carry in his mouth. A lily, of course, but also a sparkly stone, a shoe, part of a newspaper, and Woof’s contribution—his favorite stick, thoroughly chewed. Most times Aaron wasn’t there, although once he was sleeping and incoherent, but they just left the stuff at his feet for him to find in the morning. Still he didn’t come back to the pond.
She saved the best present for last. A glass bottle, with two inches of the amber liquid Aaron prized so highly still left in the bottom. For this, they risked a daytime trip. She had to be sure he got it and knew it was from them. There was no lid on the bottle, and Woof seemed not to like the feel of glass against his teeth, so it was slow going to make sure none spilled.
When they arrived, Aaron was already awake, bending over and emptying the contents of his stomach onto the asphalt. After he was finished, Woof carefully placed the bottle down beside him. Aaron slumped against the wall and wiped his chin with his sleeve. He stared glassily at them for a moment, then shifted his gaze to the bottle.
“What’s this?”
“It’s gift for you,” Ruby replied. She waited for a smile. Joy. Or tears. Happy ones.
Aaron sighed and banged the back of his head into the wall. “Fuck. You don’t get it, do you?”
“Rainbow said friends give gifts.”
“I don’t have friends. Not anymore.”
Ruby wouldn’t have thought it possible for words to sting, but a sharp prickle stabbed deep in her belly. She tugged on Woof’s scruff to move him back a step or two.
Aaron made a sort of growling sound and slammed his head into the wall again. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Thanks.” He picked up the bottle, sniffed, and recoiled. “Jesus.” He threw it against the opposite wall and it shattered, spraying the liquid they’d so carefully safeguarded everywhere. “It’s piss.” He started to laugh, body shaking until tears streamed down his cheeks and dammed up at the edges of his scraggly beard.
These emotions Ruby couldn’t read.
After a couple of minutes, his mirth subsided. “Aaaahh, thanks, guys. I haven’t had that good a laugh in ages.”
“What about the other things?” Ruby asked, gesturing to the shiny stone. “Do you like those?”
“Oh, that was you? Uh, yeah, yeah, sure.” He picked up the stone, examined it a moment and set it back down. “Listen, I gotta get going.” He stood and kicked some gravel, including the shiny stone, over the puddle of vomit.
Ruby dug her heels into Woof’s sides, sending him springing forward to block Aaron’s path.
She drew herself to her full height. “You didn’t come back.”
“I told you. I can’t help. If you knew me you’d. . . . Just forget it, okay? Find someone else.”
He jammed his hands into his pockets and looked at the ground. After a few seconds of waiting for direction, Woof made his own decision, padding over to the wall to retrieve his stick then pulling a U-turn to head for home.
Ruby didn’t bother looking back.
They’d almost reached the alley’s exit when a man appeared. His eyes were wide and his mouth hung open strangely, revealing missing bottom teeth. Sores pocked his face and bone-thin arms.
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