The Hawthorn Crown

by Helen Falconer

  Zoe leaped down and rushed to the bed. ‘Yay! Can I take one for Eva as well?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Yay! I’m going to text Aoife to tell her.’ From her dressing-gown pocket, Zoe pulled out the ancient Nokia which Carla had given her little sister when she herself had graduated to a smartphone.

  Carla stared. She’d completely forgotten the old Nokia still existed. ‘You’ve got credit?’

  ‘I got texts for my birthday.’ Zoe stood carefully pressing buttons with one finger after the other. ‘I got free ones left.’

  For a moment Carla was tempted to wrest the phone off her little sister – such a precious lifeline to the outer world, wasted on a barely literate five-year-old. But by the time she had one foot on the floor, she had come to her senses. The only people she knew on the same network – and so available to receive free texts – were her mother, father, grandmother and, irony of ironies, Aoife and Killian.

  Later, she couldn’t sleep. She turned her head restlessly on the pillow. Under the pillow was the remaining rock crystal.

  She tossed and turned.

  She couldn’t get the idea of an attack out of her mind.

  If dark creatures attacked Kilduff, Aoife was bound to want to fight them single-handed – it was just the sort of dumb, idiotic, heroic thing she would do. And supposing without the protection of this stupid crystal she went and got herself killed?

  And supposing Killian tried to save Aoife because he loved her so much, and ended up getting killed as well …?

  Ugh. Crap. Damn.

  Hating her life, Carla slid from her room, crept across the landing and inched open the door into Zoe’s room. Toy disaster zone. Barely an inch of floor space that wouldn’t crack or break if she stepped on it. On the bed lay the shadowy hump of Zoe. For a bad moment, as she tiptoed her way across the room, Carla thought her little sister was awake and looking at her – but it was only the rock crystal pressed to Zoe’s cheek, winking in the faint light from the landing. An open eye, watchful while its owner slept. On the wall above Zoe’s bed was a new photo of her on her fifth birthday, with Eva at her side, helping her blow out the cake …

  Zoe and Eva, the new inseparable Carla and Aoife. What a poignant repetition of old history.

  The Nokia was clutched in the little girl’s hand, but her small fingers were limp with sleep, and Carla easily prised them away. Back in her own bed, she took a deep, shaky breath and typed:

  this is cala on zoe’ noka

  ‘Ugh, stupid phone.’ She’d totally forgotten how to use an old-fashioned Nokia. She tried again:

  i only cntcting U 2 talk bout smthng v imp

  The skill was flowing back into her fingers now – no punctuation, minimal use of vowels, numerals as shorthand – all the short cuts people used in the distant past, before smartphones:

  ultan worrid de fairy wrld is going 2 attck kildff. ive a speshul crystal here that cn mybe protect ye

  The text box ran out of space. ‘Aargh!’ Stupid Stone-Age phone. Carla took another deep, shuddering breath and pressed ‘send’.

  As she waited for her answer (always supposing Aoife was awake at this late hour), she found herself feeling strangely better. As much as she was still heartbroken by Aoife’s betrayal, there was some comfort in the idea that she and her ex-best friend might – sort of, tentatively – work together again when faced with a greater enemy.

  Because if there was any risk of an attack by dark creatures, it would be horribly selfish to protect only themselves.

  It was obviously too expensive to get charmstones for everyone in the town – even supposing they did work, and even supposing they could persuade everyone to wear them, particularly the boys. But they could nail up a ring of horseshoes around Kilduff, to fences and gateposts – and plant the special mistletoe hawthorn in between for good measure. And – Carla’s brain was now in management mode – they should really stop up that back route to the fairy world that came out in the Doherty tomb. She was still grounded herself, so she couldn’t be any practical help, but that didn’t matter. With her fairy strength and speed, Aoife could manage everything in no time, no bother to her.

  Yes.

  Yes.

  It would be like the good old days: Carla being the brains of the operation, and Aoife … well, Aoife doing all the rest! Standing shoulder to shoulder again, just as they had all their lives. Facing down bullies like Lois and Sinead. Or, in the fairy world, taking on the pooka – Aoife hitting it with her magic power, and Carla striking that final blow. Not caring what came at them, so long as they had each other.

  Side by side. Sisters at heart.

  (‘I love you more than any boy.’

  ‘Me too.’)

  Several minutes later, Aoife replied:

  Stop being childish and leave me alone. The fairy world was just a stupid game we played when we were young, like Eva and Zoe play now. I’ve grown up now and found real love.

  Grimly, Carla tore down the photographs on her walls. Eleven – nearly twelve years – it had taken her to collect these hundreds of images, starting from when the two of them were four years old. It took less than an hour to rip them down. Methodically, one after the other. Ugly wounds were left on the walls as the paint peeled away with the ancient Sellotape and dried-up Blu-tack, leaving raw pink streaks of plaster, like the tender flesh under a ripped-off scab. Carla didn’t care that she was ruining her walls. In fact, she kind of liked it. It was like an angry work of art – a visual representation of the scars on her heart.

  CHAPTER SIX

  At seven in the morning, after a long dark night of the soul in which she found herself doubting everything, Carla texted her grandmother, whose number of course was saved in the old Nokia.

  She typed, very slowly and accurately:

  this is Carla. please call as soon as you get this. we need to talk

  There was only one person now who she dared talk to about the fairy world, and who trusted in her enough to listen.

  Teresa Gilvarry, her seventy-eight-year-old grandmother.

  Teresa, phoning back twenty minutes later from her doorstep, was astonished that Carla could doubt the obvious. ‘Darling – look at Ultan McNeal! Back from the fairy world after thirty-one years, looking exactly as he did on his remembrance card – same clothes and everything! Don’t you go second-guessing yourself, darling.’

  Carla almost wept with relief. It had been horrible, trying to twist her brain around the idea that things she had seen with her own eyes had been all in her head. ‘You don’t think I’m just … um … very imaginative? Like Ellie?’

  ‘Carla, be serious. You’re your mother all over again. No imagination at all.’

  And that, thought Carla – weak with relief – was true. ‘In that case, Nan, maybe we should do more about this possible attack.’

  ‘Like I said – already under control, darling!’

  ‘I know and that’s great, but I really think we could do just a little bit more. I’d do it myself if I wasn’t grounded, but …’

  Her grandmother wasn’t exactly overjoyed at being asked to nail horseshoes to every fence and gatepost in a circle around Kilduff, and plant cuttings of a particular hawthorn tree in between.

  ‘That sounds very hard on the knees, darling. Having to kneel down on the cold wet ground to hammer in nails and plant hawthorn. Gardening’s not my strong point, darling. Not with my knees.’

  ‘Nan, please, you are absolutely the only person in the world who listens to me and understands about the fairy world.’

  The old woman fell silent for a moment. Then hit back with some emotional blackmail of her own: ‘Fine. Grand. I’ll just go to Doctor Garrett and ask him to double my pain prescription for my knees. Which he’s already doubled, so he’ll definitely say no.’

  Carla grinned. ‘That’s great. And, Nan …?’

  ‘What now? You want me to decapitate a chicken with my bare teeth and hang it by its entrails from the church steeple?’
/>
  ‘Not yet, but I know if it had to be done, you love me so much that you would.’

  ‘Ha!’

  ‘Actually, it is something to do with the church. You know the Doherty tomb?’

  ‘Where your boyfriend’s grandparents are buried?’

  At this unexpected mention of Killian, tears pricked in Carla’s eyes. She said hoarsely, ‘He’s not my boyfriend any more now, he’s –’ deep breath – ‘Aoife’s.’

  To her gratification, her grandmother drew in a deep whistling breath through her dentures, then let it out in a shrill squeak of fury. ‘Why, that little wagon. I don’t know why you’re friends with that girl at all, especially the way she’s been lying about Dublin. She probably said it especially to get you grounded, because if that ignorant boy saw the two of ye side by side, he’d see with his own eyes who was the most beautiful, clever, gorgeous, loveable …’

  Carla smiled through her tears. It was heart-warming to have her new comrade-in-arms so firmly on her side. ‘It’s OK, Nan. I’m not her friend any more.’

  The old lady clicked her false teeth. ‘Well, I’m glad to hear it. She doesn’t deserve you.’

  ‘Thanks, Nan. What I was going to say was, we need to put a load of iron inside the Doherty tomb. It’s a back route to the fairy world that only a few older changelings know about, but it’s definitely a weak point.’

  Teresa Gilvarry sounded doubtful. ‘What if that Father Leahy catches me? What will I tell him?’

  ‘Just face him down, Nan. You know you can.’

  Her grandmother phoned back only two hours later, when Carla was still in bed – drifting in and out of sleep, after her sleepless night: ‘First mission accomplished, Captain! The Doherty grave already has iron in it – reinforced concrete!’

  Carla, only half awake, thought she’d misheard. ‘Sorry, what did you say?’

  ‘Are you going deaf, darling? Reinforced concrete!’

  ‘Oh my God!’ She sat up. This news was good. Very good. ‘How? And how do you know?’

  ‘Father Leahy wanted to know why I was trying to look inside the Doherty grave, and so I remembered what you said about facing him down, and I explained that my granddaughter said it was a back road to the fairy world, and that there was a war coming with the fairies, and you wanted me to put horseshoes and hawthorn all around the town to keep it safe, and maybe he could get the altar boys to help me and also at the same time maybe mention to people about hanging crystals round their necks, although they’d have to buy them themselves as they were very expensive.’

  Carla cringed. She could just picture the priest staring coldly at her grandmother with his small, black eyes. ‘That’s not quite what I meant about facing him down, Nan. I can’t believe you said all that about the fairy world to Father Leahy!’

  Her grandmother sounded surprised. ‘Why not? Priests are supposed to believe in that sort of thing. Fairies are in the Bible, aren’t they?’

  ‘Are they? I didn’t know that. What did he say to you?’

  ‘He just looked at me in that stupid way of his, muttered something about Joseph Doherty filling in his parents’ grave because he’d spotted a hole and thought it was subsidence …’

  ‘Oh, perfect!’

  ‘… and then he walked off without saying a word to me about the fairies. Can you believe that?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘As if I was crazy or something, which I suppose I am, letting you bully me into all this nonsense.’

  Carla reassured her hastily, ‘Nan, you’re not crazy, you’re brilliant!’

  A loud knock on the bedroom door, and her mother opened it just as Carla stuffed the phone under the pillow and grabbed the nearest book. ‘Are you all right in here, sweetie?’

  ‘I’m grand, Mam.’ Carla bent over the Comprehensive Catalogue, turning pages.

  Her mother said, glancing around the room, ‘I thought I heard you talking to someone.’

  ‘Only to myself, while I was reading.’

  ‘Telling yourself you were brilliant?’

  ‘Someone has to say it.’

  To Carla’s surprise, Dianne rushed to hug her, crushing her in her arms. ‘But I do think you’re brilliant, my love! I mean, look at you reading that old book! It really goes to show how good it is for teenagers to take a break from their phones for a while. Same with Zoe, now she’s lost that old Nokia. When I was your age, there were no computers, no phones, no Wi-Fi – all Ellie and me had was our imaginations, and we were never, ever bored.’

  Thinking about her poor fragile aunt who had become so imaginative that she now believed she was the Queen of England, Carla said kindly, ‘That sounds great, Mam – you must have had loads of fun.’

  ‘We did – climbing all over the countryside, over walls and ditches, walking out across the bog. It was beautiful.’ And Dianne choked up at these memories of a more innocent time, when her older sister’s ‘imaginative mind’ was a wonderful resource for their childhood games. The same imaginative mind that now had poor Ellie spending months at a time in Clonbarra hospital’s psychiatric unit.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The next day Carla saw Killian for the first time since she’d got home.

  It was in church, at Sunday Mass, and he had just walked past the end of her pew. She shrank behind her parents, but he was too preoccupied to notice her anyway – walking with his phone in his hand and a slight smile on his face, his golden lashes lowered. Tight black jeans with a white T-shirt. Definitely a few centimetres taller than three months ago. Getting older. More muscle – wider shoulders, thicker thighs. Sixteen years old tomorrow, on Valentine’s Day. Face stronger, jaw leaner …

  Dear God, he’s more beautiful than ever.

  Stop looking at him, you fool.

  But Carla’s eyes had never been able to resist him, and now they refused to follow her brain’s instructions. She watched her former boyfriend through trembling fingers as he took a seat only two rows in front of her, slipping in beside his parents. Once more, Carla marvelled that two such plain human beings could have produced such a beautiful son. Joseph Doherty was a rubber-faced, balding, short and stocky man; Eithne was bony, with thin brown hair and small brown eyes. No wonder they were so in awe of their white-blond, silver-eyed boy, and gave him everything he asked for – spoiling him from childhood with the best of toys: ponies and jet skis; the promise of a motorbike when he turned sixteen. Joseph Doherty had proudly added the ‘and Son’ to the Doherty name on all his vans and machines while Killian was still in nappies.

  He had raised his head! Glancing from side to side! Alert, as if he sensed her eyes upon him …

  Aargh, he’s turning to look this way.

  Carla’s eyes, down!

  But still her gaze lingered on him – and for a wonderful split second it was worth it, because he actually flashed his wide, white smile and raised his hand. Brains melting, she dimpled and wriggled her fingers …

  Just as she realized that his greeting was meant for someone else.

  Aargh. Mortifying.

  But at least he didn’t seem to have seen her – he was focused entirely on the person behind her, who was now taking a seat with much sighing and rustling. Carla’s heart pounded. Surely Aoife wouldn’t have the nerve to sit so close to her …

  Don’t check.

  Thankfully, this time, her eyes obeyed her. But as the congregation quietened with Father Leahy’s arrival from the vestry, Carla’s heart-breaking suspicion was confirmed. Zoe, sitting on her other side, turned round in her pew, squeaking, ‘Hi, Eva!’ And at the same time Maeve O’Connor’s voice murmured from somewhere nearby, ‘Oh, look who it is, Aoife. Aren’t you going to say hello?’

  Carla stiffened her shoulders, trying to radiate fury from her back.

  Don’t you dare speak to me, you traitor.

  Thankfully, Aoife had the grace to say nothing. Just in case, Carla remained sitting as angrily as she could, chin up, shoulders square. A few seconds later she heard a long, d
eep sniff. And then another – even longer and deeper. And another. Carla’s angry heart softened – just a tiny, tiny bit. Clearly, her ex-best friend was now in tears. The way Carla was deliberately ignoring her must be hurting her terribly.

  Then came a series of smaller sniffs, rapid, like a dog scenting a piece of meat.

  Coming closer …

  Carla’s neck and shoulders stiffened again, and her skin crawled. What on earth? Aoife was sniffing at her neck? Across the aisle, she could see Sinead and Lois watching, grinning and nudging each other. Jessica and Aisling as well, looking horrified but amused.

  Maeve spoke again, this time in a fierce whisper: ‘Aoife, what are you doing? Sit up straight!’

  Abruptly the sniffing stopped. But a few seconds later, as Father Leahy stepped up to the lectern, a low sobbing began instead.

  (‘Aoife? What’s the matter now?’ hissed Maeve.)

  And suddenly Aoife was blurting out, ‘Oh, I don’t believe it. It’s true. It’s her. That smell, I can’t stand it. Oh, the disgusting, vile—’ And her sobs grew wilder and louder …

  (‘Aoife? What’s the matter?’)

  … until with a piercing wail, the fairy girl sprang to her feet and – as everyone turned in their seats to stare – ran weeping up the aisle, slamming out of the doors at the back of the church, and was gone. Carla alone hadn’t turned to look. She was shrinking as low as she could in her seat, burning with distress and humiliation.

  Aoife had just accused her in public of smelling bad?

  Now she could hear Maeve getting to her feet to follow her daughter. And Killian was also hurrying up the aisle; as he strode past Carla’s pew, he shot her a cold glare.

  ‘The text of today’s sermon …’ announced Father Leahy, in a loud irritated voice.

  Everyone turned again to face front.

  For the rest of the Mass Carla sat feeling like her heart had been slammed in a door. That horrible look Killian had given her, like she was dirt on his shoe.