A toilet roll, jet black with a pattern of crimson roses.
Killian’s laughter cut off abruptly.
Joyfully, Carla rushed to help Ultan up. ‘See, you can grant wishes! And Killian’s still got two more!’
‘Uncle Jimmy, are you all right?’ Grainne McDonnell came rushing into the kitchen, fully dressed but with her long black hair wrapped in a towel as if she’d just had a shower. ‘Have you had another stroke?’
‘I’m grand, Grainne.’ Jimmy McNeal, startled awake, was delighted to discover the mug of tea beside him. ‘But I wish I had a couple of biscuits with this tea.’
Once more, Ultan convulsed dramatically – rolling around the kitchen floor like a lunatic, smoking slightly and frothing at the mouth and bringing bowls crashing down from the dresser as two Kimberley biscuits slowly came into being on the small table beside Jimmy McNeal – first as a pink, misty blur, then clearer and clearer until they finally popped fully formed into existence. After which Ultan staggered to his feet, saying shakily, ‘No idea what happened there, but it felt like a big one. Sorry, Carla – you were saying?’
Carla said, smothering her giggles, ‘I was saying Killian’s still got two wishes …’
‘One! Only one,’ warned the auburn-haired boy, mopping his forehead with a tea towel. ‘A fairy can only grant three wishes, whoever’s asking.’
‘Aaargh …’ Not so funny. ‘OK. But we’re still OK. One will do. Just please keep out of the zone until we’re ready for you. Killian … Killian?’
Killian was paying no attention – he was staring at the biscuits, one of which Grainne had just picked up, sniffed, and taken a cautious bite from, despite the old man’s feeble shout of protest. And then he stared at the black toilet roll lying by his foot. And then back at Grainne, who was now eating the biscuit greedily, like it was the best thing she’d ever tasted. And then at the toilet roll again.
Carla said, ‘Killian, look at me. Look at me.’
He did. White-faced. Physically shaking. Eyes blank, yet brilliant – as if there was a fire lit within him, burning deep.
Carla took his hands. They were cold and trembling.
‘I know how you feel, Killian. It was an awful shock to me too when I found out the fairy world was real. But we have to hurry, because Aoife’s in danger. And we’ve only one wish left, so we have to be careful because we have to get it exactly right.’
He blinked and ran his tongue nervously around his lips. He said hoarsely, ‘One more wish? That’s it?’
‘That’s right. So we have to be really clear about how we phrase it. Do you want me to write it down?’
‘One more wish?’
‘Or I could just say it, and you repeat it after me word for word …’
‘But what if the leprechaun is right about her?’
(‘Hey! Watch it!’)
Puzzled, she said, ‘What do you mean, if Ultan’s right?’
‘I mean, what if Aoife doesn’t want to come home?’
Her heart twisted painfully at the thought. ‘I know, that’s true. I’m sure she’ll be angry at us for doing this, because she’s got it into her head that Shay is still alive, but we can’t just leave her without even trying to get her back.’
‘Shay Foley’s dead?’ Killian was amazed.
She felt bad for springing it on him – she was as bad as her grandmother. ‘I’m afraid so. He was killed by his demon lover. Just like you were nearly killed by yours. Aoife still can’t believe it, but it makes no odds – we have to get her out of there, right now. Now, repeat after me: “I wish the Aoife O’Connor who is fifteen and who is also the Queen of the Tuatha Dé Danann” …’
Killian was staring at her strangely. Eyes still burning. Licking his lips like they were dry. ‘But if this is the last wish I can ever have …’
Grainne McDonnell, swallowing the last of her biscuit, said suddenly, very loud and clear: ‘I wish the ticket I bought for this week’s Euro Millions lottery was clearly and authentically printed with the numbers thirteen, fourteen, twenty-one, seventy-three, twelve and four.’
After Ultan had stopped convulsing for the third time, the young woman took a folded ticket from her apron pocket, unfolded it and burst into hysterical laughter. Pulling the changeling boy to his feet, she enfolded him in a bone-crunching hug, smacking a big wet kiss on both his cheeks. ‘Sorry I doubted you were a fairy, Cousin Ultan. I should have remembered your mother was always right.’
‘She was, she was … Where are you going?’
Grainne was already dancing out of the kitchen door, stripping the towel from her wet hair and whirling it joyfully around her head. ‘To Dublin first, to collect my winnings! And after that I’ll be moving into the biggest, fanciest hotel in Clonbarra! Take care of your father, Ultan – he’s a lovely old man. And I’ll be inviting ye to my wedding as soon as it’s arranged, and by the way the biscuit tin is under the sink!’
After which she leaped into a small white van that was parked round the back, and drove out of the gate and away down the hill.
Carla wept, slumped over the kitchen table.
Aoife, I’ve failed you. I messed up my wish in Falias, and now I’ve messed up again …
Ultan was trying his best to comfort her. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I didn’t realize it but I was still in the zone. Have some tea? Like Mam always said, there’s nothing that a nice cup of tea can’t cure.’
She would have preferred to be comforted by Killian, but Killian had stalked away from her and was standing rigidly outside the door, staring grim-faced after the vanishing van, his hands jammed in his pockets.
Her sobs overflowed again.
God, please help Aoife, because I no longer can.
Jimmy McNeal announced brightly from his place by the fire, ‘This biscuit is delicious! Best I ever tasted! I wish I had another one!’
Ultan looked alarmed and braced himself. Then relaxed. ‘Oh, right, I’ve done my three wishes. Carla, please stop crying, there must be other fairies in Mayo who can help. Look, hang on, let me ask the magic book.’
‘Oh, I forgot, you have a magic book!’ She looked up in wild hope, tears still falling, expecting to see something like the magic book Caitlin owned in the fairy world: huge, leather-bound, embossed with rubies …
Ultan pulled the laptop towards him and typed rapidly into Google – Fairies in Mayo – while saying enthusiastically, ‘Wait till Caitlin sees this yoke! She thinks that ancient magic book she stole off the druids has everything you need to know about everything in it, but she has no idea what real magic looks like. This one even has an entertainment section. Have you watched Orange Is the New Black?’
Carla was sobbing again, even more broken-hearted after having her hopes destroyed a second time. Of course – not a magic book, but a laptop connected to the internet. ‘Ultan, please stop, it will never work, you’re not going to find another fairy in Mayo.’
‘Ssh! This thing can hear you and, the more you get annoyed with it, the longer it takes. Ah, it’s in a good mood today, here it comes.’ He scanned the screen. ‘Yep, I was right. That Fairies and Angels shop in Westport runs magic workshops … Oh, and leprechauns do exist! Well, well, well. My mistake.’
END OF BOOK ONE
BOOK TWO
Over two months later
PROLOGUE
It was a late night for the lads in Rourke’s pub in Kilduff. A few games of darts, increasingly random as the night wore on. And, of course, the same chat they’d been having for the past two months or so – how Grainne McDonnell had proposed to John Joe Foley on Valentine’s Day, and why in God’s name the man was still hesitating.
After two whole months!
He’d better hurry and make up his mind. Because if he didn’t take her soon, any one of them would be happy to step in.
Not because of the money.
No decent, self-respecting man married for money.
The fact that Grainne had twelve and a half million
euros in her back pocket was neither here nor here. No, it was just that she was such a lovely girl. And very pretty too.
John Joe, feeling under pressure, left the lock-in early. In the pub car park, he wrenched open the battered door of the old red Ford (he never brought the vintage BMW to the pub). Driving slowly up the steep road to the mountains – engine straining – he pondered marriage. He felt bad about stringing Grainne along. It was unnerving how passionate she was about him, and he should put a stop to her dreams. But the truth was, he was waiting to see if his younger brother Shay would reappear. If Shay did come home, then John Joe might consider marrying Grainne for her money, if only in order to send the boy to college. Or maybe buy Shay a farm of his own. Set him up for life.
But if Shay didn’t return …
Then what did John Joe need the money for? He had the family farm, out on the empty bog, which he finally had in working order. He had the old house. And he was never going to marry for love. Love was too dangerous. His own father had been destroyed by the grá – sucked as dry as a butterfly’s abandoned husk by his wild, insatiable desire for his own wife.
Eamonn Foley had met his future muse walking along the cliff-top path – a beauty with long black curls and turquoise eyes, drifting out of the mist as if she’d flown in with the gulls. When he’d asked who she was, she’d only shrugged and smiled. So he’d named her ‘Moira’ and married her. He’d told everyone that she was his lenanshee – his fairy lover – and even though he’d never had an interest in art before, he bought oils and brushes and canvasses, and he painted her portrait over and over again, with increasing skill. That first year, she had borne him a son – John Joe – and the handsome little boy had adored her. But over the years Moira Foley had come and gone, as if she neither exactly wanted to be with her husband and son, nor to stay away. Every time she reappeared at their door, John Joe’s besotted father had taken her back, and returned to his art, and let the farm go to ruin again. Another son was born – Shay – and their mother stayed a while. Yet in the end she had thrown herself from the cliffs above the farm. And Eamonn Foley had died of a broken heart.
John Joe had lived with his own grief ever since. If it hadn’t been for Shay – then only five years old, and in need of minding – he might have followed his mother into the wild Atlantic.
No, John Joe had closed his heart to love.
At four thirty in the morning Willy Rourke finally lost patience and threw the rest of the lads out. ‘Have ye no homes to go to? I need my bed even if you don’t!’
They stumbled, grumbling, out into the wet dark car park, where they stood rolling a last fag and discussing what home to go to for another drink. The rain had briefly ceased hissing on the roofs and fields, and apart from their own voices, a sleepy silence had fallen over the small town of Kilduff.
Until through the night came the thunderous clatter of many wings, circling the outskirts of the town.
Whoop, whoop, whoop.
All the lads looking at each other in fearful surprise.
Whoop, whoop, whoop.
Nearing the pub, which was on one of the four narrow roads leading out of the town square.
Whoop, whoop, whoop.
The very air starting to vibrate with the beat of those vast wings, churning up a fierce tormenting wind as hot and stinking as the breath of hell. Several of the lads threw away their rollies in a shower of orange sparks, ready for action …
Then, just as if it seemed the flock was upon them, there came a deafening screeching, as if a thousand cats were being electrocuted, and everyone – even the bravest – hurled themselves to the ground behind the cars, some even trying to crawl beneath them.
Everyone, that is, but Padraig McNally, the butcher’s oldest son (brother of Lorcan), who – like his pal John Joe – was always ready for a fight (and for some reason this felt like a fight). He stepped out into the road, rolling up his sleeves and clenching his fists … But already the screeching had faded, and the mysterious flock was gone, streaming away towards the mountains, shrieking hideous murder at the hidden moon.
There was a long, heavy-breathing silence, and then some embarrassed throat-clearing as lads emerged from behind the cars. Padraig McNally didn’t jeer at them. Instead, he crossed himself, then rolled and lit another cigarette – his hands shaking so much it took him several attempts. ‘Lost souls,’ he said hoarsely, after inhaling deep and spitting. ‘My grandmother always told me they travel in packs. Keep the windows shut tonight, lads, or they’ll come for you.’ And then he laughed – weakly – and a few others laughed feebly with him. And the conversation became about what it really might have been – the Greenland geese returning home? ‘Bloody weird geese,’ said Padraig, getting out his phone. ‘I’ll tweet, to see does anyone know. How’s this? – Four thirty a.m., huge #scarybirds dive-bomb pub, fly off shrieking #lostsouls.’
Meanwhile John Joe had reached home around five – having had to walk the last part of the way, as he’d forgotten to go to the garage until too late, and the old red Ford had run out of diesel at the foot of the boreen. He didn’t mind about that – there was moonlight and even a faint lick of dawn in the sky to see his way home by.
The dogs came barking down to meet him, delighted to have him back. Once inside the farmhouse, he dropped his keys and wallet and phone onto the dresser (briefly checking his phone and grinning at the #lostsouls tweet from Padraig – hammered again!). Then he stripped off his jacket, took a seat by the range – still warm from cooking his dinner hours earlier – and placed his feet up on the stone surround and reached for his last naggin of Paddy’s off the nearby shelf. And took several mouthfuls out of the bottle – not bothered with a glass. Thoughtful. Contemplating Grainne.
The dogs wouldn’t stop their barking. Crashing round and round the yard outside in a frenzy of panic, as if there was thunder coming. Which there wasn’t. Finally, bottle in hand, John Joe stumbled to the door to curse the noisy fools into silence. But still they wouldn’t stop – in the weak light of the unborn morning they were rushing hysterically back and forwards between the house and the big shed. Puzzled, John Joe stuck his naggin in his pocket. Maybe there was a thief hiding out in the barn? Or the dogs had trapped a fox in there? Sobering up a little, he crossed the yard to see.
There was nothing unusual inside the barn. But as he stood just within the big metal doors, rolling and lighting another cigarette, he heard a racket of mighty wings: Whoop, whoop, whoop. He would have rushed out to see what was really going on, but for the fact that the dogs clung with their teeth to his trouser legs …
Just as well.
Moments later, blown in on the stinking breath of hell, nearly fifty bat-winged demons ripped the tin roof off the house with a terrible screeching ripping sound, then piled inside the exposed rooms like crows into a carcass, gutting, ripping, ransacking, pillaging.
Through the hinges of the barn door, John Joe stared in disbelief as the only home he’d ever known – the house where he’d been born, reared, orphaned and then had raised his own little brother to be a man of sixteen – was rapidly and systematically destroyed, the demons tossing out the furniture like a baby throwing its toys out of the cot.
The two sheepdogs, shuddering, pressed against his legs. But the poor wee terrier – always more guts than sense – shot across the yard like a bullet, straight through the torn-off door of the farmhouse into the fray. Seconds later, his small brown body flew up into the dawn sky, one leg hanging from a strip of skin. Watching the little warrior crash-land in the field beyond, John Joe’s confused and still-drunken brain sobered up a little more.
What was happening here – and why?
He knew he hadn’t lived the best life. He’d drunk too much and too often, and hadn’t always treated people right. Like stringing along poor Grainne, who loved him so much she had proposed to him on Valentine’s Day. Also, all his fighting and carrying on. These were sins, he knew. But did it justify the good Lord – or, indeed, the De
vil – in sending fifty demons from hell against him, to destroy all he had?
Grand, maybe it did, but if he was already damned, he still wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
John Joe took another mouthful from his naggin of Paddy’s, and glanced around the barn to see what he had available. A shotgun – two barrels, that would need constant reloading. A few containers of farm diesel. Bales of hay. Two crates of old empty whiskey bottles.
Perfect.
He filled up the bottles with diesel and plugged their necks with straw, slung the shotgun over his shoulder, and carried the crates across the yard into the shadow of the tractor. The remaining two dogs – Rex and Bella – slunk trembling after him, their bellies pressed to the ground. Three of the demons were sitting with their backs to the yard on the front wall of the house, screaming encouragement to their infernal friends, who were dismantling what was left of the interior. The nearest window to John Joe was Shay’s bedroom, which was heaving with the filthy creatures, hopping over each other like chickens in a cage too small. Two of them were leaping up and down on his brother’s bed. One had wrenched a small picture off the wall above the headboard …
The picture was of Moira Foley, painted by their father – the only portrait of her left after John Joe had sold the rest. He’d not liked Shay keeping it, even though it was very small. The sight of his mother’s beautiful face filled John Joe’s heart with rage and pain. Yet in the end he’d learned to tolerate the picture being there. Got used to seeing her, watching over his little brother.
Now that filthy beast had the portrait gripped in its peculiar little hands, seeming to admire its stunning beauty …
John Joe lit the first of the Molotov cocktails with the matches he had bought earlier in the pub, and fired it over the wall into Shay’s bedroom – his job made so much easier by the roof being gone. Right on target (all those years of Gaelic football not gone to waste, after all), with spectacular success. The monster sprang skywards with a deathly screech, the little picture flying out of its hand, then – wings on fire and unable to fly – crashed back on top of the shrieking rabble below. Meanwhile John Joe was sending a rain of blazing bottles into the rest of the house. Trapped in close quarters, unable to spread their wings, the howling demons couldn’t escape from the inferno. One tried to burst from the door, but Bella sprang from under the tractor, biting and snarling, her teeth locked in the flesh of its neck. The brave bitch got her head ripped off for her pains, but not before driving the monster back into the flames.
The Hawthorn Crown Page 11