‘But she filled them in with hawthorn.’
‘There’s hawthorn here.’
‘But no mistletoe. The mistletoe doubles its power.’
‘Fine. Grand.’ Still in a foul mood, he stood back with his arms folded. ‘You do it like it should be done, leprechaun girl. And what I’d like to know is, if you’re really a fairy queen like Carla says you are, why did you come back here at all?’
She crouched down, fixing his work. ‘Because it’s my home.’
‘No it’s not. Maeve and James O’Connor aren’t your real parents.’
Another flash of anger. And painful burn of iron. ‘They are my parents. The only ones I’ve ever really known. I love them and they love me.’
He was laughing; he knew he’d got under her skin again: ‘Ah, come on – seriously – why would you choose to live a normal, boring life in Kilduff, if you could live as an immortal, all-powerful queen?’
She ground out, through clenched teeth, ‘It’s not boring in Kilduff.’
He laughed louder. ‘Yes it is. Getting up for school in the morning, working your arse off all the way through school to get into college just so you can find a job, getting married to someone as boring as yourself, and raising your normal children in boring, normal Kilduff. And then your parents die and your husband dies, and then you die. And your children bury you and carry on without you. All that, when you could have lived your life in the fairy world? Bullshite.’
Aoife was struck speechless. She stared at him for a long moment. He was looking straight back at her; eyes lit up with … Amusement? Contempt? Not the boy-band smile but that older, more adult smile that lifted only one corner of his mouth.
He said coolly, ‘Well?’
A deep shiver spread through her body.
Down.
He was right. She could choose to be an all-powerful queen.
For all eternity.
Immortal. A queen.
For all eternity.
She could …
Eternal emptiness.
His midnight eyes.
She said, ‘Maybe you’re right, but …’
Her voice faltered.
The devil.
Let me in.
Killian was saying passionately, ‘I don’t believe you’re a fairy at all, let alone a queen, the way you carry on like it doesn’t mean shite to you. You know what I would have wished for, if Carla hadn’t stopped me? To be king of the fairy world! But I only had three wishes and that fat ginger leprechaun made me use the first to wish for a toilet roll, and his stupid dad used one for a biscuit, and then that Grainne McDonnell stole the last one to win the lottery … Oh!’
Aoife said, dazed, ‘What?’
Killian’s whole expression had changed – cold eyes blazing with warm hope; cynicism turned to excitement. ‘That leprechaun said fairies could only grant three wishes, so it was his wishes that got used up – but only one of those was mine. I must have two left! And if you’re a fairy, I could make them off you right now.’
She sighed. ‘That won’t work …’
‘Why not?’ Dropping to his knees beside her, he grabbed her hands, gazing into her eyes.
Indignant, she tried to pull away. ‘Stop that, there’s no point.’
He said loudly, right into her face: ‘I wish I was a changeling like you! And I wish my fairy parents would come and get me!’
She turned her face to one side, closing her eyes. ‘Give it up, Killian – I’ve been trying to tell you, I’ve already granted all three of my wishes.’
‘Oh, for— Seriously?’ Angrily, he let her go and stood up. ‘What a pile of shite. You’d think if you were a fairy queen – if – you’d be able to come up with more than three damn wishes.’ And he turned and shoved his way back through the circle of thorns, tearing his stained shirt, and for a few minutes she could hear him splashing around in the pool within. Cursing to himself in frustration.
Then all went quiet.
Impatiently, she gathered up the empty leather bag and slung it over her shoulder. Now it was empty of iron, she could run home and leave Killian to find his own way back.
Halfway down the green slope, in the warm spring sunshine, she stopped and turned back.
For a moment, in the grey gloom beneath the thorns, she couldn’t see him. But then she did. He was sitting in the coach again, head leaning back; eyes closed; submerged to the chest in the freezing water.
Her heart missed a beat. ‘Killian?’
His eyes sprang open and he smiled. ‘You came back! Want a ride to the fairy world?’
‘Oh, for—’ She was surprised how relieved she was that he was alive, and only messing. ‘Get out of there.’
‘Ah, come on.’ He clambered out, splashing through the dark water towards her. Waist-deep. Holding up his slender, long-fingered hand to her, like he wanted her to take it and help him out. Unthinking, she did take it. And instantly realized she had his intention the wrong way round – that he was trying to pull her in …
With a fierce yank, using her superior fairy strength, she heaved him out onto the bank, where he fell – surprised and laughing – to his knees on the carpet of last year’s blossoms, crushing them, releasing their rotting perfume. ‘Tough lady!’
‘Oh, get up, you fool.’ His idiocy, and the sickening scent, were hurting her head.
Now he was on his feet, still smiling – ‘I love you, Aoife’ – and he took her face in his hands, and before she even knew what he was doing, he had pressed a tender kiss onto her mouth.
With a cry of rage – ‘Don’t you dare! You’re Carla’s boyfriend!’ – she shoved him back into the water and fled, the leather bag catching on the thorns and falling behind her. Springing down the green hill. Taking off. Gliding. Swooping smoothly along the straight line of mossy cobbles that cut across the heathery bog. Then up again, over the mountains, carpeted by tiny blue and yellow flowers …
Not gliding.
Flying.
How could she be flying, unaided by Shay’s kiss?
She must be coming into her own powers at last!
Sixteen in two days.
With a warm rush of pride, she stretched out her arms and legs, feeling the wind flow under her, and the spring sunshine on her back. And yet it was a strange, unnerving experience. She felt cold – inside and out. This was not like flying with Shay. There was no mellow sweetness. No intensity of joy. Instead, the power in her body felt dangerous and intense, as if a chilly creature had woken beneath her skin, unfurled leathery wings, thrust them down inside her arms, bearing her up, sweeping her onwards.
Wild, solitary, fierce.
Up and up, over the heathery mountain; down rocky slopes again, bursting with fresh young thistles. Frightening the new-born lambs, who raced away on wobbly legs. Over the Munnellys’ new extension (Lois visible through the glass roof, watching television), then cutting across the Clonbarra road – an old farmer glancing up in puzzlement from his tractor – and on towards her own house (seeing her own self – arms and legs extended – reflected in a flood of dark red water in the fields, run down from the bog). Over the high banks of brambles that separated the fields; down the small stony slope towards her house, over the bouncy castle organized for Eva’s birthday (no children in sight), grazing the garden wall with her bare toes and landing, and running forwards across the fresh-mowed lawn, until she tripped and fell to her knees under the ash tree.
Gasping. Shaken. Amazed.
In the kitchen Maeve was lighting candles on Eva’s birthday cake as twenty little girls screamed in anticipation (Zoe battling with Sinead’s little cousin, Lauren Ferguson, who was trying to scoop icing from the cake before it was even cut). Aoife – panting her apologies for being late – raced upstairs for her guitar, and down again, and stood with one foot on the rung of Eva’s chair with the guitar on her knee:
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you …
Her heart still thumping in agitation.<
br />
Happy birthday, dear Eva …
Striking up that old, familiar song, which during a normal, boring life gets sung to us every year as our mortal time slips by.
Shay said in her ear, from the unknown number he had called her on, ‘So, everything’s quiet in Kilduff?’
‘Perfect.’ Aoife was in her bedroom on her new phone (or rather, the pooka’s – it had a dreadful pink, kitteny cover on it which she would have to prise off). With her free hand, she was unpinning the photos of herself and Killian from the board. ‘Carla has everything in hand. There’s a ring of iron all around the town, so we’re all safe now …’
‘What a girl!’
‘You’d better believe it.’
‘I do. The only thing I can’t believe is that you ran off without me.’
‘Had to! Did your mother give you something to help you rest?’ Now she had the phone trapped between her shoulder and her ear, while she stood using both hands to rip the photos of her and Killian to pieces.
‘She did, without warning me what was in it – she said it would make me stronger, but it was a sleeping spell. I woke up only half an hour ago, in this bed of flowers, and with the sun going down over the mountains.’ Now that he was sure she was OK, his voice had become relaxed, and he did sound stronger – the honeysuckle drink had clearly worked for him. ‘And my brother had no phone, but then, before I could think how best to get to Kilduff, Grainne McDonnell turned up and lent me hers—’
Aoife interrupted, ‘Grainne McDonnell? Someone else mentioned her name to me recently.’
‘I imagine they did! She’s kind of famous in Kilduff right now.’
Ugh. Now she remembered. Killian had blamed Grainne McDonnell for taking his last wish and … what? Winning the lottery or something? She couldn’t remember. Annoyed, she sprinkled shreds of Killian’s handsome face into the bin. His eyes. His nose. His mouth.
Shay was saying cheerfully, ‘She won twelve and a half million euros on the lottery, and now she’s offering to rebuild the farm, if John Joe will only set a date for their wedding!’
‘What?’
‘She’s always had a mad crush on him!’
Aoife cried, amazed, ‘That’s … You have to tell me the whole story!’
‘I will. Will I come now? I’m feeling good. I think I could run it in an hour or so …’
‘Do you think?’ Everything in her seemed to tilt, like he was gravity and her heart was falling towards him through the phone. But she couldn’t have him anywhere near her bedroom, not until she’d cleared out everything that stank of Killian. And everything of the pooka as well. The ghastly kitten posters. The stupid magazines. ‘No, don’t come right now. I’m having to sort out my room.’
His voice fell with disappointment. ‘But I want to see you.’
‘I want to see you too. Come first thing in the morning. As early as you like. Earlier.’
Before she slept, she had a late-night text. The caller ID read: Dark Beloved.
The text read:
Are you awake? I’m lying here thinking about you.
For a moment she thought it must be Shay – and that ‘Dark Beloved’ was a name she’d input for him months ago and forgotten about.
Another text popped in, from the same caller:
Sorry I annoyed you by kissing you, but it’s confusing how much you look like a girl I went out with not long ago.
Ugh. Killian. The pooka must have entered that name for him in her favourites list. God above. Aoife set the phone back down on her bedside table (which was now painted pink). The phone beeped again.
She ignored it.
Beep.
Are you sure you’re not her?
Ugh! Aoife sat up in bed, texting:
Don’t be thick. That was a filthy demon you were kissing. LOOK AT THE VIDEO! Plus, I wouldn’t touch you anyway even if it was me because you are a FOOL as well as being my best friend’s boyfriend and if you hurt her you’ll have me to answer to and then you’ll wish I was the pooka cos I’ll do a lot worse than rip your head off your bollocks.
Send.
Pause.
Beep.
Furious, she turned over in her bed, her back to the bedside table.
Beep.
With a muttered curse, she rolled back again and grabbed for the phone to turn off sounds.
But this text was from Shay:
See you tomorrow, first thing. Goodnight, my love.
Asleep at last, Aoife dreamed of Father Leahy and that terrible christening last October when he’d offered to drive out the darkness in her heart with an emergency baptism. He had tried to push her face into the font, even though the water was beginning to boil. The priest’s hand felt so heavy on her neck, thrusting her face into the scorching steam.
Down.
At the time, she had thrown him off, hurling him like a rag doll across the church. This time, in the dream, she was helpless.
Down.
She couldn’t resist him.
Down.
With a gasp of panic, Aoife half awoke.
Then, relieved, sank back into sleep again.
The scene had changed.
Now she was a little girl, running across the vast, empty bog. The night was dark purple, and the stars of gold. Ahead of her, a woman sat on a stone by the dark pool, combing her long red hair. ‘Mam!’ called the godless child who was Aoife, and the woman put down the ivory comb – ‘Mam!’ – and turned to the child, holding out her long, slender arms. And the woman was so beautiful, with her red-gold hair and milky skin, and slanted turquoise eyes. So beautiful. And she scooped her fairy daughter up into her arms and fell backwards with her into dark cold water …
Sinking …
‘Mam!’
‘Aoife?’
‘Mam!!!’
‘Aoife, wake up!’
In her dream, the woman’s arms slipped away and Aoife rose to the surface of the pool, and then to the surface of sleep, reluctantly opening her eyes. The bedside lamp was on, and Maeve was bending over her, her soft round face scrunched up in anxiety; fine lines deep around her eyes; dark blonde hair bushy on one side and flattened on the other.
‘Aoife? Are you all right? You were calling for me.’
CHAPTER SIX
Despite her interrupted night, she woke early.
Shay was coming first thing …
Wearing only the pants and T-shirt she’d slept in, she hunted for clothes. But she had nothing to wear, other than the now very muddy lenanshee dress. No hoodies or trackies – all gone to the charity shop, thanks to the pooka-Aoife. Nothing but puffy dresses and sequinned cardigans, hung on a hideous pink clothes rail.
In fact, the only decent dress left was the one from her fairy mother’s royal wardrobe. When Aoife had first fled the Land of the Young – traumatized and ready to forget about ever being queen – she had stripped it off and stuffed it behind the hanging shelves in her wardrobe. It was still there. It was the plainest dress from her fairy mother’s chambers – simply cut; no feathers or jewels; no magical preserved flowers. Yet still it was beautiful: its hem dipped in dark blue dye, from which embroidered rays of gold shot up to the paler rose-pink of the shoulders.
Her fairy mother must have loved this dress.
Holding the garment against her, looking in the wardrobe mirror, Aoife felt a shaft of sadness sliding through her, like dark light. How little she knew of that lost, other mother. She nearly shoved the dress back into the wardrobe, into its hiding place.
Yet when she’d last worn it, in the pouring rain, Shay’s hazel eyes had flicked over her, head to toe. And he’d said: I like that dress on you, even if you do look like a drowned rat.
She slipped it on, over her head.
‘Aoife? Visitors!’ Maeve’s voice was cheerful and bright.
Expecting Shay – maybe with his brother, or the mysterious Grainne – Aoife ran smiling to the top of the narrow stairs. Instead, in the hallway below were two girls – one a stra
wberry-blonde, wearing ripped jeans; the other with curly black hair, wearing very tight white shorts and a cropped white top.
Aoife froze where she stood, astonished. ‘Sinead? Lois?’
‘Well, don’t look so surprised,’ trilled Lois. ‘We’ve been waiting for you to call us, but you didn’t, so we’ve come to see you. I’ve got the playlist for your birthday on my phone. What on earth are you wearing?’
‘And you need to tell us what’s going on between you and Stinky-McStinky.’ Sinead bounded up the stairs, grabbed Aoife by her arm and hustled her back into her room, over to the bed. ‘Why are you acting like you’re OK with her?’
Aoife stared blankly as the green-eyed girl dragged her down to sit beside her on the bed. ‘Stinky-McStinky?’
Lois, plumping down on the other side of Aoife, got out her phone. ‘Listen to this music—’
‘Lois, be quiet a minute,’ interrupted Sinead sharply. ‘Aoife, talk. How are you letting Stinky-McStinky get away with moving in on Killian?’
‘Are you talking about Carla?’
‘Of course I am! Stinky-Mc—’
‘Don’t call her Stinky-McStinky!’
Sinead’s cat-green eyes widened – shocked and hurt. ‘But that’s what you started calling her, remember, after you got that awful sweaty smell off her in the church?’
Ugh. OK. Calm. She had to stay calm. Killian had been right, for once in his life. None of this was their fault, not really. It was the pooka. ‘Look, I wasn’t very nice the last time I was here.’
Sinead protested, astonished, ‘Yes, you were. You were the nicest you’ve ever been.’
‘Not really …’
‘You were,’ said Lois, sticking in her earbuds and humming tunelessly along to the soundtrack with her eyes closed.
Now Sinead was looking, puzzled, around the bedroom. ‘What have you done with your nice kitten posters?’ Her jaw dropped in horror: ‘Oh, Aoife, you’ve taken his pictures down from the board! Oh, Aoife, don’t give up on him like this! Killian loves you!’
Aoife sighed. ‘I’m not “giving up” on anyone. Killian loves Carla and he always has.’
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