(‘I hate fairies,’ wept Grainne, sitting on the altar steps with her head in her hands.)
Finding themselves under attack, many people who should have been a bit more use – like Joseph Doherty, for instance – had lost their nerve completely and were trying to crawl awkwardly under the pews. Eithne Doherty was at least on her mobile phone, shouting that she was calling the local guards, but seemingly not getting through …
John Joe’s drinking buddies were being useful. Eager to impress the beautiful lenanshees, they had thrown themselves into the fray all along the left side of the church. ‘Don’t worry, darlings, don’t you panic – we’ll save you!’ cried Padraig McNally bravely as he dragged a grogoch screeching through a shattered window and drowned it in a bucket of flowers. The powerful lenanshees favoured the lads with faint, bored smiles – far too fastidious to soil their hands with death, even though they could have broken a grogoch neck with one snap of their elegant fingers.
Maeve O’Connor – a far better sort of woman – was using a bucket-stand to flatten another wriggling invader who had got itself stuck while trying to climb in; Eva clung to her skirts, shouting, ‘Kill it, Mammy!’ James O’Connor and Noel Heffernan were fighting side by side, wielding planks torn from the backs of pews. Another grogoch had got through unnoticed and was running up the aisle, straight at Zoe, who was standing with her arms open …
Before Aoife could do anything, Dianne Heffernan threw herself on top of the little demon, wrestled it to the stone floor and – a demented expression on her face – began strangling it with her bare hands (while Zoe leaped up and down, weeping, ‘Don’t kill the nice monkey! Carla says you’re not supposed to hurt animals!’).
In a far corner, near the balcony stairs, Sinead was wielding a silver candlestick with surprising strength, driving back a wave of the little hairy beasts who had broken through two windows simultaneously. Aoife raced towards her, taking up position at Sinead’s right shoulder, blasting grogoch after grogoch – spears of brilliant lightning bursting from her hands, cleaving the air with a faint smell of burning.
As the grogoch retreated, the strawberry-blonde girl glanced coolly at her. ‘Is Lois with you, by any chance? Carla told me she thinks she might have gone with you and Killian to the fairy world or some such crap like that.’ A moment later, when Aoife failed to reply, she said tightly: ‘All right, so she’s not with you. But is she alive?’
Aoife still couldn’t bring herself to answer.
Sinead pressed her lips together in a grim line. ‘OK. Then how did she die? A demon?’
‘Sinead, I’m so sorry …’
Another grogoch leaped through the window, wearing an odd headpiece of dead leaves. With extraordinary speed and strength, Sinead swung the heavy candlestick in a wide arc and brought it smashing down on the hairy skull. ‘That’s for Lois, you dirty demon!’ she screamed, bursting into tears. Darragh Clarke – who had just forced his way towards them from the other side of the church – threw his arms round the weeping girl, crying: ‘Don’t worry – I’m here now and I’ll take care of you!’
She shoved him off with another furious yell. ‘Get away from me and help me kill these feckers!’
As Darragh took his place at Sinead’s side, Aoife stepped away and crouched to pick up the circle of dead leaves that had fallen from the grogoch’s head. It was the long, twisted filament of hawthorn and mistletoe that she’d pulled from the hedge behind Lois’s house. Withered and dead. Yet as she held it in her hands, the brown leaves sweetened again to a pale jade green, and the blossoms became white-gold tinged with pink, and the mistletoe berries became pearls.
Magical hawthorn. Sacred mistletoe.
Joy and strength flooded her. Her blood ran silver in her veins; her sinews were golden wires; her bones, hollow but unbreakable.
Fairy queen! Sixteen, with all her powers!
Springing into the air, she flew gleefully around the church, describing a triumphant flashing figure of eight between the flowering pillars, leaving a trail of glittering gold, like dust in sunlight. Eva and Zoe, pointing, squealed with delight. Maeve and James gazed up in amazement. Dianne was white and open-mouthed – while Teresa Gilvarry did a victory jig, despite her painful knees: ‘There you are, Dianne! She is a fairy queen, just like we told you! Now maybe you’ll stop telling everyone in your family that they’re mad!’
Everywhere in the church, the battle was being won. Shay and Ultan had rejoined the fray – teaming up with the lads from the pub – but there was little left for them to do. John Joe was crouched on the altar steps, his big, strong arm round his sobbing bride, comforting her.
Swooping the length of the church, Aoife checked through the broken windows. Grogoch bodies lay scattered in the graveyard; more were fleeing over the walls. She flew a little higher, so that she could see into the town. A vast marquee occupied most of the square, adorned with flowers and filled with delicate silver chairs and long tables covered in white cloths. To the left, her view of the Clonbarra road was blocked by the new estate, but she could see up the hill beside the shop, as far as the GAA pitch; also up the short stretch of the road past Rourke’s, where she could make out a few grogoch limping frantically towards the bog.
So Kilduff had won this skirmish, and come out unscathed.
There would be tougher demons on the way: banshees; dullahans. But this time the town would be ready for them. With the time difference, it would probably be at least a month before the next wave struck – and after today, everyone would understand that the threat was real, and would join forces to build stronger defences than a circle of horseshoes.
Also, Caitlin McGreevey would be here with her army soon enough, to help protect them, and although Aoife – now her own true (or truer) self – would never think of using child soldiers, there would be teenagers among them with useful powers.
In the balcony, Mrs McClasky continued to hammer out Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March’ on the church organ, having received no instructions to stop. Beside the organ was a narrow archway, within which a small stone staircase led up to the bell tower.
Landing on the balcony, Aoife ran lightly up the steps.
She wanted to check the Clonbarra road.
From the south window of the tower there was nothing to see but poor Father Leahy swinging from the yew tree in his tattered robes.
To the west, the bog.
To the east …
Fear turned her silver blood to ice.
So there was to be no reprieve – not even for an hour.
Marching down the Clonbarra road, proceeding at a slow, swinging march, were sixty or seventy dullahans, five abreast, their white whips slung over their shoulders; heads glowing in the rich autumn sunlight. Following them came the crimson-cloaked banshees, cradling their human babies, and then a host of white-robed druids, swinging incense. And there, bringing up the rear, the most terrifying sight of all – the loose-limbed skeletons of Paddy Duffy’s two huge horses, staggering along with their leg bones at every angle, hauling the battered funeral coach behind them.
So the dullahans had broken through Carla’s iron and hawthorn circle as easily as the grogoch.
Even from this distance, Aoife’s sharp fairy vision could make out where the disaster had taken place. The fir trees at the back of the Munnellys’ bungalow had been uprooted, and the dry-stone wall with its burden of horseshoes and hawthorn cuttings lay scattered across the field. The brand-new sun room was a heap of twisted metal and smashed glass …
Oh, the poor Munnellys!
Their bodies lay in the crushed extension. Lois’s grandmother was dead as well – a poor flattened creature, smashed face down on the glittering carpet of glass. Peter or Jane must have had time to call the local guards, because a Gardaí car was lying crumpled on its side in the gateway, its blue light still flashing, and the guard was—
Ugh. Too horrible.
Carla was running up the stairs, calling, ‘Aoife, are you OK up there?’
Aoife hurried to meet her at the top of the stone steps. Hard to break the awful news to this girl who had tried her best to defend the town. ‘I’m sorry, Carla – more demons.’
Paused on the steps below, Carla went white – yet didn’t panic. Brave human girl. ‘Already? I was hoping there’d be a month or so between waves, like with the sluagh and the grogoch. But maybe it’s for the best, with everyone here for the wedding. What’s coming this time?’
‘Druids. Banshees. Dullahans.’
‘Oh God …’ Carla’s voice cracked with fear.
Aoife went to squeeze past her. ‘I’m going to tell everyone to make a run for it – it’s their only chance. Most people have their cars in Kilduff, and can drive for the coast. Everyone else needs to scatter. You get your family and I’ll get mine.’
Yet bizarrely, Carla blocked Aoife’s way – pressing her hands to the walls on either side of the narrow stairwell. ‘Don’t! We have to stay here in the church – it’s the safest place!’
Aoife said gently (horribly aware of Father Leahy swinging from the yew tree outside), ‘I’m sorry, Carla. Even God can’t save us now.’
‘Not God! The circle will protect us!’
Poor Carla – she’d worked so hard. ‘Carla, you know the way the grogoch broke through the circle already?’
‘But that’s because nothing stops those little beasts except brute force!’
‘The dullahans broke through as well.’
And at last her old friend seemed to understand, her dark brown eyes filling with terror. ‘No! What? Don’t say that!’ Pushing past Aoife, she rushed to the eastern window …
On the Clonbarra road the procession had drawn near enough for human eyes to see – the druids were leading the way now, wheeling a hawthorn tree on a small cart; the dullahans had fallen back behind the banshees to help the clumsy, staggering horse skeletons with the broken carriage. Yet as if she was blind, Carla cried out in relief, ‘Oh, thank God, you’re wrong!’
Aoife wasn’t going to waste her time arguing. ‘I’m telling everyone to run.’ She sprang down the stairs.
‘No! Don’t!’ Carla hurled herself after Aoife, rugby-tackling her; the two of them crashed together down the curving steps; cracking heads and elbows on stone edges; spilling out onto the carpet, rolling in a fighting tangle across the balcony where Mrs McClasky was still pounding away.
Aoife yelled over the music, ‘Carla, are you mad? Let go of me! Think of your mam and dad and Zoe – you’ve got to give them a chance!’
But Carla screamed, ‘Trust me, Aoife, like I trust you!’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
And it was too late anyway, to escape.
The demon procession must already be passing the empty estate. Aoife flung herself over the railing, swooping in wild circles over the main body of the church, shouting: ‘Dullahans coming! If they call you by name, don’t listen or you’ll die!’
Only the oldest of the congregation instantly understood her – shrieking and cowering, hands over their heads.
‘Mam, cover Eva’s ears! Dianne …?’
But Dianne was climbing the balcony stairs in search of her elder daughter. It was Noel who held Zoe cradled on his lap – weeping against his chest over the deaths of so many furry creatures.
In the balcony, Carla called old John McCarthy on her phone.
‘We’re going to need you, John.’
‘I’m on it, chief.’
And after that one brief conversation she felt there was nothing more she could do but pray. From where she was standing at the balcony railing she could see through the smashed panes of the high windows over the churchyard walls, as far as the corner of the Clonbarra road where it entered the square. She prayed as she waited:
Please God, let my circle hold.
Please God, keep my mam and dad and little sister safe.
Aoife had said God couldn’t save them now. But Carla had been praying to God since national school, every Sunday at Mass: Please God, let Killian love me. And hadn’t He granted that unlikely wish – at least for a little while? Now she prayed with just as much hope:
Please God, keep Killian safe and bring him home to me.
(Why had Aoife looked so sad when Carla had asked her whether Killian was coming home?)
Down in the main body of the church, her best friend was standing on tiptoe on the narrow back of a pew, peering out of a broken pane. She had a twist of beautiful greenery around her head – white berries of mistletoe and white flowers of hawthorn, buried in the sunset of her hair. Shay was beside her, standing on the seat of the same pew, his face turned slightly up to hers. The look he was giving her. Such intense love. If Killian would ever look at Carla like that, she would be so happy …
Please God, bring Killian safely home to me.
And Killian was alive and coming home, because Aoife wouldn’t lie about that. Because Aoife could be trusted, completely, about everything.
In the first few weeks after Aoife disappeared to the fairy world, Killian’s note had eaten away at Carla’s heart, making her thinner than ever. Had Aoife really run away with Killian because she loved him? No. Carla refused to believe it, despite the note. Never again would she make the mistake of not trusting in her friend’s loyalty. That was the mistake which had left Killian at the mercy of the pooka, and which had almost cost him his life.
It was all that pooka’s fault. The poor boy was clearly still confused by the spell the pooka had put on him – hence his continuing delusion about Aoife’s feelings for him.
Never mind. Carla had already forgiven him.
And of course she trusted Aoife with all her heart. Her best friend must have had a very good reason for disappearing with Killian. Maybe it was something to do with Lois going missing as well. Whatever the truth, she was sure that Aoife would bring Killian safe home as soon as she could.
That’s what Carla told herself.
And it was also what she kept telling Shay, who was in a desperate state. It wasn’t that he really believed Aoife was in love with the builder’s son – although Killian’s scribbled note had cost him many sleepless nights. It was more that he feared Aoife belonged more to that other world than to this one. She had talked of her fairy mother so longingly, that day in the field. And if she took a fancy to go journeying as far as the Blessed Isles, years might pass before she came home. Decades. While she lingered one extra day, and then another, he might grow old and die without ever seeing her again.
He had done his best to follow her, but every way to the fairy world was blocked: the tomb, the hawthorn circle. Fearing pursuit, his mother had already sealed the lenanshee road behind her – a spell that could not be broken for seven years. Seven years!
In the end – at Carla’s gentle urging – he had turned his wild, frustrated energies to the defence committee. Which was (literally) a silver lining, because John Joe came with him, and that brought Grainne McDonnell to the meetings as well.
Grainne was beyond delighted with herself for finally landing the handsome John Joe, and had dismissed Carla’s tactful warning about the grá of the lenanshee, saying with a toss of her long black hair: ‘Don’t be an eejit, it’s not “true love” – he’s only marrying me because I’m rich.’
And it was Grainne’s riches that had saved the day.
Before each committee meeting Carla did her research. She speed-read James O’Connor’s whole library from top to bottom, cross-referencing with her favourite book, A Most Comprehensive Catalogue of Ye Irish Fairies, which she trusted the most. And the most important conclusion she came to was that they had to add silver and gold to the protective circle. Dullahans could open any gate, so clearly they were immune to iron – but there were many references to their utter horror of silver and, to a lesser extent, of gold. And it was the same with the master of the dullahans himself – Fear Dorocha: Servant to the Queen of Rebirth. Was this the man that Aoife had talked about with such hatred? But he was beautiful! Strangely li
ke Killian in his bone structure, although with dark-blue eyes and deep-red hair …
Concentrate, Carla.
Silver and gold.
Her first thought was to ask Father Leahy if they could melt down all the ornaments in the church, but the doubting priest – now known as ‘mad Father Leahy’ in the town – had long since resigned from the committee, in terror of his bishop. And so she had turned her powers of persuasion upon Grainne. To dullahan-proof the whole town would use up the girl’s entire fortune – and thereby wreck her marriage prospects – but Grainne was happy to spend a million on making a smaller inner circle just around the church. (That way – as Carla promised her – her wedding to John Joe Foley would be sure to go smoothly, even if the war started in the middle of it.)
The ingots actually cost nearly one and a half million euros. They arrived at the brand-new, four-storey Foley mansion by armoured truck. Over several nights – as soon as the streetlight on the corner went out – old John McCarthy and Shay and John Joe Foley removed the top two rows of stones from the churchyard wall and laid a row of precious metal – silver on top of gold – re-plastering at once in case of thieves. The upright bars of the iron gate were replaced with more silver, painted black. Teresa Gilvarry supplied another sack of old horseshoes, which Carla personally – in homage to her grandmother’s knees – nailed in a three-deep interlocked row, side by side all around the graveyard wall, making sure there were absolutely no gaps.
At least Father Leahy had agreed to turn a blind eye to these goings-on – providing the committee told nobody he knew about it. He had also agreed to call a second emergency Mass about demons. The catch: he would only do it if and when the demons were actually sighted. Which meant that there had to be a lookout stationed on the fairy road, night and day, if there was to be any chance of getting everyone into the church in time. Yet how could Carla set up a rota of people to stand in a cold field staring at nothing when she didn’t know if anything was going to come down the fairy road for years and years? Maybe even for half a century?
The Hawthorn Crown Page 28