Shiver the Whole Night Through

by Darragh McManus

  I said, ‘Did you … ? You did something.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘What was it? How did you get us here so fast?’

  ‘I clicked my magic heels and said, “Home, James, and don’t spare the horses.” Come on, it’s over here.’

  Sláine walked in front of me, towards where she was pointing. I noticed a ring on her index finger. Blackish in colour, maybe tarnished silver; a long oval shape like a tribal shield; and a raised design, what looked like a molecule of some sort, or a crystal, perfectly symmetrical and encased in a circle.

  We pushed through the undergrowth and brambles – I say pushed, it felt more like the plants themselves parted to clear a path for her – and as we made our way I said, ‘What’s the design on your ring? Does it mean something special to you?’

  ‘This old thing? Mm … means more to someone else than me, maybe. I’ll tell you about it another time.’

  ‘You’ve a lot of things to tell me about.’

  ‘I’ve a lot of time to tell them.’ She stopped. ‘And here we are.’

  A small square building – a shack, really – made of cut stone with a flat timber roof, small door, teensy window. It looked very old but very solid. Ivy curled all over it like falling hair, moss crept up along it like a second skin. The place was part fairy-tale cottage, part redneck’s hideaway in a horror movie. Hansel and Gretel meets Texas Chainsaw Massacre, maybe.

  There was an inscription over the door: ‘It does not trouble the wolf how many the sheep may be.’ Wolves? So, more of a fairy tale, then.

  I pointed to the writing: ‘What’s that mean? What is this place?’

  ‘An old hunting lodge. Built by the lord of the manor back in whenever. Years ago. They used to sleep here overnight if it was a really big hunt, like a few days of it. The lord and his pals, they hunted wolves. Can you believe that? They were so ignorant back then. Those beautiful animals. Ireland used to have lots of wolves until we killed them all.’

  ‘Okay. And how did you find this? You “just knew”?’

  ‘I stumbled across it. It’s been abandoned for years – over a century probably – but still habitable enough inside. It’s dry at least. Have a look.’

  She pushed the wooden door and it swung open with a creak, echoing louder in the night air than it would during the daytime. Everything sounds louder at night, doesn’t it? Inside, the place was lit by two antique oil lamps which gave off a welcoming orange glow. It was about the size of a decent sitting room. Stone walls, small fireplace, table and two stools, various old tools and things hanging by nails on the wall. There was also a wreck of an armchair, which looked like it’d catch fire just by someone thinking about a naked flame, and an ancient iron bed with what seemed to be a new mattress and blankets on top. Hardly any rubbish or leaves or dirt, which surprised me for some reason. And the plants which caressed the outside of the building hadn’t managed to break through the stone and set up residence indoors.

  It was rough and ramshackle, not to mention bitterly cold, but Sláine was correct: the hunting lodge was liveable enough. It had been made liveable – which meant she’d been inside.

  I said, ‘How did you … I mean you went in there, right? You crossed the threshold.’

  She nodded. ‘This’s the one other place. Don’t know how I was able to pass inside. It’s very odd. I got kind of drawn to it and then I pretty much just walked on in.’

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser. Anyway, I’m glad you did.’

  We went in, Sláine first. I said, ‘That mattress and stuff’s not centuries old. Where’d that come from?’

  ‘You’d be amazed at the gifts this forest provides. Once it knows you’re a friend, of course.’

  ‘Uh … okay. I’m going to assume that you’re joking. Cos if I don’t do that, I’m in danger of pooping my pants and having a nervous breakdown. Hopefully not in that order.’

  She laughed. ‘I’ve been busy. Redecorating. Giving this old place a woman’s touch. You approve?’

  ‘I do. Seriously, though: how’d you get all this gear?’

  ‘Persuasion and female ingenuity. It’s surprising, how easily manipulated some people are. A man working at a furniture warehouse, for example. Gets a whisper in his ear to drop off a mattress at the entrance to Shook Woods, only he doesn’t hear it as a whisper in his ear. He doesn’t hear it at all. Doesn’t even know he’s doing it, and doesn’t remember it afterwards. Or a different man, who owns an antique shop that sells battered armchairs and old lamps. He won’t even miss them the next time he does the inventory.’

  I whistled, impressed. ‘Wow. So you can do that? Like, control people’s minds. Their actions.’

  ‘Eh … kind of. For a very limited time. But long enough for my purposes, I guess. I’m better at sort of reaching into other people’s consciousness and “talking” to them. Inducing hallucinations. Visions, if you like. But you already know that.’

  ‘Shit, that’s impressive. I mean I thought it was pretty clever speaking to me inside my head! But to actually persuade someone to do what you want them to … Can you do it to me? Would you do it to me!?’

  ‘No. Never. Anyway, I thought we could come here the next time.’

  Next time. I liked the sound of that.

  ‘We can set the fire and you’ll be warmer here,’ she said. ‘Won’t have to go lugging that big old duvet around.’

  I tugged at my parka. ‘What, this? This’s a class coat. Real goose feathers.’ I grinned smugly. ‘Warm as toast. Actually do you … ? Do you feel the cold?’

  Sláine gave a wistful smile. ‘All the time. Sometimes I feel that I’m nothing but cold. No physical body any more, just a mind or a soul living inside this great mass of coldness. A voice on the north wind.’ She paused. ‘You know the funny thing, though? I don’t mind. I don’t feel things the way I used to. The way you do still. I’m cold right through, unbelievably cold, but it’s not unpleasant. It’s just how things are now. And it’s as easy to accept as my eye colour or the shape of my hands.’

  A piece of poetry bubbled up in my head and I muttered, half-consciously, ‘There’s a line like that somewhere in a Paul Éluard poem. About his girl having the colour of his eyes, the shape of his hands … ’ I looked at Sláine. ‘Do you know it? French surrealism. Really nice. It’s … it’s, you know, a love poem.’

  I coughed uncomfortably and began rolling a cigarette. Sláine smiled and said, ‘He’d have to be French. Something romantic and melodramatic like that. No, it sounds lovely. Oh, I almost forgot.’

  She reached behind the bed and pulled out a bottle: frosted, dull-grey glass, holding a dark-coloured liquid. ‘This is wine. Incredibly old and valuable wine, at that. This bottle alone is worth … what? Three thousand, maybe?’

  ‘Three thousand what, euro? You’re kidding.’

  She shook her head. I said, ‘Huh? You’re kidding.’

  Sláine said, ‘I thought we could wait before opening it. Wait for a really special occasion, you know? We’ll drink this wine to celebrate something wonderful.’

  ‘All right. Yeah, that sounds coola-boola. Celebrate what, though?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet. We’ll know when it happens.’

  ‘Can you … ? I mean are you able to, uh … drink?’

  ‘Not sure of that either. But you can have a glass for me anyway, can’t you? Actually, bring two glasses the next time you’re coming.’

  ‘Hey, I thought you were the girl that could get her hands on anything.’

  ‘I am. But it’d be nice for you to bring something. This is going to be our place, not just mine. You get to decorate it too.’

  I nodded. ‘Okay by me. So when’s next time? And when are you going to – to … ’

  ‘Hush. All will be revealed in due course, don’t worry. As much as I know, anyway. I promise. Now go home. You look tired.’

  I expected her to do that magic trick from before, to touch my forehead and spirit me away by some unknowable, supernatura
l force. But she didn’t. Instead, Sláine leaned in and I realised that she was nearly the same height as me and I was wondering how much shorter she’d be without those boots on, and then I forgot absolutely what I was thinking because she was kissing me on the mouth.

  Her lips like soft snow. An icy tingle on my lips. My heart a jackhammer thumping in my throat. I opened my eyes wide in shock and then I –

  History Lessons

  The week passed quickly. Before I knew what was what, it was Saturday morning and I was sitting in the town library, poring over old newspaper reports and other documents. Reading up on the Famine for an essay. Interesting stuff of itself, and more importantly, it took my mind off everything that had happened in the last while. I needed a breather.

  Chris Harrington, I’d heard during the week, was out of the coma, still in intensive care but slowly recovering. He’d live, and more or less return to full health – but he’d never be pretty again. The scarring was awful, by all accounts. I didn’t visit him in hospital. I couldn’t stand the guy anyway and felt no obligation to sympathise or empathise with his misfortune.

  Also, a trip to hospital would have probably meant blowing off school, and amazingly, I looked forward to going these days. The atmosphere had changed for me, subtly and without fanfare but it was definitely different.

  The bullying seemed to have faded away to a large extent. Nobody spoke to me much at all, admittedly, but nobody did anything mean either. I even got a smile or nod of the head from time to time. In any case I didn’t care. To hell with them: if anyone did want to make up now, they could stick it where the sun don’t shine. Podsy was enough friends for me. Podsy and, of course, Sláine.

  My marble-white friend with lips of ice and fire. Friend? Or something else … ?

  The Guards couldn’t say for sure what attacked Harrington. Their best guess was a pack of feral dogs, hiding out in Shook Woods or some other uninhabited place. Why they would have gone for him like that, nobody could say; wild animals are usually more afraid of us than the other way around. Maybe they didn’t like the smell of him. Maybe Harrington gave off a sour, bad odour, because he was sour and bad inside.

  I didn’t want to think shitty things like that. I couldn’t help thinking them.

  Meanwhile, my investigation into Sláine’s death seemed to be on hold. That hadn’t been a conscious decision; it’s just that with everything going on, this whirlwind of events lifting me up and spinning me round like the girl in The Wizard of Oz, enquiries had been pushed to the background. Not forgotten about, exactly, but the pause button was definitely pressed. I’d wait, I figured, until she told me what she knew. We could then work out together where to take it from there.

  Now, on Saturday, I sat in the library – a disappointingly modern building, but filled with the wisdom of ages – and reminisced about that kiss. What a shock it had been. Not an unpleasant one. Not exactly enjoyable, but not unpleasant. In fact, it was hard to describe at all. When Sláine pressed her lips to mine, I’d had the strangest sensation that part of me was leaving my body, being transferred to her, as if she was squeezing it out of me, inhaling something of my essence into herself.

  Which is weird enough. Even weirder is the fact that I hadn’t minded.

  That kiss … It was just a friendly peck, right? A mark of affection between two people. Friends kiss each other, don’t they? Didn’t necessarily mean anything … Although, you know, if it did mean something, that might not be …

  I shook my head, banished Sláine from my thoughts and got back to business. It was the weekend – I didn’t want to spend all day on homework. I’d already taken notes from a bunch of history books: national and local, academic and popular, professional and amateur. All were about the Famine, most telling me things I hadn’t already known. Now I clicked to the next page on the library’s microfiche. Old newspapers, scanned and stored on computer. The past brought bang up to date with the present. History coming back to haunt us.

  It really was haunting. The Famine was a horrible time in this country, especially our part of it. Death stalked the land for years. People must have known it was on the way, it was coming for them. They must have looked at their own gaunt faces, their children’s hunger-swollen bellies, and known. They must have shivered like newborns as the cold filled their bones and drained their lives away, and been certain the end was near.

  What an awful way to go, I thought, and how lucky we are to live nowadays. Even someone like me, struggling with personal problems or whatever. At least I wouldn’t be frozen or starved. I wasn’t going to wake up dead.

  Mr Lee had asked us to present a personal history of someone’s experiences during the Famine. Not just regurgitate what we read, but imagine ourselves as that person. We could use a composite of different stories, reports or recollections. That’s what I was doing, collecting those stories. The assignment wasn’t due until sometime in January, but I wanted to get going on it – ‘tús maith, leath na hoibre’, and all that.

  After a while I’d shifted my focus to records specifically dealing with our town and surroundings. I’d come across a few notable, even downright peculiar, tales.

  First, the sea froze over at one point. This was during the winter of 1851, around the time that company of English soldiers arrived. Some remaining straggler found the strength to record what happened, probably because it was so unusual. Ireland is in a temperate climate. The Atlantic can get cold enough to kill you but this isn’t Norway or the Antarctic – we don’t have ice-entombed seas. Yet that’s what took place: the ocean froze solid, further than the eye could see, for several days, possibly weeks.

  Secondly, all the crows died. Every single one, of every type: raven, rook, hooded crow, jackdaw, jay, magpie. As far as I could gather, piecing different bits of information together, this was about a month before the sea seized up. All of them, thousands, found dead within a few days of each other. In fields, streets, yards, farms, everywhere – as though they’d more or less simultaneously keeled over and fallen to the ground. There was no explanation for it. No other bird or animal had perished in such huge numbers.

  Thirdly, and here’s where my interest was really tickled, one of Sláine’s ancestors had refused the chance to leave town with that brave group who made it over the mountains – who made it out alive. The McAuleys were pretty well off, by the standards of the time, and her great-great-great-great – I think – grandfather contributed money and whatever provisions he could spare to the expedition.

  So, naturally he was invited to join them. When he declined, he was begged to join. Still he said no. William John McAuley instead put his wife Eleanor and three children into a cart, waved goodbye and settled down to welcome death, which surely wouldn’t be long. He was never seen again and they never found a body – I guess the dogs had him for a finish.

  I wondered why he stayed. Like virtually everyone else, he must have known he couldn’t survive. There was no food left, disease was rampant, the town was in the grip of the worst cold spell in half a century. He was a dead man already, waiting for his body to catch up with reality.

  Maybe he wanted to die where he’d lived, or under circumstances of his choosing, instead of halfway up a mountain while on a hare-brained flight to freedom that might never succeed. Some people are stubborn like that. Maybe he didn’t want to witness his wife and children dying, although if that was true, he still should have manned up and gone with them: they needed him more than he needed himself.

  Whatever the cause, William John stayed behind to die; some of Sláine’s forebears lived and later returned to their home town. On down through history the line of family went, ending with Sláine and her siblings. Now she had joined the old man in death.

  What would she say to him, I mused, if she were to meet him in the afterlife? ‘Should’ve got on the cart, dummy,’ probably …

  I jumped as someone tapped my shoulder, whirling around on the swivel chair. A handsome middle-aged man in a smart suit was stand
ing behind me. He raised his hands in apology and whispered, ‘Sorry. Didn’t mean to give you a fright.’

  ‘No,’ I whispered back, ‘you’re okay. I just didn’t hear you for some reason.’

  He gave an easy smile and said, ‘I should have coughed. Tapped my feet. I was wondering if you’d be long more on the microfiche?’

  ‘Huh?’ I checked the clock on the wall: I’d been sitting here for over an hour, hogging the machine. I said in embarrassment, ‘Aw, feck it. My apologies. I didn’t notice the time going.’

  ‘That’s all right. Time has a funny way of getting away from us, doesn’t it? “Tempus fugit.”’

  I clicked off the page I was reading, muttering absentmindedly, ‘“Time flies.” Sure does.’

  The man said, not hiding his surprise, ‘You speak Latin?’

  I laughed and gathered my things. ‘Nah. Learned that from an old Batman cartoon.’

  He laughed too. ‘Latin is … useful sometimes. In helping to understand very old texts, that sort of thing.’

  ‘Right. Are you an academic or something?’

  ‘Of sorts.’ He added, self-effacingly, ‘More of a dabbler, really.’

  He left it at that so I left him to it and found a desk nearby to jot down a few more notes while they were fresh in my head. I reckoned I had enough now for a really good piece. I’d bring in the flight over the mountains, freezing sea and crow wipeout, and mix them with general facts about the Famine. I’d imagine myself as a boy of seventeen, same as my own age, desperately trying to survive in 1851.

  Perhaps one of the last people left alive, but sadly, no room for me on the convoy heading out of town. Or perhaps I’d chosen to stay, one last act of defiance against my own mortality. Bite me, Death. Come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough.