by Pat O'Shea
‘Only on special occasions,’ croaked the hag and she became the beautiful fair woman again.
‘What colour is your eye make-up?’ asked Breda Fairfoul.
‘Deadly Nightshade.’
‘And what is that fabulous perfume?’
‘Flowers of Brimstone.’
‘Oh, you’re a fizzer and no mistake!’ said Breda Fairfoul, and they all broke out laughing again like mad hyenas.
They clasped hands and formed a circle. Moving slowly at first, they began a round dance. They gathered speed and went faster. Soon, they were spinning at a scorching speed, all the time shrieking with mad laughter; making a circle of flashing colour and light.
Then the outline of the circle blurred and trembled. The three women rushed to its centre and crashed into each other. Incredibly, they became One—and spun round and round so fast that all Pidge could see was a sort of smear of colour. After a while, a slowing down came, and he could glimpse the flash of a face. The face held aspects of all three women but it was one face. As he watched, it began to dissolve from being just one entity and, where there had been one pair of eyes, there were now three. Three noses and mouths appeared, and all the extra features then slid off to the sides and there were three heads, instead of one.
Gradually, the women broke away from each other and stood separately, still screaming with laughter.
He was beginning to think that they would spend the whole night in fits of merriment, when the fair woman abruptly stopped the fun.
‘What of Olc-Glas?’ she hissed. ‘He has not come though I whispered.’
‘Ill news. Our web has been broken.’
‘Explain!’
‘Meddling by The Dagda. Even now, Olc-Glas is in the keeping of the Great Eel.’
‘Good! There will be sport.’
‘You are not angry?’
‘No. It will be like following the stag or a board game; fidchell, the Royal Game. The Dagda reached the boy first?’
‘He was warned even before the first snare.’
There will be pleasure in considering our moves.’
She smiled, a dazzling smile; and Pidge almost forgot how she had looked as a hag.
‘And you, with your blue and orange hair—how is it with you?’
‘Our pretence is, that we are merely witches from the country to the east of us. Thus we are frightening which is amusing; but not too frightening for the sake of wisdom,’ said Melodie Moonlight.
‘We have a most wonderful chariot that moves without horses and it is called A Harley Davidson,’ said Breda Fair-foul.
‘Let me see it,’ the fair woman said with a slight smile.
Melodie straddled the bike and kicked it to life.
Breda leaped and sat behind her. The fair woman’s leap was like a salmon’s; she wriggled through the air and then she was sitting behind Breda.
Pidge watched as they raced off at a fearful speed, screeching with wild laughter and a crazy kind of delight. He watched until the scrying-glass, clouded over and he could see no more. The scrying-glass as he held it in his hand, seemed very small, the pictures that he had seen within it, no bigger than photographs. Wishing to see more, he gave it another shake but although the snow fell as before, no further picture appeared.
He put it back under his pillow.
She was no oil-painting, he thought, and he lay back and closed his eyes in sleep.
They raced on, stopping only once at seeing a solitary cottage. Leaving the motor-bike under a tree, they approached the house on foot. Inside, two old people sat on either side of the fire and talked drowsily together. They were the best of old friends and they spoke of their long lives lived in the little house; and of the children they had once had, that were now grown up and getting old themselves. Their talk was calm and there were many pauses where the little silences carried on their conversation for them.
As the three women approached the house, their footfalls made no sound. At the keyhole, they listened to the drowsy, affectionate words. Disgust filled them and they sent a spiteful wish into the house. In a moment, the drowsy words were changed and grew rapid, savage and bitter. The two old people said terrible things to each other and threw wrongs in each other’s faces. And the three women listened with pleasure.
In the end, even the silence was tainted; and the old woman sat with tears pouring down her cheeks and the old man sat staring desolately into the fire.
Then the three women flew to the motor-bike and raced away again, saying to each other:
‘A little evil, a very little evil!’
And they didn’t stop laughing even when they were back inside Mossie Flynn’s glasshouse.
Chapter 12
LATER there was a dream.
‘It is middle-night and The Dagda’s people are low,’ a voice said.
Pidge saw the coppice lit by a full moon, mysterious and strange in the bright darkness; so bright for night time and so cold-looking.
As he watched, shapes prowled here and there in the undergrowth. There were shadows everywhere.
He knew that Brigit stood beside him. It was odd that without seeing her, he knew that she was there.
The shapes melted in and out of cover and at last came clearly into the moonlight, to stand before an old oak tree that grew deep within the coppice among all the new trees.
He saw then that they were the hounds.
They sat in a half ring round the tree and they said:
‘Come forth, Brandling Breac’
A testy voice from inside the tree asked:
‘Who calls me?’
‘Mórrígan,’ a hound answered.
An object emerged from the tree.
It appeared to be wonderfully lit up from inside itself and it shone brilliantly. It was striped red and blue and to Pidge it looked like a barber’s pole. Then he saw that it had spots as well. They were many, many coloured and as the stripes revolved, the spots began to pulsate.
The hounds dipped their heads once and sat regarding what Pidge thought of as The Pole. The hounds’ manner was deeply respectful.
‘Why?’ said the voice, sounding even more crusty, and Pidge felt an intense curiosity to see what the owner of the voice would look like, when he finally would appear.
‘She desires your bright beauty.’
The Pole quivered and a strong tremble ran the whole of its length. The stripes went faster and the spots glowed and pulsed even more brightly. For some moments there was a silence, while The Pole suffered its emotions. It bent from the middle and twitched and seemed to be in pain. In a short while, it straightened itself with a deep sigh.
The moon sailed on across the sky and the shadows moved to obey a natural law. Shadows were now gathering more deeply and darkly beside the oak tree.
Then Pidge fancied that he could see the semblance of a head at the end of The Pole that was furthest from the trunk of the tree; and he realized that The Pole was not a pole but a marvellous sort of worm.
It swayed.
It whispered.
‘Must I?’ it said and the whole of the dream was filled with sadness.
The hounds waited.
‘For what purpose this time must I obey?’
‘To bring her Olc-Glas who is her heart’s desire. He has been given into the care of The Lord Of The Waters by two mortal pups, under guidance from The Dagda.’
‘No,’ said the marvellous worm, who was the Brandling Breac.
At this, the hounds appeared puzzled beyond belief.
‘What means this?’ they asked each other. ‘We have obeyed in all things; he may not refuse.’
‘It means that the bond on me has been crossed out by a debt on me. I will not go against the two young mortals. I am beholden to them.’
‘What is this debt?’
‘The sun was fierce today and one of my tribe was weak and exposed. His small body twisted in pain as he struggled in vain against scorching. The two you speak of saw and understood. They placed
him in safety and I may pay what I owe. I am not in revolt in this.’
‘This is true,’ the hounds agreed among themselves.
The Brandling Breac went smaller and smaller until he was as little as an ordinary earthworm and then he suddenly dimmed and went back inside the tree.
The dream changed.
The hounds were approaching the glasshouse where the three women stood in awful vividness. So clearly did Pidge see, that he remarked to himself the hounds’ eyes; soft, shiny butterscotch brown eyes, full of fear.
‘Oh, Great Queen,’ they said, ‘forgive us, we have failed.’
Although three women spoke, there was only one voice reaching Pidge’s mind.
‘What message?’
The bond on him is broken.’
‘Impossible!’
‘The human pups were kind to one of his people who was distressed.’
‘Interfering brats!’
The beautiful fair woman who was The Mórrígan herself, felt a slight anger and her eyebrows worked rapidly like two small electric eels on her forehead. She muttered a mild triple curse which she sent in three directions, not aimed at anyone in particular; but causing three unhappy things to fall on three innocent people in different parts of the land.
‘Go and tell that worm,’ she said, ‘that if he doesn’t do as I say, I’ve only to flex my big toe and all of his people will die. When they die, the earth will go sour, the grass will not grow and everything that lives will sicken and die. Better still, I’ll come myself and bring such trouble with me for him if he persists in this conceit, that he’ll wish he had never seen the light of day.’
Once more Pidge saw the coppice, with the Brandling Breac and The Mórrígan staring at each other. The Brandling Breac was as large and as bright as he had been before and he was saying:
‘If you kill everything, where then will you get your sport? And, forgive me for reminding one as great as you, it is not within your power in these times. Your old strength belongs to other days long past.’
The Mórrígan made a sign and out of the dense shadows which had now thickened on one side of the tree, a single shadow leaped and snatched the Brandling Breac and then everything was swallowed into a deep blue-green darkness that devoured the whole picture from Pidge’s sight.
In moments, the Brandling Breac, full-sized and in all his brightness, was there again; hanging in deep water, still in the grip of the shadow. He was being offered as bait to the Great Eel.
The Eel lay at the bottom of the lake, moving only with the weed.
His eyes were shut tight, and his whole being was one passionate wish not to look at what was being dangled up above his head. Every ounce of will and wish was focused on this one thing.
‘Alas,’ said the Brandling Breac. ‘I know you are there, Great Eel; and I know that you try not to see me.’
The Eel’s mind was a tight knot of will-power.
‘You may give way in the end and look.’
‘I know it,’ the Great Eel said.
‘This is not in the terms of the bond. I am here against my will.’
‘I know that too, but hunger is despot here.’
Hundreds of little faces, trout, chub, bream, moor-hen, wild duck, and a vast multitude of insect faces, appeared and lurked in shadows to watch the terrible drama. A strong feeling of sadness was everywhere and sympathy was fused with horror.
The Great Eel trembled and his head moved a fraction of almost nothing upwards, causing a shock of greater horror to ripple through the watching faces. They all joined their unified will with the Eel’s will, and his head was steady again and his eyes were firmly shut.
Pidge saw water-boatmen rowing like maniacs all over the lake. Three of them found Puddeneen Whelan who was lying on a lily-pad. The water-boatmen twittered excitedly as they told him what was happening. Puddeneen looked terrified.
Again Pidge saw the Brandling Breac dangling in the dark water and the Great Eel struggling to keep his eyes closed.
Then BLINK; the eyes finally opened and they were full of hunger.
The Great Eel looked upwards.
A murmur arose from the onlookers and a whisper:
‘The Lord Of The Waters is about to be ensnared.’
The Eel’s body began to drift and he moved upwards towards the Brandling Breac.
All of a sudden, the whole thing was interrupted by what seemed to be dozens of frogs who leaped between the Brandling Breac and the Great Eel and began to perform the most spectacular and amazing underwater ballet imaginable. The Eel recoiled and lay on the bed of the lake again. At once the Brandling Breac went very small and the horrible tension was completely broken and the terrifying hunger was gone from the eyes of the Great Eel. The multitude of watchers laughed and created a great wave of happiness and Puddeneen in a magnificent leap upwards clasped the Brandling Breac and, holding him tightly and safely, he swam away.
In an eye’s twinkling, the Brandling Breac was safely beached on a broad lily-pad and was being given artificial respiration by a team of frogs who queued to take turns: a healing-fish came to apply medicinal-slime for his wounds and when these things were done, a frog recognized by Pidge as Bagsie Curley, did up the Brandling Breac in a splint and a bandage.
Last of all, a sign was hung up on a bending reed which said:
This pleased all the waiting well-wishers and it especially pleased Pidge because near the end, the Brandling Breac had looked so horribly pale and languid.
Chapter 13
THEY both slept late the next morning. Auntie Bina had to call them several times.
In the end, she shouted that she would come and pull them out of bed by the heels, if they didn’t hurry up and come to their breakfast, because she had to begin the churning and they were delaying her.
In the summer, Auntie Bina churned the gathered cream twice a week and she liked everything to be out of the way, before she began.
‘If you’re not down in two minutes I’ll give your breakfast to the hens,’ she threatened from the foot of the ladder-stairs; and they reluctantly dragged themselves away from sleep and out of bed.
Presently, they were sitting at table and eating with queer far-away looks on their faces, hardly noticing what they were swallowing and Brigit peculiarly silent.
Auntie Bina was puzzled and watched them for a while, wondering when they would notice her.
‘Why are you so quiet this morning?’ she asked at last.
They looked at her with great surprise, not aware of anything at all unusual about themselves. All the while, they had been clinging to the dream and with eyes wide open, they saw nothing; while inside their heads, bits of the dream went on, but in a softer way than when they were asleep.
‘You look as if you are away with the fairies! Didn’t you sleep well?’
‘Oh yes,’ Pidge said vaguely.
Brigit came fully to life. She put the dream somewhere at the back of her mind so that she could think of it again later, if she wanted to.
‘Like a snuggard,’ she said, thinking it sounded right.
‘You’re sitting there—with the eyes falling out of your heads for want of sleep, and showing about as much life as two dead bees; you look as if you didn’t get a wink.’
Pidge, too, let go of the dream for the present.
‘I slept very well Auntie Bina,’ he assured her.
‘And I slept like a baby. It’s just that I had a funny dream and I was thinking about it,’ Brigit said.
Pidge looked at her with curiosity and said nothing.
Auntie Bina laughed at Brigit and, missing the important part about the dream, said:
‘I’m glad to hear you slept like a baby, Brigit. The sooner you finish eating and get out in the fresh air, the better. And if you haven’t sparked up by dinner-time, we’ll have to see about a remedy.’
‘Malt?’ Brigit asked.
‘Senna,’ Auntie Bina said brightly.
‘Yerk!’ said Brigit pulling a hor
rible face. ‘It’s a poor look-out if you get senna for only not saying anything.’
They finished eating and went across the yard to the stable to have another look at the new mare.
Michael was up in the hay-loft over the stable, forking down hay to her manger—and there she was, calmly standing and champing as normally as could be.
When they came in, she turned and regarded them and her looks were gentle and her eyes were innocent. She just looked like a nice-tempered animal.
They fussed and patted her, and she was pleased and nuzzled them and made friendly sounds of horse-gossip as they got to know each other.
Michael came down.
Pidge looked at him anxiously, in dread that he would be as strange as he was the night before.
‘Oh,’ said Michael. ‘Here you are, at last! She’s lovely, isn’t she?’
He spoke with pride; but now he was entirely like himself, with nothing left of the distant and cold stranger he had seemed the night before.
He doesn’t even remember yesterday, Pidge thought, and he was very happy about that, but he wondered in his mind about Sally and what had happened to her.
‘She is,’ he replied.
‘Good enough for a King,’ Brigit said.
‘If only Sally were here; I’d be the happiest man in the county. It couldn’t be known, how much I miss her. What came on her at all—to run away like that, I’ll never know,’ Michael said softly.
‘Maybe she’ll find her way back?’ Pidge suggested.
‘You often hear about things like that,’ Brigit said. They’re always doing it—going off somewhere just to show they can find their way back. I’ve heard about it, often.’
‘We couldn’t reply on that—we might never see her again,’ Pidge said.
I’m going to phone all the newspapers in Dublin to advertise her loss and offer a reward for her safe return,’ Michael said.
‘Oh good,’ Pidge smiled.
‘I’m keeping the mare in here for today, so that she gets used to things. She can have the place to herself. You two could take a walk down as far as Fouracre and Thornfield and see if the others are all right. I’ll go and phone the papers; I’ll feel a lot better when that’s done.’