The Hounds of the Morrigan

by Pat O'Shea

  ‘Go on,’ Brigit said cheekily, ‘you’re only bragging!’

  Corny roared with laughter and Pidge joined in with him.

  ‘If you ever saw her doing her experimental version of The Blackbird, you wouldn’t doubt me. But I might be doing her a great wrong overpraising her like that, with regard to her size.’

  Pidge was on the verge of laughing at this, thinking it was a joke; but he saw that Corny was being serious.

  ‘How did she get so big? Is she one of the ones who ate up all their crusts?’ Brigit asked.

  ‘To see her eat,’ Corny began dramatically, ‘would raise a nervous rash on a Dowager. She’ll put more than a hundred-weight of boiled spuds on the table for the dinner. Half the time, I can’t find me cap for potato skins and I often get colds in the head from it, so I do.’

  ‘She sounds very greedy.’

  ‘Brigit!’ Pidge said, making his voice sound cross.

  ‘It’s all right—she is only practising her profession. The young want to know everything,’ Corny said, with a wave of his hand. ‘Hannah is not greedy but hungry. She could ate a side of beef in a sandwich and pull down a tree to ate the top of it, like an elephant. She is nearly as hungry as fire, which is the hungriest thing on land.’

  ‘Is it?’ Pidge said, wondering about wolves with sharp teeth and hyenas and jackals, whose very nature seemed to be hunger.

  ‘You may say it is. Haven’t you ever seen flames licking their red lips as they consume all before them? Fire is so hungry that the more it is fed, the bigger its appetite grows. Other things can be gratified, but not fire. And the sea is all this and more.’

  ‘Do you really mean that Hannah is nearly that hungry?’ Brigit asked, disbelieving.

  ‘I do. And signs on it, because of her appetite, she is nearly as strong as water.’

  ‘Water?’ Brigit said, her voice rising in scorn. ‘Water isn’t strong.’

  ‘I don’t believe you’re serious but if you are, you’re wrong. Water is so strong, it can wear away rocks and shift mountains. Don’t you know well, that one man can tame a horse but it takes hundreds or even thousands to spancel water? If a country was a person, the rivers and streams would be its veins with all its life’s blood in them. Even when it is harnessed it is never tamed. It can light up cities and turn wheels and if it gets free and throws itself at a town, it can wipe out life like chalk on a slate. It can do all of that; but the sea can do all that, and more.’

  ‘Is she really that powerful?’ Pidge asked.

  ‘She is nearly that strong, and that’s why I’m glad to get out from under her feet while she’s washing; you wouldn’t know the unlucky moment when she might give a person a belt. Still, she’s not the worst, Old Hannah.’

  ‘We know that—we’ve met the worst,’ Brigit said airily.

  Except for a very slight flickering smile, Corny appeared to take no notice of this information.

  ‘Does she often fight you?’ she then asked.

  ‘She does. Every washday without fail. It’s a fixture.’

  ‘Does she often be washing?’

  ‘Yes. She is very fond of bubbles—that’s why. She forgets everything when she has a cloud of bubbles round her head that she listens to as if they were gossip; and she goes dreamy and that always makes dinner a movable feast and that makes me mad. So, I say things that I know will make her mad. There are three things not to be said to a Hannah on a washday and I nearly always say them; making sure first that I’m near the door for a quick escape, but sometimes she’s ready for me and catches me all the same.’

  ‘What are they?’ asked Pidge.

  ‘They are: “You’re not washing these, I’m wearing them”, “Isn’t me dinner ready, yet?”, and “It looks like rain, I’m thinking”.’

  ‘Is she a good runner?’ Brigit wondered.

  ‘She is nearly as fast as air when it conceits itself into a wind, and only the sea is faster than that, when it has a finger touching one place and runs in shivers to the far side of the world, to nudge another country with its big toe, at the same time. Only the sea can go that fast and run in three directions at once. Hannah is nearly as fast as the wind—and that’s not bad.’

  By this time they had travelled a fair way along the twisting road. Every now and then, Pidge stole a look behind and was delighted every time not to see the hounds. He was just thinking how lucky they had been to meet the earwig army, when from somewhere behind them, Hannah let a bawl out of her that shook the leaves on the trees:

  ‘WHERE’S ME BEDSOCKS? WHO’S GOT ME BED-SOCKS? WHEN I CATCH YOU, CORNY—I’LL GIVE YOU WHAT LARRY GAVE THE DRUM!’

  A nervous look came into sudden possession of Corny’s face. He looked wildly around him for a few frantic seconds, as if thinking that there might be a best way to run, and then with a quick, apologetic shrug of his shoulders, he answered with his feet and was gone like a hare.

  Hannah came thumping along the road.

  Every thumping step she took made the trees shiver and the ground tremble. Now and again a few stones fell off the walls of the fields.

  As she came closer, they saw that she was gigantic and that her face was lovely; and before Pidge could restrain her Brigit shouted out:

  ‘Have you got fat blood?’

  As she drew near, she seemed so vast that the children panicked and sprang apart to be safe from her boots; and standing on either side of the road, they watched her approaching.

  She was a big, beefy, brawny, heavy block of a woman and she came along the road like a ship in full sail. Her dress spread itself out behind her, held up by the slip-stream of her speed, and it snapped and rapped in the wind, for she moved very fast indeed.

  When she was almost upon them, she smiled and her whole face was lit up by it; and it was an outward sign of inward grace, as the catechism used to say.

  When she was level she bent down and without breaking her stride, she scooped them up in her mighty arms, that were streaked with soap-bubbles, as if they were no more than bags of feathers. And it was gently done.

  ‘He’s grown deaf to roaring,’ she observed softly, and she leaped over a wall in rigorous pursuit of Corny, who seemed remarkably fast himself.

  So she ran for many a mile, skilfully avoiding bushes and trees, until at length, Corny reached the bank of a wide quick river, where he doubled back by skirting round a triangular patch of rowan trees.

  When Hannah reached the river bank, she shrugged off her boots without laces, crouched for a second with her knees up under her chin, and, with one powerful spring, she smashed onto the opposite bank. She landed with two loud swatting noises from her great bare feet, on a sloping sheet of naked granite that spread a good length in, from where it lipped the river.

  Placing the children carefully on the ground, she almost patted them each on the head with a spade-like hand, but stopped within an inch of touching them. Then she took a mighty leap back, performing a cunning twist while still in the air, so that she landed with the two feet back inside the boots, without disturbing them from their position on the ground. She dipped her hands in the river and worked up a lather of suds. With her hands cupped to her mouth, she blew a sheaf of bubbles across to the children, before turning to run in amazing bounds as she chased Corny again.

  They saw him go over a hill and out of view. When Hannah reached the crest of the hill, she stood poised for a moment against the sky, turning to give them a wave before she vanished.

  The bubbles had gathered in clusters about their heads.

  One after another they began to pop. As each bubble burst in quick succession a ripple of words was released. They sounded like the tremble of crystals on a chandelier hanging in the way of a fingering draught; and they said:

  ‘Olc-Glas-is-safely-held-in-deep-waters-guarded-and-watched-night-and-day-by-one-hundred-of-the-most-savage-pike-in-Ireland-Their-bodies-swaying-in-dark-water-they-are-a-ring-of-yellow-eyes-that-stare-without-pity-or-one-moment’s-neglect-And-The-Lord-Of-The
-Waters-neither-eats-nor-sleeps-and-is-supreme-over-this-and-most-excellent-guardian-of-all-’

  All but one of the bubbles burst and that one drifted away.

  At this news Pidge and Brigit threw delighted looks at each other and danced up and down, giving each other many quick hugs of pure happiness.

  They sang when they resumed their journey.

  They had come closer to the mountains and the hounds were far behind.

  Chapter 15

  RAIN came.

  It washed everything it touched and the hounds were in disorder because of it.

  By now they had reached the place in the little winding road where Pidge and Brigit had leaped apart; and with noses that were swollen, they were puzzling at the tracks of Hannah’s boots.

  ‘Is it not enough,’ Fowler said wearily, ‘that we lose the scent of the young pups and find the strange scent of Some Other but that rain must fall to baffle us further?’

  ‘Be silent,’ said Greymuzzle.

  ‘Is it not enough,’ Fowler insisted, ‘that we are beaten on the head by the wands of The Mórrígan whenever the path is not clear; that we are attacked without mercy by a hosting of crazed insects—but that the rain has to fall and increase our troubles?’

  ‘Hush,’ Greymuzzle advised again, ‘speak no treason.’

  ‘Our lives are miserable,’ Fowler said, sighing deeply.

  ‘Be silent. The Great Queen may hear,’ Silkenskin said, shivering.

  ‘She listens not—for we are in the midst of sound; all around us, things make their natural noise. Do we not well know that when The Mórrígan listens, her ears suck up all the sounds of the earth, so great is her attention to the thing that she wishes to hear?’

  ‘Even so—in silence there is wisdom,’ Greymuzzle said, adding reverently; ‘We lie under The Great Queen’s hand and through her grandeur, our rank is very high, unlike others of our kind who call all men “Master” no matter how lowly these masters may be.’

  Fowler made no reply.

  Under Findepath’s orders, they resumed their search. They fanned out across the countryside like the spokes in a segment of a wheel. Leaping a wall where necessary and allowing nothing to hinder them, they cast about the ground meticulously for the merest whiff on grass or stone or leaf, that would be as a signpost to them, showing the way that Pidge and Brigit had gone.

  Chapter 16

  THERE was a faint air of annoyance in the glasshouse.

  It lurked behind The Mórrígan’s face.

  It was hidden behind a pink and white mask that she had moulded her face into, as if she were made of pale plasticines. She had made her face assume a kind of perfection in which her eyelids were smooth and oval like white sugared almonds and her mouth was a faultless rosebud. Mingled with her annoyance, there was a flickering amusement that she could look so horribly pretty. It was a way of enjoying herself, while she passed the time. She thought that she looked disgusting.

  She took an object from her bracelet and set it down a little way ahead of Pidge and Brigit, as they walked.

  Melodie Moonlight who was wearing her limp and exhausted shadow scarf-like around her neck, smiled when she saw the object and made some strange passes in the air.

  ‘We will see if The Dagda is strong inside one of our toys,’ she said.

  Her nose wrinkled to show deep revulsion, Breda Fairfoul was scratching behind her ear with a pencil, as she looked from her textbooks to her flasks and from her flasks to a row of assorted rats. They were sitting on her bench, polishing their faces and whiskers, and they were all quite beautiful. They smelled of lavender.

  ‘You are all quite repulsive,’ she told them and with a snap of her fingers, she made them vanish.

  She left off her Scientific Work for the moment and she too made some strange passes in the air.

  The Mórrígan sneezed.

  Out from the dark crimson caves of her dainty nostrils came twin jets of darkish air that turned into long billowing clouds, graphite grey. They spread out and formed a thick canopy over the whole area now reached by Brigit and Pidge.

  With a shiver, Brigit looked at the sky. The whole atmosphere of the day had altered and everything had become dark and dreary.

  ‘Is there going to be more lightning?’

  ‘It looks like it,’ Pidge said, his heart going nervous as he thought of the blackened walls at the Field Of The Maines.

  In the sudden gloom, the trees were gaunt and queer-looking and they rustled loudly as the wind came up. Trees are the worst possible places to shelter under, he reminded himself; I’m not going to do anything silly like that again.

  The sky went even darker, turning to black by the second. All about them, the shadows thickened until everywhere was murky without any light at all.

  He felt that he sensed something brooding and threatening in the dismal gloom. Even the day smells were gone as well as the sunshine and now there were the damp, earthy smells of the night. It’s just the waiting, he told himself; waiting for the lightning to start. Still, his eyes darted everywhere in case he really sensed something else.

  ‘It’s going to rain soon, isn’t it; hard enough to put cracks in our heads,’ Brigit grumbled.

  ‘We’ll just have to put up with it, unless we find somewhere safe to shelter,’ he said firmly.

  He looked to try and see if the hounds were visible anywhere, but it was too dark to really see anything.

  ‘We won’t run, no matter how bad it gets; right, Brigit?’

  ‘Right!’

  By now it was difficult to see where they were going and they stumbled at times over uneven ground and tripped over roots and stones. The wind began to moan, a low and very lonesome sound, that gradually increased in strength to a savage howl.

  Brigit was shaking and she held on to Pidge tightly, saying every few seconds:

  ‘What’s that!’

  And each time Pidge answered as steadily as he could manage:

  ‘Only the wind, don’t worry.’

  Up above the heavy clouds billowed and wreathed and seemed to boil. The sky split apart briefly and a horrid yellowish light shone through, and for a few seconds they could see that ahead of them there was the ruin of a building. The clouds snarled together mightily and the ruin was completely swallowed by darkness. Pidge tried to keep his gaze fixed on the place where it had appeared. No matter how rickety it might be, it could provide some shelter. The blanket overhead was torn aside once more, allowing a shaft of the same ugly light to shine through; and this time, they saw it quite clearly.

  Sticking up into the sky, and looking like an old broken and blackened tooth, stood the remains of a castle or a tower.

  The darkness returned and was as a cloak between themselves and all that lay beyond a mere couple of feet or so ahead of them. Pidge started to worry that they might fall into a squashy, muddy hole, or a quaking, swallowing bog. In this blackness, it would be terrible and dreadful. Who would help them out if they got stuck? If they were up to their shoulders held fast in the sucking ground, with lightning flashes coming at them like spears of fire, they would be utterly helpless, no better than sitting targets; they could even be killed.

  Even without the fearful lightning, there was the danger that they might be swallowed. His thoughts ran wild and he imagined the earth as a monstrous animal with many, many concealed mouths; and he feared it. He thought of mouths, all of them capable of opening under their feet without warning, to swallow them down a muddy gullet into a heaving prison of a stomach. At the back of his mind, he knew that it was all nonsense. All of his life he had been familiar with bogland. Each spring he had gone to help with the turf-cutting and returned in late summer to help cart the dry fuel home. Their own bogland was a place that was heathery and springy, with harmless patches of wetness and straight-edged pools of brown water, that had filled where the turf had been cut. It was a place for picnics, where he had eaten huge amounts of sandwiches because the air always made people very hungry, and he h
ad drunk hot tea poured from bottles that had been heated up cleverly by his father near little fires, without ever having cracked even one of the bottles. The worst that could happen to a person, if unlucky enough to fall into a water-filled cutting, was wet clothes, and that was all.

  But now this knowledge was reduced to a weak spark of truth. It was smothered under the weight of his fear, and quenched entirely when he remembered old stories of horror told round the fireside on winter evenings. A shudder ran crookedly up through his body from the soles of his feet; for perhaps bogs in other townlands were more treacherous, and this one could be like the ones in the old stories. Every step became a nightmare of courage. Clinging on to him, and without the slightest idea of what he was thinking, Brigit was mainly worried that she might see a ghost or a Banashee.

  ‘If I do, I’ll fling a rock at it!’ she said loudly to frighten them off.

  Pidge didn’t even hear.

  The atmosphere was now unutterably evil and terrible. It could hardly be believed that everything had been so splendid such a little while ago.

  If only Cathbad the Druid were with us, he thought, bowed down as he was beneath the feeling that he was alone and miserable, and burdened with the care of Brigit as well as himself.

  Then underneath the crying of the wind, they began to pick up sounds that were very faint and blown about at first. They stopped moving and listened intently in an effort to find out where they were coming from; and then they were greatly astonished as they realized that they were hearing snatches of music and what might be bursts of revelry with shouts of laughter, rather muffled by distance and battered into bits by the wind.