by Pat O'Shea
‘It sounds a terrible place,’ Pidge said softly.
Although he was staring straight at the fire, he was conscious of the blueness that seemed to surround that small bright area. He could see that the blue rim at the edge of the brightness was a darker colour than the rest, and he was allowing himself to examine it with a kind of side vision—still without moving his real gaze from the fire. This was something he had sometimes done in church by fixing his eyes on the altar candles without blinking. He was not dreaming, however, but carefully listening to all that was being said.
‘To get there, one would have to pass through the Eye Of The Needle and no one knows what lies beyond,’ Patsy said. ‘Even the birds do not care to fly over that valley, so we haven’t the help of their bright eyes in this.’
‘From time to time,’ Boodie said, ‘creatures have gone missing, and it is always thought that they may have strayed in there and for some reason, they have not come back. These things we have to tell you before you go further.’
‘It is all still under your hand; but if you do not wish to continue, after hearing this, no one will blame you,’ Patsy said. It was plain that he really meant what he said.
There was silence again.
Then Pidge asked:
‘If The Mórrígan gets the pebble, what will she do?’
‘That pebble has one drop of her old strong blood. If she only gets the pebble, that one drop will enrich the weak blood she has now and give her back an amount of her old power. If she gets Olc-Glas as well, she will be strong indeed,’ Patsy explained.
‘Olc-Glas!’ Pidge exclaimed. He blinked and lost sight of the dark blue rim for a few seconds. ‘I’d almost forgotten about him!’
‘You held him in your human hand. He felt the blood pulse under your skin and he awoke from his sleep,’ Boodie murmured.
‘Who’s this Olc-Glas?’ asked Cooroo.
‘He’s an old snake,’ Brigit whispered. ‘He was in an old book—Pidge found him!’ she finished proudly.
‘What will happen if she gets him too?’ Pidge asked.
Boodie and Patsy exchanged a worried glance so quickly that no one else saw it.
‘She will use the one drop of her blood on the pebble to dissolve him and then she will swallow him into her heart. Thus she will have his poison as well as her own. It is all very important to her,’ explained Boodie.
‘What will she do with all the poison—if she gets it?’ Pidge asked now.
‘She will cast her shadow over the world. As she was once, so shall she be again, whispering her evil to thousands,’ Patsy replied.
‘You must hear as well that, by this time, she knows where the pebble is to be found. And now she and her two others will be in deadly earnest and will certainly try to get the accursed stone themselves,’ Boodie went on. ‘Up until now, this has been a game for her—played from far away. She herself has been cool; Macha and Bodbh—her second and third parts—have been merry; partly from mischief and partly to deceive. But the game has grown serious now.’
‘Who are they? Who are Macha and Bodbh?’ Brigit wondered.
‘The women who came to dwell in the glasshouse of your neighbour. They disguised themselves and named themselves Melodie Moonlight and Breda Fairfoul,’ Boodie still carried on, explaining carefully and patiently.
‘Oh, that pair!’ Brigit growled. ‘I never liked them at all!’
‘Now we have told you the dangers that face you as far as we know them,’ said Patsy.
Again, there was silence.
In the heart of the fire, the glowing turf popped and exploded into little bursts of flame that looked, at first, like orange coloured sea anemones and there were pale yellow bits that resembled small chrysanthemums, and finally, brilliant yellow dandelions.
Apparently out-of-the-blue, Brigit remarked:
‘We’ve seen a lot of dandelions and daisies on this journey—I wonder why?’
‘The dandelion is the flower of the Brigit who is Goddess Of The Hearth,’ said Patsy.
‘The daisy is the flower of Angus Óg, who is the God of Love,’ said Boodie.
‘Oh, we heard that about the daisies belonging to Angus Óg from those two in the glasshouse,’ Brigit remembered.
‘Are the Gods of Love and of the Hearth on our side?’ Pidge asked.
‘Always,’ Boodie and Patsy both answered together.
‘I had handcuffs that day—did Angus Óg give them to me?’ asked Brigit.
‘He did,’ Patsy answered with a smile.
And Boodie whispered:
‘Both of these Gods are in danger from The Mórrígan.’
There was a pause again and they watched the flowers in the fire.
‘If we give up now, she’s won for sure, hasn’t she? This is my fault again. First I released Olc-Glas and now I’ve found her pebble for her,’ Pidge said eventually.
‘If not you, then some other would have done it on some other day. It might have been a very different story then, if the person were only half as good and courageous as you and Brigit. Then all would have been surely lost,’ Boodie said.
‘But I am not courageous!’ Pidge protested. ‘You just don’t realize. Brigit is usually far braver than I am. I am not courageous at all.’
‘You are braver than you know,’ Patsy maintained. ‘We knew it from the first—that day on the island.’
Now Pidge remembered the question in the back of his mind and he said: ‘I’m baffled by something. You gave the swapping sweets to Brigit that day—how did you know we’d end up here? How did you know it then, when no one knew the way we would go?’
‘We gave those sweets in case a time would come when we had need to speak secretly with you, under the eyes and ears of our enemies. It was reasonable to foresee that you might want our help against the hounds—so we made that plan ahead of everything,’ Patsy replied.
‘Old Daire said that Brigit’s little hand would do something big. How could he say that, if he didn’t know what would happen?’ Pidge asked next.
‘Daire is greatly gifted. It may be that he had a half-sight of something that led him to make that prophecy,’ Boodie murmured.
‘I see,’ Pidge said thoughtfully, and he wondered what Old Daire had meant.
‘You, Brigit, and you, Pidge, have been our champions in this struggle and now we have Cooroo to thank as well.’
In the fire, the dandelion flames were beautifully alive.
Something seemed to stir in Pidge and a blind obstinacy came into him and he knew that he would not give up.
‘I’m definitely going on,’ he said, his face set.
‘So am I!’ Brigit declared. ‘I never liked those two and I’ll do it for The Dagda.’
‘I’ll go as well,’ Cooroo decided.
‘You would do better work, Cooroo, if you stayed on this side of the Eye Of The Needle. You may be able to keep the hounds from following Brigit and Pidge into the next valley,’ Patsy suggested.
‘Fair enough,’ Cooroo agreed.
‘You have that ornament still, made for you by your friend the blacksmith?’ Boodie observed.
‘She has. Did you tell him to make it?’ Pidge asked.
‘Yes, we did,’ said Patsy.
‘Why?’
‘For fear you would need a cunning weapon.’
‘Now, show us what you have in this little bag, apart from your penny whistle,’ Boodie said.
Brigit undid the straps and took out the ball of hair.
‘Take the hair, Pidge. Keep it in your fist and try not to be afraid of anything,’ said Patsy.
‘It’s very hard not to be afraid,’ said Pidge, taking the hair from Brigit.
‘There are many who will help you,’ Boodie and Patsy answered together. Their voices seemed to be moving away.
‘That first day on the island—how did you know that we would do all this, when we weren’t even asked to by the Old Angler, until after we had met you?’ asked Pidge.
‘We n
ever doubted you!’
The voices were further away.
‘But—how did you know that we would end up at Baile-na-gCeard?’ he cried.
‘There is no Baile-na-gCeard.’ The voices seemed to be a long way off.
‘The dandelion is my flower,’ Boodie called sweetly.
‘The daisy is mine and we are with you,’ Patsy’s voice came from far above in the sky.
All in one moment, the fire grew brighter; in the next, it had broken into a thousand flowering dandelions and everything was perfectly quiet—except for the shocked blackbird that flew to a bush and hid among its leaves.
Everything was perfectly quiet because they were alone. The town, the people, all of the noise and bustle—everything was gone. The untrodden grass silvered under the touch of a light breeze and there was nothing to show what had been there before, not the print of a heel on the ground, not a matchstick. There was no other life but for the growth about them and the blackbird and a flock of white birds flying away.
‘I am not at all courageous,’ Pidge was murmuring again.
‘There’s the Eye Of The Needle,’ Brigit said, pointing.
It stood unmistakably at a little distance ahead and upwards. It was like the blade of a stone dagger with a hole through it. A stone path snaked up to it and was a grey thread going through the Eye.
‘I’ll wait for your return. I’ll be somewhere here,’ Cooroo said.
‘Take very good care of yourself, won’t you?’ Brigit said, with her arms around his neck.
‘It’s my nature to,’ he answered.
‘We’ll meet again, Cooroo,’ Pidge said very firmly, and after Brigit had hugged Cooroo, the friends parted.
In a very little time they were walking the stone thread. At first it was about eight foot wide but it narrowed considerably as it climbed, with the ground falling away at either side. When they reached the Eye, they stopped and looked back at the Second Valley for a glimpse of Cooroo. He was nowhere to be seen. The landscape was utterly quiet. It looked like a painting.
They continued on the thread and went into the Eye. As they passed under it they were intrigued to see that bright green ferns grew upside-down from its ceiling. They are just like Christmas garlands, thought Pidge.
Emerging from the rock passage, the Third Valley broke before them. The sun shone on the sides and tops of the mountains, but this valley was narrow and unlit. It looked strange and forbidding.
Pidge gripped the ball of hair tightly in his hand, as they took their first reluctant steps downwards to face whatever lay before them.
Chapter 6
THE Third Valley was wild and broken and rocky. There were waves and curls and writhings in the grey stone. It was as if the rock had once heaved and surged and had then been petrified in the middle of tumult. There were gapes between the flat grey slabs on the ground where rotten water lay thickly like treacle. This was a blighted, savage and fantastic place, almost bare of life. Strange toad-stools grew there and not much else. It was queer that no tiny green plant made a grasp at life in the smaller crevices in the grey slabs, and there was only the odd patch of whiskery grass, and a few bare thorn bushes warped into strange suffering shapes, and some naked briars that sprawled over the rocks. A stream ran beside the jagged path. It gushed furiously and appeared to be in a fearful hurry to get away from where they were going. The Valley struck badly on their nerves; it was curiously forbidding and evil.
‘Boodie and Patsy were right about this place,’ said Brigit.
The sides of the mountains rose up steeply as straight as planks, and sharp daggers of rock stood up from the ground. They passed an appalling white fungus that looked like lips or a mouth.
The children sat on a thin flat stone while they thought about how they should try to actually find the pebble.
‘The best thing would be to just keep our eyes sharp as we walk along; and if we don’t find it by the time we reach the end—we’ll just have to come back again and really search,’ said Pidge.
‘Right,’ Brigit was saying, when the rock moved under them. It somehow felt revolting and they leaped up feeling sickened. Frantically Pidge kicked it over. There was nothing underneath but the grey stone floor. Brigit shuddered with relief.
‘I thought there might be an evil maggot there,’ she said. like being afraid but not too much,’ she whispered as they moved on.
The further they went into the valley, the higher the mountains loomed; impossible for any living thing to climb. If Pidge looked up for too long, he had the sensation that they were leaning in over them, and he had to fight very hard against his fears to keep going on. His free hand gripped the ball of hair fiercely.
A small wind sprang up, dismal and moaning, and it made dead leaves patter over the ground like rats. They felt the chill of it on the skin of their arms.
Then the booming noise began.
It was a steady beating sound getting louder and louder as they went forward.
‘What is it?’ Brigit asked shakily.
‘I don’t know,’ Pidge answered, equally shakily. As best he could he pressed her hand to reassure her.
‘I don’t like this place—it makes me feel funny,’ she said, and she looked around her with frightened eyes.
‘I wish Cooroo were here,’ Pidge answered; and I wish we had the scrying-glass as well, he finished to himself.
The steady beating noises were getting stronger, louder all the time. They grew more strident, more metallic, bouncing and echoing off the mountainsides, and sending rattles of stones skittering down again and again. It had a ringing note as if a great iron bell were being struck repeatedly in a steady relentless rhythm.
As they went on, the valley narrowed; there were tumbles of rocks and boulders that had fallen in the past and there were signs of mining for metal. The sides of the mountains were splashed with small red lights that flickered and danced. The children were moving reluctantly, as though through a leaden sleep. But in spite of this, they had reached the end of the valley.
A plume of smoke or steam rose from somewhere inside the end mountain that now stood blocking their way. Pidge wondered if it were a volcano and he thought that he couldn’t bear to go inside one—not for anything or anyone. The surrounding mountains rose up sheer; there was no way out; but the children were hardly aware of this as they stared at the glowing reflections that flickered out of a cave. The noise was coming from the cave and the path led in there. It began to be cindery underfoot.
They stopped.
Brigit clutched harder at Pidge’s hand and a terrible, shuddering curiosity drew them both to the cave’s mouth. They looked about them uneasily and stood there very quietly, wondering what would happen.
The beating noise stopped. The echoes seemed to ring in their heads for a long time and then the valley was filled with an aftermath of silence, in which they now listened to their own hearts vaulting against the substance of their bodies. Slowly, cautiously, they crept inside.
At first there was a wide passage like a road where the stones glinted with scarlet light and dark shadows postured. But very shortly, they arrived at an opening and saw that they had reached an enormous smithy. They stood bemused, trying to be brave as they took in the size of the forge and of the place itself.
Everything was still and quiet except for the breathing of a huge nest of fire. It was going light and dark from the touch of some regular draught that ran somewhere—perhaps along the floor. There was the acrid smell of burning coal and hot metal, and they gazed at a great anvil where rested an enormous hammer and a sword. In a pit by the main fire, a cooking-fire burned under a gigantic pot that was made of rivetted metal plates. Soup bubbled in the pot and sent out a mixed smell—nice, with something nasty—as though an old boot simmered in there, among more usual things.
The smith’s great fire lived in a walled semi-circle that was built against a central wall that went up and up. Two arches stood on either side of this wall and beyond these arc
hes, everything was pitch black. Apart from the light of the two fires, there was one other source of light, a solitary but huge beam of sunlight that came down from a crack in the distant roof, and in this bright shaft, the motes whirled and weaved. Everything was set in a natural cave that was a far-ranging stone chamber. There was no sign of the smith.
Pidge and Brigit took a few steadfast steps into the light of the fire, then they stopped. The heat slapped at their faces and pulled the skin tight. And still they looked around.
The bulk of the anvil threw a shadow and they saw that the handle of the hammer was well-worn. Various articles made from iron and bronze hung on the cave wall: a shield with rivets, a spear with barbs, a battle axe. Brigit fingered her silver bow and arrow, thinking of the last time they had been in a forge, when Tom Cusack had made it for her. Pidge was looking at some bones thrown in a heap on the ground at some distance. They were mixed in with other rubbish. They were animal bones, he decided. Perhaps there were some others? Did he see a human grin lying in the rubbish heap? He shuddered and looked away. But now, under the smell of the soup, he fancied that there was another smell, putrid and offensive, like rotting cabbage.
They stood now very quietly, knowing they were waiting, but not knowing what would come.
Behind the fire where everything was dark, some darker thing moved in the blackness. Then surprisingly, a voice began to sing lightly.
‘A negg an’ some nyamm an’ a nonion,’ sang the voice.
They were not prepared for anything like this, and they turned to each other with half-smiles.
The voice sang on:
‘A negg an’ some nyamm an’ a nonion—
Oh, what a sight to see,
Spread on your bread with a nice cup of tea—
A negg an’ some nyamm an’ a nonion!
The acridity of the smoke from the burning coal had made the backs of their throats dry and ticklish and they both coughed. At this, there was a great silence and at last a loud whisper came out of the darkness.