The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  ‘Jesus, David. Let her go.’

  Tarc stood there, features cold and knife drawn, and still I’d never been more glad to see him.

  ‘I caught her spying,’ David said. He was triumphant. ‘She was right here, watching you.’

  ‘Let her go.’

  David released me and I bent to pick up my bag, hiding how badly shook up I was. My throat was tight from where David had gripped it. When I looked at the boys, Tarc was watching us with an inscrutable expression on his face.

  ‘Oh, would you ever get over yourself, David,’ I said loud and cross, hoping they couldn’t see my nervous hands.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ Tarc finally spoke, sheathing his knife.

  ‘I was working late. Ask Laney,’ I said folding my arms. ‘I arranged with a friend to pick me up. I figured it would be easier getting out of the garage gate because of the fundraiser.’

  The boys stood around me, all three of them, unsmiling.

  ‘I reckon we search her,’ David said, pushing an unlit cigarette into his mouth. ‘I bet we find her phone’s on record.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake. You’re not going to search me. I was working late, and now I’m wondering what the hell is wrong with you. I didn’t realise listening to boy gossip was the crime of the century.’

  All bluster, trying to hide how afraid I was. The folded square of paper I’d stolen from the archive was in my pocket. It wouldn’t be hard to find.

  ‘Where’s your friend?’ Tarc said.

  ‘Probably outside,’ I waved a hand at the gate. ‘So if David’s done trying to kill me, it’s been a long day.’

  Before I turned, I caught it. That glint in David’s eye.

  ‘Kill you, Wren? Now where would you get a crazy idea like that?’

  ‘Perhaps from that excellent demonstration of a chokehold you just did?’ The words sounded reasonable enough, but if David had been suspicious before, it was doubled when he reached for the ends of my hair and I jolted like a frisky pony.

  ‘Really?’ he said, and I could hear the smile in his words. ‘That all?’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I lied.

  Tarc was still looking at us, his face giving nothing away.

  ‘Let’s see if your friend is here.’ He clicked a button and the electric gates swung open. Of course, there was no one waiting for me in the road.

  ‘Must be running late.’ I hoped I didn’t sound as desperate as I felt.

  ‘Why don’t you call?’ Tarc spoke easily, deceptively casual.

  I couldn’t call Aisling, because she was inside doing whatever the hell she was doing. I wasn’t sure if I was more hurt or cross about that. My only other option was Simon. He wasn’t likely to be in the city, but he might link me up with a friend who’d oblige. I rang him, terrified he wouldn’t pick up.

  ‘It’s me,’ I said, my knees wobbly with relief when Simon answered. ‘You were supposed to meet me five minutes ago. Where are you?’

  He paused. Then, ‘Sorry.’ He played along. ‘Got held up. Where did you say you were again?’

  I rattled off the address, praying that by some wild stroke of luck he was in the city.

  ‘There in ten.’ Simon rang off.

  ‘He was delayed. So thanks for the concern. You boys can go off and play with your knives or whatever.’ I ran an eye over their dark clothes, the waistband where Tarc had sheathed his knife. My distaste was real and obvious.

  ‘We’ll wait for your friend,’ Cillian said. And smiled. ‘Just to be sure you’re safe.’

  ‘You haven’t explained why you were hiding behind the garage,’ David said. He was still looking at me with that fixed gaze.

  ‘I wasn’t hiding,’ I said, looking at Tarc. ‘I heard my name. I was embarrassed.’

  And for the first time he couldn’t meet my eye. He shifted, checking the muck in the gutter.

  When Simon came barrelling down the road in a borrowed car, I felt a whole different kind of anxiety. He pulled over on the opposite side of the road, and I started walking.

  ‘Aren’t you going to introduce your friend?’ Tarc said, checking out Simon.

  ‘It’s late.’ My words were abrupt. ‘Got to go.’

  I saw through the car window that Simon was wearing a baseball cap pulled low. He wasn’t taking any chances. Already, Tarc was noting the registration.

  I got inside and leaned back against the headrest, letting out a three-monthly allowance of dirty words.

  And then Simon started laughing and I fell in with him, the relief bringing huge gulping laughs and tears to my eyes.

  ‘What the hell did you get up to?’ he said.

  ‘Wren.’ It was nearly midnight when Aisling, in that white dress, stood in the doorway to my bedroom.

  I looked up from my desk, where I’d been staring at the page I’d stolen from the puzzle box. It wasn’t the map Smith was looking for, but a different secret. The beautiful slanted markings that spoke to something deep inside me. The page was old and worn along the folds. It was coded in Ogham and I needed to know what it said.

  ‘I know you saw me at the party.’ She sounded contrite as she stepped into my room. Only Aisling could pull off white tulle and not look like an oversized flower girl at a wedding. She still had that layer of gloss around her. It was easy to forget that she was one of us. One of the imperfect girls who’d carelessly lost a parent or two, struggling along.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you were going?’ I put the pen down on the desk. Then picked it up again. I was sore and annoyed and worried about what else she’d kept from me.

  Aisling sat on the bed, her dress spreading daintily. ‘I wanted to tell you.’

  ‘But you didn’t.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why where you there?’

  ‘Simon asked me.’

  ‘Simon asked you?’ I couldn’t keep that sense of betrayal from my voice. He’d said nothing when he’d driven me home. I’d never known Simon and Aisling to keep secrets before. And certainly not from me. It hurt more than I let on.

  ‘He’s worried about what happens afterwards.’ Aisling looked down at her hands. ‘He wants to gather more information. So we agreed that I’d befriend Laney. Ask a few questions.’

  ‘Did the circle decide this?’

  ‘Not the circle. Just Simon.’

  ‘It’s reckless. What if David had recognised you?’ My voice was rising.

  ‘There were other girls from the village there,’ she said quietly, pleading. Don’t wake Smith. ‘And Simon stayed close in case I needed help.’

  ‘Let’s just stick to the plan.’ I was bone weary.

  I couldn’t articulate this feeling, this sense of wrong at deviating from the plan. We had a map, I didn’t want to veer off course. It seemed that if we did, I’d somehow get lost and never find my way home from Harkness House.

  Something must have shown in my face, perhaps I wasn’t as good at hiding my feelings as I thought. But her voice was urgent, begging me to understand. ‘I have to do something. I want to help you.’

  Aisling was perched at the edge of the bed, anxious. She hated for anyone to be cross with her. Part of me, the hurt part, wanted to let her stew in it.

  ‘Then don’t hide things from me.’

  The silence was tense as I sat at my desk. In front of me was the page I’d taken from the archive, teasing me with its secrets.

  ‘I’m sorry I hurt you,’ she said.

  I went over to Aisling and sat beside her.

  ‘Is there anything else you haven’t told me, Ash?’ The weight of the stolen page felt heavy in my heart. I too was keeping things from her.

  ‘No.’ She placed her hand, fingers splayed, beside mine. ‘Nothing at all.’

  But I wasn’t sure I believed her.

  I didn’t know when it was that Aisling and I had stopped touching, other than a cautious hand on the shoulder, a brush against each other as we cleaned the kitchen. As children
, we’d often curled up together in the same bed. Her arms, legs and face had been as comfortable and familiar as my own. And then we didn’t seem to do it any more. Any move to hug or kiss was awkward and unpractised. It might have started when our bodies changed with puberty, when what was once known became mysterious. And then she got her talent and I feared that Aisling could read my secrets by touching me. But that night as we sat on my bed she twined her fingers in mine and gripped them tightly. I held on to her as if it would save me from being swept away.

  FOURTEEN

  For you

  Today a woman from the village presented me with a doll. It is an odd specimen, made of cloth, leaves and dried flowers. Elizabeth has named it Bláithín.

  AdC

  The next morning, I faced death by historical art journals.

  It was the beginning of February and the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Groves would spend the morning watching burrowing animals emerge from their holes, and so forecast the weather for spring.

  And there I was, alone at Harkness House. I figured Cassa and her gang were marking the cross quarter with the Rose Gairdín, plotting world domination or something.

  Alone, bored and in serious danger of bleeding eyeballs. I hated missing out.

  My phone chimed with an incoming text from Aisling.

  Got the FOMO really bad?

  That girl could read my mind.

  She sent another text, this time a picture of Maeve and a few others staring at an animal hole. It looked uncharacteristically dull, the women staring with exaggerated tedium. Usually, the grown-ups staved off the cold with whiskey, and it was very cold up there in the hills. The result was that everyone behaved a little badly.

  A few minutes later, my phone chimed again and it showed all the older ladies of the grove, skirts lifted, cleavage exposed, even a flash of knickers. Now my eyeballs really were going to bleed.

  A little show from the ladies of Whitethorn Grove. We miss you darling. Spring’s going to be shite. I’ll bring you Annie’s boxty cakes. XOXO

  Annie’s boxty cakes were vile.

  Sighing, I opened the second volume of Lady Catherine’s garden book. I wished for a paragraph where Lady Catherine grew faint while watching a hot gardener dig all those flower beds. Why didn’t the good Lady write about that?

  But, paging through the journal, something else caught my attention:

  The child has become fixed on these fantasies. She believes that she is being hunted. I have seen her emerge scratched and bruised from the woods beside the house. She must inflict these injuries upon herself.

  Maybe my interests were too narrow, but frightened girls in the woods always got me. I skimmed the next pages, looking for more.

  The girl is much subdued. She spends hours down at the lake watching the water. ‘Do they get lonely?’ she asked me, pointing to the lilies between the water weeds.

  I shut the book. It made me feel odd. Fidgety, but with my hands fitted wrong to my body. On my desk was a fresh bowl of pink peonies. The flowers were open and beckoning.

  I pulled the bowl closer, burying my nose in the scent of petal and leaf. Drawing back, I stared at the crowded flowers until I couldn’t see them any more.

  And then – Cassa in a shallow grave. Dirt covering most of her face. A pale white hand half hidden, half visible. Her eyes shut, her hair matted. She was wearing a white dress, an old one of Sorcha’s that now hung in my wardrobe. A satisfied smile. And then, just like my vision of Sorcha being eaten, it fuzzed over and I saw myself. Just the briefest second, it was me there in Sorcha’s dress, in the grave. And as quick as a flash, there was Cassa, smiling in the earth again.

  I pulled back. It felt like my head had been underwater. Like I’d been drowning. It was wrong, I told myself. People didn’t smile in their graves. And even though I could rationalise that it was because I felt vulnerable, I hated that I was seeing myself in these horrible visions.

  ‘Where did you go just now?’

  Cassa appeared at the edge of my desk. Not in a grave. Not smiling. She was very much alive and almost predatory. Still wearing her coat, she leaned towards me with undisguised interest.

  I shook my head. I never could speak immediately after.

  Cassa watched me, and the intensity of her stare reminded me of the day she’d watched me from the archive. It was a searching gaze, like she could find answers just by looking. I felt a burst of terror that she’d figured it out. What I’d done just now. And what I was.

  ‘Just smelling the flowers,’ I managed. Innocent as a daisy. Almost believable, but for that slight breathlessness.

  Flowers. It wasn’t a grave. It was a flower bed. I’d seen Cassa planted in the earth.

  ‘Cassa?’ David sidled up to her. ‘Can we talk?’

  My heart pounded. If Cassa was suspicious, David was the worst person to show up right now. He’d feed her uncertainty, and delight in it.

  ‘What did you see just now?’ Cassa’s voice was low.

  ‘Pink peonies?’ I kept my face neutral. Sibéal and Aisling had both coached me in ‘How to tell lies so it looks like the truth’, and excess body language was a giveaway. Too bad about my twitchy eye.

  Cassa drew back, still staring at me. She peeled a dark-green leather glove from one hand, then the other, fixing her eyes on mine. David hovered behind.

  ‘What is it, David?’ She didn’t bother to look at him.

  ‘Could we go to your office? I don’t think it’s a good idea to –’

  ‘Do you have knowledge of an imminent security threat?’ She sounded almost bored. Like they’d had this conversation before.

  ‘Not imminent, but I think you should hear this.’ David’s cheeks were slightly pink.

  ‘I’m listening.’ She touched the peonies, her fingertips brushing the petals.

  David cast me a surly look and said, ‘There’re rumours …’

  ‘Rumours?’ Cassa’s soft murmur was designed to slay.

  ‘… about the crowd giving us trouble.’ He meant augurs, obviously. ‘They have a long-term plan to annex, uh,’ he glanced at me and finished lamely, ‘the property we value most.’

  Nemeta. Which meant David was talking rubbish. We had no plans to take judge nemeta. We didn’t even know where they were. Anger flared and I wondered how often he fed Cassa bad information. Was he trying to heighten the tensions between us? Was David so bloodthirsty that he wanted a war?

  ‘And that’s not all.’ He turned to me and I knew he was going to tell her about the kill mark and that he suspected I knew what it meant.

  Cassa finally looked from the peonies to David.

  ‘Last December –’ he started.

  ‘Where did you hear these rumours?’ Cassa cut him off. ‘Your contact? Or are you going to repeat village gossip and pretend it’s fact?’

  ‘Sometimes valuable information comes from unlikely sources.’ He sounded wooden.

  ‘Perhaps. But every time you’ve come to me with village mumblings,’ she looked pointedly at me, ‘you’ve been wrong.’

  She stepped towards him. And even though he towered over her, it was clear who had the power.

  ‘I’m getting tired, David.’

  ‘Tired?’ He swallowed.

  ‘Of you.’ Her voice was cold as ice. ‘Sort yourself out. If you suspect a problem, bring me evidence. Don’t be a whiner.’

  Cassa walked away from him, but halfway to her office, she stopped.

  ‘David,’ she said, finally bringing sweetness to her voice.

  ‘Yes, Cassa?’

  ‘Does it bother you?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘That you’ll never measure up to your brother?’ She went on to her office, not bothering to check the damage.

  From the look on his face, she couldn’t have hurt him more. I hated David, but I almost I felt sorry for him as he withered beneath her words.

  ‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ he hissed at me and walked a
way, slamming his hand against the door as he left.

  And I realised that in pitying David I’d gained a small victory. But it felt dirty. I sat there, conflicted with this shameful pleasure that his humiliation had made me feel better about myself.

  Later in the afternoon, I was making tea when the courier brought a parcel.

  ‘I’ll take that,’ Tarc said as he entered the office. I hadn’t seen him since the previous night’s awkwardness.

  He signed for the parcel and took out his knife to rip open the plastic covering. I caught a brief glimpse of carvings on the handle.

  He couldn’t quite meet my eye, and I felt ill at ease with him. Did he see me differently now? Crazy stabbing weird girl. But nice.

  Tarc opened the box and inside was a handmade doll put together with cloth, twigs and leaves. Her face was blank, no eyes, mouth or nose, and she wore a grey headscarf. The red floral cloth of her dress fell around her in layers, reminding me of an old-style farmer’s wife. Two branches shot out of the sleeves and ended in leaves. Her legs and feet were a bunch of dried flowers.

  Tarc glanced at the card.

  ‘A brídeog,’ I said. A little Brigid. The making of dolls and Brigid’s crosses were common activities for children at the beginning of February. The dolls were meant to welcome St Brigid into the home. Or the goddess Brigid, if you were one of us.

  ‘Why would someone send Cassa a brídeog?’

  ‘It’s not for Cassa,’ Tarc said, handing me the box and a card with my name on it. ‘It’s for you.’

  I was leaving by the rose archway when Tarc called after me.

  ‘Wren, wait.’

  He was framed by the tall lines of the grand front door. The way he stood there, breathing deeply and less composed than usual, sparked something inside me. As he strode towards me, the skin on my hands felt pricked by small pins. I was hyper alert, as in those moments before falling into a vision.

  In another life, another time, he could be an ordinary boy walking towards me beneath the tangled branches of a climbing rose.