The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  So I put my arms around him, trying to give him comfort. I pulled him towards me, my body making sense of this new thing: the wide shoulders, the smell of laundry detergent and night, the hard back beneath my hands. The unfamiliar feel of him, fleeting and forbidden.

  I drew back from the awkward hug. But Tarc caught my hands, holding them to his chest. My fingernails with their scrappy black nail polish against his jacket. There was a brief hesitation.

  Again, everything that bit more unstable, less rooted to the world.

  And then he was all in. His mouth on mine, his hands now firm on my lower back while mine snaked around his neck. He held me close and his agitation morphed into something else.

  It felt every bit as good as I thought it would. His kiss, his touch quieted something I didn’t realise was unsettled. Fed a hunger I’d only half acknowledged. The way he held me, kissed me, it seemed he felt it too. I leaned into him, the rough surface of the wall scraping my hands.

  It went on for too long before I realised where we were. What we were doing. I broke away. Where was my sense? Getting hot and heavy with Tarc in a Kilshamble side alley. Beneath Wickd bad! in black on grey.

  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, with the ugly wall, the slaughter grounds in my peripheral vision. Tarc gripped by some unknown darkness. The real fear of being caught.

  It wasn’t supposed to be at all.

  My unease must have been evident. Because his soft smile faded and he bumped his head against the wall.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ He looked away, pre-empting my response. ‘I shouldn’t have.’

  ‘Tarc,’ I said. ‘I can’t.’

  I wished I could explain. Two words was all it would take: judge, augur.

  ‘My grandfather,’ I said, trying to find the right words. ‘He’d be after you with a shotgun if he saw us.’

  ‘He’s protective?’

  ‘Not exactly.’ I shuffled. ‘He’s particular. And I don’t think he’d … He’s a hard man to please.’

  I didn’t want to say it: I don’t think he’d like you. I knew he wouldn’t.

  ‘It’s like that, huh?’ Tarc pushed away from the wall. ‘Is that why you’re so tough?’

  ‘We’re from different worlds, Tarquin.’ I said, cutting through the half-truths, the evasions. ‘You wear your privilege so easily, even while you’re playing security guards.’

  What is it like, I wanted to ask him. What is it like being one of them?

  ‘I should go home,’ I said.

  I knew the path that had been laid out for him. He would study law, get his degree. Probably move back to the States, where he’d be stuffed into a suit and he’d forget about the girl who lived in the village beneath the clouds.

  And I would stay in Kilshamble, where you could smell blood on the grass and hear the ghostly bleating of dead animals. I would wander the forest, finding secret pictures, until eventually I would lose myself entirely.

  I turned away.

  The lane was quiet. The world went on, oblivious to the deviation that we’d just taken. A blip in the pattern that would get smoothed out in the bigger picture, but there’d always be that small tell. An anomaly, that’s what it was. Our kiss against the grey wall with its misspelled Wickd bad! was a beautiful incongruity in an otherwise regular design. Momentary, and never to be repeated.

  ‘I’m not like that,’ Tarc said.

  But he was like that. I had allowed myself to forget where he came from. Who his people were and what they were capable of.

  ‘Who did it?’ I said, forcing myself to face it as we left the lane.

  ‘Did what?’

  ‘David’s punishment.’

  His eyes widened.

  ‘I overheard Cassa. Was it you?’

  Tarc exhaled. ‘I can’t talk about this.’

  An old woman dressed in black walked by, fixing her beady eyes on mine. Across the way, big brawny Ryan stood on the pavement with his mam as she looked at her lottery ticket. There was something hangdog about the way Ryan stood there, holding the bag-for-life with its milk and bog rolls while his mam talked at him.

  ‘Who did it?’ I said.

  ‘Cassa.’ He’d gone all rigid again. ‘Cassa does it herself. Unless …’

  But he wasn’t saying any more.

  ‘What did she do to him?’

  ‘Wren, stop. I can’t tell you.’ His voice was bleak. ‘You don’t want to know.’

  We walked back across the slaughter grounds, the easy mood from earlier gone.

  ‘We’re ruled by an old code. This is how it is. How it’s always been.’

  ‘How often does Cassa punish people? Has she hurt you?’

  I wanted to see how far he’d take this.

  ‘She only does what’s necessary.’ But he didn’t sound convinced.

  I couldn’t see how punishing your nephew or his amateur security friends was ever necessary. I looked askance at Tarc. His job kinda sucked. Always having to fix things, sort stuff out. Spin the PR. Chase the bad guys. No, the good guys. If he was chasing augurs, then he was chasing the good guys.

  I was getting a headache.

  Tarc picked up his pace. He said nothing more. The conversation was done.

  Just before we crossed to the car, he turned abruptly. ‘You can’t tell anyone.’

  His anger had returned. I couldn’t believe that I’d confused the line between good and bad, right and wrong. He was so obviously wrong. He exuded wrong, just standing there, his mouth a tight line, the tension in the way he held himself as he waited for my answer. Wrong.

  ‘You have to promise.’

  ‘I won’t tell.’ Wrong. Wrong.

  He gave a curt nod and strode across to the car. I didn’t want to be on the bad side of Tarc. I realised, not for the first time, how hard it would be later, when he knew what I’d done. When we were openly enemies.

  Approaching Tarc’s car, I noticed someone standing on the green. Someone wearing a blue dress with a yellow coat. I registered the presence like a fly at the corner of my eye. It was the persistent stillness that drew my attention.

  I turned and there was Sorcha in a yellow raincoat. She stood on the old slaughter grounds, facing us. Lank hair, dull skin.

  A petrifying jolt shot through me.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Tarc said.

  I looked at him but didn’t answer. Then I looked back at the green, but she’d moved away, towards the church. My hands were shaking. It couldn’t be her.

  ‘I thought I saw someone. But I was mistaken.’

  ‘Who was it, Wren?’ Tarc was leaning towards me. ‘Why did they scare you so much?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ I forced a smile. ‘I must go.’

  ‘Don’t go.’ The words seemed to fall out of his mouth against his better judgement. I ignored him and turned away.

  I stepped on to the green, towards the church garden. I looked ahead for the bright yellow coat but saw nothing.

  I got as far as the gate to the garden of remembrance. And then I stopped. Standing on the cracked pavement, I made myself face it: she wasn’t there. I’d imagined it.

  At home, I went to retrieve the egg from the hedge. But when I got there, all I found were shells and the sticky remains of dried yolk. It had taken weeks to get the egg and, distracted by a boy, I’d fumbled it.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Keeper of the forest

  As we prepare for Elizabeth’s game in the woods, I find myself changed. My hair is lank and my eyes have taken on a glassy sheen. Sleep eludes me.

  AdC

  The next night was the party at Harkness House. Huge vases of white flowers – lilies, gladioli, lisianthus – were dramatically arranged. At the centre of the white room, on a pedestal, was her orchid.

  It was so different to grove parties at Maeve’s house, which usually ended up with music and dancing. I just didn’t see this crowd breaking into a perfectly coordinated drunken set dance while Aisling cringed from the side.

  I stay
ed at the edges of conversations, unable to find a way in. I held champagne that I didn’t drink, the glass growing warm in my hand. Drifting through the crowd, I caught snippets from the guests, many of them girls my age: a new clothing range at Brown Thomas, a group of hot guys busking on Grafton Street. And punctuating their words was laughter as tinkly, as sharp as the chandeliers that hovered above.

  Like the party at the Huntsman, I wasn’t sure why Cassa wanted me there. I didn’t fit in with the shiny judge girls, nor did I fit in with the crowd that arrived from the village. The Kilshamble girls grouped together, awkward, as if they feared that the heavy, beguiling scent of the flowers could lure them to poison, to madness.

  As if it could make them sleep for a hundred years. Make them do things they both feared and longed for.

  Aisling came in with a boy. I greeted her with a polite half-smile, like I wasn’t her dark twin who’d slept beside her as a child. As if she were an ordinary village girl who meant nothing to me. I hated that we weren’t talking, and that I didn’t know who this boy was. His fingers trailed down the bare skin of her arm. Aisling was brittle and beautiful. I didn’t linger.

  The everyday chat in that bright room with its cloying scent was surreal. And at the centre of everything was Cassa. The circles of girls gravitated to her as though performing an obscure dance. They watched jealously to see who she spoke to next, her disinterested gaze sweeping over the girls and then releasing them.

  And then she turned and saw me. Her eyes lit up and she smiled from across the room. A warm, deep smile, her eyes holding mine, ignoring the swell of girls around her.

  Hot and dizzy from the flowers, I made to leave the room. Just before I passed the double doors, I noticed something for the first time.

  There was a pencil sketch on the wall. Arabella. I examined her delicate features, the haunted eyes and defiant chin. Her hair fell in waves, half up and half down, the intricate style come undone. Filigree hair combs ineffectively held her hair, and examining them, I saw that they were nearly identical to the lucky hairpins that Maeve had given to me. The picture was signed E. Gallagher.

  Leaving the hall, I went outside to the iron table in the small courtyard. On a good day it was a suntrap and I often sat there, the honey cobblestone teasing my spinny eye. But it was different at night, and the dark, indeterminate shapes of the trees and bushes were almost sinister.

  The bench was an invisible boundary. I’d never ventured beyond, never walked through Cassa’s garden. Somewhere behind the trees was the cottage where Tarc lived. The garden was old and beautiful but it had always seemed forbidden. As if there were dangers within. As if two-headed snakes coiled around trees, waiting to tempt foolish girls.

  But my longing must have told, because I heard Cassa say, ‘Do you want to see my garden?’

  ‘I’ve never explored that far.’ I turned my head and saw her right behind me.

  ‘It’s so lovely at night,’ she said.

  She stepped back into the house and the garden lit up with hundreds of hidden lights.

  ‘Come, I’ll show you.’

  ‘I’m cold,’ I said, my feet rooting to the ground. I didn’t want to go with her. I didn’t know why I was suddenly afraid.

  Almost motherly, Cassa draped her coat over me, her hands briefly squeezing my arms. She walked into the garden, looking over her shoulder.

  ‘Come.’

  I followed. With each step it felt like I was leaving the ordinary behind. With each step, I walked into something different. Something brushed with magic more intense than I’d ever known.

  Slipping my hand into the coat pocket, my fingertips touched rough grit. I looked at it under the light. Soil.

  Cassa was in front, the edge of her ivory dress trailing the ground. Ahead was a wall, hidden by the dark outline of trees, and she went towards it. Opening a door concealed by ivy, she revealed a small walled garden.

  When I first felt the buzzing, I thought it was the hum of the lights. It took a few seconds to realise it wasn’t. That crackling feeling, like we were close to some resting power.

  The garden was a nemeton.

  A judge nemeton, and I’d been invited in.

  I wandered between the flower beds. Though most were dormant, some plants were in bloom, despite the harsh winter.

  There was something unnatural about the garden, magnificent as it was. It reminded me of the judges, of Harkness House, with its bold, aggressive beauty. But underneath was dirt. Underneath, slimy things writhed and wriggled. Things rotted. Creatures crawled and burrowed, feeding the beauty above.

  At the heart of the garden, Cassa sat on a raised soil bed the size of a grave, her pale beaded dress on the mucky ground. She reminded me of my peony vision of her in the earth. It had scared me then, but now I couldn’t imagine why. She looked serene and the flower bed with its turned earth seemed soft and luxurious.

  ‘You don’t like me,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t think you care whether people like you or not.’

  She smiled. It suddenly occurred to me, for whatever reason, that I pleased Cassa. And that made me both proud and repulsed.

  ‘You asked me once before why Arabella went to live in the woods. I will tell you, if you’re sure you want to know.’

  Her words were a dare.

  ‘What do you want from me in return?’

  ‘Only that you listen. Really listen.’

  ‘I want to know.’ I felt a dizzying rush as I spoke. Like I’d climbed something high and stood at the edge. About to fall.

  She moved on to her knees, then edged a little closer. The beads on her dress collected grains of soil. A coffee-coloured stain seeped up the hem. She touched her hand to my chest.

  ‘Listen not with your head, but your heart.’

  I thought I saw a streak of dirt on the side of her mouth, her lips stained with wine or earth. I couldn’t be sure in the dim light.

  ‘I’ll try.’

  ‘This will resist.’ She touched my head. ‘But the heart knows.’

  Those endless seconds, Cassa’s hand on my heart. It felt familiar, right. It felt like a mother’s first touch.

  ‘Arabella went to the woods because she became the Bláithín.’ The little flower. ‘She changed into the girl of leaf and petal.’

  Using her finger, Cassa traced a pattern in the soil.

  ‘Like the tuanacul?’ I said, remembering that night when Tarc’s lips on my cheek seemed to summon the people of the woods.

  ‘The Bláithín is something stronger, more powerful. It’s not a fairy story.’ She drew the five-looped knot I’d seen on the Ogham sheet. ‘What Arabella experienced was the metamorphosis that happens under the wickerlight.’

  ‘Wickerlight?’

  ‘Threshold time, just as some places are threshold spaces. It’s time when anything is possible. It can last minutes, hours, or even days.’

  Wickerlight. Like wickering, the soft mesmerising draw made by familiar patterns. It made me think of the soft afternoon light that fell through the latticework shutters in the office. It felt like my time at Harkness House had been spent in wickerlight, an uncertain in-between time where anything could happen. Both terrifying and strangely gentle.

  ‘The girl of leaf and petal doesn’t have twig arms and bark skin,’ Cassa continued. ‘She is human, but inside, the power of the forest and fields runs through her veins. She is queen of the meadow, lady of the garden. She is keeper of the forest.’

  I opened my mouth to speak, but she stopped me, touching her hand to my chest again. ‘Listen from here, and you will know the truth of what I say.’

  The gate to the garden opened, and we both turned. Tarc stood there, watching Cassa on her knees while I perched on the low flower bed. He paused only a second, but it was enough to know that he didn’t like what he saw.

  She beamed as he moved towards us.

  ‘Cassa, could I have a word?’ He glanced at me and waited.

  Excusing herself, Cassa we
nt to him. Angled away, Tarc’s voice was low and I strained to hear. But my spy skills were improving, because I could make out: ‘We need to discuss … David’s concerns … a plan to steal nemeta …’

  ‘Not you too, Tarc,’ Cassa said with fond exasperation. ‘David’s suspicions are unwarranted.’

  ‘It won’t hurt to investigate.’ Tarc was firm.

  ‘All right.’ She held up her palms in mock surrender. ‘It’s a waste of time. But look into it.’

  It struck me how unfair it was, when David had said the same thing she’d chewed him out. But not Tarc. Cassa was different with him. Away from the others, I glimpsed the woman who was also a mother. I’d heard Laney say that Tarc and Cassa’s son were tight, that they’d grown up as close as brothers.

  ‘You should go back in,’ Tarc said to her, still not looking at me.

  We still hadn’t talked, not after the awkwardness in Kilshamble. After the kiss.

  Momentary blip, I reminded myself.

  I didn’t know how long Cassa and I had been out there, away from the sparkling wine, the fairy lights and bright laughter of the guests. I’d lost all sense of time.

  As we left the walled garden, I put my hand in Cassa’s pocket again, feeling the gritty soil.

  TWENTY-TWO

  One of us

  After dark, when everyone is asleep, I slip outside to Lady Catherine’s garden. There my senses are heightened and I feel an immeasurable peace.

  AdC

  In her garden, Cassa’s wool skirt was pushed up over her knees. Her bare legs were covered in muck and her feet buried in the earth. And she raised her face to me and I saw that her mouth was stuffed with soil. She chewed and swallowed. Her hand was already raised to her mouth and she stuffed the next mouthful in, not taking her eyes off mine. She swallowed again, then reached out a hand filled with muck towards me.

  ‘Want some?’ she said and smiled. The horror of her dirt-covered smile shot through my legs and curled my toes.

  I woke up. A slight tingling in my mouth. The smell of soil, rich and heady.

  It was just after eleven. I was meant to attend my third circle meeting in fifteen minutes. Grabbing my clothes, I was halfway in my jeans when I saw it. Or rather, didn’t see it: the doll wasn’t on the chair where I’d left it. Every day that small niggle – had it shifted a little to the side? But that morning, it wasn’t on the chair, or the desk or the floor.