The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  Maybe Sibéal had taken it. Maybe she wanted to make one like it.

  Maeve was in her kitchen, preparing a tray of tea. It always kind of irked me that even though she was ard-draoi, she still got the tea.

  At the table, Sibéal was taking photographs of her clay sculptures. Sadhbh, the girl who’d been turned into a deer. Fionnuala, daughter of Lir, with swan wings pushing out of her back after her stepmother had cursed her. All of Sibéal’s sculptures were of girls coming undone.

  ‘Wren,’ she said. ‘Give me a hand here when the meeting is finished.’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, relieved. Whatever she saw in the garden at Harkness House, she didn’t hold it against me. Maybe it didn’t look as bad as I thought. Just as well she didn’t see what happened in the lane.

  ‘Have you ever heard of dolls that are magic? Or cursed?’ I said to Maeve as I grabbed an apple from the bowl and bit into it.

  ‘Magic doll?’ Maeve looked up.

  ‘Magic doll?’ Sibéal repeated. Then she smiled at me, serene.

  And I felt a beat of fear. There was something wrong with her sugary smile. When Sibéal was cross or peeved, she’d stomp her feet and rage. Shout to the heavens for revenge. This sweetness was infinitely darker and more frightening.

  ‘How is it magic?’ Maeve said.

  ‘I don’t know. I think it moves. Not a lot, just small shifting around. Like it’s trying, but struggles.’ The words spilled out. ‘She invades my dreams with her rustling and the scratching of her leaves.’

  ‘Leaves?’

  ‘Not doll, a brídeog. She came on Brigid’s Day.’ I realised it sounded like the doll decided to pay me a little visit. That she’d parcelled herself up and couriered herself to me. ‘I’m being haunted by a doll of leaf and cloth.’

  And as they were spoken, the words reminded me of something. I stood at the fridge, holding the milk in my hand, trying to remember why those words sounded familiar.

  ‘A brídeog wouldn’t do that. Brídeogs are good and protective. They bring the goddess into your home.’ Maeve frowned. ‘They’re not about nightmares. And I’ve never heard of stories about them moving around. Whatever that is, it’s not a brídeog.’

  She paused. ‘It could be … well, you are under some stress.’

  ‘My mind playing tricks?’ I swallowed the last of the apple. I’d looked it up and apparently the cores were good for you. Sort of. Apart from the cyanide in the pips.

  Maeve gave a small smile as she lifted the tray. ‘Bring the milk, will you, honey?’

  In the good sitting room, the circle were waiting.

  ‘Wren’s time at Harkness House is drawing to a close,’ Maeve began once we were all seated. I was on the same chair as last time, and felt like I was being interviewed.

  ‘We should be able to form the Daragishka Knot very soon. Everything has gone remarkably well.’

  Simon was looking at Maeve with something that resembled hostility. He was reading her, the way she sat there with her knees together, her hand flying up to tuck away an errant curl.

  And I understood. Simon was ambitious. He wanted to take over as ard-draoi sooner rather than later, bringing in his innovative ways. All the subterfuge with Aisling had been about undermining Maeve, whose old-style leadership he obviously didn’t respect. No one would expect Simon to get the tea.

  ‘Has it?’ Simon spoke lazily from where he sat. ‘What exactly have we achieved?’

  ‘We’ll soon tie the Knot.’ Maeve’s eyes were flinty.

  ‘Really?’ he said. ‘Do we have the stones?’

  ‘The first stone has been secured. We’ve narrowed in on the second, it’s within reach. And the third, well, that only Wren can do.’

  ‘And after?’ he continued in that same deceptively lazy drawl. ‘What happens once the Knot is tied?’

  ‘We’ll be in a better position with our nemeta, Simon,’ she said. ‘We’ll be stronger.’

  ‘And Wren?’ he didn’t look at me.

  ‘Wren will be fine.’

  She turned from Simon to me. ‘What’s happening with the divining hen?’

  ‘I don’t have an egg.’ I sounded meek.

  ‘None at all?’ Maeve’s irritation was rising. ‘I must get on to them about that hen. We should have had something by now.’

  ‘It broke.’ I’d been so careless, only thinking about getting into the car with Tarc. I should have taken the egg inside when I’d found it.

  ‘Broke?’ Maeve said. ‘You let it break?’

  ‘We need to ensure that we’re able to protect ourselves in the aftermath,’ Simon interrupted, steering Maeve’s ire to himself. ‘There will be some very angry judges when they realise what we’ve done.’

  ‘We’ll soon have the Knot, Simon,’ Maeve repeated, as if the words alone could ward off dangers. Again, I looked between them at the now obvious tension.

  ‘And that’s not going to be enough, Maeve,’ he said, mimicking her exasperated tone.

  ‘Well, Simon does raise an important issue,’ Cormac O’Reilly intervened, trying to negotiate away from whatever was brewing between Maeve and Simon. ‘We do need to think more about what happens after. What can you tell us about the judges, Wren? Have you learned anything more about Birchwood? Do you know why they’re coming over here? And when?’

  ‘Only what I told you the last time.’

  ‘Anything more about their magic?’ The question was shot from another corner of the room. Colm Wood.

  ‘Nothing new.’ I shifted slightly and looked up to see Simon watching. He knew I was lying.

  ‘Heard anything about the Raker?’ Cormac spoke again. ‘A competition?’

  ‘No. What’s that?’

  ‘What about the gardeners?’ Smith said, sipping his tea.

  ‘The gardeners?’ I was confused. ‘The chatty guy who does the flower beds at Harkness House?’

  ‘You need to give us more, Wren,’ Fidelma Walsh, swinging a crossed leg, smiled at me, but it didn’t take the sting from the words.

  ‘Are you sure you’re telling us everything?’ Cormac said, tapping his pen against the arm of his chair.

  ‘I –’ I began but couldn’t answer. I wasn’t telling them everything. But the questions were coming thick and fast, and it was hard to sift through what was irrelevant and what promises I needed to break. Fidelma’s red kitten-heeled shoe swung back and forth.

  ‘Cassa say anything about a third ré órga?’ Dermot Walsh took off his glasses. He breathed on the lenses, then wiped them with a small cloth.

  ‘There’s a third one?’ I’d only heard about the two golden ages. The tapping pen was louder, more regular.

  ‘You’re missing things, aren’t you?’ Maeve slapped her hands on her legs.

  ‘Perhaps we need to jog your memory?’ Colm paced from the fireplace to the table.

  I glanced at Dermot: breathing and wiping.

  The barrage of questions kept coming, relentless and with the aim of wearing me down. Their movements were irregular and discordant but with an underlying rhythm. This was one of the more aggressive forms of wickering. Instead of soothing or seducing, this pattern of words and actions served to unravel, and it was much harder to resist.

  ‘You’re holding back. Why would you hold things back?’ Cormac said. Table back to fireplace. Red heels. Hands. Sip of tea.

  I felt pummelled by the questions, by the dissonant pattern they were setting with their words and movements. With each question, I came a little undone. My head was bursting, a deep sorrow moving to the surface. But I knew they were doing it to unsettle me, to jog my unconscious. It wasn’t meant to be as hostile as it felt. They were doing it to help me remember.

  ‘Have you seen this?’ Colm Wood dropped a sketch on my lap before resuming his pacing.

  ‘It’s the symbol for the Bláithín.’

  I thought of Cassa tracing the loops in the soil. I should tell them about the walled garden. But before I could, I was swept into the next question
.

  ‘Where have you seen it?’ Maeve said as Colm reached the fireplace.

  ‘Cassa drew it for me.’

  ‘Why?’ Red swinging shoe. Hands. Tea.

  ‘Because … because I think she wants something from me.’

  The steady beat of Cormac’s pen against wood.

  ‘What does she want from you?’ Colm was back at the table.

  ‘I’m not sure.’ I couldn’t put it into words. Too difficult, it drained me to even try to explain her predatory stare. That tapping was driving me demented. I wanted to throw Dermot’s glasses across the room. To grab Colm and make him stop pacing. Fidelma’s swinging leg, Maeve’s jagged movements, even Smith’s regular sips. All of it was too much.

  ‘What are Cassa’s weaknesses?’ Maeve stood up. I was hanging on by a thread.

  ‘Tarc.’ The word was ragged. ‘Cassa has a weakness for Tarc.’

  And it stopped. I was limp when Maeve pulled me into her arms, smoothing my hair.

  ‘I’m so proud of you,’ she murmured.

  They gathered round me. Fidelma drew me to her soft chest and told me how strong I was. Colm said I was a credit to the grove. Cormac was sure I would go down in augur history.

  And my mind was reeling with untethered thoughts that I couldn’t work through: gardeners, the symbol, my betrayal of Tarc, the Raker.

  From across the room, still slouched in his chair, Simon watched.

  ‘Smith.’ It was late afternoon and we were alone in the cottage. ‘What did you mean earlier when you asked about the gardeners?’

  He looked up from his book, his bible: The Art of War.

  ‘The gardeners?’ His voice was weak and he looked so old, and I felt a sudden jolt of fear. I remembered how Aisling had run her eyes over him, as if there had been something that jarred.

  ‘You’re all right, aren’t you, Smith? I mean, you’d tell me if there was anything wrong?’ I scrutinised him. What I saw was the same as always: the intelligent blue eyes, the smattering of hair on his chin that was less than a beard and more than stubble, the long elegant frame folded up in the armchair.

  ‘Just a little creaky,’ he said, clearing his throat.

  ‘You said something about gardeners?’

  ‘You remember, we spoke about them at your first circle meeting. Long ago, the gardeners were the warrior unit of the brithemain, the forefathers of the judges. The law needed muscle to implement its rules.’ From his chair, he reached out to touch the tips of my hair. ‘Colm Wood told you how they would single out their victims with the kill mark.’

  ‘Did we have a warrior unit in the old days?’

  ‘Of course. But the gardeners were in a different league after the first ré órga, when they developed a brutal system of hard warrior training. Only the strongest, most ruthless men were able to complete it. Sons would follow in their fathers’ footsteps, and having generations of gardeners in a family would earn them a place in the judges’ elite. But when the judges were nearly wiped out in the eighteen hundreds, the gardeners became defunct. Just as well, modern society wouldn’t approve of their methods.’

  ‘And they never regrouped? The warrior units?’

  Smith rapped his book. All through my childhood, he had quoted the Chinese general Sun Tzu at me. ‘Remember, war becomes art when you master the ability to conquer your enemies without fighting.’ He tapped his head, ‘Strategy, now there’s where true skill lies. Not in brute strength.’

  ‘Why were they called gardeners?’

  ‘Not because they lovingly tended shrubs and planted little bulbs. On initiation, these men would receive a set of pruning tools. Implements for torture and murder. They were called gardeners because they would cut down, cull and eliminate anything that threatened their territory. They would fight each other to become the Raker, the most heartless warrior of them all.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about the gardeners before?’ I said, moving across the worn rug, fighting the rising dread.

  ‘I didn’t think you’d be interested.’ Smith’s voice was mild, aimed to temper my increasing agitation. ‘It’s nothing to do with us.’

  I looked at the war table in front of me. One army surrounding a village. A farmhouse completely unaware of the soldiers lurking in the trees.

  ‘Ah, Wren.’ His voice was gentle. ‘I would have told you if you were even vaguely curious about the history of the judges.’ He looked over to where I stood at the war table. ‘It’s not an apostrophe.’

  I couldn’t muster a smile. Whenever something bothered me, Smith would listen, then say ‘It’s not an apostrophe’, which was apparently how the five-year-old Wren had tried to say ‘catastrophe’. It did make me wonder why I was talking about catastrophes at five.

  But Smith was wrong. Right about the history of the judges being of little interest to an augur child. But wrong that it was of no relevance to me.

  ‘My father –’ I struggled with the words. ‘Was he one of them? How is that even possible?’

  ‘You think your father was a gardener?’ Smith said. ‘What gave you that idea?’

  ‘I just know,’ I said. ‘Always have. I thought that was his job. A travelling gardener.’

  The hushed whispers before the grown-ups realised I was there: brown as a bear, sell condoms to a nun. Cheat. Gardener.

  ‘I don’t know much about your father.’ Smith shut his book and put it on the armrest. He watched me carefully.

  ‘But you know more than you’ve told me.’

  ‘They came from abroad. India, I think.’ Smith was reluctant. He stood up, moving towards me. ‘He was adopted into a powerful judge family as a young child when his mother married one of them. A family who’d earned a place in the elite with their history as gardeners.’

  ‘I’m from a family of killers?’ I was too loud. ‘Did my father –’

  ‘Don’t you worry about the gardeners, Wren. That’s all ancient history,’ he interrupted, then put his hands on my shoulders as if to steady me. ‘Your father wasn’t a killer. He was a rich, entitled boy who took what he wanted without any thought or sense.’

  ‘But he was a judge.’ Stepping out of his grasp, I saw the farmhouse, the tank trained on it.

  ‘Yes,’ Smith breathed the word in. ‘He should have known to keep away from an augur girl.’

  ‘I’m half judge.’ Terrible words to utter.

  All my life I’d heard how awful they were. Bloodthirsty, unscrupulous, with a burning lust for power. Greedy and hostile towards us. And now I found that which I’d been raised to revile was part of the pattern that formed me.

  ‘You should have told me.’

  Smith flinched at my tone. We never raised our voices. Maybe my judge self was unleashing. Maybe it had been hiding inside, selfish and ugly, waiting for permission to come out.

  ‘You are an augur from the line of Mug Ruith,’ Smith spoke sternly, his words snapping me out of my wallow. ‘You’re one of us. You have an augur talent. You are not a judge. You’re nothing like them.’

  Had I not enjoyed Cassa’s casual cruelty towards David? Did I not, if only for a moment, think he deserved to be punished?

  ‘Your father doesn’t matter.’ Smith spoke gently, as if trying to call me back.

  ‘If he doesn’t matter, then why didn’t you just tell me? Why keep it a dirty little secret?’

  He reached out to me but I held up a hand.

  ‘I’m going for a run.’

  I set off to the woods, channelling my anger into pounding the ground beneath me. I didn’t want to be this strange in-between thing that didn’t fit. I didn’t want to be like Arabella, who’d ended up alone in the woods.

  But there I was, alone in the woods.

  TWENTY-THREE

  Looking for a girl

  I am vexed by that doll.

  AdC

  I eyed the black hen with trepidation.

  Smith wanted her gone. The front drive was regularly spattered with chicken shit, almost as if
she did it to deliberately provoke him. He’d been muttering about Southern fried, and from the dark look on his face, his patience had run out.

  ‘I think you’re just misunderstood,’ I said to the hen. ‘Smith giving you a hard time?

  She fixed me with her beady black eye. Her feathers were black with an iridescent sheen. Across the grass, a solitary magpie hopped down from the roof of the shed to the ground.

  ‘Now,’ I said to the hen, ‘I’m asking nicely. Will you please lay a damn egg and not eat it? Seriously. That’s just manky.’

  She took a few cautious steps.

  ‘I get it. You want some privacy.’

  I swept a generous hand. ‘Go on. I won’t look.’

  Unbelievably, the hen walked past the direction of my hand. Unnerved, I called her back, ‘Here, Henny.’ She stopped and turned to fix that evil eye at me.

  ‘Go on.’

  And then she disappeared down the side of the house. I leaned against the wall, thinking about the children of Lir. Swans were more elegant. There was something plain demonic about certain hens.

  After a little while I went in search of her. Reaching the front drive, I could hear her screeching from across the road. A minute later, she put a dainty foot out on the potholed tarmac. I checked the hedge where she’d been and, bending down, I retrieved the egg.

  The plant doll waited on the couch, watching for me to come home. She rested on a cushion, the smidge that might be a mouth having darkened into something more. Something hungrier. I had to swallow down a lump. I’d thrown her in the wastepaper basket.

  ‘Wren.’

  Aisling startled me. We’d been avoiding each other so carefully.

  ‘What are you doing?’ She frowned at me standing there in the middle of the room.

  I’d been watching the not-brídeog. It had to be Sibéal playing tricks. When I’d asked if she’d moved the doll, Sibéal had denied it. But of course she would, the game wouldn’t work if she confessed.