The Wren Hunt

by Mary Watson

  ‘Why’s he here?’ She placed her boots on the shelf. I slipped the lucky acorn into the slim pocket of my cardigan.

  ‘Tarc was just leaving.’ I tried to steer him away but he wouldn’t budge.

  ‘What’s the sacrifice, Maeve?’ Tarc said. ‘Who did you betray?’

  Her eyes were cold little pebbles. ‘Get out.’

  ‘What did you ask for in return? What could be that important?’

  ‘Leave,’ Maeve roared. ‘Now.’

  Tarc made to move, but stopped.

  ‘Come with me, Wren,’ he said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Go on,’ I urged him. He had to get out of there. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow.’

  ‘They’ve been lying to you.’

  ‘Out,’ Maeve spat.

  ‘Explain to Wren how you tied the Knot. How you named the stones.’ Tarc stood his ground.

  ‘Maeve?’ I said. ‘Tell him he’s got it wrong.’

  Tilting her head, she turned towards me. I waited for the comforting words, the reassurances. For that way Maeve alone could calm me.

  ‘Have you ever listened, really listened, to Smith talk about his hobby?’ Maeve fixed her eyes on mine as she gestured to the table. ‘Have you heard him say that warfare is built upon deception? That to truly strike at your enemy you have to make her believe that she has nothing to fear from you?’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ But a slow terror had started from my gut and was spreading through my body.

  ‘Wren.’

  I turned round when I heard Smith call my name and was confronted with a sight so utterly bizarre that I was sure I was in the middle of another vision. Like I’d been staring too long at Maeve’s dress, with its wild white daisies.

  ‘Move away from my granddaughter.’ Smith spoke from the other side of us. He stood in the wide arch to the kitchen. With a gun.

  He aimed the gun at Tarc. ‘Move. Now.’

  Tarc stepped away from me, towards Smith and the gun.

  ‘Stop,’ Smith commanded.

  ‘What are you doing, Smith?’ I said. ‘Put that down.’ His blood pressure must be rising. I didn’t want Tarc shot, and I didn’t want Smith to have a heart attack.

  ‘Smith?’ Tarc said. ‘This is your grandfather?’

  I looked at him, confused. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Oh, Wren,’ Tarc said.

  And with those two words, something inside me broke.

  When I was little, Smith and I had watched a solar eclipse together. We’d sat on the foothills near Kilshamble village and watched as the sun was slowly swallowed by the moon. The day leached of light and I began to feel afraid. It was as though all the light in the world had been drained through a small dark hole. It was different to the usual cloud cover where sunlight was still there but hidden. I was sure that it would never be bright again. And it terrified me.

  That was how it felt watching Smith point a gun at Tarc.

  ‘Up against the wall,’ Smith said. The way he spoke, the ease with which he held the gun, I could tell that he’d handled one before. In a few easy steps, he was beside Tarc.

  Gun to his head, Smith searched him, extracting two knives and another sharp instrument. Then, still training the gun on Tarc, he backed away.

  ‘Put it down, Smith,’ I said. ‘Please.’

  ‘Go upstairs, Wren. You don’t understand what this is about.’

  The recognition came quickly: the standing lamp beside Smith and the armchair. I should have known. I should have realised that it was Carraig Cottage in my egg vision. But I’d got it wrong again. It wasn’t Tarc who aimed a gun at Smith. It was my grandfather threatening to shoot the boy I’d come to care for more than I should.

  I stepped into his line of fire.

  ‘Out of the way,’ he said.

  My feet were planted to the floor. I understood what he said, but I couldn’t do it.

  ‘Move, Wren.’

  ‘No.’

  I stood firm, watching as my grandfather held a gun aimed in my direction. With exasperation, he said, ‘You’re more like your mother than I thought.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Smith examined me carefully. And when he spoke his words were calculated and precise: ‘What do you think I mean?’ Each word aimed to hurt. ‘I took you from her because I thought I could save you. So you wouldn’t turn out like her.’ To impose maximum damage. ‘But it looks like I was wrong.’

  All through this conversation it had felt like last night at the old power station. The ground uncertain beneath me.

  ‘You stole me?’

  And this was the moment where the floor gave out. The pain was physical. I wanted to curl up and wrap my arms around myself, because it felt like I was unravelling.

  ‘Sorcha had cut ties with the grove. You were an augur child, I couldn’t have you growing up ignorant of who you were. That’s why we came to Kilshamble. It was the best place to hide.’

  ‘You took me from my mother?’

  ‘I did it because I love you, Wren.’ His voice softened. ‘She wasn’t suited to motherhood. I wanted the best for you.’

  He stood tall, those familiar blue eyes fixed on me. His lean, wiry body had always been a source of warmth and comfort.

  ‘And now, please go upstairs while I sort out this mess.’

  He was watching and I realised what he wanted: me paralysed with pain, and out of the way so he could reach his real target.

  ‘No.’

  Inexplicably, or perhaps it was a long time coming, I found myself standing between Smith and Tarc. Between augur and judge. In the line of fire.

  As he trained the gun on Tarc behind me, I searched Smith’s hands for the smallest tremor, his face for cracks in the hardness that encased him. What had Maeve said to Sibéal? When we act, they won’t see it coming. She was right. Not even I’d seen this coming.

  I heard Tarc step to the side, away from the shield of my body. I moved with him, keeping between him and Smith’s gun. I could sense Maeve moving too, but I couldn’t take my eyes off Smith. I could see him calculating the possible speed and distance. How to shoot Tarc without hurting me.

  A car pulled up outside. I heard the doors slam, Aisling laughing.

  ‘Please, Smith,’ I said, glancing to the door. ‘Put the gun down.’

  Footsteps sounded outside the front door, and the girls continued their animated conversation.

  And he did. Just before they opened the door, Smith put the gun in his back pocket.

  I was shaking when Aisling and Sibéal came in, carrying shopping bags and a huge tinfoil balloon with ‘Smokin’ Sixteen’ on it. It was Sibéal’s birthday tomorrow. Their silence was abrupt, almost comic as Sibéal cut off mid-sentence.

  Maeve rushed towards Tarc, aiming the cast-iron kettle at his head. He whirled round catching her hands, obviously reluctant to hurt a lady in a floral dress and stockinged feet. She sank her teeth into his wrist. While he tried to extract himself without hurting her, Smith raised a hurley stick.

  ‘Tarc,’ I warned him.

  The hurley came down hard against his head. He turned to hold off Smith, but I shouted, ‘Don’t hurt him.’

  I’d seen him fight. I knew the damage he could do.

  Tarc held out his hands, palms forward.

  ‘He’s sick.’ It was little more than a whimper. ‘Please.’

  ‘I’m leaving,’ Tarc said, hands still out in surrender.

  ‘I’m afraid I have a problem with that,’ Smith said. ‘I can’t have you telling Cassa about any of this just yet.’

  ‘He won’t say anything,’ I said. ‘Just let him go.’

  ‘Wren,’ Tarc said, turning slightly towards me.

  ‘You have to go. Please.’

  ‘Come with me.’

  I hesitated. ‘I can’t.’

  But he shouldn’t have let me distract him. Smith was fast with the hurley, smashing it against Tarc’s head. He raised it again, but Tarc caught it, holding the stick until Smith was forced to
release it.

  ‘Go!’ I screamed. ‘Get out of here. I’ll find you.’ I hoped he understood that I’d meet him at the ruined cottage.

  Dropping the hurley, Tarc charged for the door.

  Smith pulled the gun from his back pocket and fired. Three shots. Tarc was out of the door and gone. Aisling flattened herself against the wall. Sibéal watched, the balloon bobbing in her hand.

  I turned from the door frame with its bullet wounds to Smith. He braced himself against a chair, catching his breath. I didn’t recognise the man I saw there. A man who would shoot someone from behind.

  Aisling leaned against the wall, pale. Her eyes caught mine, wide and afraid.

  ‘Is Cassa’s ritual finished?’ Sibéal said.

  They all turned to me, realising I was meant to be at the old slaughter grounds.

  ‘I didn’t do it,’ I said, glad for the rebellion.

  ‘What do you mean you didn’t do it?’ Smith said.

  ‘I couldn’t go through with it.’

  Maeve spoke gently. Her special voice that always talked me down. I could almost recognise her. She said, ‘Wren, honey, you need to go back there and do the ritual.’

  And then it was clear.

  ‘This was always about me becoming the Bláithín,’ I said.

  I’d never been looking for stones. The plan hadn’t changed; this was the destination Smith had mapped out months ago.

  ‘It was last May when I saw the Bláithín symbol in the clouds,’ Maeve said. ‘And watched it shift into the Daragishka Knot. I haven’t been able to read anything since.’

  She came closer, careful, like I was a skittish animal that could bite.

  ‘It was a strong vision. Of the future. A deviation from my usual pattern. I couldn’t ignore it.’

  She reached a hand towards me, lightly touching my arm.

  ‘That was when I realised what we needed to do.’

  Maeve’s eyes were beseeching. She wanted me to understand.

  And I did understand.

  Tarc was right. My family had used me to name Betrayal by lying to me and turning me over to the enemy. Then they named Sacrifice by giving me up to the plan, knowing my augur self would unravel as I moved from Harkness House to Carraig Cottage. But only I could name Surrender. And I wasn’t going to do it.

  ‘It should have been me.’ Aisling spoke through her tears.

  ‘Did you know, Ash?’ I was terrified of what she’d say.

  ‘No,’ she cried. ‘Simon and I could tell something was off. That they were hiding things. But we didn’t know it was this.’

  I began to understand how Simon and Aisling had tried to help. Through their crude attempt to kidnap Cassa and then Tarc, they’d been trying to come up with a counterplan.

  ‘The circle agreed it would be best to keep this from Simon, given your special friendship,’ Maeve said, sounding utterly reasonable.

  ‘Why, Maeve?’ I said. ‘What did you get in return for me?’

  ‘If you had any real sense of pattern, you’d feel it,’ Maeve said. ‘When the judges are strong, we weaken. When we are at our best, they diminish. This is what we asked from the Knot. This is how we become powerful.’

  I looked at Smith. ‘How could you agree to this?’ He just shook his head, shoulders slumped.

  ‘It’s not too late, Wren.’ Sibéal came up to me. ‘Go back. Do the ritual. This is our big chance.’

  ‘But at what cost?’

  She shifted, impatient, and said, ‘You can’t blame us for acting to save ourselves.’

  ‘Was it you, Shibs? Did you set the fire in Cassa’s walled garden?’ I said, suddenly bone tired.

  She held her chin square and nodded.

  I looked around the room at the people I loved: Smith who’d stolen me as a baby for some kind of twisted salvation; Maeve who’d betrayed me; Aisling, who’d tried to kidnap Cassa. Even me, who’d hit Tarc when he trusted me. Who are we? I thought to myself. How did we become this?

  ‘And you think you’re innocent?’ Maeve spoke out. ‘You lied to Cassa. You lied to Tarc. You spied on Harkness House. You used your position to leak information. You told us that Birchwood was the gardeners’ training academy. You broke into the archive. You stole the master list of the judges’ nemeta. You leaked it to the people who destroyed these sites and you think your hands are clean?’

  She came a little closer. ‘What do you think Tarc will say about that?’

  ‘I didn’t know,’ I said, my voice weak as I realised that the map I’d stolen revealed the nemeta locations. Nemeta that were now destroyed.

  ‘That’s no excuse.’ Maeve’s words were hard. ‘You chose to lie. You chose to steal. You are every bit as involved.’

  She was right, I had made those choices. I might not have understood the scale of what was happening, but I was guilty as charged.

  ‘We’ve come this far, Wren. There’s no point in stopping now,’ she said. ‘Just take that final step, and then it’s done. Everything will be different if you do that ritual.’

  ‘How is it that we’re worse than them?’ I said.

  With the list of nemeta, augurs could weaken judges through continued attacks. I guessed that augurs were stealthily re-forming binds under the cover of darkness. The judges had stopped the Abbyvale three, but it would be a lot harder to contain if all the undamaged nemeta were targeted for rebinding. Especially if Maeve had found out how to forge binds faster, as she’d asked from the egg divination. And if I did the ritual, they would have an augur installed in Harkness House. I would be heir to half of Cassa’s empire. And we would have formed the Daragishka Knot.

  Maeve’s eyes were shining as she moved closer to me. ‘If Cassa’s right about the ritual bringing on a magical revolution, then think what we could become. Both the Knot and the Bláithín would be ours. For the first time, we would be stronger than them.’

  She stood before me and I looked past her, staring at the open door where Tarc had run out.

  ‘We can use the very weapon she constructed to bring Cassa down.’

  Not a girl who was like her very own daughter, but a weapon.

  ‘You believe.’ My eye on the bullet holes. ‘You believe in Cassa’s ritual.’

  ‘Not at all,’ Smith said. ‘That’s not the plan.’

  ‘I think it is, for Maeve.’ Two holes split the wood on the white frame.

  Her chin proud, she acquiesced.

  ‘I would have done anything for the grove.’ I stepped away from them. ‘Had you been honest, maybe even the ritual. But you lied. You gambled on my loyalty.’

  They may as well have stuffed me in a wicker man and set it alight.

  ‘And now you’ve lost.’ I had nothing more to say to them.

  I turned out of the house, gripped by a rising terror, and ran.

  ‘Wren,’ Smith called after me, but I didn’t stop. I had to get to the ruined cottage. I had to find Tarc.

  Two holes, but there’d been three shots fired.

  And again that night, I found myself running through the forest. As I ran, I was lost in a loop of images that played through my mind. Pyjama bottoms with grey hearts. Greeting the gargoyles. Shouting for echoes in the quarry. Scrabble tiles forming impossible words. My hand entwined in Aisling’s as we sat on my bed. Sibéal and Smith bent over the war table. Sugar buns and snapdragon dresses.

  I was near Arabella’s cottage when I heard the slight rustle. And in my head, that song.

  Beneath the oak my love does lie.

  A sword through his heart, an arrow in his eye.

  Blood in his mouth, blood on my hands.

  ‘Shut up!’ I hissed.

  And there at the foot of a tree was the bright-red floral cloth. In the moonlight, I thought I could make out the blank face, the plant legs and arms. The not-brídeog. Something twisted inside me. Going towards the doll, I picked it up and stared, before hearing the soft grunt. I turned to the cottage, wary. Cautiously, I went inside. And found Tarc.
r />   His face was slick with sweat, his hair matted. He was lying there, unmoving, his breathing shallow. A pool of blood beneath his leg.

  ‘Tarc,’ I said as I bent over him, dropping the doll.

  His eyes were open but unfocused. The way he’d run out of Carraig Cottage, I was so sure he was OK. That Smith had missed. But I was wrong.

  ‘I’m here.’

  I pushed a fallen branch under his leg to raise it. Using my dress, I pressed the heel of my hand to his leg. My other hand, sticky with blood, reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. But before I called Laney, I paused, looking into the dark woods.

  ‘I surrender.’

  I spoke out loud, not knowing if it would work. I hadn’t started the Knot. I didn’t have a sea stone to mark in Ogham and place inside the loop. I didn’t know if my request would be heard above Maeve’s. All I had was the forest, the trees. The strength of my feeling. The idea that they’d looked on this boy with some favour at least once before.

  I took the acorn from my pocket, warming it with my fingers. ‘I surrender to the ritual. I will be the Bláithín, if you just save him.’

  I pulled him closer. He felt so cold, Tarc whose skin was always so warm. Wrapping my arms around him, I called Laney and told her where to find us.

  ‘My mother left when I was a baby,’ I told him. ‘I was named for the wren, the druid bird. I am an augur with a spinny eye. It’s a curse not a blessing. My first memory is of trees. I first saw your eyes, your tattoo, the day I turned sixteen.’ He lay there half on my lap, drifting in and out of consciousness, and I told him who I was.

  ‘Wren,’ Tarc spoke.

  He was still weak, but his eyes were focused now.

  ‘Easy there,’ I said, touching my hand to his bloodied face. ‘Looks like Smith’s bullet got you.’

  ‘What have you done, Wren?’ Tarc said, his grey eyes more liquid than ever.

  ‘Only what I had to.’

  He looked like he wanted to say more.

  ‘Shhh,’ I told him, drawing him closer to me. ‘Everything will be OK.’

  I remembered Cassa’s words in the scorched walled garden. You can choose to be the kind of person who burns, or one who rises from the ashes. I hadn’t believed, I still wasn’t sure I did. But that’s what I was going to do. As long as I could keep moving, I would rise. I would soar.