The House of Mountfathom

by Nigel McDowell

  ‘I did,’ says Lord Mountfathom. ‘But the First Principle of Magic is not only curiosity, remember? It is also caution.’

  Luke decides, ‘Those soldiers were never going to the Front. They are part of the rebels, aren’t they? The ones Uncle Walter was talking about. The ones who want independence for Ireland.’

  ‘Yes,’ says his father. And the tone in his voice is touched with some pride in his astute son – enough encouragement to allow Luke to face his father, to ask more questions.

  ‘Why did you help them? Are they not fighting the Government? Is the Driochta not supposed to help the Government? I don’t understand it.’

  ‘Then you have learned an important lesson.’

  Luke is surprised to see a smile rise on the face of his father.

  Lord Mountfathom says, ‘You have learned that things in this time we live in are not so easily understood. I expect this will be an important lesson, if I am correct in reading the signs of how things are going in this country.’ A moment, then he goes on. ‘For almost four hundred years, the Order of the Driochta have been loyal servants of the State. We have been mediators, negotiators – at heart, peacekeepers. Always we have used our Magic and Spell-Work for the good of this country.’

  ‘But not now,’ says Luke. He stops – worries he has misspoken. Goes on, ‘This morning, in Dublin – you were fighting.’

  ‘Yes,’ says his father. ‘We made a choice to side with the rebellion and fight with their cause. I do not know if this was the right thing to do. Perhaps there is no right and wrong in this? Perhaps there can be no easy answer?’

  Luke knows his father and his moods – knows he likes to pose these questions as though to the air. Knows he expects no answers.

  Lord Mountfathom says, ‘There are many ways ahead when one steps through the dark door.’ He settles his emerald key on the deal-topped desk.

  And Luke settles the crimson key. ‘Do the keys open that dark door to anywhere?’

  ‘The Gloaming – which is the name given to the place beyond the dark door – contains many places, and many other things besides.’

  ‘When I was in the Gloaming,’ says Luke, ‘I felt as though I might go anywhere.’

  ‘And that is a good and proper thing,’ says Lord Mountfathom. And suddenly he is impassioned. ‘To feel that sense of possibility is of such importance, Luke! Not everyone would feel as you did – to be surrounded by so much dark and boundless unknown, it would likely paralyse most people.’

  Luke pictures his cousin Roger: standing alone and terrified, unable to move either forward or back within the Gloaming. And as though bidden by his thoughts, a sudden cry breaks the early morning silence of Mountfathom –

  ‘William! William, where are you? What the hell has happened to my boy Roger?’

  ‘It seems I must go and face the music,’ says Lord Mountfathom. He picks up his emerald key and pockets it. ‘I am sorry you had to experience your first trip into the Gloaming in this way, son. I am sorry now that I did not prepare you.’ His father leans close to say delicately, ‘But remember this: no journey can be made without the risk of stepping into the dark. That has always been the way – more so now than ever, son. I believe this: for Mountfathom and all who live here, there is a long and difficult way ahead. But I am heartened by one thing – that no matter what may come to pass, I shall have my so especially curious and watchful son by my side.’

  Second Principle of Magic – Of Creativity & Consequence

  ‘… in the same way as a conductor can tease a sound from his musicians with a twitch of a hand, or a poet can make a sonnet appear on a blank page with a swirl of a pen – through movement we make what is in the mind into a reality.’

  ‘See the mist for what it is. Tell me.’

  ‘It is water.’

  ‘Come now – you can do better than that!’

  ‘Moisture?’

  ‘Indeed. And only moisture now – could be what else?’

  Luke says nothing, for the moment, then, ‘So moisture could be rain? Could be snow or ice or lots of things.’

  Says it too easily? Rhymes this off too casually.

  Lady Mountfathom tells him, ‘Well, then, if it so obvious, Luke, let me see you Rework it.’

  This is the early-morning sight: mother and son standing by the lagoon beneath the golden willow. Sun already with them but shrouded – the mists that settle and collect in the bowl where Mountfathom sits have not yet been burned away. So everything has a vagueness to it – things glimpsed as though through the thinnest leaf of paper.

  Luke shivers.

  It is summer, a year since the events of the GPO and the Rising in Dublin; mere seasons since the kind of dark headlines Luke couldn’t stop himself reading and rereading.

  LEADERS OF EASTER REBELLION EXECUTED

  MAJOR FORTFLAY VOWS:

  “NO MERCY TO BE EXTENDED TO THOSE DISRUPTING THE PEACE OF THIS ISLAND!”

  ‘Concentrate!’ his mother tells him.

  Luke allows his eyes to shut. Tries for stillness – feels the tickle of damp on his cheeks and brow. And slowly, allows his arms to drift upwards and fingers to peel free from palms. He mutters the Spell, and straightaway feels some obliging and obeying tell-tale shift – some strangeness in the atmosphere …

  He hears his mother say, ‘Good. Not bad at all.’

  Luke opens his eyes to see his Spell Worked.

  Mist that lay soft as down over the surface of the lagoon has taken a shape. A flock of herons now picks its way silently across the grey water.

  Luke smiles to himself – the detail is sharp, he thinks. Bodies and legs in proportion, behaviour utterly characteristic …

  ‘Very pretty,’ says his mother. ‘Indeed that is how I would describe it: pretty. Though you should now be pushing yourself to Work more than pleasing sights, son. Even without use of a Needle, you should be attempting to Work the elements into more substantial shapes – this will be essential for Summoning Messengers, for example.’

  This is a gentle admonishment though; the sight is altogether too convincing, much too intoxicating. And so mother and son stand together and watch these birds composed only of mist and Magic as they walk the lagoon. Watch with pleasure until sunlight spills into the grounds of Mountfathom and Luke lifts his arms as though in farewell. He bids the flock of herons fly, sends them off into clean, unclouded morning … watches them until they are no more than pale shapes against blue, shedding their Spell to drift and part, nothing more than memory against the sky.

  And what else next? Inevitably this –

  ‘When can I begin to use a Needle?’

  Spells Worked through the weaving of a hand? Powerful and potent enough, if performed right. They have kept him engrossed for twelve months – such Spells of Enclosing and Cessation, of Fleeing and Seclusion. He has advanced quickly (his parents privately wonder, Too quickly?). But he has been dedicated and patient and attentive. And curious.

  ‘Would I not be better to start practising with a Needle as soon as is possible?’

  ‘Such nonsense!’ says his mother. In the Downstairs Orchard, she is busy pruning an apple tree.

  Mr Hooker, holding her ladder tight, says, ‘Are you sure now you wouldn’t like me to do that, Lady Mountfathom?’

  ‘Do not patronise me,’ she tells the gardener. ‘You were the one who fell off the ladder last month, not I.’

  ‘True enough,’ says Mr Hooker, one finger touching the tender bruise on his brow.

  Lady Mountfathom points her secateurs at Luke as she says, ‘You are a knowledgeable and very dear and special child, but you have not yet lived nor learned nor seen enough to handle a Needle. No member of the Driochta has ever been given such a thing at the age of twelve! All Magic is in the mind, and you must first learn to Cast without one. The Magic you can tease from your mind with a Needle has yet a greater weight to it; you will not be ready for that for some time, Luke.’

  Luke doesn’t doubt his mother’s wisdom
. But even so …

  ‘Well, can you please teach me more about the elements?’ he asks her. ‘And so when I do get a Needle I’ll be able better to use it.’

  ‘Is this because your cousins are arriving tomorrow?’ Lady Mountfathom asks him.

  Luke is always amazed – and a little vexed – at how well his mother can read him.

  ‘Now did you ever hear such demands, Bartemius?’ his mother asks the gardener, all mock scandal and shock.

  ‘I never did, my Lady,’ says Mr Hooker, and he gives Luke a wink. ‘But the boy is keen to grow up and prove himself, and nothing wrong with that.’

  ‘Except that a child growing up too quick is the heartbreak of every mother in the land,’ says Lady Mountfathom.

  ‘As you said this morning by the lagoon,’ says Luke, ‘I need to Work more substantial Spells. I want to learn something a little more … dramatic!’

  Mr Hooker chuckles.

  ‘You boys,’ says Lady Mountfathom, ‘always craving drama. Well, how about this: when your cousins arrive tomorrow, we shall go to Loughreagh for a spot of boat racing, see how well you can Work the water there. Agreed?’

  Luke knows this is the best he shall get.

  So when his mother spits in her hand and extends it, Luke strains on tiptoe for the handshake so as to seal their deal.

  Since the previous spring, Luke has had his wish for more learning – soon as his cousins departed Mountfathom (his uncle somewhat placated after much discussion with Lord and Lady Mountfathom, his Aunt Nancy nothing but silent and furious) a lesson plan was agreed. Daily classes from members of the Driochta, a timetable crammed tight.

  Mondays: Mr Flann Dorrick lectures on history and politics – his government work at the Castle in Dublin giving him plenty of insight and information into both, though he doesn’t always convey it as clearly as Luke would like. On his first day, Dorrick describes history as, ‘Akin to a series of dominos toppling, one never falling in isolation without striking the next … and so on and so forth.’ To illustrate, he says, ‘The cries of the Banshees were so constant during the Great Hunger that the Gards were given permission by Westminster to hunt the creatures down and exterminate them, which led to the Extraordinary Breeds Bill of 1897 – masterminded by Major Fortflay and in conjunction with the church, it sanctioned the destruction of the Faerie Raths and the purging of the Gyants. The Driochta opposed this Breeds Bill, and so consequently the first Cooperation Bill of 1729 was rescinded, marking the end of civil dealings between the Driochta and the church.’

  ‘Consequences,’ continues Mr Dorrick. ‘Nothing in isolation – no single thread tugged without another coming with it. Yes – I rather like that analogy … you know, I surprise myself sometimes with my fine grasp of words!’

  Tuesdays: The Halters, husband and wife. Mr Halter is a botanist and Mrs Halter an anthropologist. They take lessons together and are prone to swapping from subject to subject. Luke keeps two leather notebooks – one blue and one green – and swaps fast between, making notes … Mr Halter teaches how to recognise Irish Moss in a bogland, and then warns always to avoid it; Mrs Halter lectures at length and with great gusto about the tribe mentality of the old Irish Gyants (how they defined themselves not only by race but by their own notions of county and border and townland); Mr Halter then on the healing qualities of many native Irish plants – Vandal Root and Faerie’s Thumbs; Mrs Halter on the word “Faerie” and its origins, and some sage advice for Luke – ‘It is said you should never enter a Faerie Rath without at least three clean shillings in your pocket to barter with. And I believe that is a good general rule for life!’

  Wednesdays: Favourite day! Luke leaves Mountfathom and walks the three and a half miles to the farm of Lawrence Devine and is put to work. ‘Good honest labour,’ Mr Devine calls it. And Luke learns things without knowing he is learning – how to milk a cow and muck out a pigsty, sharpen a knife and shoe a horse. He helps deliver a litter of terrier pups (begs to take one back to Mountfathom but Mr Devine rightly says that Morrigan wouldn’t tolerate another animal in the House). And he reaches home at nightfall mucky and exhausted and unfailingly happy.

  Thursdays: Lady Vane-Tempest lands, always late but bursting with information about people. ‘Word is that General Pakenham and his wife are planning to leave Limerick for London! Afraid of their tenants, I do believe. Did you ever hear such a thing? Cowards!’ ‘Did you hear about the estate at Lissadell? They have point-blank refused to rehire anyone who went to fight in the war! Such short-sighted madness!’

  And so on – a litany of these types of tales!

  Luke tries not to think to himself, Is this not just gossip?

  Yet after a number of lessons, some minor revelation – Luke realises he is hearing about people and their ways and to the (sometimes distinctly Irish) habits for snobbery and idle prejudice, for struggle and blood-grudge. He is learning about people of importance beyond Mountfathom, and is suddenly attentive as anything …

  Fridays: Mr Gorebooth, who refuses a label for his lessons.

  ‘Yes, some poetry,’ he tells Luke. ‘Yes, plenty of mythology. But more generally, we shall learn of the world and the world of words within it!’

  Luke feels some impatience with this vagueness – he is eleven, and so is craving things definite and decided; needs to know what can be learned and used and repeated. Sonnets give no certainty, plays neither. But he applies himself, because it is his nature. Though he is a little relieved one long afternoon (after so much reciting and philosophising on the tales of the warrior Cuchulain) when Mr Gorebooth sinks into a leather chair and tells Luke in an exhausted whisper, ‘Do not worry too much – you will see in time that these words I speak are merely a passing whisper! Sometimes it is enough simply to let words wash over you, and perhaps later you shall remember them, and feel enriched by the memory. Often times it is preferable simply to be peaceful – to listen, and to dream …’

  And suddenly, Mr Gorebooth is asleep and snoring in his chair.

  But this is the weekend now, and his cousins have returned to Mountfathom. Over a year and not a single visit, not till today … but as though no time has passed between –

  ‘What game shall we play?’

  ‘Catch!’

  ‘Chase the Traces!’

  ‘Luke, can you stay with me if we play Secret-and-Secluded?’

  ‘Let me decide – I have a game I have been thinking of!’

  But Roger has no say, not on this afternoon.

  Luke: ‘We are going to Loughreagh to boat race!’

  They set off: beyond both walled and kitchen gardens, beneath eucalyptus and bypassing the kiwi bushes, they come to the stone staircase. The Winding Stair, Luke’s mother calls it. Contrary and oddball thing – won’t descend straight, juts one way and then the other, angles like sharp elbows and bent knees … and when you think it’s about ready to drop you at the bottom it twists in another direction! Eventually it leaves you at the limestone wall that surrounds the sprawling demesne of Mountfathom. And here an archway: a tunnel thick with webs of spun Spell-Work, invisible and only able to be unpicked on this Saturday afternoon of summer by Lord or Lady Mountfathom, taking Luke and his parents and cousins and Uncle Walter and Aunt Nancy through to arrive on a shore of shattered stone.

  All eyes on Loughreagh – surface untroubled, water the colour of cool slate and cut by a causeway of dark stone that stretches from the shore to a small crannog and stone tor. And beyond, surrounding all – the collar of the blackberry-coloured Mountains of Mourne.

  The cousins whoop and cry out and cheer – breathless with excitement.

  And Luke adds this place – perhaps this very moment – to the list of times and places he has been happiest.

  ‘Last one to the isle is a very rotten egg!’ calls Uncle Walter (‘Biggest child of them all!’ says Aunt Nancy often), and things begin: Luke and his mother and father and the four cousins and their father race across shattered shore to commandeer three rowing bo
ats lying with their bright undersides to the sky – yellow and red and green. Luke and his mother and cousin Rose take the red boat, cousins Rory and Ruth and Uncle Walter hop into the yellow. Lord Mountfathom and Roger take the green. (No one can entice Aunt Nancy to join – she pleads a migraine, wants to simply sit in the shade and relax.)

  Uncle Walter bellows another threat: ‘Last one to touch the tor on the Isle of Solitude is a filthy woodkerne!’

  Into the water and only moments before Luke overhears his father say to Roger, ‘Perhaps a little extra help?’ And Lord Mountfathom takes his Needle from his belt and flicks it and a single loud note makes the surface of Loughreagh swell at the stern of their boat and push them on faster!

  Rose (whose curls are long gone) says very calmly to Luke, ‘They’re cheating, aren’t they?’

  But Luke is watching his mother – they share a long look, wordless. And finally Lady Mountfathom tells her son, ‘Oh, go on then! Show your cousin and I what you have learned.’

  So Luke kneels in the stern of their red rowing boat, holds his hands above his head, a foot apart, and starts to weave and Work the air … and at the same time feels the water beneath begin to respond; in prod and poke it begins to nudge the underside of their boat.

  And he wills it to will and coax them on –

  ‘No! Too much too soon!’ his mother calls to him, but too late –

  Sudden rush of water leaps from the lough and soaks Luke and his mother and cousin through. Rose laughs about it and says, impressed, ‘Did you do that, Luke? That was amazing!’

  ‘Wasn’t meant to work like that,’ says Luke, and raises his hands once more.

  ‘Enough for now,’ says Lady Mountfathom. ‘Let me try!’

  A whirl of her Needle, a long, shivering note, and a responding swell sends their boat speeding forward –

  Luke settles in the stern, feeling sullen.

  Far behind – Uncle Walter and Ruth and Rory shrink from sight, scarcely further than the shore and too far behind to be in the race any longer without the benefit of a Spell.