The House of Mountfathom

by Nigel McDowell

  Some shiver underground? Some tremble in the walls?

  Luke watches the Land Grabbers – they haven’t noticed. Watches Aunt Nancy and Uncle Walter (now with his eyes open but unmoving) – they don’t seem to have noticed either. Only Rose shows some sign, small wrinkle on her brow to signal some small wondering. She watches Luke. He nods as they both feel again a small rumble beneath them.

  ‘You think I don’t know what’s going on.’ Broad man in the neat suit kneels close to Luke and says so neatly, ‘I’m not stupid – I know a Spell when I feel it. I know the Driochta are out there on Government orders. They’re trying to Reclaim this House, trying to secure the boundaries. And what’ll happen then, do they think? The floorboards will open and the earth will just swallow me and my men up? The House will spit us out? This place is too conflicted – like the rest of the country, doesn’t know what it is any more. You were upstairs scribbling away, trying to establish the Spell from the inside, but I’m telling you now – those Spells will not take.’

  Luke can only ask, ‘How do you know about Spells?’

  Man only smiles.

  One of the men by the window shouts suddenly, ‘I see lights down about the gates! Should we go and – ?’

  Undeniable to any this time – deep shiver of the ground and the men stagger, windows vibrating in their frames and ornaments falling to shatter. The man in the suit stands, eyes still on Luke. ‘They will destroy the House if they keep this up,’ he says. ‘They’ll bring it down with us all inside. How will that look for the Driochta?’

  The Land Grabbers hear and shout –

  ‘We should’ve just been burning the place to the ground!’

  ‘Let’s shoot them and be done with it!’

  ‘Calm down, fellas,’ says the man in the suit. ‘We’ll do no shooting of anyone. We don’t need to. That’s not our way. Our claim on this House is sound. This building won’t turn on us no matter how hard they try to Reclaim it. We’ve nothing to fear. And sure anyway, we’ve our own Magic, remember?’

  KILLIAN

  Someone shouts to him, ‘Don’t just stand there, lad! Make yourself useful!’

  Killian joins the crowd of men facing the Peelers and reaches down and lifts the first thing he finds, enjoys the heft of the stone in his hand and takes careful aim and hurls it hard … watches it fly far far into the crowd of oncoming police … and hears it hit home. Score! Just like in the films!

  And as though his was a signal – more stones and bits of brick and broken bottles follow his effort but they fly wide. (No one has aim as true as his.) A young protestor comes close and slaps him on the shoulders and says, ‘By God, you’re a good shot! We need more like you!’

  Around them the bellow of the protestors, words barely distinguishable –

  ‘– no longer divided!’

  ‘– be giving us back our country!’

  ‘– and we won’t bow to the Crown!’

  On one side – more armed police than would be needed if they could organise themselves right. And on Killian’s side – hardly a hundred but plenty of anger and grit. These Peelers are unprepared, thinks Killian. And you can do a lot when you catch someone with their kecks down.

  So he says to his new mate, ‘Tell everyone to get their hands on something sharp or heavy and get ready to charge!’

  The man looks a bit taken aback, bit impressed. He nods once and says, ‘Right you are, lad. Good idea! I’ll pass the word around!’

  And the mounting shouts from the crowd go –

  ‘– bullied any longer!’

  ‘– second-class bloody citizens!’

  ‘– any orders from over the water!’

  But a sudden roar that covers all else; Peelers charge with firelight gleaming on badge and boot and belt-buckle and baton –

  Sudden blood –

  Sound of baton on skull and limb: breaking bone and more and more blood.

  It is all too much for Killian, who didn’t plan on getting involved in any riot tonight, so says to himself, ‘To hell with this!’

  He turns and runs and hears the man that was his best friend for two minutes shouting to him, ‘Where you going, lad? Come back! Coward! Coward!’

  LUKE

  Whole House shakes like it’s being tugged in two and into the room waddles a creature the size of a child, but bald and well wrinkled in the face. Dressed all in dark that drags across the floor, a pair of eyes iridescent. Luke knows: a Cailleach. In one hand the crone holds a jar containing a slosh of bright blue: Indigo Fire.

  The leader of the Land Grabbers tugs his lapels straight and says, ‘We’ll use the same stuff that they used on our comrades during the Rising – see how they like that!’

  ‘Oh, indeed, indeed!’ croaks the child-woman. Her gaze settles on Luke. The Cailleach’s fingers go twitch and squirm and Luke knows she is skimming the topmost thoughts from his head. ‘This boy has not come here by chance or happy happenstance. Oh, there is more to this! Indeed!’ Luke tries to keep his thoughts close or think other things that will not incriminate but he can’t keep himself hidden, has no talent for dishonesty so – ‘I see now!’ says the Cailleach. She smiles and shows small brown teeth. ‘This little one has come to save his relatives.’

  Land Grabber in the suit says, ‘Is that so?’

  Land Grabber with the pistol kicks Uncle Walter and says, ‘You know this one, do you?’

  Uncle Walter finally speaks, spits out, ‘He is no family of mine!’

  Luke doesn’t know how to feel – not hurt, not betrayed. In the end feels more sorry for Uncle Walter than anything else.

  Goreland Hall shakes again as though in the hands of a Copse Gyant, and the Land Grabber says calmly, ‘I believe it is time we departed. Let us leave the old place to the flames.’

  ‘Wait!’ cries the Cailleach. She shuffles towards Luke, peers into his eyes and his past and his whole self and says, ‘This is the son of Lord and Lady Mountfathom!’

  The Grabber in his neat suit smiles. ‘Well, now,’ he says, ‘that changes things a bit. Mountfathom – the seat of all privilege and Magic! So perhaps we shall be taking one hostage with us? Someone tie him up.’

  ‘My pleasure,’ says the man with the pistol.

  Then so much at once –

  ‘No!’ Rose cries out and launches herself at the Land Grabber –

  A sudden storm of gunfire at the windows –

  Rose thrown aside –

  And Morrigan chooses this moment to reappear;: leaps on the Cailleach to attack with a flurry of claws –

  Luke takes his moment too –

  Mutters the first Spell of Fleeing he can recall and presses his fingers to one of the caryatids. Marble statue springs free of the fireplace and swings a marble fist at the Grabber holding the pistol and knocks him cold. Luke adds the same Spell to the second statue and –

  ‘Gimme that, you old crone!’ cries the man in the suit and he snatches the jar of Indigo Fire from the Cailleach and hurls it across the room to shatter against the opposite wall –

  Silence: all air sucked from the room to one spot –

  ‘Fool!’ cries the Cailleach and slaps the Land Grabber in the suit.

  Explosion! A wave of Indigo flame rushes across floor and walls –

  Quick Working of the hands and Luke bids one caryatid to lift Uncle Walter from the ground and the second to hoist Aunt Nancy and Rose into its arms –

  Cailleach: ‘Stop the Lord of Mountfathom! Don’t let him escape!’

  Luke scoops up Morrigan and climbs onto the back of the statue carrying Aunt Nancy and Rose –

  Man in his suit pulls a pistol from a pocket and aims –

  Now a shower of smashed glass –

  From the window arrives something sharp-toothed and sharp-clawed; sleek blue-black body and gleam of green eyes, it swipes the gun from the Land Grabber’s hand and sends the Cailleach shuffling off squealing.

  The panther turns eyes on Luke. He says, ‘Sorry, Mother.
I didn’t have time to complete the Spell from the inside. I tried my best.’

  Flame sweeps and submerges the floor and the panther has to turn and leap back through the same window it entered as the ground beneath gives a groan and starts to sag –

  Rose smacks Luke on the arm and shouts, ‘Get us the hell out of here!’

  Luke whips his hand through the air and bids both statues sprint across falling floor to leap high – to crash through the wall of the drawing room and out into the night.

  KILLIAN

  ‘There he is! Stop him!’

  Killian thinks: Whole city wants me! By God, I’m in big demand!

  ‘Come back here you, Lagan Rat!’

  Still that same fat Peeler in pursuit!

  Killian finds an alleyway, bare feet splashing through muck and whatever else you wouldn’t like to look at in daylight – trip-stumbles over something and someone unseen grumbles, ‘Watch where you’re running there!’

  Hears a Peeler shout, ‘Go around – cut him off at the far end!’

  He thinks, Maybe a bit sharper than usual, this lot. But not sharp enough!

  Killian sees a stack of empty crates and climbs high and pulls himself higher – up onto a low rooftop and he stands and tries to see. A layer of soot makes it near impossible for sight – the riots are raging, violence spreading wild and insatiable and he has never seen Belfast City like this before.

  ‘Up there he is! Get him!’

  On tiptoe Killian walks the spine of the roof, teetering but still scampering fast. He reaches a gap and a leap to another roof that sheds tiles under his feet but is up and hurrying on … but he is running out of things to run on and encounters too wide a gap to leap. And still below those Peelers are not for giving in.

  ‘You two – stay with me! And you other three – keep watch at the far end of the alley! Has to come down sometime!’

  Heart and head hammering, Killian swallows and slaps his hands together and tells himself, ‘Right! You can do this without a doubt! Here you go!’

  Backs up … runs and leaps … falls through the air with hands and feet scrabbling but he lands well enough on only a tin roof with a tin chimney sending up a fish-smelling stench. He scrambles up and crosses the roof in three strides and is down once more to re-join the ground and a more solemn street. No protesters here, but plenty of shadows slumped in doorways. He feels for a moment more at home.

  But the same cry Killian is getting sick of. ‘Stop that child!’

  Runs on and down High Street – avoids a cart of grey vegetables and skips around a woman with an armful of limp stalks and swerves an old fella with a sandwich board shouting about some film showing at the Ulster Hall. But as though they’ve been spawned – more Peelers!

  He thinks, So what now for our brave hero Killian? Is this the end? Surely this cannot be his final hour?

  LUKE

  Loses his grip on the statue and tumbles onto scorched lawn and Morrigan lands lightly beside, managing to look heroically bored. As Luke abandons the statue so does the Spell – the caryatids topple and Uncle Walter and Aunt Nancy and Rose tumble likewise to the ground.

  ‘What do we do now, Luke?’ asks Rose.

  Luke tells her, ‘I think we best get out of here.’

  Blue-white firelight is throwing itself wild across the open grounds of Goreland Hall. Land Grabbers are climbing from the windows with fire on them but some who’ve got free without harm are gunfiring, desperate, into the darkness.

  Beside Luke again is the panther – a shiver and in less than a second the animal Mogrifies and becomes his mother, Needle tight in her hand.

  ‘The Reclamation?’ she asks. ‘Are you sure it wasn’t completed?’

  Luke shakes his head.

  ‘No matter,’ says his mother. ‘I told your father this wouldn’t work.’ She looks to Aunt Nancy and Rose standing together, then turns to her brother Walter still sprawled on the ground and tells him, ‘You either get up and walk or I leave you – your choice, brother dearest!’

  ‘Edith,’ says Aunt Nancy. ‘I think my husband needs –’

  ‘I know what he needs,’ says Lady Mountfathom. ‘But that can keep for later, don’t you think?’

  Nancy nods.

  ‘Can you walk, Uncle Walter?’ asks Luke.

  ‘He’ll walk,’ says Rose, and she gives her father a dig with her toe.

  ‘Rose,’ says Luke’s mother, ‘I believe I rather approve of the young woman you’ve grown into.’

  ‘There they are!’ Cry of the Cailleach directing the Land Grabbers. ‘Mother and son Mountfathom! Get them!’

  Gunfire that Luke protects them from with a swift Spell of Dismissal.

  ‘Hurry now,’ says Lady Mountfathom. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  KILLIAN

  Now he likes to think Lady Fortune tips him a wink – sickly yellow light sweeps through soot and smoke, accompanied by a squeal of wheels … Killian sees a tram take the corner onto High Street, so many bodies packed onto its open upper deck it looks like it’s under siege.

  ‘It’s all in the timing,’ Killian tells himself.

  He waits for just the exact right moment – an instinct he prides himself on – and when the conductor turns away he leaps and is on, slipping in amongst passengers as easy and snug as a card back into its pack.

  He likes the confusion he hears from far behind.

  ‘Have you seen a boy pass through here? Have you seen a child? A Lagan Rat running around – he’s wanted for thieving!’

  He thinks, Fools! Can’t catch Killian so easy!

  Only off-putting thing in the tram is the smell. Something like sweat-grease-smoke all mixed up and stewed, and maybe something else too. He has time to wonder where his father is – maybe made it free and is sitting smoking his way through his cigarettes? Better save me some. Better keep me a pack after all that hassle!

  Tram approaches the pale face of the Albert Clock.

  ‘Hold it there!’

  Tram slows and stops and all inside lurch.

  Shout from outside. ‘All off! Now!’

  Those bloody Peelers!

  Killian half-ducks down; officers are scanning the contents of the tram and shouting, ‘Off! All disembark now!’

  But there’s plenty of complaint back from passengers –

  ‘Give it rest, would you?’

  ‘I’d think you’ve better things to be doing!’

  ‘Some of us have homes to get back to!’

  ‘Aye! And some of us have done a decent day’s work too!’

  But in all the shove and squirm and shout Killian shrinks – makes himself smaller and smaller with eyes only for the exit …

  ‘We have reason to believe that some of those involved in the trouble tonight are aboard this tram! I ask that they surrender themselves now without fuss! If they do not, then we will bring upon their heads the very sternest of Her Majesty’s Justice!’

  This brings such outrage from the men on board! And in the fresh racket Killian forces himself free and jumps out … and into the arms of an awaiting Peeler who lifts him clear off the ground and announces, ‘I’ve got him! I’ve got the Rat here, captured!’

  LUKE

  They run.

  He and his mother and aunt and uncle and cousin.

  And more members of the Driochta join them – cheetah sprinting beside transforms into the dapper Flann Dorrick; chimpanzee drops from the boughs of a towering oak and assumes the stout shape of Lawrence Devine; owl alights and Mogrifies into a small and bespectacled (and breathless) Jack Gorebooth; bright swoop of blue-green that in mid-air becomes Lady Vane-Tempest who lands light and elegant. All have their Needles in hand and with their other hand are Dismissing bullets as though they’re newspaper pellets.

  Flann Dorrick says, ‘I thought we could reason with the Grabbers! They have a code of conduct!’

  ‘They also have a Cailleach,’ says Lady Mountfathom.

  ‘She commanding them?’ shouts Lawre
nce Devine.

  ‘Please tell us the answer is no!’ says Jack Gorebooth.

  ‘Has at least added her poison to their thoughts,’ says Luke’s mother. ‘I think I see my husband – almost there now!’

  Luke is more concerned with below than what is ahead – earth softening underfoot, ready to swallow, not far off becoming a swamp. He knows the land is resisting the Reclamation Spell, is too conflicted to know what it is any more and is sinking under the pressure of Magic.

  ‘Don’t slow or stop!’ Lady Mountfathom shouts. ‘Keep going!’

  Lord Mountfathom is in sight – kneeling with his Needle planted in sodden ground and hands submerged to the wrist in damp earth.

  All stop. And none of the Driochta wants to speak the question.

  Luke’s mother allows some moments and then says, ‘How much longer, my dear?’

  ‘Not long enough,’ says Luke’s father. ‘I sense the Spell inside was not completed?’

  ‘No,’ says Luke. ‘I’m sorry, Father.’

  A sigh from Lord Mountfathom.

  And everyone knows it now: Goreland Hall cannot be Reclaimed, nor rescued nor saved. The Driochta turn to watch blue-white flame encase it.

  ‘What next?’ asks Luke.

  ‘We leave,’ says his father. ‘Quick – to the river.’

  KILLIAN

  But the boy has spirit and fight. And fast fists – he punches the Peeler in the eye and kicks him in the privates and is dropped.

  ‘Don’t let him go!’

  Killian thinks, I’m away again, lads!

  No shadows to dive into though – the river Lagan is hogged by barges, gantries overhead throwing pitiless light on so many bodies busy loading-unloading and opening-stowing. Killian races across gangplank and gangway, shoving workers aside as he springs between one barge and the next. Bad idea; now he has more men who want him. And he reaches a dead-end and has to double-back so –

  Faces the very same fat Peeler from the beginning of all this who tells him, ‘You’ve nowhere to be running to now.’

  He’s not wrong.

  ‘Be sensible now, lad,’ says another Peeler behind, closing in.