Finnegan's Field

by Angela Slatter

  Without shoes, wearing the pink cotton nightie with a rip at the right shoulder where the embroidered flowers had worn away, she took to the asphalt, feeling every rock, every stick, every fragment of glass from shattered windscreens and broken beer bottles that had ever littered their cul-de-sac. She stayed what she judged a safe distance, keeping sight of the flickering spectre of her daughter’s nightshirt as it meandered here and there, through one suburb and into the next, sometimes stopping in front of houses, peeping in windows, then continuing on, until the randomness seemed almost intentional and Anne pondered whether the child knew herself pursued.

  At last they came to a park, a small green space with wood fire barbecues and covered picnic pergolas. During the day, it was pretty enough, surrounded by trees, with a shallow pond in the middle where ducks managed to glide as if they were on an ocean rather than just a large puddle. At night, however, it was where drunks and drifters and dangerous men washed up, found somewhere to sleep; precisely the kind of folk Inspector Jasper Dawson had taken in for questioning more than once in the days after Madrigal’s vanishing.

  Anne’s throat tightened as she narrowed her eyes, trying to make out how many, if any, of the benches and tabletops were occupied by slumbering figures reeking of booze and body odour. It seemed the place was empty, a rare occurrence, and Anne relaxed. Her daughter was sleepwalking. There was nothing sinister in what the little girl did, just erratic dreams directing her hither and yon. Anne was being paranoid; it was time to steer Maddie home. Past experience had shown she wouldn’t wake but would follow quite happily if she was led by the hand. Anne, hiding behind the trunk of a big old ghost gum, prepared to break cover and collect her child. She hesitated.

  The clouds uncovered the moon, streaming pale silver light into the park. Madrigal approached a seat where a long, lean-looking figure lay. The little girl paused, head to one side as if considering, then carefully removed her nightshirt, folding the fabric precisely and putting it and the tiny pink undies neatly on another bench.

  She returned to the man, crouched, then leapt far higher than her mother would have given credence. Madrigal landed on the sleeper’s chest with enough force to crack ribs and send the resultant snap to where Anne waited, dizzy and alternately shivering and sweating, her knees suddenly without the strength to support her. The child’s legs slithered down to clamp her victim’s arms by his sides. An unrecognisable voice issued from the little girl, a sound that carried though she spoke low, a voice that was many voices, raw and rough and angry, as Maddie demanded, “Is it you? Is it you?!”

  All the man had to offer were curses until the child grabbed him by the jaw and held it with what must have been tremendous pressure. He simply whimpered after that. Anne could see his expression, twisted in terror. She wondered how her daughter could possibly be so transfigured.

  With no answer forthcoming, or at least none that satisfied the girl, it became obvious that the fellow had no use. Maddie tore a rag from his shirt and stuffed it into his mouth, and then the little hands with their neat pink nails changed, growing talons that tore into the flesh beneath the chin, and Anne saw blood run black. Claws were jammed into eye sockets, one after the other, plucking eyeballs, which her daughter ate with great relish. The man struggled but couldn’t move, clasped as he was between the child’s thighs. Next, she bent as if to kiss him, shook her head the way a dog shakes a rat and jerked up with a tearing noise. The man’s lips were gone, and the sound of Maddie’s chewing came to Anne far too clearly.

  Though her stomach rebelled, Anne refused to vomit. Lest the child hear. Lest the child see. She couldn’t move, couldn’t leave, had to remain. Had to witness.

  Madrigal ate everything, just as she’d been taught at home—clean your plate, baby—bones and all, flesh, organs, fluids, everything, both hard and soft, until there was nothing left. Nothing for the police to find, for the girl licked the bench clean and scuffed any dark marks in the dirt to disguise what had happened there. When her child waded into the narrow pool to wash, Anne fled, softly as she could on bruised and battered feet. Along the streets, across lawns, climbing fences so she could short-cut back to her own home.

  She left the front door open and raced upstairs, reaching the toilet and letting hot vomit pour loudly into the bowl. More followed, more acidic. She’d barely finished when she heard a scratching—of fingers, not claws!—and a small voice say, “Mum?”

  She wedged a heel against the base of the door, then threw up again. When at last she was empty, she gasped, “It’s alright, baby. I’m a bit crook. Go to bed, sweetie-heart. Go back to sleep.”

  “I love you, Mum.”

  “I love you, baby.” Anne closed her eyes, squeezed them tight, hoped to a God she didn’t believe in that her child, her monster, had been convinced.

  * * *

  She wasn’t sure how many would be needed.

  One for an adult?

  Half for a child?

  She considered searching the internet for the correct dosage but didn’t want to leave a trail. Christ knew she had a big enough supply; the bathroom cabinet was packed because Dr Marten’s automatic response to seeing her in the doorway of his office was to reach for the prescription pad. But she only wanted to make them sleep. No matter what she’d seen, the last thing on her mind was killing, though the vision of Maddie perched atop the drifter had to be forced aside, as did the looped soundtrack of chewing and tearing and muffled screams. After dinner, she crushed two pills into her husband’s hot chocolate, just to be sure, and half into her daughter’s.

  It wasn’t too much later that Brian began to drowse. Anne sent him off, saying she’d take Maddie, that he was too tired and unsteady to carry her, that he shouldn’t worry, she would take care of everything. He didn’t even grumble.

  She sat on the couch beside their daughter, stroking the dark head in her lap, feeling the grease against her fingers, listening as her husband stumbled up the stairs, wandered heavy-footed along the landing, and finally fell with a thud onto their bed, the familiar squeak of the springs her signal. Anne shuffled away from the slight weight, then slid an arm under the little girl’s neck, another beneath her legs, and lifted the bird-boned child. So light, so light.

  Some years before, Brian had partitioned off a part of the garage, just beside the laundry, so Jason could use it as a practice studio. Its walls were soundproofed so the noise of his drumming didn’t bother the neighbours—or his parents. That’s where Anne took Maddie. The space was disused and full of dust since Jason’s musical obsession had ebbed—in considerably less time than it took Brian to build the small room. With some difficulty, Anne tied the jelly-limbed girl to an old office chair, careful with the knots, not wanting to cut off circulation, but equally certain she didn’t want whatever her daughter had become to get loose. When she was satisfied that they’d hold fast, she took a step backwards, steeled herself, and then slapped Madrigal as hard as she could.

  The seat slid across the floor on clunky casters; the little girl’s eyes opened wide rather faster than Anne expected and she saw something else there, something that was not her child. Something dark and withered, with sharp teeth and bloodshot orbs in the sockets, something that struggled against its bindings and snapped at her when she pulled it to the centre of the room.

  Anne took up position on the stray kitchen stool Jason had used to store sheet music. She hooked her feet over the pedestal of the office chair and held it in place, scrupulously remaining out of reach of the neat, snapping little teeth her daughter was trying to deploy so viciously.

  “What are you?” Anne asked. Her voice shook, which wasn’t the effect she was hoping for. She cleared her throat, put steel at the back of her soul and repeated, “What are you?”

  If she’d expected it to try to appeal to her, to convince her she was wrong and this was her Madrigal, she was disappointed. Perhaps the diazepam had made it sluggish and stupid, diminished its ability to dissemble. Or perhaps it simply didn�
��t care anymore; perhaps it wanted only to kill her. The thought sent a shudder through her, icy as a drop of cold rain that finds its way through the gape of your jacket. Anne wondered if her real child would ever return.

  “Where is my daughter?”

  It struggled again, then appeared to give up; the angry glow of its gaze seemed to decrease as if it was thinking, now, how best to negotiate.

  “We are what we are,” it answered in the voice that was many voices.

  “You’re not mine.”

  “We are what we are,” it repeated.

  Anne pushed out a breath, then grabbed the pliers from the desk top. She took hold of one of the creature’s feet. The child had refused to have her toenails clipped since she’d come home. They were long and ragged and snagged on the sheets; it was easy to fasten the metal jaws onto the horny plate of the smallest toe. Anne peered at the thing and said, “What are you and where is Maddie?”

  It did not answer, merely bared its teeth, and Anne saw they had their own shadows, their own doubles. Maddie’s little pearls and the others superimposed over top, the sharp ones that she didn’t want catching her flesh. She braced herself and pulled with all her strength; the nail ripped away with a sickening tear.

  The thing shrieked and struggled, but the bonds held. It glared at her, weeping and hissing, and she waited until it calmed down, then moved the pliers to the next toe. But even as she prepared to dole out more torment, the injury she’d inflicted began to heal; the discarded bloody shard on the tiles no longer mattered, as the empty cuticle filled, a quick-quick-slow process, new horn covering the pink fleshy pad, then taking extra time to set, to settle, to become hard again, a little glassy.

  Anne looked at the monster that had her daughter’s face. It smiled, smug, and said, “Just the small hurts.”

  She tightened her grip and pulled again. The nail came off and the creature’s scream gave Anne a terrible sense of satisfaction. Though it recovered rapidly, she could hurt it over and over if need be. She might have worried at the coldness of her thought, but Anne had greater concerns.

  “Where is my daughter and what are you?”

  The creature hesitated, blinking away tears, and Anne hefted the tool. Her prisoner answered quickly. “Your daughter is here. Inside. What is left.”

  The way its face twisted told Anne there was more to know. She hitched the needle-nose pliers to the next nail even as the old one grew back in.

  “She is inside me as I am inside her. By now, I should have won, she should have gone, but this one … this one is strong.” It spoke a little desperately, and Anne sensed a fear that had nothing—or very little—to do with her; it sprang entirely from Madrigal’s continued presence, from her refusal to give up the frail body.

  “You call us fairies. We call ourselves aossí.”

  Anne coughed out a disbelieving laugh. “Fairy folk? You’re fairy folk?”

  Before she’d died, Anne’s great-grandmother didn’t speak unless it was to tell a tale. Stories were the only speech left to her, their rhythms her last remaining song, the only concepts left in her head. She used to speak of the fairy folk of Ireland, the hidden folk, those who lived under the hill, those who sometimes took children away to feed them Fae food so they’d stay beneath the earth in the darkling kingdom, dress them in gold and silver and treat them like small royalty. Anne remembered the recitations only dimly; they were no more than echoes and ripples of an old life, an old land. They hadn’t belonged in the country where she and her children were born.

  The creature leaned forward as far as it could against its bonds. “We take them, the little ones; we need their bodies. In our own place, beneath the hill, we exist in our common form, but out here, we cannot; we require a solid condition to travel above the earth.”

  “Why? Why come up here?”

  The look it gave her was one of contempt. “Why? Why not? Curiosity. Hunger.” It grinned again. “Mischief.”

  “Can I get her back?”

  The thing shook its head, and Anne thought she detected something like regret.

  “Once we have them, we crush them, press them into a corner of themselves until they are no more than an echo.” It licked its lips as if weighing up what more to tell. “But this child, this Madrigal of yours, would not go. She has remained all this time, yearning to return home, to take what is hers by right.”

  “What is that?”

  “Vengeance.”

  “You’re lying,” said Anne through gritted teeth and tore out another toenail.

  The creature thrashed, weeping and howling. “I cannot lie, not trapped like this. You know the rules; your blood must tell you!”

  “What blood? What fucking blood?” Despite the soundproofing, Anne frightened herself with the volume of her voice. She waited to see if there was the tread of a waking man coming from above. But no.

  Sobbing, the not-daughter said, “Your kind takes your heritage with you, surely as a scent. Other cultures, after a time, blend in with their new environments, but the Irish never really do. They’re always identifiable, no matter how many generations between them and the misty green, no matter how thin the blood becomes; they don’t forget what runs in their veins, that Brigid and Morrígu are their true mothers. You carry it just as you carry your grief; even when you celebrate, you know that sadness will follow as surely as your shadow trails behind you.” It panted, slumped against the chair. “And just as you bring that with you, so you bring your ghosts, too, and your demons. They trail upon your heels no matter where you roam in the world.” Then, defiantly, it added, “You’re such rich meat; why would we ever give you up?”

  Anne dropped the pliers and fled. She closed the door behind her and leaned against it, tears coming so fast that the washer and dryer were snowy blurs in seconds, and her breath so hot and hard, she thought she might choke. She wondered if what was left of her child was keening in the soundproof room. Trying to scrub the flecks of blood from her hands, Anne crumpled to the floor and wept.

  * * *

  When she came to her senses, Anne wasn’t sure how much time had passed, but she was aware of the night hours slipping away. She washed her face in the laundry sink and ran damp hands through her hair as if that might help matters, then cracked the door. The creature with her daughter’s face raised its head and watched as she slid inside and resumed her seat.

  “I’m sorry,” it said and Anne heard Maddie’s voice alone. “I’m sorry, Mummy.”

  It almost broke her, but she refused the tears. She licked her lips and stared at the creature’s toes, which were whole again, then at the features which had once been so beloved. “You say Maddie came back for revenge. Against whom?”

  “The one who took her.” It shrugged. “There is always one who does what is needed in the upperworld. Those of my sort who are tasked with such things seek them out, make accords. They serve us in return for whatsoever their hearts desire. For some, it is wealth, others advancement, for others, illusions and dark satisfactions.”

  “Who was it? Who took her?” Anne asked urgently, feeling suddenly so close to the truth that she ached. But her daughter-not-daughter shook its head.

  “She doesn’t know, your girl, nor do I—I am not a seeker. We give those who serve us the means to induce a deep sleep, some tiny measure of our own power to facilitate, keep them hidden. Even if she’d seen, her memories are mostly gone now; they have decayed just as a body does when it is not fed. There is only the core of her, and that is anger … and a recollection of you.”

  Anne trembled.

  The thing went on. “But I can assist. She recalls the scent, so I recall the scent. I can track the one who collected her.”

  “That’s what you were doing the other night?”

  It nodded. “I could smell something familiar about the man in the park. But it was too faint; he’d had contact with but was not the one who took your child. Not our Mr Underhill.”

  “Mr Underhill?”

  �
��That’s what they’re called, those we do not take beneath but leave out here to do our bidding. There are many.”

  “Why don’t you take them?” Anne frowned.

  “They are flawed; they must be so to agree to do what we ask of them, to take a reward for the lives of others.” It gave a crooked smile. “Those that are pure of heart, innocent, are much easier to control, to dominate. Ones like your daughter.” It made a rueful sound that might have been laughter. “Or she should have been so.”

  “Why are you telling me this? Why help?”

  “Because I want to go home! I am trapped as surely as she,” it fair howled. “You think you’re the only beings who value that? I want my own form back; I want out of this meat cage, this child who will not let me go, will not die! I tire of sharing.”

  Anne wondered if it understood the irony; from the way its eyes shifted, she thought perhaps it had an inkling.

  “If I let you go, we’ll work together. And when you’re done?”

  It hesitated. “Then I shall return under the hill. This child will be gone.” Anne was silent so long that the thing sounded anxious when it said, “Do we have an agreement?”

  Slowly, Anne nodded. “I know some of the ones they questioned. I’ll find out who else there was. We can go visiting and you can do your bloodhound act. But no attacks, not in daylight, not in public. When we find whoever it is, you need to be patient. Agreed?”

  Her unchild nodded solemnly. “And when it is done, I shall be free, your child will be satisfied, and you will know that justice has been done.”

  Anne wasn’t sure about that, but for the moment, she would take what she could get. She untied the bonds.

  * * *

  “Thanks for coming, Jasper. I didn’t really want to go to the station.” She’d chosen a table towards the back of the cafe, but not so far in that they looked clandestine. Just enough so other customers kept their distance.

  “Never a problem for you, Annie. And never a hardship to get coffee and cake.” He smiled, toasting her with the cup, and she thought how he’d changed since they’d dated in high school. Three marriages behind Jasper Dawson, but no children. Bodybuilding and vanity kept him in shape, unlike most of the cops at the Finnegan’s Field station, whose junk food diet left its loud mark on them. His hair, once so thick and black, was long gone, receding in his twenties, shaved off in his thirties as if it by choice, then completely lost in his forties as he’d climbed the career ladder, making it to District Officer of a fifty-thousand-square-kilometre area and all the rural towns it contained. She liked the way the pale blue uniform shirt stretched across his chest and shoulders, and the navy trousers were tight in the right places.