I shook away the memories. “Won’t you tell me how you got here, Darcy? Won’t you tell me what all has happened?”
And then Darcy, my Darcy told me a tale.
Chapter 27
“I CRIED FOR THE SWAN, and he came. I was sinking like a—like a rocket ship. You know, like if the sky and the earth were flipped so the rocket blasted down instead of up. Anyway, point is, I was drowning. There was another too. Another girl, I mean. I told the swan to fetch her too, but he must’a been hard of hearing or the thunder must’a been too loud, ’cause after he pulled me from the sea, he flew right over the girl.
“Well, I held tight to the swan’s feathers and rode him like horse. He was larger than most swans, though when I looked at him in the sea, he had appeared normal sized. I told him thank you very much for saving me, my house is number four, Muggins Drive. Then I fell asleep, real deep. And when I woke, I was not in Ireland anymore.
“I was bruised, covered in pine needles and a few massive thorns, and my arms and legs were cut, and I hadn’t the foggiest why. A woman was carrying me. She stroked my hair and called me her Finnuala. And then I fell asleep again.
“When I woke, the woman gave me chicken noodle soup and two scoops of chocolate ice cream, which are my two most favorite things if you didn’t already know. I was lying on a fancy gold bed in a room with many windows and lots of feathers, an’ there were one older kid beside me bed. The woman kept callin’ me Finnuala an’ told me to speak. Unfortun’ly my throat wasn’t workin’ properly. Well, the next day my throat was working properly, an’ I told the lady, ‘Thanks a million for the soup an’ ice cream, but my name en’t Finnuala. I’ve a friend named that, but not me, no sir-ee.’ I guess she didn’t like that much, because I didn’t get any more soup or chocolate ice cream after that, an’ she didn’t talk too sweet to me neither anymore. So, that’s how I ended up here. A maid cleaned up the pretty room like it’d been infested with dung beetles, an’ Aoife stuffed me up here with the rubbish and the bats. That’s all there really is to tell.”
Darcy’s eyes were wide and bright as the summer solstice sky. In Ireland, the sun stays alight until past eleven o’clock at night on the solstice. But when she turned to me, the rain clouds cornering her irises rolled in and she hung her head. “You don’t believe me.”
That was true. I’d seen a train appear as if from nowhere, a thorn tree open and close on its own accord, and a swan seemingly save a child from the sea, yet I could not bring myself to believe Darcy. I wanted to. I wanted, dearly, to believe, and no doubt I would have before things changed. Before everything changed. Before I stopped believing in stories.
Perhaps it had been a military submarine that had found Darcy, mistaking her for an American tourist, and sending her to Starlight Valley—no, I thought. That seemed even less possible than Darcy’s story. Of all the millions of places in the world Darcy could have ended up, how had she managed to arrive in the exact same country, the exact same state, the exact same town, and the exact same house as me? Why wouldn’t they have simply brought her to shore, back to Nanny Hurley? It all seemed too improbable to believe. Too serendipitous. Quite. Something was off about the whole thing, yet still … magic. Magic, that sly, slippery, slink of a word; it made my arm hair stand on end. Real magic. Ha! Not a chance.
“No,” I replied at last. I could not bring myself to believe, but I would not lie to Darcy, not anymore. I slid her up onto my lap and added, “But I believe in you.” And Darcy, I thought to myself, I believe you will discover a way for me to see the truth. “You know, the other girl didn’t die.”
“What other girl?”
“The girl in the water. The girl in the sea … she was me. That’s who the swan was looking for—me. For some reason, he got us mixed up. He wasn’t expecting two people to be going to Inis Eala that night. That’s why he brought you here.”
The story of the Children of Lir thumped in my chest. Could it be true? Could it be real? Could it be possible? But if Darcy really had flown a swan bareback to America, and if the swans really were the Children of Lir, and if Aoife really was the stepmother witch, and if I … if I really were the youngest Child … then why had the swans taken Darcy—who they believed to be me—straight to Aoife? Why would they hand their youngest sibling, who they sacrificed themselves for, over to the one person from whom they wished to protect her? And then I remembered … Aoife was a healer—a faery healer, the most powerful of all sorts. Darcy was good as dead when the swans found her in the sea. They took her back to have her healed by Aoife.
When I snapped to, Darcy was chattering on about how now I was her story keeper for her story, which practically made her a storyteller herself, and how once she was back in Donegal, she was going to tell Mr. McCann and her dance teacher, Miss Eileen, and Nanny Hurley her new tale, and perhaps even another story that had yet to happen. “Mrs. Flanagan’ll probably say she never heard a story so ridiculous, and Mr. McCann’ll probably say somethin’ like, ‘Oh, jolly good, Darcy Brannon, that’s a mighty fine tale you tell.’”
I giggled. “He en’t British, Dar—”
Footsteps. Slow, soprano-pitched footsteps echoed from the other side of the yew door. Darcy’s eyes glazed over. “You can’t be seen, Finn,” she whispered. “Not with me.”
My muscles locked, and my bones stuck together like left-out-in-the-sun lemon drops. Darcy’s shoulders hunched, soot-stained cheeks whitened. She’s coming, she’s coming, she’s coming, rattled my brain.
“Please,” croaked Darcy.
Hide, hide, hide.
Chapter 28
MY EYES FLICKED SIDE TO SIDE, up, down, and across the thorn-draped attic. There had to be a nook, a cranny, a niche, a crevice. I first, of course, considered under the bed, but the mattress was far too close to the floor for me to slide under. Then I considered behind the door, but no, Aoife was not daft; that would be the first place she checked if she were looking for me.
“It’ll be all right,” I assured Darcy, but in my mind, I squealed: We’re toast!
My breath snagged in my throat. Toast! My eyes darted toward the fireplace and up the blackened chimney. I pocketed the two pieces of the broken locket and scurried over to it as Darcy said, “Wha—”
“Shh.”
Yes, it would do splendidly. I crouched to my knees, charcoal smearing my palms as I crawled into the hearth. The smell of smoke enveloped me, and it was all I could to do to keep from gagging. Once inside, I stood and tapped blindly around the chimney in search of loose bricks to climb. There were none, but—ouch. A thorn pricked my finger, and I grasped a rough, twisty piece of wood. As my eyes adjusted to the dark, I could make out a winding branch cascading down the chimney. It was scorched black and speckled with massive thorns, but—I yanked on it—sturdy. The footsteps outside grew louder, heavier.
I braced myself for the pain, then clutched the branch with all my strength and pulled myself up a half foot, swinging my legs to the wall of the hearth to anchor myself. My palms quivered with pain at each new position, thorns scraping my skin and tangling my hair. I wriggled up another half foot and continued as so, hand after hand, like I would monkey bars at a child’s playground.
And like Father Christmas, I climbed up the chimney.
THE YEW DOOR SLAMMED OPEN. The chimney rattled, sending a cloud of soot down into my eyes. My arms quivered with the strength of holding on to the branch, but I clung tight. I held my breath. Aoife stepped inside. Click, click-a-clack, went her swan-bill shoes.
“Where is she?” Aoife’s church-bell voice echoed ’round the attic. “Where is my daughter? Did you take her?” The footsteps sounded again, quick this time, and the swish of her feather coat ruffled the air.
I inched up another half foot, and my head clanked against the damper. I squeezed shut my eyes, but Aoife took no notice.
Aoife’s voice came in a deep bellow this time. “Are you toying with her sweet, helpless little heart, like you did mine, you mangy devil creature
?”
There was a whimper, and then a sharp clap. Flesh on flesh, Aoife had slapped Darcy.
I bit my lip to keep from gasping. How dare she! Anger boiled in my stomach, and I half considered leaping out from the hearth and rushing to Darcy’s aid, but that would no doubt only worsen Darcy’s situation.
“Thought you’d be treated as a princess?” shrieked Aoife. “Ha! Coming here and masquerading as my daughter! The nerve.”
There was a pound, like a body hitting the floor. I panicked—was it Darcy? But Darcy spoke softly: “I—I didn’t mean nothin’, ma’am.”
And then Aoife said something that made my heart skip. “I bet it was that Lir—that wretched, wicked Lorcan O’Sé—sending over a fake daughter to appease me before he actually needed my help. If one thing’s for sure, it’s that he’s not getting her back. And you? You will rot here in the belly of my palace for trying to trick me. You will grow old here, child. You will die here.”
Lir? Surely I had misheard.
Aoife’s voice lowered, a thin rasp that spilled from her lips like swamp water lapping at a dead tree. “You and I … we’ve something in common.”
No, I thought. Darcy is innocent. She is lovely and pure. You are a monster.
“We are both prisoners. But only one of us is strong enough to break free. To take what we want without pleading, without kneeling. That is where we differ.”
Prisoner, I thought. Had Nuala kept Aoife in America just as the story said? And then I remembered … The story said Aoife would never be granted the joy of love again. Could it be true? Impossible.
There was silence, and then the click-clack of Aoife’s heels. There was a shuffling of boxes or papers as Aoife said, “If I find my child has been here, you’re done for.”
The yew door slammed shut, and all was quiet. I waited as Aoife’s footsteps faded until my muscles could bear it no longer, and then I fell to the grate with a cry of pain. I sucked on my bloody palms until the burning subsided, the bitter taste of ash sticking to my throat. I stood, first rubbing my shoulder from the tension of holding on to the vines, smearing blood all over my sweater—well, technically, Posy-Kate’s sweater—and then my hip, which the grate had jammed into when I fell.
Darcy sat frozen on the cot, eyes wide and staring unblinking at a black sack that had appeared in the center of the attic. The stench of rotting meat crinkled my nose as I walked toward Darcy.
“Darcy …,” I whispered as I drew close to her. “Why does she keep you here?”
“I …” Tears welled in Darcy’s eyes. “I skin the swans, Finn. I skin ’em so she won’t skin me.”
Chapter 29
I TRIED TO KEEP MY VOICE STEADY. Like a bodhrán drum. “I’ll do it for you.”
Darcy and I stared at the sack, fingers pinching our noses to keep the stench at bay.
“Finn,” said Darcy, and let out a sigh. I reeled my memory to see if I’d ever heard Darcy sigh before; if there ever was such an incident, it certainly was not like this. Lonely and scared and too grown-up for her own good. The faery god of the winds, long-bearded Borrum, must have manifested in Darcy’s breath. “Aoife’s lookin’ for you. You’ve got to go.”
I shook my head, ash falling from my hair to my tongue like snowflakes. “No way. I en’t leavin’ you alone with it. I’ll make up a story. I’ll say I got lost in the basement. Er—does this place have a basement?”
“She’ll smell it on you.”
I hopped to my feet. “Where’s the knife?”
I tiptoe-scurried across the attic and began to rummage in the pile of papers closest to the sack, sifting through mouse-chewed books, old records, bits of postage twine, and other odds and ends. No knife. I pawed through a jumble of headless Barbies and rusty toy trucks. Still, no knife. I lifted the lid of the record player to reveal a stack of envelopes cluttering a dusty Christmas record that looked oddly familiar.
“Finn, please.” The voice came from just behind me, and I turned to see Darcy staring down at me, red-eyed. “Don’t. She’ll find out. She knows everything. I—I’m used to it. I’ve done it thrice before. It—it en’t so …” But Darcy’s face paled with nausea before she could finish. “You’ve got to be brave, Finn. That’s what Nuala would say. You’ve got to be brave an’ let it go, ’cause there’s a difference between being rash and being brave,” she added for dramatic effect, and despite the stench in our noses, and the soot in our hair, and the bag before our eyes, we burst into giggles.
It occurred to me then that I loved Darcy. That Darcy filled my heart with joy and hope and lightness. It occurred to me that love is the closest thing to flight I was ever going to get. That wings don’t glide on clouds or sunshine, but love. But hope. That before swans learn to fly, they must first jump off bridges and off cliffs. They first must believe that something more beautiful than they can possibly imagine awaits them on the other side. And if they cannot fly, if they fall from the cliff, break their wing on the bridge, bleed on sharp rocks or thornbushes … if they cannot fly, then they must love. Because love, too, is far more beautiful than they can imagine.
Darcy knelt beside me and ran her fingers along the Christmas record, small bumps trailing under her fingers.
“I play this at night sometimes,” she said. “It’s pretty and reminds me of Christmastime. Like in Donegal, how the village sets up a tree in the town square, an’ Father Cooley makes all us Sunday school kids go caroling, an’ I always complain ’bout it, but actually kinda like it, an’ how on Christmas Eve Mr. McCann gives out free hot chocolates for the children and Irish coffee for the grown-ups? Yeah. It makes me think o’ that.”
I leaned closer to read the words ’round the center of the record:
Aoife and Me, Christmas 1945
It appeared to be an exact replica of the record Da used to play me when I was little to hear Ma sing—or at least, Aobh, the woman I believed to be my ma. Except Aobh’s copy was called Aobh and Me, Christmas 1945.
Sisters, I thought. Just as the story. How strange! Could it be? But, no, stories were just that—stories.
“It’s risky,” said Darcy. “An’ I have to put the papers back precisely how they were early in the morn, because every few days, Aoife comes an’ adds another envelope to the pile. But it helps me sleep.”
I nodded. “Speaking of risky, I s’pose I should be gettin’ on then. I’ll come back, though. I promise you that, Darcy Brannon.”
“I know you will, Finn.”
I half stood, and then slouched back down again as a letter atop the record caught my eye. The return address was from Da’s Irish Republican Army office and was addressed to Aoife’s manor. The flap was torn open, with a scrap of yellow notepaper stuffed lazily inside. My heart drummed in my chest, down my arm, and through my fingertips. I pulled out the letter and read:
September 28, 1971
Finn,
If you’re there … if you get this message, please write to me. I’m so sorry. Please write. Please come home.
Love,
Da
Darcy leaned over my shoulder to read, and we both sat in silence. I placed the letter back onto the record and flicked through the rest of the envelopes, each one opened and each letter crammed carelessly back inside. They were all from Da. My skin prickled, and I remembered a story Nuala told me about a boy who kept such anger inside him that quills sprang from his spine like a porcupine.
That woman—that horrid snake of a woman who dare call herself my mother—was keeping me from him. Aoife was keeping him from me. But we would be prisoners no longer, Darcy and I. Oh yes, Aoife was beautiful. Oh yes, Aoife was wicked. Oh yes, Aoife was clever. But she was not clever as I. She knew not how to weave stories out of ash.
Chapter 30
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? I’ve been looking for you for ages.” Aoife’s voice was stone cold.
I wrung the water from my hair onto a towel before my bed. Wet soot stained my palms, and I surreptitiously wiped my hands on the underside of
my swan-feather blanket.
“I’ve been here in my room all the time,” I said.
“I checked in here, and you most certainly were not here. Why is your hair wet?”
“Er—right. Well, of course I took a shower.” That, at least, was true. Aoife would have been even more suspicious if she found me covered in ash. For embellishment, I added, “Haven’t washed my hair in days—you didn’t notice?”
“Just now? I could have sworn I checked your bathroom as well … You know not to leave the table like that. It was most unladylike.”
“Right. I just got a bit sad, so I came up here an’—er—hid under the bed … Ma,” I added for sympathy.
“Hid under the bed? Like a rabid mole rat?”
“Yes, Ma.”
Aoife frowned.
“I’m sorry.”
These days, my words revolved around loveless “I love yous” and sorrowless “I’m sorrys.”
“No matter,” said Aoife, striding across the room and settling down beside me on the bed. She laid a skeletal, frigid arm around my shoulder and held me close. Her sweet perfume could not mask the scent of the swan corpse. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Finbird. How difficult it must be to learn one’s father no longer loves them. To have those cherished memories puff up in smoke, like they never meant anything at all. Like they never even happened. I simply cannot imagine the pain of it all.”
My teeth clenched and fingers curled. Aoife kissed the top of my head, and I wanted to recoil with the disgust of it, but kept stoic. I must not let her know. For Darcy.
The Serendipity of Flightless Things Page 12