My heart thrummed against my rib cage. No, I thought. Not possible. No way. But as Ena gazed up at me with eyes so kind and loving they could have been made of lullabies, my heart whispered, Yes, possible. Yes, way. Yes, I believe.
“Hang on,” said Posy-Kate. “What even are these Children of Lir? And what’s that swan have anything to do with them?”
Sojourn sighed and relayed the tale of the Children of Lir as Posy-Kate, Darcy, Ena, and me sat in silence, listening to Sojourn spin words, with surprising agility, the way a spider spins webs.
“So, you mean to say,” said Posy-Kate, when Sojourn finished, “that Finbird is a character from a fairy tale? And that my mother is a faery witch? And that swan is … a person?”
Sojourn nodded. “Yep, pretty much.”
Posy-Kate’s eyebrows rose. “You’re mad.”
“Mad or not, it’s the truth.”
“Hang on,” I said. “How do you fit into any of this? Why’d you pop into my life that one day back in Ireland an’—an’ why’re you helping me—er—are you even helping me?”
Sojourn’s mouth curled into a sly grin, and something Nuala once said about the faery popped into my mind: “Beautiful, wondrous, wicked creatures. There is nothing inherently good or evil about them, much like their human counterparts. The faery are simply power. What frightens those who do not understand them is that they appear just as human as you or me. For all I know, you could be a faery, and for all you know, I could be one.” And then, it occurred to me that if the story was true, Nuala was a faery, after all. She was the half faery that saved the Children of Lir by turning them into swans.
And then I wondered about Sojourn … how he flitted about the conversation, how he struck fear and wonderment and power into every word, every movement.
“Because I’m the Children’s protector,” replied Sojourn. “That’s why I—” He eyed Posy-Kate, and she rolled her eyes.
“It’s okay,” I assured him, and the words felt slippery on my tongue as I added, “You can trust her.”
“That’s why I work for Aoife,” said Sojourn. “That’s why I hunt. Anyone else with the job, and those swans would be Aoife’s wallpaper. But I save ’em. I make sure Aoife gets her swans, an’ I make sure Ena, Fiachra, and Conn en’t one of ’em. She only kills the swans to get to the Children, you know. They’re the ones she really wants.
“After Aoife exterminated Starlight Valley of all its swans, she started having swans imported from other places to kill, hoping one day three of them would be the Children. That’s what the trains are for. They’re magic trains, you see, an’ mark my words, you never see the same one twice. They’re the only things that’ve come into this town since Aoife came to reign—the Children and you and me, Finn—and when the trains come, they come filled with swans. Most are dead by the time they get here.”
“Wait, back up—what do you mean ‘reign’? Aoife’s not some queen,” I said.
Posy-Kate fluffed her hair and, as if she held some superior knowledge granted only to those clever enough, said, “You don’t know, Finbird?”
“Why does she call you ‘Finbird’?” muttered Sojourn, flicking a piece of dirt from under his fingernail onto Posy-Kate’s chin. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. “Stupid name, if you ask me.”
I ignored him. “Know what?” I played along with Posy-Kate.
“Mom is the mayor of Starlight Valley,” said Posy-Kate. “Practically as powerful as a queen in these parts. No one lives around here, except our little town. I thought that was completely obvious.”
“Yes,” said Sojourn, cutting off Posy-Kate’s spotlight. “Aoife delivered all the children in this town. The people hate her … but they owe her. They owe her for their children’s lives.”
“Deliver … you mean she’s a midwife?”
“Well, a doctor, yes,” said Sojourn.
“I was gonna say that,” muttered Posy-Kate.
“The only doctor, at that,” added Sojourn.
I remembered the faery witch in “The Children of Lir,” how she had used her power of life to kill her sister. Was it possible Aoife used the same power to deliver the babies of the valley? To cure people of their ailments?
“No one leaves this town without Aoife opening the thorn trees—she’s the only one with the power to control them,” continued Sojourn. “But for the most part, she keeps people locked in, an’ other people she keeps locked out. She keeps love separated. That’s how it’s been since she came to this town. Her first day here, she grew the thorn trees, separating mothers and daughters, sisters and brothers, family and friends, even masters and dogs.”
I thought of the aspen forest, the notes carved on the white-skinned trees. I remembered the longing and the loneliness and the empty feeling in the pit of my stomach.
“Just like how Lir separated Aoife from her daughter—you, Finn. She can’t leave the valley, you know—at least, she can’t stray far from it. That was the half faery’s curse, remember?”
I nodded vaguely. It all seemed too impossible, too unlikely, too … what was the opposite word of serendipitous? An unhappy accident? I longed to know. I pulled my broken locket from my pocket and looked from Margaret, to Ed, to Oliver. I wondered if Oliver knew Nuala’s secrets. I wondered if she had told him her stories. I wondered if she had told him the story about the very hawthorn tree he leaned against in the photograph. The very one my back was curved upon now.
I looked up, and it was then that I noticed a large, sacklike figure bobbing behind a laurel bush in the distance. At first, I wondered if it was not a black bear—but no, black bears did not pick flowers, and this figure was picking flowers. As the figure slipped behind a dogwood tree, words rattled my mind: unfortunate, luckless, ill-starred. I shook my head; I was letting my imagination run away from me. Surely, she was simply a villager. If Aoife had sent out security to find us, they would be dragging us back to the manor by now.
“Well … well, what should we do?” I said, turning back to Sojourn. “What must we do for Ena? Have you been feeding her properly? What’s wrong with her wing? Where do you even live? And if she really is one of the swans—and if the others are out there somewhere—how can they be turned back into humans?”
The dark figure tilted its puffy head ’round the dogwood tree. Jinxed, hapless, ill-fated.
Sojourn nodded toward the village. “I live in the abandoned mill down the road. I feed her best I can—more ’n you can say you’ve done for her, I might add, and I don’t know what’s wrong with her wing other than that something’s wrong and it en’t gettin’ better.
“And turnin’ the swans back human?” Sojourn shrugged. “You’ve heard it, love. Like says the story: only if she who caused the curse eats the berries from the same hawthorn tree that cursed the swans, will the spell be undone. In other words, Aoife’s got to eat berries from that tree on Inis Eala, which is as likely as persuading Posy-Kate to dress as an ogre for Halloween.”
Posy-Kate sneered at Sojourn, but even I had to admit, he had a point. We sat in silence until Ena gave a mournful whimper and something suspiciously teardrop-shaped slipped from her eye. Not possible. I knew swans. I studied swans. Swans did not cry.
“I still don’t understand,” I said, turning to Sojourn again. “You shot Ena. If you’re so keen on protectin’ the swans, why’d you shoot her?”
I caught my breath as the figure slipped out from behind the dogwood tree and ambled around the laurel bush, sniffing the pink, star-shaped flowers. Cursed, hopeless, doomed.
“If I didn’t, the Pegwitch would have,” said Sojourn. “I saw her skulkin’ ’round the lonely wood and knew she was up to somethin’. If I hadn’t shot Ena’s wing, the Pegwitch would’ve shot her heart an’ turned her into soup.”
“The Pegwitch?” piped Darcy. “Who’s the Pegwitch?”
“Oh, she’s this batty old woman who lives in a house so wretched she gets her own street name—Pegwitch Way,” said Posy-Kate, swatting the air as if
surrounded by flies. “Every year at Halloween, some stupid kid tries to toilet paper her front porch, and every year, he or she ends up in Mom’s living room with vicious scratches and bites. She’s a foul one, that Pegwitch. But the funny thing is, she never leaves her house. No one, not even her victims, ever see her. And no one questions her, neither. They’re all too scared, I reckon.”
Sojourn lowered his eyes to the berry-scattered ground. “Posy-Kate’s right—mostly. Aoife’s bad, but from what I hear, the Pegwitch is the real monster of this town,” he said grimly. “Legend has it, she collects rare families of animals from all over the world. Don’t know where she gets ’em all, ’cause the train only brings in swans. And once they’re nice and plump, she chops them up into stew. What Posy-Kate en’t right about, though, is that no one’s ever seen her. Not true. I see her all the time. Usually, she’s just a figure, just a shadow, but one day just this summer, I saw her kidnapping the other Children of Lir—Fiachra and Conn, your brothers. There was nothin’ I could do. She took them an’ she’s lookin’ for Ena too. An’ then, Finn, then she’ll come for you.”
The rushing of the ravine swelled to a torrential surge—or perhaps the pounding was simply the blood in my ears as my heart tha-thump-tha-thump-tha-thumped. In the corner of my eye, the figure drew nearer. And as it did, I remembered the word now. Nuala had mentioned it once in a story filled with ravens and broken glass and blood-dripping bonnets. The opposite of serendipity was drochrath. Oh yes, we four were in for drochrath indeed.
“Sojourn …” Half by accident, I grabbed his sleeve. “Someone’s watching us.”
Chapter 33
SOJOURN LEAPT TO HIS FEET. Posy-Kate, Darcy, and I followed suit, hawthorn berries raining down as the tree shuddered. Even Ena wobbled on frail webbed toes. The figure looked up from the laurel bush and tilted its head at us, and Darcy squeezed my hand so hard I began to lose feeling in my fingers.
“Shh,” warned Sojourn. His voice fell to a whisper, slow and level: “Finn, listen to me. Run to the village and take a left at the church. Run straight down the hill past five farmhouses and just beyond the fifth one’s pumpkin patch, you’ll come to the westernmost part of the aspen wood. Run straight through until you reach the gully by the thorn trees. No one goes there. You’ll be safe.”
“That—that’s her, isn’t it, Sojourn?” I said, eyes fixed on the figure. “That’s her.”
The Pegwitch lumbered toward the foot of the cliff, hunched back and sacklike patchwork coat coming into clearer view. Her gray-black hair frizzed out from under an overlarge sunhat, and her skin was dark and etched with wrinkles so plentiful her face looked like a topographer’s map. A plume of smoke escaped her mouth, and she flicked a cigarette to the ground, stamping it out, before beginning to climb the cliff.
“Yes. But no time for chatter. I’ll ward her off as long as possible.”
“Sojourn—you have to come with us,” I said. “You don’t know what she might do to you.”
But Sojourn shook his head. “If I do, we’ll all be toast—literally. Go, Finn. Now.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone—”
“For Darcy,” pleaded Sojourn. “For Ena.”
Posy-Kate crossed her arms. “What about me?” she whined.
Sojourn rolled his eyes. “And for Little Miss Priss too.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” huffed Posy-Kate, but Sojourn had had enough. With a mighty oof! Sojourn shoved Posy-Kate and me down the grassy cliff, Darcy and Ena following in our wake.
I stumbled on a tree root and grabbed Darcy’s hand the minute I gained my composure, and Posy-Kate heaved up a ruffled Ena. Catching my breath and keeping one eye on the hulking Pegwitch, I turned to Posy-Kate, who bore a thoroughly peeved expression. I nodded toward the village. “Let’s go.”
I DIDN’T LOOK BACK. We retraced our steps through the village, feet so numb I was positive calluses had begun to form, and once we got there, we slipped down alleyways and clung to the edges of shops, the villagers’ chatter whirling to and fro. One conversation, however, caught my ear, and I yanked Darcy and Posy-Kate into a nearby alleyway between MONTGOMERY MAKERS OF FINE VIOLINS SINCE 1884 and BUMBLEBEE AND BO’S SWEET SHOP. I peeked out and strained my ears to listen. Tidbits of conversations caught my attention. None of it made much sense to me, except for the parts about me, which seemed to be the most popular subject of the day.
“I swear, I saw her, cross my heart,” said one woman, crossing a pair of haircutting scissors over her heart. “Zipped right past my shopwindow as I was cutting ol’ Albert’s hair.”
“Please,” said a second woman, “Mayor Aoife’d never let that child out of her sight, no less wander ’round a village unescorted—”
“That’s the thing, though—she wasn’t unescorted. She was with Miss Priscilla-Kathryn. You suppose she finally let them out for a change?”
“I dunno, but if I were you, I’d keep my mouth shut about it. If the mayor finds out you didn’t report them when they weren’t allowed to be out—or, on the other hand, if you do report them and they were allowed to be out—she’ll have you tossed out the thorn trees before you can say ‘how ’bout a free trim?’”
The hairdresser shrugged. “Wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe then I’d find my Marlin.”
Marlin, I thought. That was one of the names etched in the aspen forest.
A sad sort of silence followed.
“I think about him,” said the other woman at last. “Marlin and my little boy. Well,” she muttered, fluttering her eyelashes, “it doesn’t matter now, does it? That’s old talk. As for Mayor Aoife, I s’pose we’ll meet the new kid eventually. Rumor has it, Aoife’s planning a gala in her honor.”
A gala? I surely hadn’t heard of such an event. The two women’s voices drifted off into the distance, and I turned to Posy-Kate and Darcy. “We can’t be seen again. One wrong step, and someone’ll turn us in.”
Posy-Kate and Darcy both nodded, and we continued slipping through the village, taking extra care to stick to alleyways as much as possible. When at last we came to the backside of a church with tall steeples and intricate stained-glass windows, Posy-Kate collapsed with the weight of Ena. Her face was nearly pale as Ena’s, and her arms lay limp in the browning grass.
“This is taking positively forever,” she complained.
“Just the farmhouses and the forest to go now,” I encouraged, reaching out a hand to pull her up. “I can take Ena the rest of the way, if you’d like.”
“It’s fine,” muttered Posy-Kate.
“You don’t look too good, Posy-Kate,” tried Darcy.
“I said I’m fine,” she snapped, hopping to her feet and heaving a sleepy Ena over her shoulder. “Let’s keep going.”
So on we went, passing farmhouse after farmhouse, until at last we came to the pumpkin patch, where none other than Sojourn leaned against a rusty blue pickup truck. It was called—according to the chipping letters on the door—ANGELICA, THE BEAUTIFUL, though to me, it appeared anything but beautiful or angelic. The minute Sojourn saw us rise over the hill, he skittered toward us, spider legs flailing.
“Soj—” I started, but he quickly cut me off.
“She’s coming,” he said dangerously. “She’s coming quick—”
Suddenly, Ena let loose a squawk and flapped her good wing to fly to safety, but to no avail; she was flightless. She squirmed in Posy-Kate’s arms as Posy-Kate stumbled this way and that, face full of feathers. I reached out to catch Posy-Kate as Sojourn lunged for Ena, but it was too late.
“Aargh!” cried Posy-Kate as she tottered backward and smashed into a pumpkin, orange goo spattering everywhere and Ena landing with another squawk beside her.
“Posy-Kate!” cried Darcy, rushing to her side. “Are you all right?”
Posy-Kate’s face scrunched, eyes squeezed shut, and her hand shot for her ankle.
“It’s going to be okay,” I assured her, though my heart was hammering against my chest. I glan
ced to Sojourn, who looked equally as anxious as me. He bent down and tore a strip of fabric from his sleeve and wrapped it around Posy-Kate’s ankle.
“What’s that supposed to do?” I said, feeling myself rise to hysterics.
“I saw it in a movie,” said Sojourn with a shrug. “Now, c’mon, help me carry her.”
“Her ankle’s clearly broken, not impaled!” I cried, ripping off the bandage as Posy-Kate seethed with pain.
Sojourn’s eyebrows knitted, and he fired, “If you’ve a better idea, then let’s have it!”
“’Sides, gee, I dunno, getting her to a doctor? Just maybe this whole ‘run around town with a so-called magical swan in our arms to escape the so-called swan-eating witch’ thing wasn’t such a shining idea.”
“I’m trying to help. An’ if you don’t believe in the magic, then fine! Have it your way, but don’t come cryin’ to me when that Pegwitch tries to stuff you in an oven or that Aoife turns your precious swan into a pair of earmuffs.”
“Stop it! All of you,” cried Darcy, stamping her foot in the pumpkin vines. Bits of pumpkin skin and seeds splattered about her feet. “Nanny Hurley said nothin’ ever gets done if you don’t work together.”
“I can’t work with him,” I huffed, grabbing Darcy’s hand and dragging her back up the hill. I would simply have to get Aoife; vindictive or not, she was the only one who could help Posy-Kate.
“Well—well you’re impossible—Finbird! Whatever that means!” shot Sojourn from behind.
Darcy wriggled out of my grasp. “Finn, stop,” she said, and there was something about her voice—the sheer horror of it—that made me obey. Her eyes widened, and as I followed her gaze, I realized what frightened her so.
The Pegwitch loomed atop the hill.
Chapter 34
SOJOURN AND I QUICKLY LIFTED Posy-Kate and positioned her arms over our shoulders. Ena limped behind us, hurried along by Darcy. “We’ve got to move. Now,” I said.
The Serendipity of Flightless Things Page 14