by Mary Watson
I feel a light touch on Laila’s bracelet.
‘Pretty.’ The girl again. ‘How did Sibéal get such a powerful, obsolete talent?’
‘It didn’t come cheap.’ Maeve reaches for the bracelet. ‘I’ll have that.’
I can’t move a finger to stop her. Her hand hovers over the crow charm. She pulls it from the bracelet, but she’s only just closed it in her fist when she gives a little cry like it’s burned her. The charm falls to the ground.
‘Now you just lie back and relax.’ The man turns his attention back to me like there’s nothing weird about this.
I shake my head and try to say no, but it comes out muffled and afraid.
‘And we’ll take you to the woven room.’
A strobe light is turned on. The people behind the couch, people I can’t see, begin to chant words I don’t recognise.
‘Where is the Eye of Badb?’ Maeve’s voice comes to me from a distance. Everything else has subsided, it’s just me in the room of woven shadows.
‘Smith, her mouth,’ Maeve instructs the man, and the tape’s yanked off in one searing tear. I let out a muffled yell as fine hairs are ripped out.
‘Now, Zara, tell us where Laila hid the Eye.’
‘I don’t know what that is.’ I touch my hand to my stinging skin. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’
‘Did you find anything unusual in Laila’s belongings?’
I’m not going to play this game. I won’t say anything.
‘Zara, you’re going to have to talk to me, honey.’
The music is creeping up louder, the light strobes faster. It feels like the light is pressing small needles into my skin.
‘Just the Wishmaker.’ The words must come out. ‘But I threw it in the lake.’
‘Tell us about the offerings. Did you get any from David?’
‘I’m not telling you.’
‘We’ll take that as a yes. Good girl. You did well. He must really like you.’
‘I won’t tell you a word of it.’
The man lifts my hand and pulls off Canty’s ring with the black stone. ‘She’s been wearing a protective chant. That would have helped her resist Sibéal.’
‘I won’t help you.’
‘That’s what the woven room is for,’ Maeve says.
‘You can’t make me.’
But the words are trying to push to the surface: Entrap, Sever, Truth.
I squash it down, thinking of Mom in Cape Town. I imagine her viewing a new home for us. I picture her walking through it, choosing bedrooms for me and Adam. But not for Laila. Not any more.
I seal my mouth shut. I won’t say the words. But then I feel the pull, like the suction created in a vacuum.
‘We’re going to have to crank things up,’ I hear Maeve say before pain shoots through my head. And then everything goes blank.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Keep
David
It’s nearly midnight and I’ve been sworn in as the new War Scythe. Dad has declared me the Raker of Garraíodóirí, First Warrior, Protector of the Bláithín. And down the line, when I’ve earned the badges, First Commander.
I have never been more miserable.
I’ve escaped the celebrations in the outbuildings behind the Rookery. Down at the lake, I drown my sorrows in a beer. A light drizzle falls but I can’t care.
I’ve won. I can’t shake the horror of it.
‘Why are you hiding out here?’ Dad is behind me.
‘Taking a break,’ I say.
‘People are asking for you.’ He hovers too close.
I stand up and sigh. This is my life. Just soldier on. Keep marching until everything falls apart.
‘You were brutal tonight.’ Dad approves, as we walk. ‘You did us proud. Things are on the up for us.’
But why does it feel like things are spiralling towards our end?
I manage ten minutes at the party and then I just can’t be there. I can’t listen to the cheerful congratulations.
I escape to my room where I take out the cloth hidden beneath my mattress and unfold it.
Only five words.
The strip of leather, a patch of Zara’s skirt. The bloodied thorn. A coin and an acorn. I lay them out on the cold wooden floor, trying to find the best arrangement. The leather on top, the patch of skirt beneath. The coin diagonally across. I place the acorn in the left corner, and the bloodied thorn at the heart. I look down at it, trying to think of the clearest phrasing for what I’m seeking.
‘Keep.’ I test the word, not releasing it.
‘Promise.’ My voice is getting louder. I’m still not releasing the word into the law. I move the coin to the opposite side. That’s better.
‘Lucky. Save. Sting.’ They’re fighting words. Well matched to my needs. It speaks to the mess I’m in.
I say them again and again. I lay my hands over my law: Save us from ruin. From war. From my brother being accused of collusion, being executed for treason. I’m feeling it. Maybe my feeling could be enough.
I pace towards the wardrobe. Back to my words.
I need more. I won’t get anywhere with just five words. I don’t dare ask for help for Oisín because a botched, weak law could have unintended consequences. Keeping it broad is the only way with such few words.
And then I just do it. Take the leap.
I crouch over the words and form the law.
Let us be OK. It’s that vague because my law is weak. Specificity requires strength. But I’ll take OK. I say it again and again. Let us be OK. Like a child hiding under the covers at night, not the soldier I’m supposed to be.
I’m investing so hard, my eyes are scrunched tight as I wave a hand over the law and release the words. In my head, I see a flash of silver. Wishful thinking. I slump back on my heels, exhausted. I’m looking over the empty husks, thinking they rather remind me of me, when I hear the voice from the doorway.
‘What are you doing, David?’
THIRTY-NINE
Never choose you
Sometimes it feels like Maeve isn’t completely honest with me.
LAS
Zara
I wake up alone on the couch. It’s a quarter to midnight and there’s no one else in the house. The empty glass of wine is on the coffee table beside me. Only Silas scratches in his cage.
It was a dream.
It wasn’t a dream.
The house feels changed. It’s like the walls still echo the strange chanted music. The striated shadows are faded, but still there.
And I wake up, the words repeating through my mind. Entrap, Sever, Truth.
Somehow, Maeve pulled them out of my head. I feel utterly violated. They gained Mom’s trust, engineered that Adam would be out by having one of their lot befriend him, possibly drugged my glass of wine.
And suddenly, I have to get out of here. The need is urgent. I can’t be here alone, not after this.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I decide to see if David’s awake. I ring, but his phone is off.
I could go over, see if the lights are on. Pulling a hoodie over my tank, I go out the back and through the hollow.
Through my anger, I try to remember everything Maeve said while I was half conscious. She spoke about a woven room, about Delving.
I can’t ignore it any more.
I’ve stumbled into what Laila dreamed of. I’ve stumbled into magic. And it’s a huge, ugly mess.
I cross the field near the house, moving towards the drive. But again, it’s busy, with several black vans parked outside. A buzz of noise comes from the courtyard out back.
I’m at the front door, lost, sad, cross. It was stupid to come here. The lights are on, but so what? It’s midnight, I can’t ring the doorbell. But I don’t want to go back home alone.
Above me a rook screams. It swoops down near my head in a hard, jagged movement. Another comes out of the dark, black wings beating too close to my face. There’s another cry as a third rook comes to me at high speed. I run dow
n the front steps, hiding my face. But more birds appear. They don’t swipe at me, not yet. They flap above me, screaming and crying. When I step closer to the house, they swoop at me again. One pecks at my hand.
Laila’s crow charm is on the floor in the den. Now I understand how it is a key.
‘Zara?’ I hear the voice through the noise. He lifts a hand and the birds quieten and fly away. And there’s Oisín, looking as wretched as I feel. ‘Are you all right?’
And I stand there, feeling my face crumple.
‘No.’
‘What’s wrong?’ Cautiously, he comes a little closer. ‘What happened to you?’
‘They came into my house.’ My voice catches. ‘They …’
‘Who came into your house?’ He sounds alarmed. ‘What did they do?’
‘They got into my head. They stole from me.’
‘Where did they take you?’ Oisín is frantic.
‘We didn’t go anywhere. There was a group of them, Maeve, a few others. They said they were taking me to the woven room.’
He flinches as I say the words. And, looking at his quiet distress, I’m finally beginning to understand why Oisín is so wounded. ‘They did it to you too.’
‘They used those words?’ he says. ‘The woven room? And you never left your house?’
‘Yeah.’ I’m scuffing the ground but when I look up, he is pale.
‘So it’s not an actual place then, but something they conjure up,’ he says, like he’s finally understanding something. ‘I’ve been looking for a shed, thinking it was a specific place. Like a warped nemeton.’
I don’t know what he’s talking about, but I’m wired with the need to speak about what happened.
‘They use rhythms. Patterns of movement and noise. They did something like it but less brutal before. But tonight –’ I shake my head. I am so furious. ‘Tonight for an hour, maybe more, they invaded my mind. It’s much, much worse than what Sibéal did with her Delving. Is that what they did to you?’
‘Ten days.’ He gives a dry laugh. ‘They beat me up. Chained me. And invaded my head for ten days.’
I’m aghast as I look at him. No one could survive ten days of that.
‘I don’t want to go home.’ I’m reluctant to say it. ‘There’s no one there.’
‘You shouldn’t be alone,’ he says. ‘Not now.’ But I know what he’s thinking. That it will be difficult for a while yet. That I won’t easily get my peace back.
‘Is David awake?’ I’m nervous to ask. I don’t know if Oisín knows that David’s been weird with me.
‘I last saw him down at the lake, he was trying to escape. The party’s in his honour.’
‘In his honour?’
Oisín shrugs. ‘He’d like an excuse to get away.’
As he turns the handle, I hesitate.
‘It’s midnight,’ I say. ‘Your parents wouldn’t like it.’
‘Don’t mind my parents. I’ll leave you in David’s room while I hunt him down. He’ll want to hear what happened.’
‘Come in,’ he says, then whistles up to the sky.
Inside, Oisín leads me through the hallway towards the stairs. The house is huge, and the doors all look the same. Eventually we stop.
‘Go on in there.’ Oisín gestures. ‘It might take a little while to extract him, but no one will bother you.’
He turns away and I push the door open. A lamp is lit and I’ve taken a few steps into the room when I see it’s not empty.
David is crouched on the floor. There are objects I can’t make out arranged beneath him. His face is bruised and there’s blood crusted on his eyebrow, streaked on his T-shirt. He’s whispering, a fraught chant over the objects: Let us be OK. He holds his hands over them, scrunching his eyes tight. Then, still crouching, he slumps, his head hanging down.
‘What are you doing, David?’ I ask.
His face is like stone as he gathers the things on the floor and folds them into a cloth. He draws himself up to his full height.
‘How did you get in here?’ He steps towards me and I don’t like it. This isn’t the David I know.
‘Oisín brought me in,’ I say. ‘He found me outside, the birds were going mad, and he came and they stopped.’
‘The birds were going mad?’ He sits on his bed and I can see that he is bone weary. ‘Suddenly now the birds go mad? Who told you to say that?’
He shakes his head, splaying his hands on the covers beside him.
‘Was it Maeve?’ he goes on. ‘Did she tell you that I’m bad and rotten and deserved to be lied to? Is that how she got you on her side?’
He sounds so hurt.
‘You should go, Zara.’
‘No.’ I stand my ground. He looks at me a long moment before getting to his feet.
There’s a darkness that’s settled on David. It wants to pull him under. The long fingers of the Inky Black.
‘I’m really not interested in what Maeve has to say.’ My easy voice is a light salve to his simmering.
‘I saw you, Zara,’ he breathes out like it hurts. ‘I saw you with her. Sibéal kissed you. You hugged Maeve. You were all talking and laughing like you’re friends. And you insisted I give you the offering.’
He’s close enough now that I can reach for him, steady him with my hands on his shoulders.
‘I’m sorry about the offering. The day Sibéal messed with my head she hid an instruction inside me. I didn’t remember, but every time I wanted to kiss you, I felt the most awful guilt. And after you told me, I remembered what she’d done. And told her to get lost.’
He looks up at me, afraid to hope.
I put my hands on his cheeks, making him look at me.
‘What you saw was Maeve warning me to get in line. I’m not on her side.’ I hesitate. ‘She knew Laila. She made promises to Laila. I don’t know what happened, but I think she tricked my sister.’
David’s eyes are wary. He looks at me like he wants so badly to believe what I’m saying. But then I remember.
‘They did get the offering from me.’ I hate admitting it. ‘I didn’t want to but they took it.’
‘Sibéal?’
‘Can we not talk about that right now?’
He catches my hand and holds it.
My reproach is gentle. ‘You should have talked to me.’
‘I don’t …’ he licks his lips. ‘… trust easily. When I thought you’d betrayed me, I was gutted.’
‘I didn’t betray you.’
He drops my hand and says dully, ‘You have the Eye. I know you do.’
‘I don’t know what the Eye is.’ But I’m beginning to think I do.
‘It’s an ancient warrior disc brooch. Family heirloom. Looks kinda like this.’ He lifts a less impressive version of the Wishmaker from the drawer beside the bed. ‘This is a replica my grandmother had made.’
‘That’s your grandmother’s brooch?’ There’s no denying the resemblance between the thing in his hand and the Wishmaker. ‘That does not look like a brooch.’
‘We really need it back, Zara.’
‘OK,’ I say, quashing the rebellion I feel inside. ‘You’ll get it back.’
His eyes flutter shut. ‘Thank you.’
‘What happened to you?’ I touch a finger to his eyebrow, trace it down his jaw.
‘I won a competition.’
‘A fighting competition?’ And I wonder again at his world. ‘Is the other guy all right?’
‘Gallagher gives as good as he gets.’
‘Gallagher?’ I say. ‘Isn’t he your friend? Why would you beat up your friend?’
He doesn’t answer, just looks at me for an endless moment.
‘Zara,’ he says eventually, ‘I really should keep away from you.’
He’s leaning in to me, his face so close. His hesitation is a question. We still need to talk about what’s happened. Not just now though. Now, there’s this sad, troubled boy that I really like who’s right here and I want to kiss him. Without guilt.
>
I reach up to him.
The clock ticks in his room, the birds shout outside.
David leans down, one hand snaking to my hair and tugging me gently towards him.
But he hesitates, his brow creasing.
‘Maybe this should wait until …’
I press my lips to his. It feels good, so I go in for more. I grab his shoulders to pull him closer. Sibéal hasn’t whispered this inside my head.
I don’t know what this is or where it’s going. But tonight is tonight. And there’s nothing better right now. I kiss him, enjoying the feel of his skin, the slope of muscle and bone. I tug off his T-shirt, to trace my fingers over broken skin, the faded scars and the new bruises.
‘You’ve been hurt,’ I say to him, and I don’t mean the competition he’s just won.
‘You’ve stumbled into a battlefield, Zara.’ He pulls me tighter into his arms. ‘And it’s only getting worse.’
‘Who’s at war?’
‘Do you believe in magic?’ It seems like he’s holding his breath, waiting for my answer.
‘Only when I don’t think about it.’
‘Then don’t think.’
I close my eyes, trying to shut out thought.
‘Many years ago, too long to remember,’ he whispers in my hair, ‘there were people who worked magic. The seers divined through stars and flames, and the lawmakers bonded with nature to understand its laws and then set our own. But they started to fight among each other.’
He’s holding on to me so tightly as he speaks, as if he’s afraid I’ll run away. His words remind me of something, but I can’t place it.
‘For a long time these people, the draoithe, were well respected, but when the world began to change, their magic was no longer wanted and they were forced underground. They went separate ways, the augurs and the judges. Sealed off from the rest of the world, they changed. Magic spiralled inwards instead of out towards helping others. Going underground made the tension between the two groups worse, like putting a lid on a boiling pot.’
‘And you’re one of them?’
‘If I were, I wouldn’t be allowed to tell you that.’
But I hear what he’s really saying.
‘The rules are very, very strict.’ He pulls back to look me in the eye. ‘Especially for the judges. The consequences of disobeying are severe.’
