Elian regarded me for a moment before nodding.
“I won’t tell. I can’t guarantee that they won’t find out… but I’ll do what I can. Aunt Helen should still be at work and Uncle Michael… well, the day when he cares about this stuff will be the day we throw snowballs in hell. Let’s get you home and cleaned up. Hopefully we’ve got some stuff that will help with the bruising.”
He didn’t start the car back up immediately, looking me over as if trying to discern if there was something else he needed to know.
“What were their names?”
“If I tell you, you’ll go and mess with them.”
“I wouldn’t do that. Grayson on the other hand…”
He gave me a small smile. My other brother, Grayson, was not known for his impulse control. The two of them were identical twins and complete polar opposites. And yet I was considered the trouble maker… go figure.
“You’ll tell him. I’m not falling for it. I know you guys share everything. And I do not need my brother to come to my rescue like I’m some damsel in distress.”
Elian chuckled and nodded, starting the engine once more. We followed the dirt path through the trees and back to the main road, the woodland giving way once more to hills and farmland. The bird I’d seen before was still circling and I watched it absently as we drove.
“What type of bird is that?” I asked.
“I think it’s a cuckoo. But my bird knowledge is rusty.”
The road curved and buildings loomed before us. The town was fairly small, the sort of picturesque place you’d see on postcards. It was laid out in a sprawling manner with the handful of shops clustered in the centre, roads snaking off in all directions to the houses. It made me think of a spider web, the tangled paths joining up at one place or another. Our home was one of the outliers, halfway up a hill on the other side of the town. It was a decent walk to get there and we only had one neighbour (and even they didn’t live too near). The family owned a chunk of farmland as well as a small pub which had been divided up between various relatives.
Elian directed us through the town and then up the hill, the engine letting out a low whine of protest. Wooden fences clung with brambles marked the edge of our land. A handful of sheep were grazing nearby and raised their heads as we passed, letting out a plaintive bleat. The sky was turning grey, clouds billowing forth from behind the hills, warning of impending rain. We passed the side gate that opened onto our garden and went up to the open gravel driveway on the right that ran parallel to the back of the house.
There were two buildings forming an L shape, a cottage and one that had been a converted from a barn or stable of some sort. The old barn looked out across our garden and down the hill, admiring views of sloping fields and the town below while the cottage stood next to the road. Our garden was split into two halves, a stone path winding from the houses to a small gate that allowed access to the lower section, which held a wooden hot tub and a pool. The cottage belonged to our aunt and uncle, while the barn had been our parents. Until recently we’d only used it as a holiday home.
The rest of our farm, the fields and various outbuildings, were set a little further up the hill and as I got out of the car, I strained my ears, catching the faint sound of barking on the wind. Elian ushered me into the barn and I settled myself at the kitchen table while he retrieved the first aid kit.
There was a letter on the table, the envelope addressed in our mother’s familiar handwriting. I glanced at it with disinterest, only taking the time to register the postmark.
“Thailand?”
“Looks like it. Probably getting more sun than we are.” Elian took the letter and placed it on a small stack of other unopened letters, before focusing his attention back on me. He carefully cleaned the few cuts I’d sustained and applied some cream to my bruises. “We’ll have to tell Aunt Helen that you fell out of a tree or something…”
“Technically true.”
“Well you can’t lie to save your life,” he said with a grin. “We’ve got an hour or so until the others get in. I’ve got to head down to the pub and give Grayson a hand; will you be okay up here?”
“Yeah. Go on. See you at dinner.”
I waited until I heard the sound of his car heading back down the hill before moving, then I went up to the bathroom and turned the shower up high. One thing I loved about this place was the shower. My aunt was all about the modern conveniences and had got my uncle to redo the bathroom in his house and this one. It was made of glass and chrome and could produce a spray so fine it was like hundreds of tiny needles that made my skin tingle. Today however I went for a heavier spray to make sure I washed off every trace of the day from my pores. As steam filled the cubicle, I let out a long sigh. The hot water made it feel like I was enveloped in warm arms and hugged tight.
I tried to remember what my mum hugging me felt like on occasion but it was hazy. She had to have done it at some point. Sometimes I thought I saw, felt, smelled things that were memories of her but I usually disregarded them as figments of my imagination as my brain attempted to give me some crude form of wish fulfilment. My thoughts tainted them, even if I sought them out. After a while the flashes of memory or whatever they were subsided and were replaced by new thoughts, new feelings which I welcomed. At least these ones I knew were false. I no longer imagined my life with my mum, past or possible futures. They were lies, fictions and fairy tales that would never come to pass.
These new thoughts still held the glimmer of hope, of possibility for me. I imagined a different kind of company. A man who would hold me, caress and love me. They never had a face, my fictional consort. I’d tried initially to create one or use a boy from school in my fantasies but they’d always been accompanied by an overwhelming sense of expectations and of course, inevitable disappointment. If you expected nothing, everything was open to you. My faceless companion had limitless possibilities. There were pure potential, no preconceived ideas, which meant they never failed.
I washed the last traces of soap off my body and got out of the shower. I wrapped myself in a fluffy towel, the softness exquisite on my skin, hyper sensitive after the hot water. I trailed my fingertips across the pink tinted flesh; smiling to myself as a shiver ran down my spine. I loved the way I felt after a shower. All of my nerves were alight, every pore tingling with sensitivity. It was like I had come alive for the first time, that every moment before that was just a half-life.
I went up a second flight of stairs to my bedroom.
It was a nice enough room, hidden in the converted attic. It was large with white walls and a sloping roof supported by dark wooden beams. There was a window to the east with a cushioned window seat that lifted to provide a little hidey-hole where I kept my most precious items and a skylight right next to one of the wooden beams. The beam was low enough for me to grab hold of and pull myself up onto and large enough to take my weight so I could climb up there and look at the stars until I fell asleep.
The furniture was wooden, a mixture of honey tones and white-washed, and there were only a few pieces which took up very little space in the large room. A wardrobe, dressing table, bedside table and a bed. There were a few shelves on one wall with my books and a couple of knick-knacks my uncle had bought when he moved me in here in an attempt to make it seem more homely and less like storage space for an unwanted little girl, which is what it really was… what the whole house was in fact.
The problem was that no matter how hard my aunt and uncle had tried (and they had tried quite hard at first), the house felt… staged almost. It wasn’t a home, it was more like a dollhouse. We ate in the cottage with the rest of the family and rarely used the living room, it just reminded us too much of how things had been before. We’d been raised in the house for the first few years before our parents had decided to relocate and used it for holidays. When we’d been sent back, our childhood pictures and drawings had been everywhere. In a fit of anger Grayson and I had held a bonfire in the garden and burned them
all. I could still see the faint scorch marks from my window.
I dressed quickly and dried my hair. It took a while. I had long red hair which was incredibly thick and took ages to dry. I rarely got it cut, because I loved the weight and feel of it around my shoulders. Whenever I got nervous, I hid behind it, grateful for some kind of shelter from my fears. As I dried off, I positioned myself in front of the mirror to assess the damage. If I wanted to keep the events of the day from everyone, some maintenance might be needed.
It wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. There were some cuts on my cheeks along with my split lip, a few minor bruises, and the start of a black eye. I’d got worse at my old school from teenage girls.
My scarlet hair hung in a wild tangle down my back. My mum had similar hair, at least in colour, but hers was usually cut into a short bob or, on the few occasions she let it grow, it was tied into a tight bun. I rarely tied mine up, and if I did it was into a loose braid. That was about the only feature we shared. I was small and lithe, fragile was how my brothers described it when they wanted to annoy me. My skin was fair, the type that never tanned, and with my silvery grey eyes, it made me look near translucent in the right light.
Outside, I could hear rain tapping against the window, light for now but I knew that wouldn’t last. A storm was moving in.
*****
I headed over to the cottage a little while later, wanting to get in before the rain grew too heavy. Nan was in the kitchen making a start on dinner, our old nearly blind sheepdog Clover curled up in her bed.
“Hello sweetheart. You’re home early, Helen just went down to the bus stop to collect you and Matthew,” she said without turning, her attention focused on the stew. “Can you lay the table?”
“Elian gave me a lift back.” I gave Clover a light scratch behind her ears and gathered the plates. “Mum sent us another letter. She’s in Thailand.”
“How nice for her. Did she say if she would be coming back anytime soon?”
“I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” Nan gave a long sigh and shook her head.
“I don’t understand her sometimes. Your uncles have the souls of trees and rocks, they’re routed in this place. Your mother was always different… she’s a wildfire that burns its own path but destroys as it goes.”
She came over with a plate of homemade bread and a dish of butter. I slumped into one of the rickety chairs, painted faded green.
“Am I like her?” I asked quietly.
“No my little elf. You belong here, you may not have found your place yet but you are part of this place.” She ruffled my hair affectionately. “I hope the others come home soon. The weather is getting worse.”
“They’ll be okay. The boys are safe drivers and Uncle Michael knows the roads like the back of his hand. Don’t worry,” I said, reaching up to squeeze her withered hand.
The front door open and Aunt Helen came in with her son Matthew, Elian and Grayson in tow, their hair plastered to their foreheads and clothes dripping.
“Shoes off,” Nan said quickly “Do not traipse mud through my house.”
“There you are Blair! I went to the bus stop, I was worried about you!” Aunt Helen blinked. “What happened to your face?”
“She fell out of a tree,” Elian said quickly. “So I picked her up from school. I meant to tell you.”
Nan, whose eyes were starting to go, squinted at me. Matthew was frowning. He was in the same year as Connor, he might have already heard about the incident. Grayson gave him a quick nudge towards the table, a not so subtle warning to keep quiet.
“I’m fine, don’t worry,” I said to no one in particular, waving off their concern.
The twins took their seats either side of me and Grayson quickly launched into some anecdote about something that had happened at the pub. Nan and Aunt Helen began to dish up dinner, Clover lifting her head hopefully at the smell of warm meat. The fire crackled in the hearth, the air hung heavy with the scent of freshly baked bread and stew, a gentle bubble of chatter enveloping us all. The rain lashed at the window and somehow that made it seem even warmer inside.
The beams of a pair of headlight pierced the darkness outside, a battered Land rover pulling up with two wet border collies visible in the back. Uncle Michael back from the fields. He used the front door, rather than the kitchen side door, shrugging off his wet coat and wellingtons on the way. The two dogs ran ahead, Clover’s pups Bailey and Whiskey, barking excitedly as they did.
“Evening Ma,” Uncle Michael said as he entered, pausing to give Aunt Helen a kiss on the cheek. He didn’t acknowledge the rest of us which wasn’t unusual. He wasn’t a particularly talkative man, making Nan’s description of him having the soul of a rock more understandable, and when someone spoke to him, he always looked like he was tolerating it more than enjoying it. “Sorry I’m late. I had to get the sheep in.”
“You think the storm’s going to be that bad?”
“It’s not just that. A fox or something has been attacking Murphy’s livestock. Didn’t want to take the risk.”
Uncle Michael started to eat, indicating that he was done talking, and the rest of us began to serve ourselves. Nan was a good cook, certainly better than my mum or any of the staff at my old boarding school. We ate together most nights, and sometimes my other uncle would join us.
“I might have some rabbit for you this week Ma. I put some traps out earlier.”
I bristled at his words. Uncle Michael had a habit of setting out snares, mainly for foxes but also for any other animals he considered ‘vermin’. I’d stumbled into one when we’d first arrived and I still had a jagged scar from the barbed wire loop. It hadn’t stopped him from setting them, but he now at least told us when he’d set them.
“I wish you wouldn’t use those things,” said Nan. “Especially not on nights like tonight. It’s asking for bad luck.”
Uncle Michael groaned.
“Superstitious nonsense Ma. And don’t go leaving out food for them, it’ll just bring rats.”
“What happened to my sweet boy who used to cling to my knee asking for stories of the fae folk?”
“He grew up and opened a pub. Because it was Noah who did that.”
“No I remember, you used to crawl up and ask me to tell you about the children of Lir, and Finn McCool, and the Monaghan witches. You liked that one especially.” She gave a wide smile which Uncle Michael chose to ignore, spooning his stew into his mouth. I retrieved a piece of my meat and slipped it to the dogs while he wasn’t paying attention.
“Do not tell that story at the dinner table,” Aunt Helen cut in. “It’s wrong to glorify their deaths.”
“Not if they were witches,” said Grayson with his mouth full.
“They were not witches. They were just two unmarried women who lived by themselves. And back then that meant the locals had a reason to set you on fire,” Elian said calmly.
“Better get hitched soon Blair,” Grayson responded, nudging me playfully. I swatted at him.
“Nah, I’ll take becoming a witch. Then I can turn you into a frog,” I told him, jabbing him lightly with my spoon.
“Enough,” Uncle Michael snapped, loud enough to silence us. “Ma, I will not have you encouraging this behaviour in the children.”
He got to his feet, scraping the chair on the ground. The dogs whimpered, retreating to their bed. He stormed out and after a moment, Aunt Helen finished. The rest of us watched in silence, the atmosphere becoming deeply uncomfortable.
The boys finished up their meals. Matthew went off to make a start on his homework, Grayson following to have a quiet word. Elian began to clear the table and I went to help but Nan beckoned me over to the door.
“I don’t care what he says. Fetch the milk and one of the potato cakes,” she instructed me with a slight mischievous grin.
I did as I was told, also collecting a small teacup and saucer before meeting Nan outside. It was still raining but the roof overhung the edge of the patio, allowing us a small dry pat
ch. I smiled slightly, watching as she filled the cup with milk.
“Why do you do this Nan?”
“I believe it is always in our best interest to stay on the good side of the forces we don’t understand. If we do this, they may look favourably on us. At the very least we’re providing a meal for some hedgehogs.”
She took the cup over to the barn door and placed it on the edge of the steps. I did the same with the potato cake. We stood by the door for a moment, the rain falling around us, looking out at the countryside.
FAOLAN
I lay in the wreckage of the ruined cottage. Nature had long since dismantled most of the wall, leaving only a few fragments of ivy clung stone behind. A portion of the roof lingered, the rest caved in, and it was here that I sheltered. The floor had been reclaimed by the earth, leaving me with a carpet of sparse moss, grass and shreds of rotten thatch for a bed. Rain lashed at the remains of the roof, dripping through holes and running down the walls. The ground was turning to a thick sludge beneath my feet, mud coating my ankles.
The remains of a meal, now just a scattering of bones and a fistful of fur, lay nearby and the sight of it made my stomach growl. How long had it been since I last ate? I had no way to tell. Time had long ago ceased to hold any meaning to me. The moon was almost full, breaking through the clouds at intervals to bathe the valley in silver. My eyes scanned the surroundings, picking up on every movement. In the moonlight I could see just as well as in the day. Without it, I was hampered a little but my other senses more than compensated. Of course, this terrible rain had put an end to that. It washed away tracks and destroyed the scents of my quarry. I was a blind man, lost on the moors.
The mud was building, water channeling down small furrows in the stone and pooling near what had been the door. I was reluctant to relocate from the area I was familiar with, but I knew that if the rain did not let up soon I would need to find higher ground.
The Cuckoo's Eye Page 2
