The Maker of Swans

by Paraic O’Donnell

‘Clara.’ Eustace touches her shoulder and motions her from the door. ‘Please. Anything may happen still.’

  She withdraws a little and Abel grasps the door handle. He pauses, turning to Eustace to see that he is ready, and turns it. The doors flex inward by a fraction but will not open. Abel hammers on them.

  ‘Open these fucking doors, you hear me? We had an understanding!’

  There is no answer. Chastern’s voice can still be heard, querulous or weakly keening, but rising steadily above it are sounds that Clara can make no sense of: a series of juddering knocks, a persistent and sibilant scraping.

  Eustace comes to Abel’s side, and both put their shoulders to the doors. They strain and slam against them, faces contorted with effort, but still they will not yield.

  ‘Stand back,’ Abel says, pulling away. Eustace takes Clara by the arm, drawing her back against the wall while Abel brings the shotgun level with the lock. When he has taken aim, he turns his face from the doors. ‘Close your eyes,’ he says. ‘Cover the child’s ears.’

  Before she can object, Eustace turns and presses her against him, clamping his hands to the sides of her head. She struggles, wanting to see, but it lasts only an instant. The shot is fired and Eustace releases her. An immense chiming, as if from a gigantic tuning fork, fills her hearing. The air is acrid, curtained with smoke and settling dust.

  The doors lurch gently open.

  ‘Listen to me, Clara.’ Eustace takes her gently by the shoulders. ‘Whatever has taken place, we need see no more. We have done what we came to do, or most of it. I will not put you in the way of any harm that may be avoided. Let Abel do as he must.’

  She shakes her head. Taking his wrist, she scribbles urgently on his palm.

  See the end.

  Eustace looks gravely at her. ‘Clara, I beg you,’ he says. ‘Let me keep you safe.’

  She writes again, her fingers quick and agitated.

  Here. My place is here.

  He is about to say more, but the rising tumult distracts him. Abel has pushed the doors fully open and stands in a thickening drift of smoke, much more than the shot could have produced.

  ‘Fire!’ he shouts. ‘He’s started a fucking fire in there!’

  Eustace turns to Arabella, raising his pistol again. ‘Get up,’ he says. ‘We are leaving.’

  He grips Clara’s hand, but she twists free of it, darting through the doors of the library. Abel clutches at her collar as she passes, but she slips by him too. Calmly, she weaves through the smoke, navigating the room as she has done so often in the dark. As she makes her way among the bookcases, she begins to understand the noises. All around her, the shelves are groaning and cracking, spilling books to the floor. It is the books that are burning, the flames rupturing them even as they fall.

  She moves steadily, finding a familiar course among the armchairs and tables, stopping only when she reaches the desk. Mr Crowe is seated behind it, she thinks, though she cannot see him clearly. He is at his usual ease, from what she can discern of his shadowed form. He may even be writing still. She hears, amid all the strange and jarring noises, the supple intonation of one of his arias.

  Chastern is on his knees before the desk, supporting himself with one swaying arm as he sifts through a pile of manuscript pages, each written in Mr Crowe’s dense but fluid longhand. The paper has a faintly sulphurous cast, darkening at the edges to a brownish black. They curl even as he turns them over, rippling with incandescence, becoming ash almost before they fall.

  Still, he reads what he can of each one, scanning the lines with such urgency that he lapses into childlike mouthing, shadowing the words with his lips. From time to time, something moves him to look up at Mr Crowe, to implore him, his voice hoarse and feeble, to save something of what remains.

  ‘Clara!’ Eustace is calling her from somewhere near the door. ‘Clara, for the love of God, where are you?’

  Chastern looks around then, and sees her standing over him. His gaunt face is raw and smeared, encrusted in places with soot; his eyes are avid, though at first he is confused, seeming not to recognise her.

  He spreads his hand over the pages then – suddenly, as if some realisation has come to him. ‘Child,’ he says. ‘You remember what I told you?’

  She looks down at him, crouching over his blackening sheaf. He licks his lip as a scale of ash settles on it.

  ‘It is not only the rose,’ he says, his hand flailing over the manuscript. ‘It is all of nature. All that I have adored.’

  From somewhere behind him, Mr Crowe persists in his aria.

  ‘You see?’ His voice is feeble and rattling. ‘You see how undeserving he was of his gifts? And you, you wretched imp, where did you crawl from to make your claim?’

  He turns fully towards her, scrabbling for his cane and bringing himself half upright, but before he can get to his feet, he is flung by some force against the desk. An instant passes before Clara can account for it, and for the ragged occlusion of his face. She hears the shot only afterwards, as the wound – a sprawling inflorescence of charred flesh – gapes and bleeds. At its centre, she glimpses the slowing machinery of his mouth; the shorn teeth, the twitching heap of the tongue.

  Eustace is there, lifting her clean and entire from the floor. She sees Abel, standing rigid and intent, smoke coiling gently from the shotgun.

  ‘Clara, oh Clara.’ Eustace clutches her as he heaves her towards the doors. ‘Oh, my child. It is all gone. It is over.’

  She cannot reach his hands, so she turns in his arms until she can touch his face. She traces the words on his cheek.

  All of it. I remember.

  From behind them, with an almost vanishing faintness, comes the sound of singing.

  Arabella has fled. When they reach the front door, she is already in the car, turning it in a series of erratic lurches. Eustace leaps from the steps without a word and pounds across the gravel towards her. As Abel saunters after him, he breaks and reloads the shotgun. Seeing them, Arabella wrenches at the wheel and reverses violently, shattering an urn and sending the rear wheels slipping onto the banked lawn. Eustace weaves from side to side as he gets nearer, trying to judge the course she will take.

  Arabella looks wildly about her, working the motor to a shrill pitch as she struggles to find traction. As Eustace crosses in front of the car, its wheels are skidding in deepening ruts, but before he is clear it lunges from the grass. He tries to spin from its path, but it catches him at the knees. He buckles, and is slammed against the bonnet, held there for a moment before being flung aside as the Jaguar jerks to the left.

  In Clara’s chest, a coldness spreads. She holds still for a moment, forcing herself not to look away from the car, waiting for Arabella to look back. When she does, it is only for an instant. Her face, behind the glass, is wild and whitened, then the car speeds away. Clara follows its course as it veers past the stable yard, onto the west lane and into the beech woods.

  She moves with violent urgency then, reaching Eustace in seconds, still poised and tense as she lowers herself to one knee. She must see him – must take his hand and hear him speak – but it can only be for a moment. She will not stay long, no matter what.

  He has brought himself up on his elbows, seeing her approach, and tries to dust himself off. He is pale, his face grave with pain. She can see no blood.

  Abel crouches behind him, and Eustace allows himself to be helped to a sitting position. ‘It is only my leg,’ he says. His voice is weakened, disturbed by a slight rasp. ‘It will mend well enough, I daresay, and we shall have a story to tell.’

  Clara reaches for his hand, glancing as she does so in the direction of the beech woods, attentive to every sound.

  ‘It is no great calamity,’ he says. ‘And not entirely undeserved, perhaps. At any rate, we need no longer think of her. Forget her, Clara.’

  She smooths out his palm, as she has always done, and holds his eyes. She traces the words quickly but gently. They are small and simple, and it does not take
long. He clutches her fingers, reading her intent, but she tugs them free and gets to her feet. She looks at him for a moment longer, pressing her fingertips to her chest.

  ‘Clara,’ he says. ‘Clara, please.’

  But she is gone. She is running.

  It is cold in the woods, but not quite dark. Though it is after nightfall, the moon is almost full, and a glaucous light touches the limbs of the beech trees. It is not elation that she feels, or not yet. For now, there is only a strange levity, a weightlessness almost. When she followed Arabella, she acted without thought. Even now, she does not try to account for it. She trusts to the clarity of her instinct, its knife-like simplicity of purpose. She runs.

  She follows the sound of the engine, the strained grinding of repeated gear changes. Arabella is driving without lights still, hoping to evade pursuit. She is some way ahead, but has gone no great distance yet. She does not know the lane, and she will not find its twisting course easy to navigate in the dark. Clara glances behind her, to gauge her own distance from the house. Above the treetops, there is a faint bloom of heat.

  She stops abruptly, holds herself still and alert. The labouring of the engine is gone, cut off in a dense spasm of noise. It was close, only a little way ahead. She waits, listening through the work of her own breathing. There is the scattered alarm of small creatures, but nothing more. The woods are otherwise silent.

  She runs again, skidding down a shallow bank at the edge of the trees and into the laneway. She is faster, on this firmer surface, and she need not weave around roots or jump clear of briars. Without stopping, she tugs her coat off and flings it aside. She will not need it, not for this. She no longer feels the cold.

  She sees it at a bend in the lane. The road is blocked by the glazed hulk of a fallen holly tree, and the nose of the Jaguar is embedded in its shadowed underside. A tree so large ought to have been easily visible in the moonlight, but it lies half hidden by the bend and Arabella had been driving at speed.

  Clara is cautious, peering through the rear window before approaching the open driver’s door. Inside, the rim of the steering wheel has been snapped. The arc of wood that hangs from the fracture is thinly lacquered with blood. She takes the keys from the ignition and stands back from the car, slowing her breathing and forcing herself to be still.

  Arabella is on foot, injured at least slightly. Even so, she has a head start, and Clara cannot be sure which way she went. She approaches the fallen tree, skimming the smooth bark with her fingertips. If she went straight ahead, the lane would take her to the edge of the Estate, with little risk of losing her way. But what if she is hurt, badly enough to slow her progress? She would expect those following to catch up, and on the road she will be easy to find.

  Clara scans the surrounding woods. If she did seek the cover of the trees, it would have been easier to leave the road on the left. From there it is downhill all the way to the Windbones. She moves quietly to the roadside and drops to one knee. Holding herself tense on her spread fingertips, she scours the verge for signs of disturbance.

  She sees nothing at first, but catches the faint scent of wild garlic. It is early still, and it has just come into growth, a scattering of its bright nibs showing among the dead leaves. Clara strokes one tender blade. She has a deep fondness for ramsons. They belong to the time of year she loves most, to March and April, when they throng the borders of every path in the woods. In spring, she brushes against them with every footstep, and the air is ribboned with fragrance. This scent is hardly a thread in the air, but it is not quite nothing. Somewhere, the leaves have been crushed.

  She releases the leaf and gets to her feet. Slowly, taking care not to disturb the foliage, she skirts the edge of the drift. She inclines her head so that her face is out of the breeze, so that she breathes the undisturbed air. There – she stops, lowering herself again to her haunches. She cranes forward, hunting in the cold and vacant air. It is somewhere near.

  She stops, drawn by something that catches the light: a dark convexity, its gloss too perfect for anything living. Grasping it between finger and thumb, she lifts it free of the litter of leaves. It is a slender and elegant thing, its shorn strap inset with tiny gems. The heel is three inches long, as narrow as a child’s bone. It was not made for running through woods.

  She reaches the Windbones, as always, sooner than she expected to. The beeches dissipate overhead and she finds herself on the edge of the valley’s silent expanse. Above her in the rich darkness, even the Milky Way is visible, a lavish drift of radiance that crosses the entire sky.

  As she leaves the trees, Clara slows to a gentle, loping walk. She ran through the lower part of the beech woods at a speed that almost frightened her, but the stillness of this place makes such exertion unthinkable. The urgency she felt is easing too. She is surer now of finding Arabella. If she came this way, emerging as Clara did from the wood, she will find that she has few choices. She can cross the shallow valley towards the mountains, but it is a trek of eight or nine miles that will take her first across the river.

  No, she will not go that way. She will be making still for the public road on the western edge of the Estate. To reach it, she will have to keep between the river and the beech woods, skirting the edge of the Windbones and following its slow incline until she rejoins the lane, a journey of a little over a mile. Clara could find the way in her sleep.

  She will find her. If she is here, she will find her. Wandering through the rippling grass, she feels a strange ease. Her chest and limbs are filled with the exultant afterheat of running. She is home. She is in the place she loves, and she will never again be separated from it. She will not allow it.

  She looks up, her attention caught by a small disturbance of whiteness. The swans are arriving, unfolding themselves from the darkness in pale apparitions of twos and threes. They gather just out of sight, where the edge of the lake is hidden by a steep bank of reeds. Without thinking, Clara seeks out the place.

  When she finds her there, the woman, she feels hardly a flicker of satisfaction, as if she had only chanced upon her. She has knelt on the shore to tend to a wound, sluicing her torn forearm with dark palmfuls of lake water, and there seems no reason why she should be elsewhere, why the settling swans should not have drawn her to this place.

  They cluster near the woman, and one or two approach her, stalking from the water, their undersides dark and sodden, crooking their necks to investigate the soiled whiteness of her gown. She rises in alarm, catching sight of Clara as she backs away.

  ‘Clara?’ she calls out. ‘Is it just you? There’s no one else coming?’

  More swans arrive, their pale wings shuddering from the unseen air. There are two dozen or more, and almost half of them are now on the shore. They trudge around her with squat menace, taking turns to flare their wings or lunge forward, necks out-thrust. She turns helplessly on the spot, jerking away from each new incursion.

  ‘Is Eustace all right? It was an accident, Clara, a terrible accident. I was frightened, that’s all, and I panicked. And look, I’m hurt too. Can you get help? Please, darling. It’s my arm. I think it’s broken.’

  Clara stands perfectly still among the reeds at the crest of the bank. There is a chill in the wind as it tugs at her hair. She feels it on her neck, on her bare arms, but gives it no particular thought. There is nothing she wants or needs.

  ‘Clara, please. I know what you think, but I had no choice. It was just a part. You know, like in a play? Or a story – I know how you love stories.’

  Retreating from one bird, she stumbles over the back of another. When she rights herself, she is knee-deep in the water. Shocked by the cold, she launches herself towards the shore, but the movement alarms the swans. They crowd more closely around her. Above their arched wings, their necks sway and snap. She loses her balance again, her uninjured arm flailing. She goes under.

  Clara turns away. She looks out over the Windbones, where the grasses are combed and silvered by the air, to the shadowed beec
h woods massing at the edge of the valley. Above them, the smoke spreads and deepens in the clean darkness, suffused by its roiling underglow. In the morning, she and Eustace will survey the damage. They will circle the blackened carcass of the house, keeping their distance from its collapsing ribs.

  They will see what can be saved.

  For now, the house and its undoing are hidden beyond the trees. She will leave the lake, when this is over, will sleep wherever there is shelter. When she stirs, finding the darkness tainted by heat, she will close her eyes again, thinking nothing of it. She will inhabit her sleep still, and the house will be as she dreamed it. She will wander at dusk among its quiet rooms, where nothing has been touched by fire.

  Acknowledgements

  To Linda Grant, counsel and confidante, who knows that all art, at last, is fugue.

  To John Self, who reads, as he lives, without creasing the spine.

  To Jane Casey, Ian Ellard, David Hayden, Rachel Heath and Olivia Laing, who were there when it was dark.

  To Helen Macdonald, tender falconer, who instructed me with such patience in the care and feeding of cygnets.

  To Richard Beard, who repaid a small favour twice, the second time fatefully.

  To Lucy Luck, for whom I would gladly slay a thousand more unicorns.

  To Arzu Tahsin, custodian of the opera glasses, who kept safe so much else that was precious.

  To Benjamin Dreyer, the gentlest of hierophants, whose word is final.

  To Sophie Buchan, John Gallagher, Rebecca Gray, Jennifer Kerslake, Jonathan Gibbs, Jennifer Hewson, Belinda McKeon, Sandra Newman, Kim Nielsen, Liz Nugent, Damien Owens, George Szirtes, Juliet Pickering, Max Porter and Catherine Taylor.

  To Patrick and Beryl O’Donnell, for everything.

  To Sinéad O’Donnell, eternally, who first saw something swanlike in this tissue of flaws.

  About the Author

  Paraic O’Donnell read English and French at University College Dublin and Linguistics at Trinity College Dublin. He has worked for many years in the translation industry, and travels extensively in Europe, Asia and the United States. He lives in Wicklow with his wife and two children, and can usually be found in the garden. The Maker of Swans is his first novel.